Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1)notes that:

(a)National Week of Deaf People runs from 17 to 24 October 2015;

(b)one in six Australians are affected by hearing loss;

(c)there are approximately 30,000 deaf Auslan users with total hearing loss;

(d)projections for 2050 indicate that one in every four Australians will have hearing loss; and

(e)90 per cent of people born with hearing impairment are born into hearing families;

(2)congratulates the deaf community and celebrates its outstanding contribution to the nation;

(3)acknowledges Auslan as the language of the Australian deaf community;

(4)reaffirms the need for deaf people to be fully included in the Australian community;

(5)recognises that significant challenges still exist for the deaf community when dealing with governments and government departments; and

(6)encourages the Government to improve communication with the deaf community by ensuring that information is translated into Auslan on its websites.

This week is Deaf Week—a time when the deaf community in Australia celebrate who they are, and they are a community worth celebrating. But Deaf Week is also a time for us all to reflect on how, as a community, we can ensure full participation for deaf people. I would like to concentrate on just one area where the government can do a better job at providing access to government information, and that is by providing that information in Auslan. It seems we are lagging a bit behind where we should be. Let us look at what we should be doing, not just because it is right but because we said we would.

The federal government ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in July 2008, so we have had a few years. The relevant article, in terms of access to information, is Article 21b:

Accepting and facilitating the use of sign languages, Braille, augmentative and alternative communication, and all other accessible means, modes and formats of communication of their choice by persons with disabilities in official interactions;

That is the legal wording of Article 21b.

Some organisations in Australia are pushing ahead. The Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Law Reform Commission both provide access to information in Auslan. In fact, the Australian Law Reform Commission provides it in 20 languages plus Auslan, but federal government departments are not doing so well and in many cases are not providing Auslan at all. My local deaf advocacy organisations, including the Deaf Society, have tried to encourage a number of federal government departments to provide material in Auslan on their websites, without much success.

It is noted that the NDIA, which is responsible for information on the NDIS, provides information on what is the NDIS in at least eight different community languages. It provides recorded spoken versions of those languages, but it does not provide information on the NDIS in Auslan. Another example is the Australian Tax Office, which has several community languages available, including 42 documents translated into Arabic, yet it has only one document in Auslan. My Aged Care provides their information in at least 18 community languages and none in Auslan. I repeat that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was signed in 2008, so this crosses more than one government—it has been quite a while.

I note too that the Australian parliament is not translated into Auslan either, but I do acknowledge my colleague Jane Prentice in the Federation Chamber today. Jane raised this with the Speaker early last year. I am aware that there has been action behind the scenes, and maybe today Jane will talk about that. But I am sure we will hear more about it in time.

I know a lot of people will be thinking: we do not need Auslan because deaf people can read print. And they probably think that captions are enough, or written English is enough, but this is not the case. I think we need to be clear about this: Auslan is not English. I spoke Auslan in the parliament recently, but I spoke English with Auslan words. A few people made remarks on that. It is not the same. It is grammatically different, and there are concepts in Auslan that do not actually have simple English translations. It is a different language. It grew organically in the community and has all the complexity of a language of its own. For many deaf people, English is their second language not their first; the language they prefer, because it is the language they are mostly likely to understand, is Auslan.

Many deaf people have experienced systemic disadvantage throughout their lives. So the level of English literacy among the deaf community is less than desirable and, in many cases, less than adequate for them to be able to understand the complexities of government information in a second language, which, for them, is English. When we start talking about translating information into Auslan, many people assume that there are certain kinds of information that you would do first in Auslan—this speech, for example, because it is about the deaf community. But I want to stress that people who are deaf need information on all things. They send their kids to school. They work, they get a job, they pay tax and they grow old. So the information that they need in Auslan covers the broad range of information that governments provide, and they do not just need it so that they can understand the government services that are provided; they need it so that—as people who do send their children to school, go to work, pay taxes and grow old—they can contribute to the debate that this country has about our policy. They can also contribute with an understanding of what it is to be deaf, but it is their general lives that we need in the debate.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

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

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is great that we are all fighting to speak about this. It shows what a great topic it is! I rise to wholeheartedly support this motion from the member for Parramatta and the member for Reid regarding the National Week of Deaf People. Australia is recognised as being home to hundreds of native languages. Many Australians would be aware of the rich variety of Indigenous languages that existed in Australia prior to European settlement—with more than 100 of these languages still in use today. Fewer Australians would recognise that, much more recently, Australia has developed another native language. That language is Auslan, the sign language of the Australian deaf community.

