International Day of Sign Languages

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (11:42): I move:

That this house—

(a) acknowledges International Day of Sign Languages on 23 September;

(b) recognises the importance of supporting and promoting the linguistic diversity of Australian deaf people;

(c) acknowledges the incredible work of Auslan interpreters throughout the pandemic who provided crucial updates to deaf Australians; and

(d) commends the Malinauskas Labor government on providing fee-free access to study Auslan at TAFE.

I rise to speak about the International Day of Sign Languages on 23 September and to recognise the importance of supporting and promoting the linguistic diversity of Australian deaf people. In that process, I also want to acknowledge the incredible work of Auslan interpreters throughout the pandemic, who provided crucial updates to deaf Australians.

The UN General Assembly has proclaimed 23 September as the International Day of Sign Languages. They have done this in order to raise awareness of the importance of sign language in the full realisation of the human rights of people who are deaf. It acknowledges that early access to sign languages and services in sign language, including quality education available in sign language, is vital to the growth and development of the deaf individual, and that it is critical to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals. It recognises the importance of preserving sign language as part of linguistic and cultural diversity and also emphasises the principle of 'Nothing about us without us'.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities also recognises and promotes the use of sign languages. It makes clear that sign languages are equal in status to spoken languages and I would like to speak a bit about that later when I mention one of my schools.

This year, National Week of Deaf People is also celebrated at this time, with the theme 'Sign Up For Sign Language Rights'. The National Week of Deaf People is a weeklong national celebration of deaf individuals and the deaf community that includes celebrating the International Day of Sign Languages, both of which are initiatives of the World Federation of the Deaf.

I would like to take the opportunity to mention here the launch of an Auslan program, Auslan90, a new pilot project starting on Monday 30 September, funded by the federal government's Department of Social Services' Information, Linkages and Capacity Building Program. Auslan90 will be delivering daily 90-second news bulletins in Auslan, Monday to Friday, plus weekly in-depth videos that unpack stories in more detail. With support from SBS News, each bulletin will cover the top stories of the day, all in Auslan. I know that the Director of SBS News and Current Affairs, Mandi Wicks, was very excited when she said:

SBS is committed to informing and serving Australia's diverse communities, and our partnership with Deaf Connect on the Auslan90 pilot reflects that. By supporting this initiative, we're helping to ensure Deaf Australians can access timely, accurate and trustworthy news in their language.

We see Auslan interpreters at press conferences during floods, bushfires and pandemics and, while this is extremely important, it is only some of the news content available to the deaf community in a landscape where hearing Australians can access news in a 24-hour day, so Auslan90 is a crucial step forward in creating a more connected and accessible society for all Australians. It is more than a news service. It is a statement about the value and visibility of Auslan. It goes some way in saying that making all of our community have the ability to access information so they can live their life to the fullest is something all governments should be about.

I would like to just mention here Klemzig Primary School in my electorate of Torrens. It is not just Klemzig Primary School as it is the Centre of Deaf Education and Auslan Bilingual Preschool. I would like to acknowledge the work by the principal, Michele Smith, and the assistant principal for the Centre of Deaf Education, Sandra Kelly, and all of the team who play an amazing role in delivering a bilingual education to all students at the school.

I would just like to mention Lorraine Ferguson, Briony Harrison, Laura Potter, Sarah Lewis, Eliza Shalley, Louise Lawless, Sandra Di Fava, Stacey Thompson, Teagan Allen, Tracey Kelsall, Brittany Wright, Amanda Taylor, Tim Tutty, Heba Ahmed, Alison Way, Crystal Markovich, Leona Priori and Tania Leone. They are all either teachers of the deaf or bilingual student support officers.

At this point, I would also like to acknowledge the great work that I know our TAFE system does in delivering Auslan to teachers and people who want to learn Auslan. I note that yesterday the Minister for Human Services and the Minister for Education announced an Australian-first program developed in South Australia by TAFE SA that will meet the learning needs of deaf students. The Certificate I in Deaf Gain Education has been designed specifically for the deaf community, with a focus on building literacy, numeracy and Auslan language skills. It was designed proudly by TAFE SA educators. The accredited course is being delivered free to 30 students and it is attracting interest from interstate students and training providers. I know that both ministers met with students undertaking the course yesterday at TAFE SA's Adelaide campus.

