Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great sadness that I stand here today, because CRS Australia is scheduled to close. Prior to entering politics, I worked for CRS Australia. It is a wonderful organisation. It was established at the end of the Second World War to help soldiers and servicemen re-enter the workforce after they had been injured at war. It is an organisation that has operated ever since then and is an organisation that has helped many, many people over the years. The Charlestown office is due to close at the end of next week. I actually worked in that office at one time. It used to be a vibrant organisation that provided people with assistance when they needed to live independently in the community and then helped them with looking for work.

The NDIS is wonderful. It is a fantastic initiative supported by both sides of this House. There is no-one that could support it more than I do. The services that it offers look after people in the community and help them with all aspects of life, but it does not have a responsibility for the work component. I think that is something that CRS did very well.

In my job at CRS I used to give people vocational assessments. Once I had given them vocational assessments, I would then work to find employers that were prepared to offer somebody with a disability an opportunity to work, and there was an enormous amount of success. People that found themselves in that environment went on to be the most fantastic employees that you could ever imagine. We would go in and do a workplace assessment. Once that workplace assessment was done, it would be organised so it best suited the needs of that person and the employer, so it was a win-win situation.

The tender has been put out into the community and tenders have been awarded to some organisations. I have great concern about one organisation that has been awarded for tender, and I will probably be raising this in the parliament at some time. I will be talking to the minister. I think that it is so sad that we are losing an organisation that has contributed so much to our nation and helped so many people over the years.