Grievance Debate

Smith, Ms A.M.

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (15:15): Today, I will give voice to Ann Marie Smith. I have been told by people in the community that Ann Marie liked to be called Annie. Ann Marie was about the age of a lot of the members of parliament in this place. Ann Marie had hopes and dreams, like all of us. As a teenager, she had goals and aspirations and Ann Marie, or Annie, had a family who loved her dearly.

What we know is that Ann Marie lived with a disability. She lived with cerebral palsy and with that came many challenges. Those challenges required support, love and care. She required assistance from support workers and she needed a community around her that took notice and provided her with everything she needed and would not let her down. Annie's family left her with a secure home. Her family thought they had set things up to look after her for the rest of her life.

What we know is that on 5 April this year Ann Marie was taken by ambulance to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The reports tell us she was in a cane chair—no sort of bed for anybody. This cane chair was also used as her toilet. We are told that she had one support worker going into her home providing the support she needed. We are told she did not have a fridge. How does this happen under our watch, under this community's watch? How do things like this happen under the National Disability Insurance Scheme?

What we know is that the National Disability Insurance Scheme has taken a long time to transition, but the vast majority of adults have transitioned to this scheme since March 2018. The transition of adults to the NDIS has been overseen by the Liberal state government. Support coordination has been provided for the vast majority of the complex clients, like Ann Marie Smith, in the community by the department under the Minister for Human Services. These services were signed over to them by the NDIS as an in-kind arrangement.

These services are put in place so that people like Ann Marie Smith do not get one person coming into their house, are not left in a chair, are not left to go to the toilet in that chair, are not left to go to sleep in that chair, are not to be not provided with a fridge, with food, with love, with care. These coordination principles are put in place to make sure there are a number of sets of eyes over the vulnerable. The NDIS is set up so that we have multiple levels of support, multiple levels of check. Where was the Quality and Safeguards Commission? Where were they? Where was this federal body?

We have been calling on the minister to make some snap decisions. We know that there have been multiple reports about the oversight of the NDIS through the transition. We know that the community visitor, the ex-principal community visitor, Mr Maurice Corcoran—highly respected, and with lived experience—headed up the community visitor program until late last year. We know that this changed under the Liberal government and they did not have the appetite to change the legislation or the regulations so that community visitors could go into homes in the community, homes lived in by people like Ann Marie, group homes where private operators, NGOs, are in there providing care. They are only visiting state-run homes and homes where people are under guardianship. This is not good enough.

We know that two annual reports have been delivered by the Principal Community Visitor that recommend continuance and strengthening of the program. We know that there was a report delivered by the Disability Reform Council that said, 'Guided by the federal government, these need to be strengthened. Community visitors are needed.'

We know that support coordination should have ensured that Ann Marie had a number of visitors, had a range of people. We know that there used to be an after-hours service that provided oversight, support and assistance in crisis. All these things have stopped under the state Liberal government. We have cried out for them to take some responsibility and make the changes needed because our members of parliament get people calling on us all the time who are transitioning to the NDIS and they cannot navigate it.

This is a failure of the state Liberal government, this is a failure under the Minister for Human Services and this needs to be remedied immediately, because we cannot have another Ann Marie Smith in our community.