Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on a matter of public interest: the 15th anniversary on Monday, 21 March of World Down Syndrome Day. The 21st day of the third month is used because people with Down syndrome, quite uniquely, have three copies of chromosome 21. So it is very appropriate to use that day. The slogan for World Down Syndrome Day this year was, ‘Let us in!’ There is a very charming short video available on the Down Syndrome International website of people with Down syndrome from 45 countries demonstrating the theme of ‘Let us in!’ I recommend that everyone here watch it, not only to see what is a very charming video, but also to recognise the internationalism of Down syndrome and the diversity within the population of people who have Down syndrome. Monday, 21 March was also Harmony Day, and the focus of Harmony Day was celebrating diversity, an excellent and very worthwhile cause. In many ways, the fact that the two days occurred at the same time seems symbolic of some of the siloing that goes on in our society—putting people in different silos and not recognising that everybody in this community needs to be let into every aspect of life.

I would particularly like to spend a little bit of time talking about the second Down Syndrome International awards, which were announced on 21 March. Four individuals received awards: Mia Farah from Lebanon; Malgorzata Jablonska from Poland; Sujeet Desai from the United States of America, who is an accomplished pianist I have had the pleasure of hearing; and, most importantly for me, a young man from Buddina on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland called Ty Belnap. Ty went to Sunshine Beach State High School and was integrated into all areas of the curriculum. He undertook an inclusive education. Ty is now 32 but by the time he was at high school his potential was already very obvious. He was named the school’s sportsman of the year. He has represented Queensland at four Special Olympics National Games in swimming and he has been to three Down Syndrome World Swimming Championships in South Africa, Ireland and Portugal. He actually set six world records during his swimming career, from which he is now retired, and two of those world records continue to stand. He was awarded the senior sportsman award from the Sunshine Coast Council in this year’s Australia Day Awards. He is a very active member of the Mooloolaba Surf Lifesaving Club and has been for just on 14 years. He was the first person with Down syndrome ever to achieve the bronze medallion in surf lifesaving. I am told that at his last surf patrol a few weeks ago he was involved in rescuing three people from the surf. So he is an extraordinarily active and well-known member of his community.

I could go on for some time about the aspects of Ty’s life, but one thing he has received recognition for is his volunteering work by the Creche and Kindergarten Association of Queensland. I would like to just quote briefly from Kendall Storti, who is the Director of the Caloundra Community Kindergarten, where this award was presented at the Creche and Kindergarten Association state conference. She said:

… it was a great morning, we were so glad Ty enjoyed it! I had so many people come up to me afterwards with so many positive comments and a lot from people who have a child with a disability and how Ty has shown them what you can do!! and all were so so impressed with Ty!! Once again he has touched the lives of so many, they tell me there weren’t very many dry eyes in the lecture theatre.

I think there we have an indication of one of the most important points. We truly see people with disability when we actually look at their ability, not their disability. We should look at their skills and their abilities rather than at their disabilities. Disabilities are something that we all have.

Whilst I was delighted to see Ty’s award and Ty’s achievements announced on World Down Syndrome Day, it was the same day that the Courier Mail published what was a charming photograph of His Royal Highness Prince William with a woman with Down syndrome in the Grantham area. The sad thing, from my perspective and from the perspective of the many phone calls I received about this, was that the woman was described as a Down syndrome sufferer in the story that went along with the picture. So there seems to be one step forward and one step back. I would like to congratulate the Courier Mail on fixing this error and pointing out that she was a woman with Down syndrome, not a Down syndrome sufferer, in their online version. So perhaps we are moving forward.

I would like to talk a little about two aspects of people with intellectual disability today. I would like to talk a little bit about inclusive education and bullying and then I would like to spend a little bit of time talking about the Productivity Commission’s recent draft report on the idea of a national disability insurance scheme. A report called Walk a mile in their shoes has just been produced by a US organisation called AbilityPath. It is a resource kit to look at bullying in schools and at ways to overcome bullying in schools. They use and confirm research done a few years ago in the UK that says that children with disabilities are two to three times more likely to be bullied than their student peers and that 60 per cent of students with disabilities reported being bullied at some stage during their education career.