I am pleased that people in my electorate of Ryan are leading the way in promoting the use of Auslan. Members will recall that last year I was privileged to give the first speech in the House in both English and Auslan, to mark my attendance at the Toowong state school Deaf Festival—although people listening on the radio thought that I had developed some speech difficulties; I was a bit slow. Toowong State School offers a bilingual and bicultural immersion program in Auslan and English. It is currently the only school in Queensland to offer such a program in Auslan. Auslan is taught to all children at the school, which is a wonderful way to encourage inclusiveness in children from an early age. The school has a bilingual resource room with a green screen, spotlights and a video camera to film lessons in Auslan. A native signer can then quickly and easily sign visual instructions for homework tasks and assessment instructions. It also allows for deaf students to have their assessments and tasks filmed. School assemblies are interpreted in Auslan, and all children sign the national anthem. There is a signing choir that is featured in television programs and special events throughout Queensland.

This motion reaffirms the need for deaf people to be fully included in the Australian community, as called on by the member for Parramatta. A broader understanding and proficiency in Auslan will go a long way towards building that inclusiveness. In conjunction with National Week of Deaf People 2015, Toowong State School will be holding a Hands and Hearts Fair this Saturday, 24 October. The event is sponsored by Deaf Services Queensland, who promise that the event will be a multicultural and multilingual extravaganza, with performances from the Hands Up Deaf Youth Theatre, the signing choir and a number of dance ensembles. Deaf Services Queensland advise me that the entire event will be Auslan-interpreted and that there will be Auslan students volunteering during the day to provide support and assistance to attendees. I encourage everyone who is interested in learning more about deaf culture to come along to this event. At secondary school level, Indooroopilly State High School has now developed its own support for Auslan in recent years. All classes with deaf students are delivered in Auslan and English and students are provided encouragement to develop and maintain their Auslan skills.

It is a common misconception that all sign language is the same. On the contrary; just like spoken languages, there are local variants of sign language all over the world. This was brought home to me very clearly when I was the manager for the international deaf congress with over 7,000 people from all over the world converging on Brisbane to learn sign language. Indeed, in America, they sign with just one hand. They explained that is so they can have a drink in the other hand!

Auslan has only gained prominence as a recognised community language in recent decades, and it is fair to say that some parts of government and society have been slow to catch up with providing appropriate resources in Auslan to cater for the deaf community. It is absolutely vital that learning Auslan is encouraged wherever possible. It is vital because it enables standardised communication within the Australia deaf community. But just as importantly, it acts as a language bridge between the Australian deaf community and the wider Australian community. National Week of Deaf People offers an opportunity to build upon these local initiatives and to celebrate deaf individuals and the deaf Australian community. The week offers a very important opportunity for deaf people to celebrate their community, their language, their culture and their history. It is a chance for the deaf community to recognise how far they have come but also to focus on the challenges ahead. This motion provides the House with the opportunity to recognise National Week of Deaf People and to celebrate the outstanding contribution that the Australian deaf community have made to our nation. I commend the motion to the House.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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Mr Perrett spoke in Auslan—

I commend the member for Parramatta for her motion. Obviously, we take verbal communication for granted as we go about our lives, but the deaf community face communication challenges every day—every day. Auslan is a language in its own right deriving from sign languages from Britain and Ireland and has developed naturally over time. Children born to deaf parents who use Auslan learn to sign naturally in the same way that hearing children learn verbal language from their parents. For a large part of the deaf community, Auslan is acquired as a second language during childhood, adolescence or even later in life.