Importantly, the course helps students develop basic levels of proficiency in Auslan and, in addition, written English, numeracy and digital literacy and bilingual and bicultural skills required to work effectively between the hearing and the non-hearing worlds. The course can be for up to three years and it paves the way for deaf students to obtain more qualifications for work. The new qualifications add to TAFE SA's nationally recognised Education and Languages program, including Certificates I, III and IV in Auslan.

Auslan (Australian sign language) has its own vocabulary and grammar that is different from spoken languages, and I know that the teachers and support officers at Klemzig Primary School are particularly excited about these developments. I spoke recently with the principal at Klemzig Primary School's Centre of Deaf Education and bilingual preschool about the importance of three year olds accessing this education. It is crucial, because many children who are deaf from birth need to be able to communicate.

We communicate with babies and they learn through that. But when we have a baby who does not hear, then the ability to communicate is much more difficult. That is why at Klemzig school they want to make sure that three year olds have access to this special class. They also have a playgroup, which is an amazing thing that has just recently come into play. I know there is a benefit to those families because they are able to mix with other families as well who are facing those same challenges. There are only around 10 in a class at a time, and they have them over the week right on the campus at Klemzig Primary School.

Just going back a step, Auslan enrolments under a fee-free TAFE initiative (2023) have resulted in 115 completing the certificate II, eight completing the certificate III and 15 completing the certificate IV. That is a total of 138 teachers or people in our community who now have those skills to assist in our schools and in the local community. I would also like to highlight Avenues College, which also follows through to high school level with children who are deaf.

I think it is really important at this time that as a society we acknowledge that everyone should be able to have access, and that we provide those opportunities through our education system at the TAFE level, at preschool level and through our primary schools. I thank all those interpreters who are there for our deaf community, whether it be during times of crisis or at other times. When we had the pandemic, I know that the interpreters at Klemzig Primary School produced videos for the parents and sent them to them so that they could have the information that everyone else was getting on the television. I am sure the Auslan90 program will go some way to also providing access to information. I commend the motion.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:54): I am happy to have the opportunity to speak on this motion. In particular, I acknowledge that the International Day of Sign Languages is on 23 September, and I want to add my gratitude to all the educators—whether in TAFE or in our schools or across our community—who support the learning of Auslan and, indeed, recognise the importance of Auslan to our community, in particular, our deaf community.

When I was the Minister for Education, I think schools like Klemzig Primary School, Adelaide High and other schools with a particular focus on deaf education were still at that time called centres for hearing impairment. I remember having a meeting fairly early on in my time as the minister with representative groups seeking to have that nomenclature changed to 'centres for deaf education'. There was a pride in the deaf community that Auslan was being understood as a language, not just as something to assist people in getting around in their daily lives. It was really important to them and it was an easy change to make, and so we got that done fairly quickly. I think having this motion is a good opportunity for the parliament to highlight that important work and the way in which we recognise the importance of Auslan.

We have in our schools a desire for every school student in Australia to learn languages. Sometimes we do get caught up in the communication about how we do that and its importance and the benefits. Learning languages provides many benefits to children and young people. The different languages that children and young people learn potentially also adjust the nature of the benefit they get. We know that learning what were called the romance languages sometimes assists in certain mechanisms of how we communicate in English. The common derivations that German, French, Italian or Spanish have with the English language provide certain benefits.

Learning a number of Asian languages presents different challenges and different opportunities. Certainly for students who want to go on to work in business in South-East Asia, right on our doorstep, having language opportunities in Asian languages is beneficial too.

Auslan as a language within this context provides a different range of opportunities for our students and young people. I think particularly the way in which it opens up our young people's minds to how they can communicate with a deaf person, or another person who speaks sign language, who is able to use Auslan, is really beneficial. But when we talk about intercultural understanding, when we talk about empathy, when we talk about all the different capabilities that we want our school system to imbue in young people, alongside the knowledge and the key pieces of information that will be considered within the canon, Auslan is a really useful subject to be taught in schools.

You cannot do everything in every school, you cannot do everything in every classroom, but if we want our young people to learn a language, then having Auslan understood to be on the same plane as the other languages is, I think, absolutely appropriate. There is no one language that is a better language for somebody to learn—other than English—so Auslan should be considered in that matrix.

