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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-09-14 Daily Xml
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Disability Inclusion (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 13 September 2023.)

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (12:20): I will continue my remarks. Additionally, it can be a condition that is diagnosed later in life, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in women. Many autistic women are not diagnosed until they reach adulthood, and this is for two main reasons: first, the set of autistic traits set out by professionals most accurately reflect the realities of autistic boys and men and, second, girls and women with ASD are better at masking or hiding their autistic traits.

We must ensure that, as we are doing in other areas of the community, we break down sexism and gender discrimination in the disability community. There is never any place for sexism, racism, homophobia or ableism anywhere in our community.

The next clause inserts important principles into the act, including the right for people with a disability to feel safe through the provision of appropriate safeguards, information, services and support. We all have a right to feel safe and be safe, whether it is at home, in the community or at work. People living with a disability should never be subjected to neglect, abuse or exploitation and it is our responsibility as a community, just like with our children and young people and older community members, to speak up if we see this occurring.

Clause 5 additionally provides people living with a disability and their families and representatives as appropriate the right to participate in the design and delivery of inclusive policies and programs. Just like the Voice, it is about providing people with input into policies that directly affect them. This bill reminds state and local government that they should take reasonable steps to assist people to learn about their rights and develop ways in which they can, or their families or representatives can, report violations of those rights.

The changes in this bill are about empowering our disability community and these principles go further to ensure those living with a significant intellectual disability are not forgotten or excluded by this bill. Moreover, they are identified as a priority group that is particularly vulnerable in our community. Further clauses ensure that the chief executive informs the minister on systemic or emerging accessibility and inclusion issues and, additionally, the State Disability Inclusion Plan.

This plan must set out whole-of-government policies and strategies giving effect to the principles and purposes of the UN convention and other international human rights instruments and specify priority areas for improvement and further measurable outcomes for each priority area. Importantly, the documents must be in a form that is accessible to people with a disability. This could be in large font or braille or include pictures and diagrams or be an audio resource. The whole of government must be on the same page.

Clause 12 requires state authorities to review their disability access and inclusion plan within six months of any changes to the State Disability Inclusion Plan and, if there is variance, update it so it is consistent with the State Disability Inclusion Plan. In addition to this overarching statewide plan, the act requires almost 100 state authorities, including government agencies and all 68 local councils, to develop their own disability access and inclusion plans. This section is extremely important, as people living with a disability should expect the same level of accessibility and inclusion across all levels of government.

I am proud to be part of a state government that is standing up for those who are vulnerable and ensuring that everyone can live a life where they are included, they are safe and they are listened to. I commend this bill to the house.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (12:24): I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on the Disability Inclusion (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill 2023. Of course, as Minister for Education it is something that is a consideration for me as minister, for the education department more broadly and for all our staff not just in the public education system but in the education system more broadly in South Australia, and in the Independent and Catholic systems as well.

I think it is probably a very good example of an area where the education systems nationally have probably not done a fantastic job of keeping pace with changes in terms of always making sure that we are inclusive and making good on the commitment that is really central and at the core certainly of all our schools. The public education system does not turn anyone away. It is all about inclusivity, and one of the commitments that we make is that we will be able to accommodate a student, whether it is preschool, primary school or high school, no matter what complexities they might come to that site with.

We know that there have been a lot of changes in this area over the last few decades—positive changes. In a previous life, I worked for a former Minister for Disabilities in South Australia, so certainly I saw it from that perspective, and at that time the NDIS was coming into effect. There was a big change from it being a state-run system. I went a number of times to Strathmont as a staffer to speak to people there, to meet with parents primarily of younger people who had a disability and who lived there, and I think that really laid bare for me at that time how complex these issues can be for families.

There was always a strong desire and effort from the state system, as there is now. I know from the minister, the member for Hurtle Vale, that we must do everything we can, but of course sometimes we do fall short. That is also true of our education system, that sometimes we fall short, and sometimes I think we have not done as well as we should have in keeping pace with what I would describe as excellent and welcome changes in society's view of how people with disability should be treated.