I would like to thank Deaf Services Queensland for their instruction in Auslan for the first part of my speech, particularly Janelle Whalan. Hopefully, I got it right for you. As you can see, I am not very proficient at signing, but I have an enormous appreciation for the people who are proficient in Auslan signing.

Deaf Services Queensland are located in Moorooka in my electorate, the same suburb I live in. This wonderful organisation has been operating since 1903, and they are the leading provider of support services and information to the deaf and the hard of hearing community in Queensland. Currently, one in six Australians are affected by hearing loss and it is predicted that by 2050 it will be one in four. There are approximately 30,000 Australians who have total hearing loss who use Auslan. The services provided by Deaf Services Queensland include Auslan interpreting, culturally and linguistically diverse interpreting, Auslan translations, employment support services, Auslan classes, independent living support and deafness awareness training. They also provide a support service for children and families.

I can only imagine the challenges that having a hearing impaired child would create in a family. With 90 per cent of people who are born with hearing impairments from hearing families, there must be a huge need for that type of support. Hearing loss would be a challenge at any age, but for children and babies with partial or complete hearing loss it must be not only terribly frightening but also a frustration to normal childhood development. An incredibly large number of Australian children are affected by hearing loss. More than 12,000 children in Australia have a significant hearing impairment. On average one Australian child is identified as hearing impaired every day, one in one thousand babies is born with significant hearing loss and by school age two in every one thousand children have identified hearing loss. By the end of secondary school, more than three in every 1,000 children will require assistance because of hearing loss.

For these children and their families facilities like the Yeerongpilly Early Childhood Development Program provide a solid foundation from which to launch their educational experience. The Yeerongpilly Early Childhood Development Program is an Education Queensland facility for young children with hearing loss from birth to pre-prep. This free program is located on the campus of the Yeerongpilly State School—and I am visiting Jennifer McKee and the rest of the team this Friday. The program offers a range of communication choices to families, including auditory—oral, spoken language in combination with Auslan, bilingual—bicultural.

Last week, at Parliament House I participated in a game of silent touch football—so no sledging—in recognition of the challenges facing the hearing impaired in everyday life. Rugby league legend Wally Lewis, who has had personal experience of the challenges of hearing impairment through his daughter Jamie-Lee was on hand. Jamie-Lee did not play this year; certainly Wally added a bit of class to the politicians running around.

Also, a few weeks back the principal of Calamvale Special School, Tom Byrne, brought some of his students to Canberra. The member for Rankin and I caught up with them because the school serves both of our electorates. Calamvale is one of the largest special schools on the south side—it has 130 students. All students have significant intellectual disabilities, but several students have multiple disabilities, including autism, cerebral palsy and hearing impairment. The students range from five to 18 years old. There are 22 classes at Calamvale with 80 teachers, including teacher hours and all the teacher aids, and all the students at Calamvale Special School learn Auslan. Incredibly, their senior class of eight students conducts all of its lessons bilingually using both English and Auslan. Principal Tom Byrne explained that some autistic children cannot verbalise, so learning Auslan gives those children a way of communicating and also allows those with hearing impairments to be included.

I particularly commend the member for Parramatta for bringing this motion to the House.

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

Julie and Graham, the members for Parramatta and Moreton, have come at this from a community-based angle. I am so proud to be associated with this motion. Today, I want to put a personal angle. I see Julie is shaking her head. In my maiden speech I wanted to explain my passion for disability services, and I talked to my wife about it because of my personal involvement. I was conscious of using language that would be very vanilla, if you like.

Last year at this time, the member for Parramatta did a 90-second statement in the chamber. I was soon to follow and, by chance, I was in the chamber, which is not always the case with 90-second statements. At the end of the statement, I walked around the back of the Deputy Speaker's chair and I congratulated Julie for her statement, and I owned up to a little secret that I had been keeping. The reason that I had been careful with the language construction in my maiden speech was that my daughter Analise, who is now 13 years old, was born but not identified until 18 months of age with a severe bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. She is one of the 90 per cent of Australians who are born into hearing families with hearing loss, as we have heard today. I spoke to my daughter Analise, who at that stage was 12 years old, and asked her if she would mind if I told our story at different times—wanting to get her okay, I guess. She looked at me and, bold as punch, she said, 'Dad, if my story helps anyone, you feel free to tell it whenever you want.'

