International Day of People with Disability

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (15:08): Today, I would like to draw the house's attention to a couple of international days when we celebrate various matters. The first is the International Day of People with Disability, which is on 3 December, this Saturday. This day helps the community to focus on those people who live with disability. An important role we have as a society and also as a government is to ensure that we enable those people living with disability not only to engage fully in the community but also to live with dignity.

Some years ago now, a federal Labor government, in cooperation with state governments, introduced the National Disability Insurance Scheme. That scheme was based on the principle that people living with disability would have control over the services they needed and received and also have a level of independence so they could actually determine what they needed, when they needed it and the purposes for which they needed it. I agree that is a very fine principle.

This is a market-based system, which has both its strengths and its weaknesses. There are some issues to be dealt with in terms of some market failure in the delivery of services for people living with disability. Of greater concern, though, is the way the scheme was underfunded by the previous federal government to the extent that there were quite arbitrary cuts to various plans supporting people living with disability.

A number of people in my own electorate have spoken with me and sought advice and assistance to get funding back mainly for their children. We have had a number of cases where we have had to support people through the internal review processes, including helping people go through the AAT, where the NDIA, under pressure from the then government to reduce the so-called costs of the scheme, was cutting funds left, right and centre.

These cuts caused quite a bit of distress not only to the families. Importantly, it put the development of young children back many years because they were not getting the support and services they required. It is good to hear that a former minister responsible for this in the previous federal government, Bill Shorten, has come out and said quite clearly that governments need to spend what they need to spend to make sure that people living with disability get the necessary support to live a dignified life. That is very reassuring.

I know the Assistant Minister for Autism is doing a lot of great work in this field, but one thing we need to ensure is that people living with disability, particularly young children, can actually access services. Often, as a community we are not aware of some of the challenges and barriers that exist. Even taking a child with autism into some retail outlets is quite a challenge because of lighting, noise, music, etc.

Recently, I was happy to read and be told that one of the new businesses in Gawler, Beast and Beauty Co, a hair salon plus a beauty salon, is going to try to provide services for people living with disability and particularly address children with autism because I am told that sometimes it is quite challenging for a child with autism to have their hair cut. I commend that new business in Gawler, which opens on 10 December to reach out and provide services. Something we need to do more of is help small business get accredited so they are more disability friendly and have the information they need to do so. I commend that.

The International Day of Volunteers is on Monday 5 December. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the volunteers in my community who do an enormous amount of work to enrich the lives of other people in our community. There are very few walks of life that do not have a volunteer involved in some way, whether it is education, faith organisations or recreation and sport. You name it, there is a volunteer there and they play an important role. The number of volunteers in communities has been affected by the impact of COVID, and we need to make sure that we help organisations help those volunteers. I would like to acknowledge the important work in my community undertaken by Northern Volunteering in training and recruiting volunteers for our community.