Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to speak about the great service that is Meals on Wheels, something that is uniquely Australian and I think something that all members in this place readily and keenly identify with. I think we all acknowledge the important work that the Meals on Wheels organisation does and, even more importantly, the individual people we all talk about who actually make up Meals on Wheels. They are the bedrock, they are the key, they are the most important people of all.

Like every other electorate in the country, I have in my electorate a great Meals on Wheels service in places like Inala, all my Centenary suburbs, in Goodna, in Redbank and in parts of Ipswich. Right across my electorate there are a whole range of people that every single day of the week volunteer their time to prepare top-quality meals and give not only just of their time but often of themselves in a much larger way, and their vehicles and petrol, and they do it with a smile on their faces as it is something they absolutely enjoy doing. I can understand why they enjoy it. It is hard work but it is great work, and when you go around with people from Meals on Wheels and help them deliver those meals you realise that it is more than just sustenance, more than just food.

I want to congratulate the member for Shortland for bringing this motion to parliament so that we can have the opportunity to speak about the important work that these Meals on Wheels volunteers do. It is much more than just the provision of food and sustenance; it is about developing friendships and it is about community engagement. It is also about giving support to people who are quite vulnerable in the community and often do not have a lot of contact with other people. For some I know first-hand that the only contact they get is through the Meals on Wheels volunteers, and it is important that we acknowledge all of those really good people.

When we have recognition ceremonies and awards, particularly when we are recognising volunteers, I can guarantee you that there would not be one volunteer awards ceremony in any electorate in the whole country where you are not giving an award to a Meals on Wheels volunteer. They really are the bedrock of our communities. They provide not only quality service and quality food but they really underpin what it means to have a community. We talk about having a community. It is about making sure that nobody is left all on their own and we have got people connected to other people in our community. So it is quite a special service and something that I am very proud of. As we have heard tonight from other members, some of the volunteers for Meals on Wheels in my electorate have been doing it for 15 or 20 years. Some of them have been doing it for incredible amounts of time, for 40 years or more, which is really an amazing dedication and service. I can understand why they do it, though. Once you start doing Meals on Wheels it is hard to stop, because you start to develop friendships and connections with people and you feel some sort of responsibility to them to make sure that you deliver the food.

We play an important role federally in supporting Meals on Wheels. I always believe we could do more, but I think that we do a lot. But I think it would be a fair and polite thing to say that we could always do a bit more, and that would be accurate. It is not the service that it was 20 or 30 years ago. The hygiene, food standards and level of quality that are required now are quite high, and that is to be expected. We would not want to eat anything that is substandard or unhygienic and we would not expect that anybody else in the community would want that either. There is a high level of cost now attached to delivering Meals on Wheels and also to the training. The people are expected to be quite professional about the way they prepare meals, including wearing gloves and hairnets. Any time you go to a Meals on Wheels kitchen it is a full production. It is a full facility. It is stainless steel, and it is done the way it should be. It does mean a lot of costs, though, in properly either renovating or setting up all of those facilities. But it is something that is well worth spending the money on and something I know we all support.

There are very few things out in public life that there is absolute agreement on in this place, but I think Meals on Wheels is one of them. I would go as far as saying I do not think anyone would have a bad word to say in any context about Meals on Wheels. It was set up over 50 years ago in Australia. It has provided an incredible number of meals—something like 15 million meals—in that time. When you think about what that represents in providing good quality food to people and also that companionship, I think it does stand the test of time. I want to congratulate not only all of the volunteers and the Meals on Wheels organisation for the great work they do but also the member for Shortland for bringing it to the attention of the House. (Time expired)

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