Coincidentally, the member for Parramatta and I share a border and we have overlaps into each other's communities. The member for Parramatta rightfully mentioned that we share an amazing part of Sydney through its multiculturalism and diversity. Through all the government services offered, we see the way that language is taken seriously—and she alluded to that. It should not stop in the disability space. The member for Parramatta is right: government should always seek to include all. There are 30,000 deaf people who use Auslan at the moment and we should push to continually do more in this space—you are right, member for Parramatta. It is also correct that it is not because deaf people cannot read. You are right, member for Parramatta.

When there are state emergencies it is a very common thing nowadays to see Auslan interpreters. All state governments have stepped up their game by having Auslan interpreters sitting side by side with those disseminating critical information on matters of what could potentially be life or death. But it should not just stop at those situations. It should permeate and infiltrate every mode of life so that those 30,000 people can not only rise to the challenges they have been presented with; they can overcome the challenges. We should do all we can in government to assist that to happen. In whatever time I am given in this place, I will push, along with wonderful members like the member for Parramatta, in a bipartisan way, to do and deliver more, because that is when this parliament works at its best.

To finish where I started on a personal anecdote: life as the father of a hearing impaired child always gives you nice presents that you do not see coming. I got home last Thursday night from parliament unaware that my daughter Analise had just been fitted with new hearing aids. She does not use Auslan; she uses technology. Suzie, my wife, told me a story. Analise's hearing aids were being fitted and Suzie was sitting next to her in a chair. About half an hour into the fitting, Analise looked at her and said, 'Mum, what's that noise?' and Suzie said, 'What noise?' She could not work it out. Later on, Suzie moved in the chair, and Analise said, 'That noise! That noise!' It was the chair creaking. Analise is 13 years of age and had never heard a chair creak in her life. Technology helped her overcome that and rise to meet her challenges. We as government should enable those who use Auslan to also rise to meet and overcome their challenges and succeed. Thank you, Member for Parramatta.

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

We have heard excellent contributions to this debate. I thank the member the Parramatta for bringing this important issue to the House and the member for Reid for sharing his personal experiences with the House, including the challenges of being a father to a hearing impaired child and the challenges for a hearing impaired child.

From 17 to 24 October is National Week of Deaf People. It is important to note, as the member for Parramatta outlined in her motion, that one in six Australians are affected by hearing loss and that there are approximately 30,000 Auslan users. It is projected that, along with the ageing of our population, by 2050 one in four people will be living with hearing loss. I strongly support the issues that the member for Parramatta raised in her motion, particularly the issues around Auslan. I call on the government to do a little bit more in parliament in that space. We should regularly have an Auslan interpreter in the gallery during question time so that people who are hearing impaired can understand what is happening—not just if they are watching the text on their screens at home. If they are in the gallery, it can be hard to follow.

For a very long time in my previous life I worked as a rehabilitation counsellor. I worked with people that had hearing impairments. On Sunday I bumped into one of those people. She has had children and is now thinking of undertaking study to learn Auslan, teach others and work as an Auslan interpreter. But I want to concentrate a little bit today on the Tingira Centre—or the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children Hunter, as it is now been renamed.

The Tingira Centre, which was opened in 1991, has a number of programs and provides a lot of support for people in the Hunter who have a hearing impairment. It has a preschool program, which I will talk a little bit more about in a moment. It has five hearing impaired children and 10 other children from the community. It works very well and concentrates on integrating and promoting understanding of hearing impairment in the community.

