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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-05-06 Daily Xml
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Fleurieu Peninsula Organisations

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (17:03): Thank you, sir, and first let me congratulate you on your re-election to the Chair's position. It seems to have been achieved without the ritual bloodletting of that of the President in another place. However, I raise two issues today in relation to two organisations on the south coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula, one being Encounter Centre and the other one being the Southern Fleurieu Cancer Support Group. The government pretends that it gives a lot of consideration to volunteers, but in this case, the state government is planning to cut off funding to both organisations, and it is going to prove just about impossible for these organisations to continue.

The Encounter Centre has been going since 1974. It is largely a volunteer organisation. There are only three or four people who work there who are paid. The rest is all done by voluntary work. The Encounter Centre looks after the disabled people of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula. It does an immensely great job. It has, from time to time, had its hiccups but is, at the moment, and has been for some years under Mr Bruce Lindqvist, running particularly well.

The board, Mr Lindqvist and others are seriously worried that a reduction or a loss of funding on 30 June will mean that the Encounter Centre no longer operates. This is going to have huge ramifications for considerable numbers of disabled people who attend that facility. It is their way of putting into the community, so to speak. It gives them an aim of getting to the Encounter Centre on their specified days. I am talking about, in many cases, seriously disabled people who cannot cope for themselves and who need the stimulation in a mutual environment.

I will talk about one of the people who goes there called Mr Phillip Waller, who I knew from when he used to live on Kangaroo Island. He came out of extremely bad circumstances and has absolutely blossomed since he has been able to attend the Encounter Centre.

I say to the government: if you want to cut the funding to this place and you think that you are doing a great job with volunteers and looking after disabled people, you are effectively going to cripple a seriously large number of people in the community down around Victor Harbor and the south coast who, through no fault of their own, are in the position they are in and will be left with nothing to go to and nothing to do. You are also going to have people out of work, simply because the volunteers cannot run the place without the funding. That is one issue.

The other issue I want to draw attention to is the Southern Fleurieu Cancer Support and Resource Group's service of running people to Adelaide. There was discussion in this place last year on PATS (the Patient Assistance Transport Scheme), and that is still in the melting pot as I understand.

These Fleurieu cancer support group cars run people back and forth to Adelaide with, once again, volunteer drivers who do a magnificent job. They are keen to go and they have in the past been able to get some funding for transporting the people from Flinders Medical Centre and also the Royal Adelaide Hospital, largely. Now they have been advised that that has been cut off. The local communities and service clubs, etc., put amounts of money into the Southern Fleurieu Cancer Support and Resource Group holistically but, more particularly, they put money into assisting the volunteer car service which brings people up.

If you live in the bush, you do not have public transport, and you do not have to live far out of Adelaide not to have public transport. These people are from across my electorate and the electorates of other people in here: Flinders, Chaffey, whatever. The reality is you cannot just jump on public transport—a train or a bus—come up for an appointment at 11 o'clock and get back home again. It just does not work. In this case, the Premier Stateliner does not get to Adelaide until 11 or 11:30, and it leaves again early. People cannot slot into these positions, so these cars are absolutely critical to the wellbeing of cancer sufferers who have to come to Adelaide for specialised treatment.

We do have chemotherapy chairs down in the South Coast District Hospital, which went in over the last year or two and which have been successful, but there is much more to cancer treatment than having those chemotherapy chairs down there. It will be decidedly disastrous if this service has to stop.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Little Para.

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