HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-21 Daily Xml
Contents
Xml

Bills

Disability Inclusion (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 20 March 2024.)

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (12:00): I rise to speak on the Disability Inclusion (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill 2023 that is before us today. The disability inclusion bill passed by this parliament in 2018, and the Disability Inclusion Act 2018 (SA), went some way in making clear South Australia's role in supporting people in our community with disability, through focusing on rights and inclusion in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability, and Australia's National Disability Strategy.

Throughout my working life, including as a state schoolteacher, a member of parliament, as the secretary of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, and in my personal life, I have found myself advocating for persons with disability, and it is fair to say that the journey has often been one of continuous hurdles. For many in the community, from the very young to the most senior, the day-to-day challenges of living with disability can be overwhelming and, given that around one in five people in our community experience some form of disability, it is imperative that the surrounding issues receive government attention.

Legislation around disability inclusion is so important, because the vast majority of people with a disability have always and will continue to rely on mainstream services to go about their lives. I know that Minister Cook, in her role as Minister for Human Services, is dedicated to doing all she can to make the day-to-day lives of those with disability easier to navigate, whether it be through legislative change, access to services, suitable housing or appropriate infrastructure.

Our vision is that the disability inclusion bill, which will, with support, make some amendments to the Disability Inclusion Act 2018, along with commitments by the Malinauskas Labor government, will result in improvements to the lives of people in South Australia living with disability and, of course, this includes their families. The act has, as a requirement, that the minister cause a review of its operation before the fourth anniversary of its commencement. It is this requirement that brings the bill before us today.

The independent review on this occasion was conducted by Mr Richard Dennis AM PSM. It included multiple consultations with peak organisations, individual stakeholders and members of the public, along with written submissions. A peak sector in-person forum and a public forum were also held along with a YourSAy survey. In a nutshell, the aim of the review was to establish:

how effective the state Disability Inclusion Plan and state authority disability access and inclusion plans have been in supporting the objects and principles of the act;

how the act is operating in accordance with the objectives and principles;

the extent to which the objects and principles set out in the act are being recognised and applied;

any initiatives that could be adopted to enhance the alignment of the act with Australia's Disability Strategy 2021-2031; and

any other changes that should be considered.

The final report, which included 50 recommendations, most of which were broadly supported, was tabled in both houses of parliament in September 2022. Twenty of these recommendations related to legislation, nine to policy and, as is often the case in these types of reviews, 21 required operational considerations.

The Disability Inclusion (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill before us today addresses 14 of the 20 legislative recommendations. In saying this, it is important to highlight that other recommendations from the independent review into the act are being considered in the context of the review of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, and a review of the Disability Inclusion Plan. Among the 14 amendments addressed in this bill are ones that relate to:

people with disability, regardless of age, having a right to be safe, and to feel safe, through the provision of appropriate safeguards, information, services and supports;

amending sections within the act to enhance clarity and/or definition of the principles as they relate to people with significant intellectual disability, or who have high levels of vulnerability due to disability;

inclusion of a new section to provide for consultation and engagement activities by the minister on the operation of the act, and for both formal and informal committees to be established for this purpose.

There is another point the bill seeks to address that I would like to highlight: the amendment that requires the State Disability Inclusion Plan to contain a variety of provisions and that any documents prepared for the purpose of this consultation are in a form accessible to people with disability. This, of course, would include people with hearing and sight impairment.

I understand how significant this is, particularly through my association with See Differently with the Royal Society for the Blind, situated in my electorate in Gilles Plains, as well as Klemzig Primary School, the Centre for Deaf Education and Auslan Bilingual Preschool.

I want to commend the Minister for Human Services and her team for their strong advocacy and commitment to people with disability, as well as acknowledge the work in this space being carried out under the Malinauskas Labor government across a number of portfolios. Commitments that are making and will make a difference to the lives of people with disability, include:

the establishment of the Disability Minister's Advisory Council;

the commitment of $28.8 million for the rollout of autism lead teachers in public schools;

the development of the South Australian autism charter and State Autism Strategy, both of which have been subject to significant public and stakeholder consultation;

in my electorate of Torrens, a grant to run a school holiday swimming and water safety program at The Oaks Swim Centre for children with autism, because we have learnt that it is autistic children who are the most vulnerable when it comes to drownings and near drownings;