I am a very, very strong advocate of closing down all our special schools and moving all the resources of the special schools into the mainstream. I see this as the only way that we will, long term, push inclusive education and, therefore, real inclusion into the education system. Schools that do not want to do the extra work involved in having a child with a disability in their student population can too easily try and push the child’s parents towards a special school rather than to look at how they might make inclusion work. I acknowledge here also that many schools are underresourced and underfunded, and that many teachers are not adequately trained or adequately resourced to do their best job. So, again, this is an area that needs work and an area where there has been some siloing. Without inclusive education there is a big chunk missing out of what a good life for a person with a disability would involve, even if we do adopt a national disability insurance scheme.

I put forward the view that we should simply move all the resources from special schools into the mainstream education area a couple of years ago and what surprised me was the number of people who objected, not because they thought special schooling was better or that special education was better, but because children with disabilities would be bullied in the mainstream. To me this was a very strange way of dealing with a symptom. I would have thought that, if children with disabilities were being bullied in the mainstream education system, you needed to do something about the mainstream education system. Over and over people would say to me, ‘It’s bad enough for the kids without disabilities being bullied. It’s awful for the children with disabilities.’ Surely this says there is something wrong with our system rather than this is a reason to exclude children with disabilities. It also ignores the fact, of course, that bullying can just as easily go on in special schools as it does anywhere else. It is a symptom of our humanity rather than a symptom of inclusive education. I continue to suggest that we need to really re-analyse the way we are approaching inclusive education.

I would now like to speak briefly about the Productivity Commission’s draft report, Disability Care and Support, which was released recently. This report has been given bipartisan support by the government and the opposition, and everyone is looking forward to the release of the final report at the end of June. The first finding of the report was that the current system is poor and the report said:

The current disability support system is underfunded, unfair, fragmented, and inefficient, and gives people with a disability little choice and no certainty of access to appropriate supports.

It is not a system. I spoke earlier about the commission’s plan for a national disability insurance scheme for anyone who required it. The commission said that they have:

... laid out a blueprint for a coherent response to the significant problems that bedevil the provision of disability support services. But while many people need help urgently, implementation cannot occur overnight.

I would agree wholeheartedly that implementation cannot occur overnight, however, I would also like to urge people to look at the comment of ‘many people need help urgently’. The NDIS, as the Productivity Commission would have it work, would involve a rollout in one region of Australia in 2014 to assist about 100,000 people. They would see this being extended further in 2015 and then extended progressively so that coverage to all significant disabilities occurred by 2018. So we are talking 2018 before a full-blown national disability insurance scheme to meet the current urgent needs would be implemented.

I fully accept the Productivity Commission’s view that this scheme cannot be implemented quickly. However, when you look further and see that even the 2014 and 2018 dates are based on the idea that a memorandum of understanding between the federal and state governments would be signed by late 2011 or early 2012, my heart sinks that we are, in fact, even talking about 2014 or 2018 as start dates. COAG does not have a record of promptly developing MOUs.

I have received numerous phone calls about the urgency of this issue. I think you only need to look at some of the submissions that have been made to the Productivity Commission inquiry to realise that. One said:

No-one likes to see innocent kids suffer in any way and the pain we feel as parents having to watch this every day and to be helpless to change things, all we can do is scream out for assistance, and now is the time for some screaming.

I had a phone call yesterday from a Queensland-based disability advocate who made the point that she is currently working with three mothers in Townsville. They are all in their 70s and have been caring for their children with disabilities for more than 40 years. These are not people who can wait until 2018 for something to happen. We need to look at a way of urgently addressing some of the more egregious conditions and situations that are covered in the Productivity Commission draft report. A National Disability Strategy framework, whilst it is welcome and will help in the long term, again, does nothing to help here.

People with disabilities and their carers are among the most disadvantaged groups in Australia. This can be seen through measures of community access, through financial status and through personal wellbeing. Underfunding is a longstanding problem and it has led to rationing and the growth of waiting lists. It is an unmet demand which has existed for decades and will continue to exist unless we all adopt the view that we must let people with disabilities into mainstream Australia.