Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This motion relates to a historic, one would almost say monumental, change in Australian public life. It has been talked about by governments of both political stripes for the last 40 years. Now something has been accomplished. An increase in the Medicare levy from 1½ to two per cent means in practical terms, for a person on $70,000 a year income, less than $1 a day towards doing something about this fundamental need.

Last week I had a rare night at home, and I caught Jennifer Byrne's program on literature and books. She interviewed the Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin, the author of the Rebus books. He talked about his son's disability and the fact that he and his wife had established a trust—and they are on quite reasonable incomes. But at the end of it he said about his son, 'I hope that there are good and decent people around to care for my son.'

We cannot always have faith in good and decent people being around for individual cases. We need concerted public government action, and that is what this is about. We have a situation where—I can only speak about New South Wales—perhaps 20 or 30 years ago most of the people who we now care about in regard to this move were institutionalised. Their parents could have some faith, even though they had doubts about them being institutionalised and away from home, that, when they died, somebody would look after them. The reality is now that, for good reason, we have deinstitutionalised, and many of the people with disabilities are in their family home. An increasing reality in this country is that, as the population ages, as people are living to 80—and they say that in Britain one million people born after 2009 will live to 100—and as these people age, there is an increased problem of what they fear for the future of their offspring with disabilities. The reality is that, even though disabled people live less long than us, they are also living longer, so we have a massive, burgeoning problem in this country and in Western society.

That is what the government is doing in regard to these measures. We have a situation where, by 2019, 90 per cent of people affected will be covered throughout this country on individual, individualised, personalised measures to make sure that what the society provides meets their personal needs. It is not only the government that has undertaken this monumental change; it is our country. It is the lobbyists in my electorate and in every part of this nation.

I have to say that, for a variety of reasons—and I have said this before—our electorate of Werriwa has a disproportionate number of people affected because of the prominence of public housing and single parents, predominantly women, in situations where the male in the house cannot live with a disabled child and the problems it causes. Our electorate has more than the national average.

In closing, I just want to talk about two organisations. On a typical weekend, yesterday afternoon I went to the Association of Bhanin El-Minieh event in South Granville in my former electorate. I want to congratulate a number of people: Omaima Saraya, Hannon Wehbe, Sawsan Bkai, Laura Mafri and Mustafa Hamed, the president of the association. Their event yesterday was raising money not for an ethnospecific Lebanese event but for Spectrum, the main organisation in the autism sector—a public event which is more important for another reason.

I went to another event—predominantly Italian—on the weekend with a number of colleagues from both sides of parliament at a very good Liverpool organisation which was built up by volunteers and has its own 24-hour service for autism sufferers. Chris Hayes, the member for Fowler, made the comment that, when he was at school, he knew no-one with autism because they were hidden away in the back rooms of houses, they did not go to school, they did not engage in society and the education system did not do anything for them—particularly with the Lebanese community. The reason that is important is there is an even stronger trend in that community not to talk about these problems, that it is all because of God, it is because the family did something wrong, that you cannot be going out in society or talking about these kinds of things because they embarrass the family. I commend both those associations, being among many others in my electorate in south-west Sydney, for raising this issue and making sure that something is finally done about this fundamental issue in this country. (Time expired)

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