the establishment of the Office for Autism with an autistic director, and this office is currently running the Autism Works in the Community Grants Program, a program available to eligible organisations for activities that increase knowledge, understanding and belonging for the autistic and autism communities in South Australia;

agreeing to changes to the National Construction Code that comes into effect from October 2024. This will increase minimum accessibility and adaptability standards to silver level of Liveable Housing Design Guidelines in Australia;

the award-winning See Me For Me advertising campaign, highlighting people with physical, vision and intellectual disability;

halving the number of people with NDIS plans in hospital who are discharge-ready, including those who were ready for more than 100 days;

a review of Transition to Home services following quality and care complaints, which resulted in the implementation of training, staffing and process improvements;

currently working through the 222 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability;

currently working through the 136 actions arising from the NDIS review; and

increased funding to the Community Visitor Scheme.

These are only a few of the actions that have been taken. It is these and other actions taken by our state government and federal and local governments that will make a difference to people with disability. Inclusion is paramount to wellbeing, and we should do all we can to achieve this for people in our community living with disability.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (12:09): I rise to contribute to the debate. The member for Flinders has already indicated, as lead speaker for the opposition in this place, that the opposition is broadly in support of the bill. That might be subject to the possibility of moving certain discrete amendments between the houses, but I think that has been indicated by the member for Flinders and by other speakers in the course of the debate.

In terms of context, the Disability Inclusion Act 2018 commenced on 1 July 2018, and it is the work of its first review that has been conducted by Richard Dennis AM PSM that has led to what the government has brought to the house as the subject of this amendment bill that is termed the Disability Inclusion (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill 2023.

At the outset, I recognise the work of the Marshall Liberal government in legislating the act, as it did in 2018, and then in instituting the review that was then required in an orderly way in March 2022—and we all know what happened almost immediately following the commencement of the review process.

I do commend Richard Dennis for his work, which he went about diligently in the course of 2022 and which has led to the 50 or 51 recommendations, depending on whether you join up the last two of them. What we see here is that, I think, about 14 of those recommendations have found their way directly into being the subject of this particular bill that is before the house. It might be appropriate to categorise a number of the other recommendations as being appropriately incorporated into other discrete legislation, where they relate to matters such as worker screenings and restricted practices and so on.

I think it is important to note that we have seen the commencement of the 2018 act, we have then seen its orderly review by Richard Dennis in the course of 2022, and we are here: it is March 2024, and I suppose the passing of time—that two years since the commencement of the review—is, to some extent, it has to be said, disappointing. Time marches on, but this bill—albeit brought to the parliament last year, as the name of it indicates—is already several months down the track, so much so that, as I read it, we will see an amendment proposed to remove what is now an unnecessary schedule that would have provided for 'the annual report on the operation of the State Disability Inclusion Plan for the financial year ending on 30 June 2023' and then an interim report being provided for there, for the period 1 July 2023 to 31 December 2023.

Both those periods have well and truly passed. We are now charting a course that might be a matter for the committee, but it looks at this point as though we are really headed for substantive commencement of these changes to disability inclusion plans into the 2024-25 financial year and otherwise later in this calendar year. So it is a while coming in terms of the implementation of a review that was commenced and completed a couple of years ago now.

The act, in the scheme of things, is still relatively new. For the state to have a Disability Inclusion Act on the statute books is a statement, as other contributors to the debate have made clear, of clear intent by our state and our parliament to ensure that when we talk about taking real steps towards better inclusion and more complete participation in all respects of daily life for those living with disability we are doing something about it and we are taking on standards that have been adopted around the world.

Of course, the act is perhaps first and foremost an opportunity to state in terms of the statute the state's adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That convention is well known. It was ratified by the Australian government in 2008 and that ratification, 10 years prior to the enactment of the act, was a demonstration of the Australian government's commitment to promoting and supporting equal and active participation by people with disability in what has been described as economic and social life, in ordinary day-to-day life in our community as well as in participation in jobs and family and in every respect.

We know what the convention is about. It is of long standing, and the act's purpose in setting out adherence to it remains at the core. The convention in substance requires that the operation, administration and enforcement of these matters the subject of the act are supporting and furthering the principles and purposes that are set out in the convention as much as is reasonably practicable.

The key means by which the act does this, and the only aspects that are the subject of this bill—perhaps I am being too prescriptive. The real work of the amendments the subject of this bill are towards consideration of part 2 and parts 3, 4 and 5 of the act, insofar as they primarily make adjustment to disability inclusion plans.