I am 42 years of age and certainly in my lifetime I have seen those changes, but if I talk to my parents, or when I used to talk to my grandparents, about the things that they saw when they were younger around what society accepted in terms of the treatment that people with disability got compared with what society will quite rightly not tolerate now, these are excellent changes.

However, as we often know, the mechanisms and the systems that are a part of government—state, federal and NGO—often move more slowly than we want. I think that has been true in the disability space as well, but I can tell you that it is not for the lack of trying or willingness on behalf of ministers like the minister for disabilities, the member for Hurtle Vale, and me as Minister for Education.

I think that if we look at those societal changes more broadly, and I guess, too, a lot of the attention that is now brought to bear on issues through things like social media, which is a change too, we know that social media is very much a two-edged sword: it can be a force for good and it can be a force for bad as well. It is an extra complexity for the lives of members of parliament, bureaucrats and ministers now. You are having to respond to individual issues which are put on social media for all to see.

Of course, it is a positive in the sense that it gives those families a voice that they did not have before. It does make the jobs of the system responding more difficult than they used to be, I guess, but I see it overall as a real upside. Often those people were voiceless and their ability and capacity to tell their individual stories, about where systems had fallen short in terms of supporting their family members who had disability with their lives, were able to be told in a powerful way. The burden that places upon the system responding is that there is always a story there for the media. I do not criticise them for that. I am not saying the stories are not legitimate because they are.

In these jobs that the member for Hurtle Vale and I do, and I would say the member for Kaurna, the Minister for Health, as well, and the Minister for Child Protection—just to name a few examples of forward-facing portfolios that deal a lot with people offering services to members of the South Australian public—it can be tricky to walk that balance between trying to respond to issues that arise not infrequently of cases or alleged cases where the services we provide in our different portfolios have not been positive or as they should be. That is I guess here to stay; it is not going to change. Social media is not going away. I think people's reliance on it and use of it is only growing, and, again, our system has to adapt to that.

My experiences go back to my mother's work when I was growing up in south-west Victoria. Mum was a caseworker for families that had people with a disability, quite complex disabilities. She managed all the services for those families, and this was well and truly pre NDIS. We are talking about 20 years when my mother first started doing that and I was in grade 6, so that was 1993. It was the local council then, before the amalgamations that were to come, that managed those services for clients, so a big change then.

It was a job my mum took very seriously. Of course, she was always incredibly stringent about not talking about the private details of any of her clients. That was tricky because we lived in a very small town, so invariably you would have known who those people actually were. She spoke at length about the complexity and difficulties of the lives of these people, particularly in regional areas, and trying to get the services they needed.

One of the things that has certainly stuck with me—and I have spoken to the member for Hurtle Vale and heard the member for Hurtle Vale speak about this too—and does bring a tear to your eye, is when you talk to parents of a child with a quite complex disability who has required essentially full-time care for their whole life, the majority of which has been provided by those parents, and you hear from those parents, when reaching the end of their lives, the worry they have about how that child of theirs will be cared for and supported, and who their advocate and voice will be when they pass away.

I reckon one of the saddest things I have encountered as a member of parliament in my local area is talking to elderly couples who are at that stage and just sick with worry about what will happen when they are gone, when they have cared for their own child and been the loudest voice in the room for their child for that child's entire life. Of course, no-one can really replace that fierce, unyielding kind of advocacy a parent provides for their own child. You just cannot replicate that; it is not possible.

That is one of the things that I know the minister deals with as well. It is not just about the support that is provided to the person who has a disability; it is also about what support we provide to the people around that person. I see that in my role as Minister for Education. Just today, I visited, with the member for Newland, Modbury South Primary School, which is co-located with Modbury Special School and Modbury High School. It is a fantastic model and they are fantastic schools.

I said at the start of my comments that the public system has to cater for everyone, because we do not turn people away, and I know that those three schools, because of their co-location and the way their three leaders, Joanne, Ginny and Denise, work together as three principals to find ways to accommodate not just students with disability who might be at a point of either transitioning from mainstream to the special unit but also sometimes those who might be transitioning from the special school into mainstream.

I spoke to Denise today around opportunities that we have and that the three principals of those schools would like us to explore about where there might be, I think she described them as, splinter skills, which I had not heard before—students in the special school who have splinter skills where they might be really advanced and could be thriving in a mainstream setting, but because in other skill areas they do not have the same aptitude, they are placed for all of their learning in the special school.

