Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Legislation Amendment (Child Disability Assistance) Bill 2007 and pleased to see the support of the opposition parties for it. The bill introduces a new payment called child disability assistance into the social security law. This assistance will be available to carers of disabled children under the age of 16 in respect of whom the carer receives carer allowance for the relevant period. The Australian government will provide funding of $721.2 million over five years to provide families caring for a child with disability who is aged less than 16 with an annual payment of $1,000. This money can be used for things such as helping with the purchase of a wheelchair, installation of a hoist in the family home and modifications to the family car, as well as for respite care or therapy. The government recognises that children with disabilities and their families have diverse needs which may change over time. Younger children with disability can benefit from early intervention and therapy to maximise their childhood developing and learning.

The first payment of child disability assistance will be made in October 2007 through Centrelink, and payments will be made on 1 July 2008 and in July of subsequent years. The $1,000 annual payment will not be indexed and the child disability assistance will be exempt from tax. This payment will be well received by many parents—particularly in the electorate of Hasluck but I am sure across the country—who struggle every day to provide for their children suffering from a range of disabilities and to provide the best possible opportunities for them.

I recently became acutely aware of the hardships that quite a number of amazing parents across my electorate of Hasluck endure. They are remarkable people whose energy seems boundless given that they are raising a child or, in some cases, children with autism. Autism is a condition which affects a large number of children in Australia and, sadly, there is no known cure. Tragically, there are more children being diagnosed each year. The diagnosis of autism is not immediate; it takes some years to show. Often, when their child reaches the age of two, parents start to notice that their healthy child does not respond in the same ways that other children do. They appear to be disconnected and disassociated from the world and do not cope with too many stimulations. As these children grow they become more withdrawn, depending on their ‘functioning level’—that is a term often used by parents with an autistic child. Sadly, their life is ruled by the impact of influences that the child feels. Also sadly, dealing with an autistic child can bring relationships to breaking point. Many autistic children do not have the power of speech, so when a child with autism is upset and crying or screaming, as all children do, it is often impossible for the parent to diagnose whether their child has an earache, they have been stung by a bee or they are feeling stressed by something else.

I have raised four daughters, so I know that when a child is crying it is relatively easy to find out what the cause of the problem is, what the pain is and how to remedy the problem, but parents of children with autism are not so fortunate. They have no way to determine what can set off their child; they just have to try everything they know to calm the situation. Bouts of crying or patterned behaviour can last for hours on end and the only thing parents can do is provide love and stay calm and in control so as not to exacerbate the situation and further add to the stress of the child.

Parents with an autistic child do not have a great deal of support. They are left to try and navigate their child and the rest of their family through a minefield of uncertainty. It takes a long time to accept that your healthy, perfect-looking child through no fault of their own cannot play a part in normal family life. To not be able to show where it hurts, what is wrong or what you are frightened of must be a terrifying dilemma. There is no magic solution. It is a constant, tough grind all the way. As the child grows, they are often harder to help. Schools are not easy places for children who suffer autism. One of the common issues for them is that they do not like change; they cannot cope with things being slightly different from the way they were yesterday. Life with a child who suffers from autism is more than challenging, but I am truly amazed at the strength, energy and love that the parents of these children have. They take the hard road. Many are advised to place their children into care upon diagnosis of the condition. Most leave the doctor’s surgery and take their child home with the faith that they will cope, but they do occasionally need a hand.

I was very pleased to hear the previous speaker, the member for Gorton, raise an issue about which I share the same level of concern—that is, about the parents of autistic children who have not been able to apply for the recently announced $10,000 carers adjustment payment. This has had a significant impact on a number of families in my electorate of Hasluck and those with autistic children. The member for Gorton went into some detail about that and he is absolutely right: the government should address this. There is an opportunity here to provide support for these people. To gain support, these parents have little choice but to write lengthy submissions begging for a small amount of funding to provide for some respite time. Their time is not their own unless they are lucky to get assistance with respite. Hopefully this can be addressed as a matter of urgency. I call on the minister, as the member for Gorton has, to address that.

As a government, we need to do more to help these parents. This new $1,000 payment will go some way to helping these good people, but there is more to do. While I want more done for autism-affected families and other families adversely affected by a disabled child or parent, it would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to the government for the vastly improved levels of funding across the entire disability sector. The government will provide some $13.6 billion to support people with disability, their families and carers. The main features are $9.7 billion to support people with disabilities through the disability support pension, mobility allowance, the sickness allowance, employment assistance and vocational rehabilitation; $2.9 billion to support carers, including through the carers allowance, carer payments, wife pension, respite and information services for younger carers, private provision for people with disability and peer support groups for parents of children with disability; and $992.8 million to support people with disability through the Commonwealth State Territory Disability Agreement, including supported employment services, Auslan and COAG commitments for younger people with disability in residential aged care, respite for older carers, and mental health.

In June this year the Prime Minister, John Howard, announced the $1.8 billion disability assistance package, which we are debating here today. The key areas of this disability package include $721.2 million for carers of around 130,000 children with disability under the age of 16, who will receive $1,000 each to help with the purchase of support that best suits their needs; $962 million to help older carers and their families, providing around 1,750 new supported accommodation places and 800 new respite places by 2012, as well as extra in-home support and respite to older carers to continue care at home; and $236 million over five years to enable several services for children with disability to continue to provide much needed respite, early intervention and other services for children in their local area. There will also be an increased investment in employment services for people with disability, including $21.6 million for an extra 500 supported employment places in business services, $31 million to continue targeted support to people with disability who choose not to participate in supported employment and $21.8 million in viability support to help businesses in crisis.