I indicate that those parts of the act that are not addressed directly in the bill include specifically part 5A—screening of NDIS workers; part 6—screening of persons working with people with disability; part 6A—restrictive practices; part 7—Community Visitor Scheme; part 8—National Disability Insurance Scheme; and part 9—information gathering and sharing. The act is also dealing with that range of subject matter.

As I have said, the purposes of this amendment bill are about implementing those 14 or so recommendations of Richard Dennis that apply really for the most part to the state disability inclusion plans and about considerations that might now be able to be described with more particularity in the light of the first four years of experience and in terms of what Richard Dennis has found.

Before I address that in any more detail, I want to recognise a bit of further context that might not be obvious to someone following the debate more broadly. We talked about the UN convention. The act and in turn the bill, indeed the recommendations the subject of the review, have been the subject of really thoroughgoing consideration by a whole range of stakeholders. We have interested members of our communities, of course, but I do want to single out the response of the LGA, which in what was really a very thoroughgoing, wideranging submission, set out to address each of those 50 or 51 recommendations of Richard Dennis and has really committed itself to a fairly detailed consideration of what the objects of the act mean for local government and what the disability inclusion plans mean for local government.

I recognise the LGA's keen and thorough involvement and, indeed, local government more broadly. I will be interested to perhaps explore any particular matters that have been raised by individual councils. We know that the LGA is a well-recognised and well-respected body speaking up on behalf of individual councils, and so for the moment, I just highlight that aspect in particular.

The changes that are set out, as I say, in large part directing themselves to the disability inclusion plans, include some discrete changes to the principles that guide the operation of the act. I just want to single out in particular clause 4's insertion of a requirement that the minister 'seek the views of people with disability' when exercising the minister's task in accordance with requirements in the regulations and so forth. It is an important addition.

We continue to have a way to go in terms of structuring the identification of rights that all people have in community. That will be guided by experts to some degree. It is the task of legislators here in this place but it is perhaps an area in which the views of those who are living with disability in practical ways ought to be very much at the centre of how we continue to learn, so it is a very important change set out the subject of clause 4. Apart from adverting to the additional principle, there will be a new paragraph (ja) to section 9(1), the subject of clause 6, adding to the expression of those rights of people with disability:

…the right to be safe, and to feel safe, through the provision of appropriate safeguards, information, services and support, and through appropriate and accessible reporting mechanisms…

An important addition. In the same clause, and I refer to the greater particularity that has now been informed by the first review of the act, we see the insertion of a new principle in addition to those principles otherwise set out in the section, acknowledging the right of those people with significant intellectual disability or who have high levels of vulnerability due to disability:

(a) people with significant intellectual disability or who have high levels of vulnerability due to disability have a right to feel safe, to enjoy dignity in their lives, and to participate in the community in meaningful way;

With that in mind in particular, I am mindful of the day-to-day life of my friend Andrew Sands, who is a resident in the Hills in Stirling, just around the corner from the Stirling Hospital. He has been happily there for a long period of time. Andrew is an ornament to our community and he enjoys the dedicated support of his parents, Ross and Janet, who have in turn been advocates for those living with disability, in particular adults with disability, and provisions for their care in circumstances where they require it and family members might ultimately be unable to provide that assistance.

Andrew lives with significant intellectual disability. It does not stop him from being very active in our community to the extent that Andrew is in the practice of publishing and circulating fairly widely a regular newsletter, more or less monthly, and by that newsletter he spells out this range of activities that he has engaged with in the community. It perhaps illustrates the nature of both challenges and opportunities. To take his recent newsletter in February this year, Andrew talks about participating in cooking classes run by OzHarvest, together with The Hut at Aldgate, a happy experience.

He is also benefitting from working alongside See Differently at the Royal Society for the Blind, which has interacted very positively with Andrew. He has got out and about in the community with the support of both family and organised community support. I always enjoy hearing from Andrew, and I think he is one example of illustrating the sorts of challenges and opportunities that we as legislators can better facilitate by doing our work. I commend the debate and participation of the committee in due course.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (12:30): I rise today to add my contribution to the Disability Inclusion (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill 2023 and do so in the context of outlining and again reiterating the opposition's support for the bill. It is a bill that has been a long time coming in terms of being brought on for debate within this house. That is the reason that we have an amendment on file from the government to update the time frames of the rollout of the recommendations that arose on the back of the Dennis review.