Some other countries, in their schooling systems, assume that English is going to be the second language that is taught, because English is a language that is spoken widely around the world. Every education minister will always say this: that in English-speaking countries we do less well at encouraging people to speak other languages than in countries that do not have English as a first language. Across America, England, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand—less so Canada because it is a bilingual nation in many ways—across the Anglosphere, if you like, this is a challenge.

Auslan is a really interesting language to see taught in a classroom, it has to be said. I encourage all members, if you have the opportunity to see an Auslan class in one of your local schools, take that opportunity; it is a glory to behold. It is a calm place in many ways. It is an interesting sight to see.

However, in raising this as an opportunity, I also highlight one of the real challenges. It is not just Auslan that has this challenge, but Auslan potentially, as much as any language, has the challenge of finding suitably qualified teachers who are able to give those students a great educational experience, because there just are not a large number of them.

Auslan is not the only language that has this challenge, and schools that had chosen Auslan as a language would regularly report to me on either how grateful they were that they had been able to hold on to their teacher or what a challenge it was for them to be able to find a suitably qualified and capable teacher, somebody who was fluent in Auslan as well as a qualified teacher who was able to do great work in the classroom. In a number of schools they resolve this by having teachers learning Auslan as they go. The teacher does their best to stay at least one year's learning ahead of the class that they are teaching, and that can be a solution.

Certainly, while our Centres of Deaf Education—and there is a handful of them across the public school system—are, I guess, lighthouse peaks of achievement, there are a large number of other schools that would like to teach Auslan as their language, and the work that we do to encourage a suitably large and growing pool of Auslan teachers is important work. I commend them in that work. I thank those teachers who are already in the system and those interpreters who are doing useful work.

The member for Torrens highlighted the importance of that work in the pandemic, a time when many people felt isolated, anxious and uncertain of what the future would be, uncertain of what the next day might look like, and so communication was important then as at any other time only more so and this work was especially important at that time, and it is good that she has highlighted that to the house today. I thank the member for Torrens for bringing this motion.

The Hon. N.F. COOK (Hurtle Vale—Minister for Human Services, Minister for Seniors and Ageing Well) (12:01): I would like to say 'happy national week of deaf people'. In saying that, I acknowledge that this motion raises awareness and is an important celebration for, on behalf of and with the deaf and hard of hearing community in South Australia and, indeed, Australia.

It is a real opportunity for us to come together and celebrate the deaf community, language, culture and history. As other people have already done so, the awareness around the use of Auslan, its history and importance really is something that we all need to be aware of.

I encourage everyone to do some research into the history of that wonderful language. I have done a module of Auslan, and I am completely terrified when I try to put voice and signing together, but it has given me an absolutely enormous depth of gratitude and appreciation for people in our community who work in the space of Auslan interpreting. It is quite the skill and I avoid doing signing and voice at the same time because I do not think I have the right left-brain coordination to handle it but, indeed, I endeavour to do my best and show some respect to the community in that regard.

As has been talked about, the Certificate I in Deaf Gain Education at TAFE really is an absolutely excellent stepping stone and pathway to connection and inclusion in our community. Visiting TAFE in the city the other day with the excellent Minister Boyer, we managed to really connect with some of the community members who are doing that wonderful certificate at TAFE SA and hear from them using Auslan to understand some of the challenges and barriers and reasons why, in fact, they are doing that certificate. It is the only course of its kind in Australia, but I do think others will get some support to roll that out interstate and also become accredited to deliver that certificate.

For the students, it is more than a piece of paper: it is actually an opportunity to be part of a community. Many of them have the opportunity as well to develop their own signed name and expressions during the gaining of that certificate. Seeing the way that they interact and support each other in a way that many never have previously, I do not use terms such as 'heartwarming' very often, but honestly, it warmed the cockles. I was really pleased to see the engagement, the support and the real genuine love for each other in that journey.

From correspondence I have received during the course of being a member of parliament, but particularly being a spokesperson for disability in our party, the awareness I have now about the barriers faced by people in the community with a whole range of disabilities has increased. Definitely, recent correspondence has raised the barriers around ticketing for events and inclusion of people, from purchasing a ticket right through to accessing and navigating venues.

Some of the experiences raised with me include the fact that interpreters are being positioned sometimes on the opposite side of the stage to those who require the interpreter. The accessible seating is behind people who are standing, so they actually cannot even see the interpreter. There are broken hearing loops, so there is no alternative choice or notice for people, and also advertising the interpreter and not having one available.

