World Cerebral Palsy Day

Ms DIGANCE (Elder) (11:59): I move:

That this house—

(a) recognises that 1 October 2015 is World Cerebral Palsy Day;

(b) acknowledges this year's theme to take the opportunity for people across South Australia to change the lives of people with cerebral palsy; and

(c) acknowledges the positive contribution provided by Cerebral Palsy Australia through research and service development for children and adults living with cerebral palsy.

I rise today to move a motion to recognise and support World Cerebral Palsy Day, to be held on Wednesday 7 October 2015. World Cerebral Palsy Day is a relatively new initiative which was jointly launched in 2012 by the Australian Cerebral Palsy Alliance and United Cerebral Palsy USA. This global initiative has an ambitious and very significant goal. It is to 'change the world for people living with cerebral palsy and their friends'. World Cerebral Palsy Day focuses on lifestyle innovation for people living with the condition. It does not allow the usual pattern of marking a world day with an event in each city or country. Instead, it offers incentives for the development of products that will positively affect the day-to-day lives of people with cerebral palsy, their families and providers.

The 2012-15 theme 'change my world in one minute' reflects the novel approach taken by the organisers, who asked that interested people submit a one-minute presentation outlining an inventive product or service that could change the world of people living with cerebral palsy. One idea from Sally Garster, a six-year-old girl from England living with the condition, sparked a global competition to design a sponge house, a bump-proof home for people living with cerebral palsy. The house, with its bump-proof space, aimed to improve the day-to-day safety of people who have unsteady balance and movement, the most obvious sign of people living with cerebral palsy. This lighthearted approach belies the underlying functional problems that people living with cerebral palsy and their families face.

Cerebral palsy affects a child's developing brain. In addition to movement issues, the disorder can also result in difficulties in learning, hearing and speech, along with intellectual disability, emotional and behavioural challenges. Cerebral palsy is one of the most commonly occurring childhood disabilities in Australia, with one in every 500 babies being diagnosed with this complex and permanent disability. The peak organisation, Cerebral Palsy Australia, estimates that 300,000 people live with cerebral palsy nationwide.

I would like to acknowledge the contribution made by Cerebral Palsy Australia in advancing the knowledge of cerebral palsy through the learning centre as well as maintaining the national Cerebral Palsy Register. The register is a confidential database accessed by researchers to monitor the prevalence of cerebral palsy and assist them in understanding the causes and evaluating and improving on preventative strategies. Most children with cerebral palsy are healthy and can experience a normal lifespan and participate in meaningful studies, employment and recreation. However, those with moderate to severe cerebral palsy need an individualised treatment program to support their development.

In South Australia, the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion provides early intervention programs and active therapy for children with disability, support and information for families, and training to maximise independence at home and in the community as children become adults. Additionally, the state government, through this department, provides funding to four non-government organisations that also support people with cerebral palsy. These four organisations—Novita Children's Services, the Spastic Centre of South Australia, Community Accommodation and Respite Services, and Lighthouse Disability (previously known as Leveda Incorporated)—are well known in South Australia for the remarkable work they do for people with disability, including cerebral palsy, in metropolitan Adelaide as well as in country and remote areas.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme also provides funding to eligible participants for reasonable and necessary supports that may help them reach their goals and aspirations. World Cerebral Palsy Day is about improving the life of people living with cerebral palsy one step at a time. I wish Cerebral Palsy Australia and its South Australian members continued success in promoting awareness of cerebral palsy and working towards a better life for all those living with cerebral palsy beyond the 1 October World Cerebral Palsy Day.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (12:04): I rise to support the motion from the member for Elder that this house recognises that 1 October 2015 is World Cerebral Palsy Day and other issues. Can I just say that people who I meet in my shadow ministry of disabilities are some of the most amazing people you can ever come across. It is a real privilege to be in this place, but it is a real privilege to then be given the opportunity to go and meet families, carers and people who have a disability and to see how they cope with everyday life and manage their ability to do things, not so much the disability.

The courage that you see is something that, if I ever feel down, if I ever feel a bit frustrated with some of the things that go on in life, particularly in this place, I just think of those people in particular. I do not have any problems—24/7, 365 days of the year, they are coping with issues that, thanks be to circumstances and life, I have not had to face. When we celebrate days like World Cerebral Palsy Day it gives us an opportunity to really recognise and to celebrate the ability of people who are afflicted with cerebral palsy to get out there and achieve their ambitions and their wants.

The most important thing that we can do in this place is to remove the barriers, to remove the red tape from the lives of these people so that they can then go out and really achieve 100 per cent of their goals. It is very important that we do not stand in their way or attempt in any way to obstruct or delay them in dealing with bureaucracies, planning for homes or just doing the things they do in their normal lives, such as accessing public transport. It is very important that we make sure that we stand up in this place, forget any partisan politics, and look at where we want to be.

I can say that I was very pleased to stand on the stage at Novita with the Premier, not last Christmas but the Christmas before, in fact, and say that if you cannot be bipartisan about disability what can you be bipartisan about? It gives me great pleasure to support this motion.

I just digress very slightly from the actual motion to highlight what is actually happening in research in cerebral palsy in South Australia. One of the people I met when I had the health portfolio was Emeritus Professor Alastair MacLennan. Alastair and his team work out of the Women's and Children's Hospital. They have the Australian Cerebral Palsy Biobank. They have just received an $800,000 grant from the Cerebral Palsy Alliance of Australia.

The work they are doing is really quite ground breaking. When you ask about cerebral palsy people say, 'Oh, that's the disability people get when the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby's neck as they are being born and they are starved of oxygen.' Well, that is one very small part of the number of people who end up with cerebral palsy. There is a distinct genetic background to people developing cerebral palsy, as well as many other reasons why people are developing cerebral palsy or who are afflicted with cerebral palsy.

The work that Professor MacLennan is doing is just a small part of the amazing work that is being done in South Australia in medical and health research. I just hope that the research that is being carried out and being supported by all of us in this place, and the federal government as well, is able to be funded well so that we can make the lives of people with disabilities—in this case cerebral palsy—a lot better.

If there is any way we can use some therapy of some sort that may be completely unknown, unrecognised now, to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities and cerebral palsy, well then would that not be a wonderful thing. This is a good motion. The things that the member for Elder has spoken about in addressing the motion are all very important. I will not go over them again, but we need to recognise the obligation that we have as members of parliament, not only to be here on a Thursday morning for private member's time and put these motions up and to speak to them but then to go on and put our money where our mouth is.

We must put our actions where our thoughts are and get out there and help make the lives of every South Australian what we would want it to be. That is why it is a privilege to be here, to stand here, and to support these sorts of motions on a Thursday morning, and I do that with 100 per cent conviction.

Motion carried.