The disability inclusion bill was moved under the previous government and for the first time provided a requirement for public agencies to develop disability inclusion plans to outline how they were going to deal with the issue of ensuring, as best as possible, inclusion for people with a disability within their service delivery, their workplaces and, more broadly, their interactions with the community.

Each of those agencies were, over a period of time, asked to develop these plans. Those plans have been in place now for a number of years, and part of the original act that was moved on the back of the bill through this place was to require a review to be undertaken on the back of that implementation to determine and assess how effective the disability inclusion plans have been in achieving what is, I certainly believe to be, the goal of the entirety of this parliament to, as best we can, develop, foster and improve disability inclusion across the whole of our community.

On the back of that review being undertaken, there were a range of recommendations that were made and put to government. Of those, a number were determined as not needing legislative change to be implemented. Those now rest with the government to roll out across the breadth of government agencies within South Australia. That responsibility lies entirely with the government itself. A range of those recommendations have been deemed to be requiring legislative change to implement. A number but not all of those sit within the bill before us today that we are considering, and that both the government in moving this bill and the opposition, as previously indicated, will be supporting.

For those who have been in this place across the time that I have been here, my contributions on the issue of disability I always find to be a reasonably delicate balance and one that obviously straddles my previous involvement and previous life, where being a strong advocate for people with a disability and changing the perceptions of disability within our community was absolutely at the forefront of everything that I did.

I know and understand that I have to balance that advocacy in the same way as charting my own course in this place with the interests and other areas of focus that I need to advocate for on behalf of my broader community and also my role within the party room. So, when I do make contributions on these issues, I hope they are taken in a way that is always in the best way possible—helpful, informed and with a view that is perhaps different to many others in this place and that comes from a place of personal experience as well.

If we look at the broader issue of perception of people with a disability, there are a range of different areas across our society that we still have work to improve. I do not think anybody within this chamber, the other chamber or many parliaments across the Western world would disagree with that fact. One of the primary and most important areas for every person with a disability is employment. We still have a long way to go in terms of representation, in terms of creating a workplace culture both within the public system and more broadly within the private sector as well, where all people with a disability can be comfortable to put their hand up and say that they are somebody with a disability, without fear of potential bias, perception or otherwise of what that would mean for their career or their job opportunities into the future.

We still have obviously issues of access across workplaces, this one itself here probably being one of the prime examples. Prior to two parliaments ago, there had not really ever been contemplation of a person with a disability in a wheelchair and how that would actually work in this place, noting that it is obviously a significant building that has significant historic value. But there are still parts of this building that need to be updated, changed or improved to make it as accessible as possible not just for those who work here and those who have the need to visit this building from time to time but also from a general public perspective of access to this building. It is something that I still think could be improved further, without a shadow of a doubt. It is something that I am sure the Clerk will be pleased to hear, as it is his domain and his responsibility. I think it is fairly obvious and goes without saying.

When it comes to the preparation of CVs and the interview process for people with a disability, again there are probably misconceptions and ways that we could improve that process both across the public sector and, more broadly, the private sector as well.

I will leave the domain of employment to one side, noting that clearly, in my view, it is one of the most important for that cohort of people that I am a part of. Employment is the very basis of our contribution to society more broadly. It is the basis of our fundamental place in terms of contribution, respect and acknowledgement of purpose. That is why any conversation around disability inclusion I think needs to start and end around employment.

But there are broader issues as well, particularly in the domain of sport, which is obviously one that I am well and truly accustomed to. There was something very special over the years that I was involved. While those involved in elite sport from a broader perspective obviously do everything they can to represent their family, themselves, their country, their support network and everybody who has got them there, there is something that makes Paralympic sports, something that makes sport for people with a disability, somewhat different, which is that we do it with an understanding and compete with an understanding that we are there for more than just sport.

The opportunity to shift from a preconceived idea of what is possible, that penetrates not just through sport but through the wider community, the legacy that is being left by the Paralympic movement and more broadly disability sport over the last 20 years, again—this is my view—I do believe that has played in some way, shape or form an important role in shaping broader society's change and perception of people with a disability.

You need only look at the legacy of the London Games and what that meant for that city, what that meant for that public service at a national level, and what that meant for the requirements that were placed on corporate sector employees around disability employment. The legacy of the games, from the perspective of a person with a disability, was about far more than the two-week period of time where the athletes were in the pool, on the track or on the court. The legacy was the underlying societal change of the requirements that were placed on those employers, with disability employment being one of the key legacy items that was agreed to by that organising committee, but more broadly it was the penetration of seeing that spectacle—the change in the broader perception of people with a disability across the general community was significant over that period of time.