It would be very good to mention an organisation in my electorate, Perth Regional Roof Trusses, who have been very successful in employing people with hearing impairment. They have been supported in that process through an employment group called DEAFinite, who have provided a number of people who in effect are deaf. The proprietors of the business have learnt Auslan. They have done a fantastic job. Over 50 per cent of their employees are people who are so afflicted, and the morale and support in that organisation is truly a great credit to that organisation. They are all working manually with power saws and cutting timber and putting it together in, as I said, roof trusses. It is a fantastic organisation, and the fantastic commitment of the proprietors of that business is a great credit to them.

On top of all this, the government is offering to contribute $3.275 billion to a multilateral agreement with the states and territories to deliver services in their own area of disability support, which are accommodation, respite, community support and community access. Unfortunately, as I understand it, the states have not come to the party in agreeing to those arrangements.

In respect of my own state of Western Australia, this offer represents a provision of $215 million over five years beginning in 2007-08. In addition, the Australian government has committed $12.1 million to help Western Australia achieve a net reduction in the number of young disabled people living in residential aged care. While speaking of WA and autism, which I was earlier, I mentioned a disturbing and disappointing story which has recently emerged in respect of autistic students getting educational assistance at a Perth school. Parents of autistic children at a special autism learning unit at the Allenswood Primary School in Greenwood, in Perth’s northern suburbs, had to make alternative education arrangements after the education department in WA abruptly shut the unit. The unit provided intensive education support for six autistic children. Parents said that they had received just three days notice before the end of term 2 that this unit would not be available in the third term, which is currently under way. The WA education department said the closure was due to the sudden resignation of the specialist teacher. It can only now say it is hopeful another teacher can be found for the start of school next year.

This action by the WA department compounds the issues of both parents and students. Schools are not easy places for children who suffer autism. I mentioned earlier that one of the common issues for children with autism is that they do not like change and they cannot cope with things being even slightly different to the way that they were yesterday. This has had a serious impact on those young children who attended that school. It is a very unfortunate circumstance and I would hope that the Western Australia Department of Education moves even more quickly to rectify the situation. While this provides another challenge for the parents, it is also a prime example of the difficulties faced by parents of autistic children as it impacts so severely on the progress their kids were making. The Western Australia Department of Education could also get its finger out—can I say things like that in this chamber?—and seek to fill the vacancy as a matter of urgency.

The WA Labor government likes to play fast and loose with the truth about Commonwealth funding. It is a standing joke in Western Australia when the Premier and his puppet master health minister, Jim McGinty, continue to defend the indefensible: their mismanagement of the public health system. The education system is somewhat similar, with a huge shortage of teachers across the state. They falsely claimed a lack of support from Canberra in the area of health, but they are caught out every time when they greedily line up for millions of dollars from the Commonwealth for funding things such as the disability assistance program. This program will enhance the quality of life for people with disabilities in Western Australia well into the future. The funding would make a substantial contribution to alleviating unmet need for disability support services in Western Australia, it would deliver additional disability services by non-government providers and it would ease pressure on existing services to the benefit of the disabled community in Western Australia.

Earlier, I mentioned Perth Regional Roof Trusses. They have been here for the Prime Minister’s awards a couple of times. They were successful last year in winning one of those awards for smaller employers employing people with disabilities, which was certainly very encouraging and fantastic for them. I have had a number of visits there. I have been moved to ensure that they get as much exposure as they possibly can because of their commitment to their employees. I mentioned that they have fantastic morale there. I have been able to organise in the past visits to the business by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relation and also the Prime Minister. That was very well received. The expression of support from those employees when the Prime Minister walked in to see what they were doing and what they had achieved was absolutely fantastic.

They are not the only organisation in my electorate that do things for and with people with disabilities; there are a number of other employers who do that. One of the things that has resulted from the government’s good economic management has been that the reduction in unemployment has meant that people with disabilities have more employment opportunities than they might otherwise have had. The feedback from people in my electorate of Hasluck in particular has been that they really appreciate and enjoy that opportunity to become normal people, so to speak, in the workforce and make a contribution. It has been of significant benefit and value to them not only from a financial point of view but also from their own mental health perspective. They feel much more able to make a solid contribution to society and to their community. Their sense of wellbeing as a result of that is very significant. Through Perth Regional Roof Trusses and other businesses in the area, I have been able to observe that firsthand. The flexibility that we now have in the workplace relations arrangements has also facilitated the employment of people with disabilities.

As I mentioned earlier, the government has done a significant amount as far as this is concerned. I know I have been communicating with families in my electorate. Once the Prime Minister made this announcement of the $1.8 billion disability assistance package I had a meeting with a number of parents in my electorate office to discuss the impact and the value of that. I know that that $1,000 will be put to great use by a number of these parents in ensuring that their children have some practical opportunity for additional therapy, but also for wheelchairs and, importantly—this is something that I think we often overlook ourselves—the modification of motor vehicles for people with disabilities. Whilst $1,000 often may not meet the total cost of that modification, it can go a long way towards achieving that. So I strongly support the bill.

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