Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I had my first mobile office for the year, which was held down at Manuka Terrace, and I met a couple who I had met before and their family. This couple have a three-year-old son called Sebastien who is living with Angelman syndrome.

Angelman is a rare genetic disorder that affects the nervous system and causes severe physical and intellectual disability. Sebastien's dad, Paul, saw my speech on the NDIS from this chamber a couple of weeks ago, where I called on the government to provide certainty of funding to families with disabled children or to carers with disabled partners or family members. At that stage I urged the government to provide that certainty of funding and to provide that certainty to those families.

When Paul came up with little Sebastien and the rest of the family he urged me to keep up the campaign and he urged Labor to keep up the campaign—not just for Sebastien but for other sufferers of Angelman syndrome and for all people with a disability.

Sebastien is fortunate enough to get funding through the NDIS, because we have actually done the first trials here in the ACT. He is also fortunate to have a dedicated mum and dad and an amazing team at the Manuka Occasional Child Care Association here in Canberra. It is an iconic institution in Manuka. It has been around for 50 or 60 years—I think I have been to one of their significant anniversary celebrations. It is an intergenerational childcare centre where generations of Canberrans have gone and had a wonderful time as young children. The beauty about MOCCA is that it has been with Sebastien since he was very young and it has helped the family and Sebastien through an endless routine of weekly treatments.

Paul acknowledged that there had been some teething problems with the NDIS but that Sebastien's story on the NDIS was a good news story. This is the reason we need to fund the NDIS and not take money away from disadvantaged Australians; those who are dealing with and grappling with disability. We must provide certainty of funding. As the lawmakers of this country, we have a duty to provide care and support to those who need it—to alleviate and not to exacerbate their uncertainty and their stress. Labor takes this responsibility seriously and Labor will not allow this government to play a game of political bingo with the lives of so many disadvantaged Australians. We created the NDIS and we will protect the NDIS.

Turning to another matter: I want to talk about the Deputy Prime Minister's absolutely outrageous pork-barrel exercise that is the APVMA move from Canberra to Armidale. I have said many times that Sir Robert Menzies would be turning in his grave. The Deputy Prime Minister is not only calling for the APVMA to move from Canberra to Armidale but also he has done the call out to all of his National Party mates—with all due respect, Deputy Speaker Coulton, you are probably one of them—to come up with ideas to move other government agencies out of Canberra and into the regions.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I do remind you of the fact that about 40 per cent of government agencies are already out in the regions, and I do remind you of the fact that Sir Robert Menzies centralised government here in Canberra. He realised that once the nation's capital had been created in the twenties we needed government agencies to be centralised here. Here is the federal seat of democracy and we need government agencies around that federal seat of democracy to support our democracy and to provide the servants of democracy—that is, the Public Service.

So here we have the Deputy Prime Minister out there blatantly pork-barrelling and blatantly calling for government agencies to be decentralised. He has put a government order out for government agencies to be decentralised, despite the fact that a $272,000 cost-benefit analysis showed that there was all cost and no benefit with this decision. And then there is the handful of staff from the APVMA who have decided to relocate to Armidale. It has been haemorrhaging staff because no-one wants to move to Armidale. With that handful of staff who have decided to relocate to Armidale, where do they go? What is their office? Their office is the local McDonald's! It is an absolutely outrage and a pork barrel—(Time expired)