The minister and I have a shared passion for Special Olympics and its role in that journey in changing the perception of what is possible and laying the foundation for a better future for people with a disability past our generation as well. This is not something that is a linear concept; it is not something that stops with this generation. It is about putting in place the stepping stones of perception change that will outlast this generation and into the next.

If we look at the community sector more broadly, while I think everybody would like to think that we have made significant changes, it is probably one of the areas where particularly at council level—and again, this is a personal view—we could probably still do better. The opportunity for us to provide inclusive services at the council level is still something that I think sometimes leaves a lot to be desired.

I think we have had a significant shift in catering for those citizens in our society who need additional help in aged care. I think there has been a shift in the local government sector to be very cognisant of the particular services and ways that they can help and assist through a range of different programs at the local government level. I hope that, on the back of the original bill and the Disability Inclusion Act coming into force, that will provide some extra thought provocation within the local government sector as to what more can be done in this area as well.

Importantly, one of the departments required under the act to build their disability inclusion plan is the Department for Education. Again, if we talk about employment, the precursor to that is education. No different to any other child in South Australia, our goal and ambition as a parliament is—and should be—to provide everybody with the best education we possibly can.

While models of delivery have changed over time, while there have been shifts to, from and around the level of inclusion, and where those specific programs can contribute well to the development of a person with a disability, the underlying factor here is that the cohort of people that we are talking about is very broad. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. My view of what inclusion looks like may be very different from another person with a disability's view of what inclusion looks like.

There are some within the disability community who would still love to see programs that cater for a very specific cohort of people. There has been a more generalised view that the further we shift towards inclusion at all levels is a good thing. I am not here to say that one view or the other is right or wrong, but the very fundamentals of what has underpinned the shift, particularly at the federal level in terms of service delivery, has been about the individual.

If the individual and if the parents are still of the view that what is best for their child is a program that may be more specific than perhaps others would like, I think we still have to have an open mind as to what services are delivered within our education system and also within the community more broadly. At the end of the day, we are looking to achieve a goal.

Again, I note that this is not a homogenous view or a homogenous group of people by any stretch of the imagination, and we are as different as any other subsection of the community, but as set out in the bill itself, nobody is looking for anything more than to be supported and to be safe, to be treated no differently from anybody else, to be an equal contributor to society. To me, those are the fundamental underpinnings of what we are trying to achieve here.

The view as to the practical rollout as to what that looks like may differ, and again I think most of that is on the back of what we have just discussed: that in the broad subsection of people with a disability in the community there is no homogenous view of what inclusion looks like.

The underlying principles I think are well agreed—that everybody is looking for an opportunity to be treated as an equal, an opportunity to contribute to society, an opportunity to gain employment that fulfils their desires, wants and needs. How we achieve that we may have divergent opinions on, but at the end of the day if we are going to go down a path of seeking to highlight the individual as the very basis for what we should be seeking to support, then we should be still allowing, as best as possible, a broad range of different service delivery models to support that.

In terms of where to from here, obviously I think the timeliness of this change and for this bill to pass is of a level of importance now, to see the review being undertaken, to see the recommendations that were handed down. We obviously want to see progress on the changes and improvements that can be made to the plans that have been drawn up by the various public agencies and also to see those recommendations implemented as quickly as possible.

While the range of changes that require legislative instruments to effect have to work their way through that process, those that can be undertaken without the need for this place to be involved I certainly hope—and would be confident that this is the minister's view likewise—need to be progressed as quickly as possible.

There are further opportunities for us into the future still around broader reform in the public sector for people with a disability. I do not think in any way that we should limit ourselves just to disability inclusion plans. As I said at the start of my contribution, employment is and should always be the start and the end of the conversation, because that is the pathway to inclusion. It is a pathway to a life that is valued, a life that contributes to broader community and a life that provides the financial stability and independence that comes with a job.

I am very proud of the path I charted in contributing to that broader effort over the period of time, but I know that I am just one of many and was in a point of time in that transition. There are many who have come after me that continue through the Paralympic movement to chart that course and change perception and enliven what is a much broader campaign to change and improve the lives of people with a disability.

