Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about a valuable new information resource for older people living in Ipswich and the Somerset Region, the 2015 Blair Seniors Link Directory. I was pleased to launch this, my first annual Blair Seniors Link Directory, last Friday, on the eve of 2015 Queensland Seniors Week. The directory provides information on a wide range of services, activities and programs available to seniors living in the Blair electorate. It details more than 40 service providers, community organisations and agencies. They include: Home Assist Secure, Walk on Wheels, Carers Queensland, Golden Years Ipswich, Ipswich Men's Shed, and Ipswich Meals on Wheels, which, interestingly, was begun in 1956 by the late Mrs Rhonda Cameron, whose husband, Dr Donald Cameron, was Minister for Health in the Menzies government and a former member for Oxley.

These organisations, and the others listed in the directory, help seniors live more healthy, full and enjoyable lives. However, it is often difficult for people—especially those not connected to the internet—to know what services are available and how to access them. The Blair Seniors Links Directory puts that information at easy reach. To assist further, this week providers from the directory have held stalls at the first annual Blair Seniors Link Information Week, outside my electorate office at the Brassall Shopping Centre in Ipswich. They include: the Department of Human Services, whose staff have been on hand to show seniors how to navigate and download apps to help with Centrelink and Medicare; Blue Care; KinCare; and SeniorNet, the wonderful Ipswich based organisation that assists seniors to use computers and the internet. Throughout the week, local seniors have been dropping into Brassall Shopping Centre to chat with providers and have their questions answered face to face.

I offer my warm thanks to the service providers, community organisations and agencies who held stalls this week and the many others who participated in the directory. I also thank the owners and managers of Brassall Shopping Centre for permitting me to hold the information week. Finally, I also acknowledge Kylie Stoneman from my office for her work putting the directory and information week together. I understand her caffeine intake over the last fortnight has been unusually high, even for her.

I am delighted to report the directory is already a smash hit. On Monday this week, Ipswich City Council held its annual Seniors' Week Variety Day at the Ipswich Showgrounds. I certainly would have enjoyed the festivities and I would have been there, if not for the parliamentary sitting week. However, there was a Shayne Neumann stall staffed by my great volunteers, who tell me they distributed more than 520 of the Blair Seniors Link directories to those attending the variety day. My office tells me they have been inundated by constituent requests for the directory and have been sending copies across Ipswich and the Somerset region during the week. But it is not over yet: tomorrow, I will be attending the Somerset Regional Council's Seniors' Day at the Esk civic centre, holding a mobile office. I anticipate that by the end of this week we would have given out a thousand of the new directories. Somerset Regional Council's Seniors' Day is always a terrific event. I expect the Blair Seniors Link Directory to receive a very strong and warm reception.

The need for a directory came about because I held the Blair Disability Links event for the first time in 2010 to provide organisations in the Blair electorate and people, their families, carers and service providers with a forum to connect and share information. The Blair Disability Links is held ever November each year to celebrate the International Day of People with Disability. It has been an enormous success. Last year, 750 people came to talk to providers and with each other and to look at the stalls and see what was being provided. The success of Blair Disability Links prompted me to produce an information kit detailing the disability services available in Blair and also an information kit to seniors this year. Since 2010, I have given out 20,000 of the Blair Disability Links kits from my electorate office to help people with disability, their carers and providers across Ipswich and the Somerset region.

With the success of that particular directory, we have launched the Blair Seniors Links this year. I launched it last Friday with a round table held at Blue Care at Eastern Heights in Ipswich, where I was joined by representatives from Cabanda Care at Rosewood,    Anglicare West Moreton, Carers Queensland at Ipswich, Southern Cross Care at Raceview, the West Moreton Hospital and Health Service, Carinity Baptist Aged Care, Ozcare and Blue Care. It was great to hear from local providers about what is happening in their sector. As the shadow minister for ageing and as a local member, it is important to listen to local members in the development of policy.