We know the challenge to that skill, and through all these excellent courses at TAFE and other places there are more people getting trained to be Auslan interpreters, so we do understand the challenges, but advertising and not having one there is pretty poor form without providing notice for the people who need it.

Importantly, we as a government have acknowledged these barriers for all people who are contacting us, and we have been holding ticketing and inclusion roundtables, facilitated by the good roosters at DHS, and providing opportunity to venue operators, ticketing organisations and, importantly, the community with lived experience to jump in on those sessions and provide their direct feedback, and there have definitely been people from the deaf and hearing impaired community. That will continue, and the outcomes of the round table are now being pulled together by people who are much better at keeping things brief than I am.

That also has not stopped some organisations already reaching out to make some changes so that they are implementing things. The Festival City Adelaide are being really proactive to their approach to the issues, and we are really looking forward to working with more organisations to actually raise practical approaches to solving these barriers to inclusion because that is at the heart of the Disability Inclusion Act. It is at the heart of the things that we all are doing on both sides of this chamber to ensure that everyone can access events and services in our community.

One thing I actually wanted to talk about from a local point of view is people might recall about seven years ago there was a commitment to build a large adventure playground in my electorate in Hurtle Vale; $1.3 million was committed to do that, and the local council, the City of Onkaparinga, matched that. We have an evolving, beautiful play space right in the heart of Morphett Vale, right near all of our wonderful sporting facilities as well. Every day I go past there and go there, there are people playing, engaging and connecting. It is the site of so many wonderful family celebrations. I have had kids' birthday parties there myself. There is a beautiful miniature train and a whole range of things. I think that was completed in about 2020 or 2019 thereabouts.

One thing that people were saying to me was that while they had a couple of things that were accessible for people with a range of disability there was not enough, unlike the Hendrie playground at Hendrie Street Reserve down Marion way and some of the other playgrounds around the place. So last election I secured a commitment for a $100,000 investment to the Wilfred Taylor Reserve playground for accessible equipment upgrades, and we have held a number of community sessions to engage and see what it is that people want. Of course, you could probably spend that 20 times over with all the excellent things that are around, but we have tried to leverage the support of external organisations and philanthropic and service groups to try to value-add to that $100,000 commitment.

What we have been able to do—through the great work of Anna in my office—is connect with a fellow called Anthony Simons from an organisation called Fit N Well, which is all about active inclusion for people with disability. He is sponsoring the erection of a communication board, which is being designed by the council, and that specifically meets the need of providing an alternate form of communication for children with differences in languages and abilities with their hearing. They can point to a board and say, 'We want a ball. We want to go here. We want to do this.' It is a communication sign board.

This will enable children to connect with their community as they provide a pathway to inclusion, interaction and an ability to belong. They do not just benefit children with hearing difficulties; they help children who are non-verbal with autism and people for whom English might not be their first language. We are having that board put in. To my understanding, it costs several thousand dollars. It is being put in by a provider who provides a service to people with disability, and that will give us the opportunity to use those thousands of dollars for something else.

In terms of inclusion, I think all of us in the community want the best possible access and the best possible opportunity for people with disability. I think specifically for the hearing impaired and deaf community, weeks and days such as this provide an opportunity to highlight how we can better engage and how we can better develop our inclusion skills in our community.

I want to thank the member for Torrens, Dana Wortley, who year upon year upon year has been absolutely tireless in her advocacy for not just the deaf and hearing-impaired community but for the vision-impaired community as well through her contacts in her local community and her absolute dogged commitment to advocate on behalf of those people. I commend the motion.

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (12:11): I rise to support this motion. I thank the member for Torrens for bringing this important motion to the house and appreciate the contributions that I have listened to so far in regard to this motion.

My old primary school, Brighton Primary School, has had a long association in supporting deaf and hard-of-hearing students. I always enjoy now having all of those students come on my parliament tours and am looking forward to attending sports day on Friday. I am a diehard house member of Sturt, so I will be supporting green on Friday.

This is a really good opportunity for me to speak today in regard to the Centre of Deaf Education that sits as a crucial part of the Brighton Primary School community. This centre provides a caring and positive learning environment for deaf and hard-of-hearing students to develop and master their skills for their current and future learning, empowering them to be independent and lifelong learners.

The student programs there are constructed using the Australian Curriculum, and special focus is given to the areas of literacy, numeracy, STEM and all other essential learning areas. This is all part of the school's plan and future directions. The centre holds exactly the same values and aligns with the mainstream school and has exactly the same high expectations for students' academic, social and emotional success.

The Centre for Deaf Education aims to maintain an integrated and inclusive facility that meets the educational needs of all deaf and hard-of-hearing students. This is achieved through provision of high-quality educational programs, use of appropriate technologies, and implementation of relevant teaching and learning methodologies to enable students to reach their potential.

A range of class settings are available depending on the individual needs of each child. They are supported in mainstream classes with Teachers of the Deaf and Bilingual Student Support Officers, and students can access their education in the mode that best suits their needs and their preferences, using spoken language, Australian Sign Language (Auslan) or a combination of the two. Students also access the support and solidarity of the deaf world through connecting with their deaf and hard-of-hearing peers and adult role models.

These approaches complement and support each other to provide the very best foundation for students' future development, personal growth and lifelong learning. In fact, all students at Brighton Primary School learn Auslan as their Language Other Than English, and all students are equipped to participate in an integrated and inclusive learning environment.

Deaf culture and connections to the deaf community are important factors in regard to the Centre for Deaf Education. The centre welcomes children of deaf adults and their families from across Adelaide and the school community. There are opportunities for the whole school to participate in the Brighton Signing Choir, which I have enjoyed at all the primary school graduations I have attended for Brighton. It is great to see all students, regardless of whether they are mainstream students or deaf students, participate together so proudly in presenting this work to their parents.

I am not able to do this as smoothly as Minister Cook did, not knowing all the words in Auslan, but I can sign the alphabet: [simultaneously interpreted into Auslan] I support Auslan.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hope Hansard got that.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (12:15): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I, too, rise to support the motion from the member for Torrens. I would also like to echo the words of those who have spoken today before me and acknowledge the member for Torrens' many years of work with the deaf community in South Australia and her advocacy through multiple state governments for further support for that community.

I want to put on the record briefly a couple of things—that have already been touched upon by the member for Torrens and the member for Hurtle Vale—that come primarily from the training and skills part of my portfolio and some work that we have done in the last about 12 to 18 months with TAFE to try to improve access to the courses on offer for Auslan.

The one that was referenced by the member for Hurtle Vale that occurred most recently, just Monday of this week, was an announcement that the member for Hurtle Vale and I made at the TAFE campus in the city around the funding of a Certificate I in Deaf Gain Education. We were fortunate enough to go along and meet some of the students in the inaugural cohort which is about, I think, 20 students strong—which, I have to say, for a new certificate I course is a pretty strong number and I think it speaks to the importance of us having this provision. It would be remiss of me not to make mention of the role that TAFE has played as our public training provider in putting this certificate I together.

In this place and outside of it I have spoken on a number of occasions around why it is important that we have a really strong public training provider. We also talk about TAFE being at the centre of our skills and training system. I accept that sometimes those comments might not mean a whole lot to the casual observer on the street, but I think that the work TAFE has done in terms of access to courses around Auslan is a very good example of why we need to have a strong public training provider and what we mean when we say that public training provider should be at the centre of our skills and training system.

You would not expect—and I certainly do not expect, as the Minister for Training and Skills in this state—that our private or even not-for-profit training providers would be putting a course like the Certificate I in Deaf Gain Education together. It is not going to be a high-volume course and it is unlikely to be a very profitable course, but that does not mean that it is not a course that we need to have and it does not mean that it is not a course that should be offered in South Australia and supported by the state government.

I think the fact that TAFE has stepped into this space and has done the work around putting the certificate I together—and, as the member for Hurtle Vale said, we are the first place in Australia to do it—is the kind of work I expect the public training provider to do. It is the kind of work we fund them to do. It is the kind of work I do not expect other training providers to do. It is an example of why we need to have a strong public training provider to move into some of the skills and training areas that are important for the state strategically. That might be in some of those areas of skills and training, where we are going to have a very large demand into the future but perhaps do not have that demand right now.

Some examples are probably around electro-technology and hydrogen. We know this state is making a big push into those areas, but the increases in demand in terms of the workforce are only just coming online. It is also in areas like this, with the provision of a Certificate I in Deaf Gain Education, a very particular area. I want to state from the outset that what the member for Hurtle Vale and I announced together just this Monday are good examples of why that work is important.

For anyone who would doubt that—I cannot imagine there would be anyone in this place who does—they need only get along to see some of the students who are studying that certificate I at the TAFE campus to get an incredibly powerful example of the importance of a course like this. It was a very humbling experience for me and the member for Hurtle Vale to be there. Most valuable for us was the opportunity at the end to sit with a couple of students. We had someone signing for us, but we had the opportunity to ask those students why they had decided to enrol in the course and what they were hoping to get out of the course. I found that really interesting.

I had the opportunity to speak to Bradley and Gaila. Bradley is a young man, I would say probably in his early 20s, and Gaila is an older woman. I sat and had a chat with Bradley and asked why this course was important to him. He spoke about improving his Auslan skills and keeping them sharp and said that one really important part of his certificate I course is to help students develop basic levels of proficiency in not just Auslan but also written English, numeracy and digital literacy, and other kinds of foundational skills needed to get employment now.

Bradley told me he already has a couple of jobs, so he has employment, but that brushing up on those skills and learning a bit more will help him either increase his hours of work or potentially change his career later on. So for him, the purpose of studying that certificate I was really clear. As I said, he is a young man in his 20s just starting out in the working world.

I then had an opportunity to speak to someone who was at a different stage in their life, Gaila. I asked her what incentivised her to do the cert I and she said it was good opportunity to stay connected with other people. We know that sometimes that is very hard for people in the deaf community. There are things that those of us who are not members of that community take for granted, which can be harder, that social contact. Gaila pointed to that as a reason she wanted to be part of the certificate I, to come along and meet other students.

There was another point that I thought was very interesting, and it is something that I think is easy for those of us outside the community to take for granted. Gaila commented that, just like spoken language, for instance English, Auslan is constantly changing. Some of the signing changes over time. Gaila said it is very easy, as a member of the deaf community, as they get a bit older, to get a bit out of touch with some of the new signing techniques. An example that she used was the signing for 'biscuit'. For reasons that she is not clear on, it is now signed differently, and there were also some other examples. She said having access to the certificate I gives her the opportunity to stay current with the signing techniques for now, which helps her get out there and make sure that she can communicate with different members of our society.

I want to thank the member for Hurtle Vale for being there with me on Monday and most of all thank those students for sitting down and speaking with us so frankly and honestly about why the provision of that certificate I is important and other things that we need to be doing as a government to support the community. I also thank TAFE for doing that fantastic work.

The other thing I will mention is what the member for Torrens spoke about, which is fantastic. I know she has a real interest in this because we have spoken about it on a number of occasions. Another thing that we did with TAFE last year, in this case as part of our agreement with the federal government for fee-free TAFE, was, in the first agreement, sign up to about 12,500 fee-free places. They have all been used, which is great, and we are now part way through a three-year deal with the federal government to offer a further 15,000 fee-free places.

In 2023 and 2024, as part of that fee-free TAFE provision, we offered Auslan certificates II, III and IV as fee free, so not just subsidised but at no cost at all, removing that barrier for anyone who wished to go along and learn Auslan at the certificate II, III or IV levels. I can tell you that the response was really positive. We had those who enrolled in certificate II as part of fee-free TAFE—and this is just in South Australia—115 enrolments; in certificate III, eight enrolments; and in certificate IV, 15 enrolments. That is a total, in not much more than 12 months, of 138 enrolments in one of the three different certificates in Auslan as part of fee-free TAFE, which I think is really important.

One of the things that I have watched very closely as part of fee-free TAFE, given that we have committed both state and federally to a lot of taxpayers' money, is that the people who are accessing it are people who would have accessed it anyway. I think that has certainly been true, and true, too, of those who have accessed the Auslan course.

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (12:25): I would just like to thank the Minister for Human Services, the member for Hurtle Vale; the Minister for Education, the member for Wright; the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the member for Morialta; and the member for Gibson, for their valuable contributions. I support the comments made by the education minister about making these courses available and easily accessible to people in the community who are wanting to do them because it really is about ensuring that we have, in our deaf community, equality of access and ability to communicate and receive communications through the sources that we spoke about earlier today.

Motion carried.