Maguire v SOCOG 1999 was a decision of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which ruled on 18 October 1999 that a blind man had been directly discriminated against by the failure of a government agency to provide ticketing materials for the Sydney Olympic Games in braille.
Bruce Lindsay Maguire (b 1957) a small business owner from Baulkham Hills, New South Wales, was born totally blind and without sight or light perception.
Maguire initially tried to have the ticket book read aloud to him by his sister, but the level of detail and cross-referencing required in this process was onerous and the attempt was abandoned after several hours.
On 7 June 1999 Maguire was contacted by SOCOG to advise that the book would not be printed in braille as the cost was considered too high given the likely small number of braille-literate users.
[1] Reading the booklet to Maguire would have meant an incomprehensible oral presentation of tabulations, a great feat of memory, a requirement to find a time of convenience and hours of explanations was considered by the commissioner to be treating Maguire less favourably than the sighted person who could access the material without assistance at his or her leisure, capable of referencing and cross-referencing from page to page and thereby ensuring the completion not only of a valid application complete with alternatives that reflected in all respect the final decided choices of That person.
[1] The commission raises the question as to how a person in the position of Maguire could acquire any primary information in the ticket book which could then be perfected or developed by the officer in the course of a telephone conversation.
[1] The commissioner found that SOCOG in not providing the ticket book in braille treated Maguire less favourably than persons without the disability which is also a breach of section 6.