Our system is too rigid to enable movement for just some parts of that child's education between those sites, but what we have at Modbury Special and Modbury South and Modbury High are three leaders who are willing to find a way to make it work so that you might have the enrolment at Modbury Special School but the child there has these splinter skills which are well and truly going to fit in at the mainstream site, which is about 50 metres away. It is trying to find a way between those sites and making it work.

I think that is a fantastic example of where, with what can sometimes be very old, archaic systems where the broad bureaucracy struggles to get its head around ideas of how we change things that have been done the same way for decades, we can actually be bold and we can be innovative on the back of the fantastic leadership of people like Denise, Joanne and Ginny and do something really different there that benefits those children.

The point I wanted to make around that site, and coming back to the point I was trying to make around the complexity of service provision in this area, is it is not just the person with disability. It is also the impact it can have on siblings. I see that in the education system, and I was talking today to the principal of Modbury South Primary School. Deputy Speaker, you will certainly know from your many long years of advocacy for your area that we categorise schools according to relative advantage and disadvantage on a one to seven scale. It is rare that you will find a school that is happy with where it finds itself on that scale. Where they are on that scale can also determine some of the extra money that they are given from the public education system generally to tackle what would be higher levels of complexity on their site.

I was talking to Denise, the principal of Modbury South, who said that because they get a lot of out-of-zone enrolments at Modbury Special School, because of the amazing services and education it offers and the very strong reputation it has more broadly in the north-east, the way we calculate those levels of disadvantage is not particularly accurate for that site, because there are lots who do not live in the postcode on which the school's rate is calculated on but are sent to Modbury Special School because it has a great reputation.

Often those students have siblings who are not in a special school, and they go 50 metres away to Modbury South, but it is the same situation for that school in terms of calculating its relative level of disadvantage or complexity: it is not particularly accurate. I know, having spoken to principals like Denise Squire at Modbury South, which has a disproportionately high number of siblings of young people with disability, it does take a toll on the siblings as well.

I think that is another thing that probably was lost in the past when we spoke around issues in this area, because the focus was on the person with disability and we rarely looked at the whole picture of the family. We now talk about the parents and the carers—that is good—but I know that I have tried to keep my focus as much as I can on what we do to support siblings of children who are in either special classes or special schools, because there is a lot of data that suggests that sometimes their education can be impacted by that as well, and we have to put some extra supports in there to make sure that we are assisting them whenever we can.

One of the things topical in my area, insofar as this amendment bill that we are talking about today is concerned—and particularly around disability inclusion, I might add—is that we have what is called the Inclusive Education Support Program (IESP). It is the funding for which schools can apply to the central education office if there is a child or a student they think needs extra support. It might be one-on-one support from an SSO ranging from level 1, the lowest category of additional support, to level 9, the highest category of additional support.

In the context of the enterprise bargaining negotiations currently underway with the education union, some who have been following this might have seen that in the second offer we put just this week one of the items we have included is around making changes to the IESP process. This will make it easier for schools like Modbury South Primary School, for instance, that have a relatively high number of students in their cohort of about 200 students who need IESP extra funding. We are trying to make that process easier for the schools, in terms of the application process—which is, in the context of the enterprise bargaining negotiations, around workload and workload reduction.

Separate to that, the other very clear and welcome benefit will be that we can get the support faster to the students who require it, under that Inclusive Education Support Program money. One of the things I have certainly noticed, and most of the traffic that came to me as shadow education minister—and I suspect that my counterpart, the former minister, the member for Morialta, would agree with me on this—is often advocacy from parents of kids with disability or a learning difficulty on how long it takes to get access to the extra support they need.

My observations have been that the system eventually does tend to get it right—not always, but it does eventually tend to get it right. What I have observed is that it takes an inordinate amount of time for the decision to be made, and you are setting aside the effect it would have on the young person who is in the class and not receiving the support they need while that application process is going to and fro.

It also has an effect on the parents or carers of that young person, because they have enough to manage and to worry about in their lives already without having the added burden of feeling like they need to be out there writing to their local MP or hopping on social media to make a song and dance just to get the basic level of funding they need to make sure their young person actually has an inclusive, high-quality education.

