Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the member for Parramatta's motion and to congratulate her, yet again, for never giving up on taking this most important issue forward. I note that in a bipartisan fashion she and I have spoken on this issue before and lobbied a previous speaker. I just had a chat across the table with the member for Parramatta, and it is with great excitement that I say that we are now five hours or a day—is it, Julie?—away from having closed captioning in parliament—which I think is only fitting.

In my maiden speech—and it has been ironic listening to all the wonderful stories in the maiden speeches that have been given by members on both sides of the House in the past few weeks—I spoke about my three beautiful children. I said it clearly then and I will say it again that I am doubly blessed because they not only look like their mother they take after her too. I spoke at the time a little cryptically. I used the term that my family had been touched with disability and that we were far stronger because of it. At that time, my youngest daughter, Analise, was 10. I had asked her whether she would be comfortable if I phrased it that way, and she said yes. Not long after that, I spoke at a function at the Shepherd Centre, and I asked her whether I could tell her story, and she said, 'Dad, will it help people?' And I said, 'I hope it will.' She said, 'Dad, if it helps people, you tell my story.'

Analise is my youngest child and was born when we already had a three-year-old and a four-year-old—so it was a busy time in our house. She was born before there was compulsory testing of hearing. She was such a clever little so-and-so that she taught herself to lip-read without us knowing. By the time she was two, the first thing that twigged with us was that she was not developing speech in the way that her older brother and sister had. We had a very close example of what that should be like. There were funny little things. You look back now and it makes sense, but it did not at the time. We had timber floorboards. She would lie on the timber floorboards with the back of her conductor bone sitting on the floorboards so that she could hear you coming up and down the hallway. We had grommets inserted in her ears.

We did all sorts of things, thinking that there must be something going on. It was at that stage, when she was two, that our GP suggested we get her a hearing test. I will never forget sitting there with her. I could hear the sounds through her earphones and this little doll was sitting there, not moving. She had been taught to press a button when she could hear something. It was very clearly evident that she had severe hearing loss—bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. We sat around the table that night and thought, 'Wow. What do we do now?' It was at that stage that we became part of the community that Julie referred to today, and thank God for them because we had no idea. We did not know where to go or what to do. They took us and held us in the palm of their hand, and they do to this day. Australian Hearing was our first port of call. Amazing audiologists reside there and look after Analise on a very regular basis. The fact is we had a two-year-old girl who could not talk. There is the Catholic Centre for Hearing Impaired Children at Strathfield, which is coincidentally in the main building at Del Monte, where I went to junior school. We gave them our two-year-old with no language and they gave her back to us as the vibrant, bubbly girl that she has become.

We kept her back from school for a couple of years but were determined to mainstream school her, and we are very proud that we did so. She really battles. She comes home after working twice as hard as any of the kids in her class to keep up, but she will die in a ditch trying. As to opportunities, if you are going to be deaf in any country in the world, this is it. A doctor said that to me not long after Analise was diagnosed. We thought our world had gone to hell in a row boat, and the doctor said, 'Craig, if you're going to have a deaf child, this is the country to be,' and I cannot agree more. This is an amazing community. There is the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, which provides itinerant teachers for not only my little girl but all kids throughout Australia; the Shepherd Centre; and Auslan. I so admire the member for Parramatta's passion for Auslan. The member for Moreton co-sponsored and he referred to the fact that in the last few weeks a juror was precluded from exercising their civil right because of a lack of resources. That is not good enough.

To the member for Parramatta, I rise in strong support of your motion. This community is one that we should never forget and should always support. I am thrilled, along with my family, to be a proud and loving part of it.

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