The families who are part of the early learning program, which is what I wanted to talk about first—there are 27 children with a hearing impairment, and eight children in that program also have vision loss—have weekly individual sessions and they have input consultation with a transdisciplinary team. These teams concentrate on things like family education and home intervention because a lot more work is actually done in the home than at Tingira Centre, which is what I will continue to call it. It helps establish goals and to develop speech and language. This is an excellent program. It works with education and development psychologists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and orthodontists.

This is a vital service, a vital program that is provided in my local community and I would like to pay tribute to everybody who works there and to the organisations who have given it support over a long period of time. There is also an early learning group, where the families have the opportunity to network and the opportunities extend to the children to set social goals. There are great forums for parents to sit down and talk about issues that have an impact on all of them. There is also a program where allied health provide support for students once they attend school. It is an opportunity for speech therapists and OTs and physios to work with them. Teleschool works with people outside the area. All up, the Tingira Centre, or the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, is a wonderful organisation that operates in the Shortland electorate. (Time expired)

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to also place on record my congratulations to the member for Parramatta, and thank her for her thoughtfulness and her care in bringing this motion to the House. I also want to thank all of the previous speakers who have spoken on this very important motion.

It is indeed National Week of Deaf People, which runs from 17 to 24 October. When you see the figures that the member for Parramatta has listed in this motion—that one in six Australians are affected by hearing loss and there are 30,000 deaf Auslan users with total hearing loss—they are absolutely staggering. I was very interested to see that recently Hear and Say Centre in my electorate put out a press release celebrating Loud Shirt Day on Friday, 16 October. All of our communities got together and rallied around Loud Shirt Day and raised money for Hear and Say. In their press release, they said that three in every 1,000 Australian children are diagnosed with significant hearing loss, one in every 1,000 babies are born deaf, and around 23 children per 10,000 will acquire a hearing impairment by the age of 17 through accident, illness or other causes.

I want to pay tribute to the people at Hear and Say, particularly the CEO, Chris McCarthy, and of course its wonderful founder, Dr Dimity Dornan AO. The Hear and Say CEO said that the organisation, in conjunction with First Voice—the national alliance of organisations providing listening and spoken language to children who are deaf—raises funds and they all got together on this day to provide deaf children with hearing, listening and speaking opportunities.

We are indeed blessed in the electorate of Brisbane to have such a wonderful organisation. It was started some years ago, by Dimity Dornan AO, as I have mentioned, and they have an incredible mission: to enable families to achieve optimal outcomes for their children with hearing loss by teaching them to hear, listen and speak using world-leading and end-to-end service delivery models. Their vision is to provide provision of access to listening and spoken language for children with hearing loss and their families worldwide. They have a number of principles that they adhere to. They have an auditory verbal approach and promote newborn hearing screening and end-to-end programs for children with their families, and auditory verbal therapy and full parent involvement and spoken language through listening. The most important things that the Hear and Say centre does are early intervention, diagnosis of appropriate hearing aids and one-to-one therapy sessions with a parent or caregiver. There is the use of current research data to support those outcomes. We heard from the member for Reid the incredible experience that he had recently when his younger daughter was fitted with a new type of hearing aid.

I want to place on record the incredible work that they do and thank Hear and Say. They are doing some phenomenal, world-leading research. They see over 600 families each year and have a team of 50 people across Queensland in six centres and in rural areas in particular. Rural areas are the ones that are most impacted by the lack of services. Ninety-two per cent of children with hearing loss have parents who can both hear. Those figures are absolutely extraordinary.

The member for Parramatta has also reaffirmed many things, including the outstanding contribution that the deaf community has made to this country, and I want to reaffirm that and thank everyone who has contributed enormously across all areas of endeavour, whether it is IT, academia or any of those areas throughout the community. I thank them for what they have done to contribute to our great nation. She acknowledges Auslan, and indeed I and other members from this side absolutely support her in reaffirming her support for and acknowledgement of Auslan and trying to integrate that more in the dealings that occur in the Australian community. In particular what we need to do as a government is make sure that that challenge that is faced is integrated across government departments. I support her wholeheartedly, as we all do, and look forward to working with her further to include Auslan. I thank her for her wonderful motion.

Debate adjourned.