I am pleased that we are able to include it as part of the workload reduction efforts that the government is making as part of our enterprise bargaining negotiations—because there is no doubt that the level of paperwork that has developed around how you apply for that money is a contributing factor to workload for our staff overall—and I think it will make a difference to the lives of young people with disability in our schooling system, which is good.

It will, I hope, reduce some of the worry that we see in those families who have to advocate and feel like they need to push and push, that we can take some of that away as well. I am sure the member for Hurtle Vale would agree with me that anything we can do for those families who are under a lot of stress already is good for them and good for their child as well.

There are positive changes insofar as my portfolios are concerned around how we make sure our system is more inclusive for families of young people with a disability. That is a good thing. Since I became minister about 18 months ago and the Premier appointed Martin Westwell as the chief executive of the department, Martin and I have set about making our theme, as best we can, around wellbeing and wellbeing for learning. I think it is the bit that has been missing. It applies to all students in our system, regardless of whether they have a disability or not, and it also applies to our staff.

I am of the firm belief that if we do want to see those standardised testing results improve, whether it is NAPLAN or PISA—because we know that PISA particularly has not been—we cannot expect this to happen if we accept that the collective wellbeing of the students who are taking those tests, and the staff who are teaching them, is on the decline. Part of that is making sure we support everyone in the system, including those students who have a disability.

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (12:44): I am pleased to speak to the Disability Inclusion (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill 2023. This bill seeks to enact the recommendations of Mr Richard Dennis AM, PSM, following his extensive and independent review into South Australia's Disability Inclusion Act 2018.

As a government, we have a duty to see that legislation designed to support those with disability does just that. We know the wants, needs and views of people with disability change over time, and as a collective it is our responsibility to respond to those changes. That is why last year Mr Dennis, who I note previously worked in this place drafting legislation, undertook the independent review of the Disability Inclusion Act.

The review closely examined legislation passed by the Fifty-Fourth Parliament and saw individuals and organisations invited to provide their feedback. We want and we need to get this right, not just because the existing legislation requires a review but because we owe it to the people who are directly impacted. Fifty recommendations were included in the final report, 20 of which did not require legislative change. I understand that a number of those recommendations have already been actioned and completed.

While change at a legislative level can be conducted within the walls of this place, it is important that we remember our responsibilities do not end there. A level of social change is required to ensure that equality, inclusion and justice for people with disability are delivered in our communities. We can change attitudes and perceptions, ensure regulations at a local level are being adhered to and, perhaps most critically, hold each other accountable to see our parks, playgrounds, businesses and spaces welcoming and free of obstructive physical barriers.

I was pleased recently to have met with South Australia's equal opportunity commissioner, Jodeen Carney, who visited my electorate office to sign off on my antidiscrimination commitment and confirm my electorate office's registration as a WE'RE EQUAL workplace. That is why I am also working with the Aberfoyle Hub Shopping Centre's owners to improve accessibility within the complex, recently securing improved pedestrian passage between the centre and the nearby Hub Library and Aberfoyle Park High School, along with the installation of a new access ramp outside at The Hub cafe.

While my office has made its commitment to equal opportunity voluntarily, I note that the act stipulates, and importantly so, that the state government agencies in each of the 68 local councils implement their own disability access and inclusion plans. While the South Australian government rightfully conducts consultation of its own accord, it is pleasing to see that these agencies are now approaching their disability access and inclusion plans in a manner consistent with the needs of their respective employees, customers and stakeholders. One size does not fit all, and it is warming to learn cookie-cutter approaches to disability inclusion and equal opportunity have been cast aside in favour of more practical, relevant and community-focused measures.

Accessibility is of particular concern to people with disability. That is why the Malinauskas Labor government has agreed to changes to the National Construction Code from 24 October that will improve building accessibility. The construction of accessible homes in accessible communities is critical to ensure the housing market caters to the needs of people with disability looking to buy or rent. Burying heads in the sand is not an option.