That is what this legislation is seeking to achieve, that is why the opposition will be supporting it, and that is why we must, at all times, across both sides of the aisle within this chamber, be considered, be mindful and be respectful of the different views that sit right across the full cohort and spectrum of people with a disability within our community. With those words, I commend the bill to the house.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley) (12:49): I, too, rise to speak in support of the bill, really as somebody who has been a layperson or a passive engager, if you like, of knowing people with disability, serious disabilities in particular. A very dear schoolfriend of mine at age 23 was thrown from a horse. He had his own livestock business that he started while he was still a teenager. He ended up with a break so high that he was technically quadriplegic and has been living a very satisfying and rewarding life in a wheelchair.

Some of the experiences earlier on when we did a lot more things socially together were having to deal with restaurants, for example, for a restaurant booking. You would make a booking and you would be courteous and say, 'By the way, we will need a chair removed because one of the guests is in a wheelchair,' and when you got to the restaurant, the restaurant being obviously concerned about the impact that a person with a visible disability might have on other diners, you would find your table would be right in the far corner of the restaurant.

Every single person sitting at their table on the way to that table, which was allocated to you because you indicated you had a guest coming with you who was in a wheelchair, had to get up and move their chairs so that the person in a wheelchair could actually reach the table. We learnt from that. Every time we made a booking subsequent to that we would explain that there was somebody who was in a wheelchair and that we would need a table preferably without a pedestal with four legs so they could sit between the legs and it needed to be near the door.

Sometimes you had to explain why it needed to be by the door to the person taking the booking. The easiest way to explain that was to use the example of, 'If you don't, all of your diners will have to get up and make a pathway for that guest to get to the table. Do you want that to happen?' Of course, they did not want that to happen. Self-interest rather than courtesy is what has got the change of arrangements or the arrangements as requested.

I think one of the aims I would like to see from this amendment bill is a much broader awareness of disabilities and a greater acceptance of them for general members of the community. To give another example, my same friend, many, many years ago, on a bright day was in his wheelchair in Rundle Mall wearing his sunglasses, and a young boy pointed at him and said quite loudly to his mother, 'Look, Mum, there is a blind man.' He had worked out that there was a disability there—he had the dark glasses on—and thought that he was blind because he was in the wheelchair.

I dream of a day when a disability is not considered as a barrier in so many more situations. Although I am very supportive of the provision of a membership of a committee for the minister, I would like to see those with committee ability appointed to committees other than just disability committees.

It is a bit like when women first started being appointed to boards, they tended to be appointed to boards to deal with mothers and women's issues. To broaden out the acceptance and understanding of disability, we need people with disabilities appointed to economic boards, artistic boards, creative boards, boards with everybody else and not boards where the main criteria is that you have a disability.

The fact that you have a disability should have no bearing on your capacity or ability to sit on another board. It may well be that you will be able to bring some very valuable life experience to a board. A classic example is a training board, for example, where there are so many opportunities and there is actually a measure in that space for people with disabilities in training.

That brings me to the inclusion plan. There is a section there specifying measurable outcomes for each priority area identified in the State Disability Inclusion Plan. I would like to think that some of those measures would be employment and career outcomes—not just a job but an actual career pathway—and how we are seeing self-esteem as people become more independent with a disability through their employment and their careers. Outcomes in that space would be a very good ambition to be included in outcomes.

Life expectancy: my friend in a wheelchair, who is 61 this year, was told that he would be lucky to reach his 50th birthday. The fact that he is now entering his 60s shows how quality of life and health has improved for people with disabilities, but we still have a long way to go. Quality of life: not just life at home but social life, opportunities through quality of life and care are obviously important, but opportunity is also important. We do not want disability to be a barrier to opportunity. We want to ensure that as many opportunities as possible are available.

As the member for Colton said, we do not want a one size fits all. Opportunity will come in different ways for people with disabilities, and it is a matter of identifying support if needed, or awareness of those opportunities, so they can be adopted by those who want to do it. The biggest thing is measuring community-wide understanding of disabilities in the community and what impact that has for those with disabilities and what those who are sharing the community with people with disabilities should consider.

I do think that a lot of people, when coming across somebody who might have quite a severe disability, can find that quite confronting and not quite understand how to respond. We will often hear somebody speaking loudly to a person who is blind, thinking they are having trouble hearing what they have to say. I have seen that time and again. You have to remind them that that person can hear you but they might have trouble seeing you, so there is no need to speak more loudly to that person. A broader understanding is something that should be a measurable outcome of the specific clause in the bill. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT