Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not know what I have done to deserve this but, at the moment, I keep finding myself in a position where, through personal experience, I am drawn into talking about topics that are extremely close to my heart, and this is another one.

I commend the member for Hotham on the motion and agree with the principle that we need to do more. Why? Because at two years of age, my youngest daughter, Analise, was diagnosed with a bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. It was a severe hearing loss. We have no history of deafness in our family and, at that stage in our life with three kids under five and me at work, we thought our world had come to an end. Through Australian Hearing and the Catherine Sullivan early intervention centre, in Strathfield, we ultimately taught Analise to talk and, through holding Analise back a couple of years, we were in a position where we could enter Analise in mainstream schooling. It was then that we ran into the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children—the RIDBC—and their itinerant teacher program. Today Analise is a 13-year-old young lady—13 going on 35. She battles; it is a daily grind for her. I remember that when we started Analise at school there was no hearing loop in the common areas. We were blessed, through our financial position, by being able to install a hearing loop to give her more of a chance. But I acknowledge that I was in a unique position. The vast majority of her co-students and students throughout Australia are not in that position. Without that hearing loop, Analise cannot hear properly in a crowded environment. It was just essential for her to have: once again, it was about the needs of the individual student being catered for in an educational environment.

The member for Hasluck so poignantly put the case that parents do worry about the long-term success of their children. That is not relevant only in the field of disability or challenges—and I like calling them challenges rather than disability. Why? Because we are human. We know that, because we are human, we are not going to be here forever, and we hope that whatever challenges our children are faced with they may be enabled to not only strive through those but prosper, irrespective of whether or not we are here to support them. I do agree with the member for Hotham that the funding that was allocated through this stream is vitally important, and it was acknowledged in pre-election that we would deliver that in 2015. I have had discussions with the minister for education, and I am confident that he will deliver on that election commitment.

I want to raise a very specific point beyond my own family's experience. I have the honour of representing the second most culturally diverse seat in federal parliament. The member for Parramatta is my next-door neighbour; her seat is only just behind mine in the ranking order. I have a school at Chalmers Road. It is technically in Watson, a block out of my electorate, but I have a lot to do with that school. It is a school that deals with children afflicted with all ranges of disabilities. In a multicultural space where parents have moved to Australia as a new home, English is a challenge and they are unaware of the services that are provided for both early intervention and diagnosis before early intervention, it is even more important that we come up with pathways that are readily available and easily accessible so that at any stage suspicion can turn into diagnosis and intervention and set that potential student on a path that will allow them to thrive through the challenge that God has presented them and their family with. It is my great hope that—not only with the funding we are talking about today but over time as technology improves and as our budget position improves—there is more that we can do in this space. Why? Because I quite frankly think that there is never enough you can do. I thank the member for Hotham for her motion, and have welcomed the chance to talk to it today.

Debate adjourned.

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