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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-10-16 Daily Xml
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DISABILITY SERVICES

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (12:36): I move:

That this house notes the failure of the government's reorganisation of disability services and policy to improve services to South Australians with a disability.

Members would be aware that I am no longer the shadow for disability. I was reluctant to give up that portfolio because I really have a great interest in that area. The previous minister (Hon. Jay Weatherill) and I both have a genuine concern about disability, but we have a profound disagreement about the philosophy underlying how we would approach the provision of disability services. It sounds all very good that the previous minister said, 'We will have a single waiting list. That is how we will approach this.' That sounds terrific, except that people with disabilities have multitudes of differing disabilities, and so you cannot really have a single waiting list, in any event.

The fundamental underlying philosophical difference between the former minister and I was that he is very much one who believes that all government services should be centralised into a huge bureaucracy and I believe that you get far better service out in the community by supporting the organisations that provide specific services to specific groups of people with various disabilities. I do not say for a moment that there is not a place for government in the provision of disability services. Indeed, had I been the minister for the past 6½ years, one of the first things I would have done was to ensure that we had some sort of baseline database of the needs of the disability sector in this state. I am sad to say that, after 6½ years in government, that information is still not available.

I would encourage the new minister to set about getting that baseline data because we do need to have real data about just who is in this state and what is the nature of the disabilities of which we are aware. Admittedly, brain injury can be acquired, so we do not know, in all circumstances, the disabilities that people will acquire, but we should at least know the people we already have with particular disabilities, what their disabilities are and what their likely needs resulting from that disability will be. It is very hard without that baseline information to make arrangements for how we will manage this whole disability area over a long period.

The previous minister and I, as I said, had this underlying philosophical discrepancy with my wanting to put more money into the community sector and the minister wanting to put it all in the central bureaucracy. We now have an even bigger and even less functional central bureaucracy than what we had previously. I think the government pulled apart and ceased to fund 10 or 11 organisations of note in the past 12 or 18 months. The biggest and most notable of those were: the Julia Farr Centre, the Independent Living Centre and the Intellectual Disability Services Council (IDSC). Those have now been basically taken over by the government.

I still strongly criticise the so-called trustees of Julia Farr Services because, in my view, they failed to meet their obligation as trustees. The property at Fullarton was given to the trustees—not those trustees, but the original trustees—to be held in trust for a particular sector of the disability community and, in absolute contravention of their sacred trust in that regard, they agreed to sell off that property to the government. The consequence is that now, instead of being used for the original purpose (it was originally, of course, called the Home for Incurables and, for good reason, that name was changed) of being the Home for Incurables or people with profound disability, what now sits in there is about 500 public servants. There are still about 120 people who manage to live there but that number is dwindling fairly rapidly and the buildings are mostly used for public servants.

In fact, I would be keeping a very close eye on this government in terms of what they are going to do with some of these buildings, because there is no doubt they are in a state of disrepair and falling into an increasing state of disrepair. I have seen governments do this before—they let things fall into disrepair and then say, 'We cannot really manage this appropriately so we had better sell it off'', and it will be sold to someone for some other purpose. I do not blame the government entirely for this because, as I said, I think the trustees of Julia Farr absolutely failed in their obligation as trustees and sold their sacred trust down the drain.

So Julia Farr has gone, the Independent Living Centre has gone and IDSC has gone, all into this giant bureaucracy. I would not be standing here complaining if the outcome of that was that we somehow had seen a dramatic improvement in the nature of disability services provided to people in this state, but there has been an abject failure of this government to provide an improvement in disability services. Indeed, we still lag well behind the national average and, in fact, I think we are still the bottom state in terms of per capita funding for people within the disability sector.

It seems to me that before the last election a lot of attention was paid to the disability sector, because they actually managed to get themselves organised. Unless you have actually spent some time working with people—not necessarily employees, but the parents and the families of people with profound disability—it is hard to realise how difficult it is for them to become politically active. It is not like when the people at a particular workplace decide they are going to march on parliament. Those people just get together, have their time off work and go and march on parliament, and it is all pretty straightforward.

For the disability sector, and a lot of people in that sector, just coming to parliament on a particular day is a major difficulty, because many of them operate with sleep deprivation and huge behavioural difficulties in the person they are caring for. They operate with the difficulty of wheelchairs or other impediments that make it difficult for them to access public transport or get Access Cabs, and so on. Every aspect of getting here is a trial, not to mention the lack of money to spend on doing those sorts of things.

So, it was, indeed, remarkable in the lead-up to the last election that the disability sector had, not just once but on a number of occasions, managed to get organised and get in here and to Elder Park—get involved in political activism in a way that had never been seen in this state before. I welcome it, because I think that the disability sector is important and the people in that sector are undervalued—both the paid workforce and the volunteers and carers. They are all undervalued. We as a community owe the families of the disabled people a huge debt.

I have said before in this place that, if you look at the way our society treated people with a disability, until about 50 years ago people who had a profoundly disabled baby were encouraged to leave that baby in an institution.

I remember reading a book by Roger Climpson (a news reader for some years) entitled Elinda. It was about a young girl, who, from memory, had nothing more than Down syndrome, or something with which we would normally expect nowadays that people would obviously take their child home. Yet, they were not allowed to take her home; indeed, they were discouraged from even visiting. That was a very sad thing.

I welcome the fact that over 50 years we have completely reversed that, so that now, when people have a child, no matter how profoundly disabled that child might be, they are encouraged to take that baby home and to love it and care for it. I welcome that, and I think that, largely, that is an excellent thing. It is an excellent thing for the child, and it is an excellent thing for families and for the community at large. That said, I believe that there is an obligation created on us as a society that, when that occurs, to owe it to those families who are saving us, after all, millions of dollars by not imposing the care of that child on the state. They are saving us millions of dollars over that child's life.

If you talk to any one of those parents, they will tell you that from the moment that child is brought home they are thinking, 'What's going to happen to my child when I am no longer able to care for my child; when we become too old, or frail, or we die?' I believe that, as a society, we will be judged on how we treat our most vulnerable. Unless we treat our most vulnerable with the dignity that they deserve and give them the helping hand that they deserve, then I think we have failed as a society.

My view is that we need to do everything we can, and I am sure that members on the opposite side also think that. The question is how we best achieve that outcome. My view is that it was a profound mistake by this government to say, 'We are going to manage it better by putting it all into a central bureaucracy.' That has not proved effective.

When I was the shadow minister, one of the arguments that the previous minister and I used to have was that he regarded a lot of these organisations as parent support groups. Whilst it is true that a number of them did start out as parent support groups, the reality was, first, they had become highly knowledgeable about the area of disability with which they were engaged. They had a far deeper knowledge of that area of disability than, mostly, even doctors and specialists. The other thing about them was that they ran on the smell of an oily rag. They did not really need very much money from the government to be functional.

I maintain the view that we would have been much better off as a community if we had continued to put money into those organisations. The sad thing is that, having dismantled them, having put all the money into this central bureaucracy, which is great for the bureaucrats because it gives them more reason to get bigger pay packets, the reality is that, not only did they not provide the same level of service, but, in fact, when you ring up people to this day they still want to contact the organisation that this government has now dismantled and stopped funding for its specialist knowledge.

I have been told time and again that people with a child with a disability have rung the department to say, 'Well, you know, my child's got this problem; I need to talk to someone about it.' And what do they do? They refer them back to the very organisation that they have said is not worth funding, because they are the people with the specialist knowledge. I do not blame the case workers within the department. They cannot possibly be expected to have the depth of knowledge of the issues and how to manage them, particularly from a parenting and carer's perspective, that the organisations that we used to have would have been able to provide.

It seems to me self-evident that there has been a failure; that this reorganisation undertaken by this government has been an abject failure. I hope that it is not too late to reverse what has happened. I suspect that it will be too late for various organisations in a number of cases. Of course, the other benefit it has is that, once you have bureaucratised everything and brought it into your department, who is left to complain? Who are the people who will be making the complaints? There is no organisation through which people can advocate system-wide improvement. They can certainly contact the department and complain as individuals, but they are left without a political voice—and that is the other sad thing about what has happened in the disability sector.

I am sure I speak for all of us in this chamber when I say that I want to see an improvement in disability services, but I profoundly disagree with the government on the manner in which it has approached this issue. I strongly believe that we should have given more support to the community organisations and to the parents, carers and families—not bureaucratised the system.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Families and Communities, Minister for Northern Suburbs, Minister for Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability) (12:51): I move to amend the motion so that it reads:

That this house notes the government's reorganisation of disability services and policy to improve services to South Australians with a disability.

Mrs REDMOND: Mr Speaker, I ask for a ruling on that amendment, because it seems to be completely contrary to the essence of my motion, and thus out of order.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order. The amended motion does negate the intent. I suggest that the way to proceed is for the minister simply to oppose the motion.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Thank you, sir. Prior to the formation of Disability SA, here in South Australia we had three sets of policies, different procedures and very different outcomes for people with disabilities in this state. With the formation of Disability SA, those policies and procedures have been amalgamated into a single set, resulting in significant improvements for service delivery in this state.

We have heard the member for Heysen assert a range of things in this house that have not been validated by any facts. I am told that in its first year of operation the service provision by Disability SA in fact increased by nearly 10 per cent. This motion actually gives me the opportunity to correct some other inaccuracies that are being peddled not by the former shadow minister but by the current shadow minister, who has been banging on in the media and putting out a whole range of things that are simply factually incorrect. In a media release dated 25 September he asserted that 'Disability SA is haemorrhaging staff'. He said:

There are consistent reports of an exodus of experienced and skilled professionals from Disability SA, leaving fewer people in a position to train those who remain.

My understanding is that we currently have a full-time equivalent vacancy of 3.7 people in occupational therapy and physical therapy. A couple of weeks ago I attended a ceremony to recognise people who had achieved the Certificate III in Disability Work qualification, and 261 Disability SA staff were recognised for their qualifications. The shadow minister went on to say:

The lack of therapists is leading to assessments being outsourced at up to five times the cost.

That is totally untrue. If we do assessments in-house, I understand it costs about $50 an hour. The outsourcing cost is between $65 and $85 an hour, not five times the cost. Yes, it is more expensive but when we have had the one-off injections that we have had over numerous budget cycles for equipment for people with disabilities, we are very keen on getting the equipment out there as quickly as possible. So, that is the aim of that but, again, the shadow minister got it wrong.

He also went on to say that independent research suggested that the department, Disability SA, has more than twice the number of executives per capita than Victoria and Western Australia, but that is simply not true. In fact, I have the figures here: South Australia has a ratio of 118.3 staff to executives; Western Australia has 158; and Victoria has 104. So, it is simply not true but that does not seem to stop the opposition banging on and peddling untruths, trawling out in the community for examples of situations that are not optimal but situations that might validate the assertions they are making.

The management of funding budgets has changed, and that means that there is much more local control about decision making and funding allocation. It has allowed regional managers unprecedented flexibility and delegation in response to clients' needs. Internal silos have been removed making it easier to work with clients with dual or multiple diagnosis. Prior to the reform, rather than a single point of access, there were three separate intake systems each with their own eligibility criteria. As part of the reform, a single entry process has been established for Disability SA services which includes a call centre for inquiries and referrals.

If a person contacts Disability SA with a need that can be addressed with the provision of information or brief assistance, this is provided immediately without the person having to be placed on a waiting list or having to meet eligibility criteria. If the presenting issues require more than brief assistance, intake and eligibility assessments are undertaken. Eligibility is now determined more on the basis of the person's functioning, and fewer people are falling through the service gaps.

Improvements to the procurement, repair and maintenance of equipment provided for people with a disability are under way, and this is about improving independence and access to the community. The Statewide Equipment Scheme establishes one administrative system for clients of both Disability SA and Domiciliary Care SA and aims to increase efficiency and purchasing power. Since June this year, equipment worth in excess of $1 million has been purchased. Again, the shadow minister said that Domiciliary Equipment Services was not capable of making the assessments. They are not required to do that; Disability SA does that.

The repair volumes have reduced significantly due to system changes. There has been a significant decrease in the number of repairs being outsourced, saving money which can be used to purchase further equipment and reduce waiting times. Prior to the formation of Disability SA and the Accommodation Placement Panel, there were multiple waiting lists, contact points and criteria for assessing supported accommodation. People with the highest needs often did not receive the next available vacancy. In addition, agencies could at times be tardy in notification of their vacancies.

The formation of Disability SA has seen the development of a single waiting list for accommodation, a single vacancy notification process and the allocation of accommodation places to those in greatest need through the Accommodation Placement Panel.

Debate adjourned.


[Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00]


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