These sensible changes will present improved opportunity in an increasingly competitive sector for people with differing accessibility requirements for years to come. In the meantime, I continue to work with authorities in my electorate, including the City of Onkaparinga and private operators, to see community infrastructure that was deemed compliant at its date of build modified to meet the needs and expectations of our diverse population now.

Again, not all disabilities are physical, though. Never has that point been more evident to me than at the Flagstaff Hill sports park in February, when the Hon. Emily Bourke MLC, Assistant Minister for Autism, visited my electorate to speak with members of the autistic and autism communities. On that occasion, the room was full of people with lived experience and their families, speaking up to see that their valuable feedback helped shape South Australia's first Autism Strategy.

Those in attendance shared with us about themselves and their family members living with their disabilities in relation to education, awareness in public spaces, employment opportunities, among many other topics of importance. I would like to take the opportunity to recognise each of those attendees and place on record my sincere thanks for their contributions on the night. We see and we hear you and we look forward to sharing the draft strategy with you in coming months.

I know both our state and future generations will be stronger for your participation in this process and for that I am incredibly grateful. Our government is committed to listening to people with lived experience in all areas so that the policy that affects them is directed and influenced by those who understand better than anyone what they need. That is why the proposed amendment to this act includes the stipulation that the minister is to seek the views of people with disability.

The amendment provides the minister with the capability to establish a committee to advise and assist them and is to include a diverse range of people with lived experience of disability. This will ensure that policy about people with disability will have direct input from people with disability in the hope that future policy will be comprehensive, relevant to their needs and well informed. It is essential for good policy that the government consult with and listen to the people policy affects, especially those with lived experiences that are unique to the wider community and especially when that policy is about them and directly affects them.

I did not truly understand how many barriers there really are in our environment for people with disability until my mum lost her ability to walk and had to use a wheelchair. This is a simple example, but I was shocked at how poorly designed many of our communities are with respect to accessibility. I remember having to push mum in her wheelchair a significant distance just to find a dip in the pavement to cross the road. It was really like I was blind to seeing those challenges until being directly faced with them. That is why I think it is so important that we are consistently consulting with those people who are directly impacted. They know better than anybody what is needed for more inclusive communities.

South Australia's community of people living with disability is a large one, with approximately 46,000 South Australians, including children, receiving support from the National Disability Insurance Scheme. At a national level, there are 4.4 million, or one in five Australians, who have some form of disability. It is important to remember that not all those disabilities are visible.

As a community, we need to be having real conversations about disability to challenge some of our preconceived community attitudes and to celebrate the unique experiences and stories of people with disability. I am proud that within my own electorate and in the southern community there are some important changes in the works.

One of these is in Aberfoyle Park, where we will soon see an upgrade to the Hub Library to improve its accessibility. This was one of my local election commitments that I fought for to ensure that our public library can be used by all. Too often, our spaces have barriers that make it so that people with disability are unable to access and use them. It is important that we strive to remove those barriers so that our community is accessible for everyone.

Imagine packing up your kids' backpacks and heading off to the playground for the day only to find that your child will only be able to watch the other children enjoy the space, as there is no accessible equipment for them, or having to leave early because there are no accessible toilet facilities nearby. The thought of that alone breaks my heart.

I am really pleased that this is becoming a priority, and I am particularly pleased that accessibility was given great thought when designing the newest playground in my electorate, the Glenthorne National Park Adventure Playground. This popular new play area offers a wide range of accessible equipment to ensure children of all abilities can enjoy that space.

It is of the utmost importance that people who are affected by policy and who are far too often not included in the discussion be in the room and have their voices heard and listened to. I am proud to be supporting the bill and to be lending my voice on behalf of my community in favour of it so that positive change can occur for the benefit of people with disability in our communities. I commend the bill to the house.

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD (Reynell—Minister for Child Protection, Minister for Women and the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (12:53): I also rise today to speak on the Disability Inclusion (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill 2023 and thank the Minister for Human Services for bringing it to this house and for her work and deep engagement with community around it.

This bill makes really important additions and changes to further bring to life the requirements and impact that this legislation can have, to ensure our community is genuinely an inclusive one—one that both positively and proactively responds to the needs, the hopes and the aspirations of people living with disability.

As Minister for Disabilities in our former Labor government, I was honoured to initially introduce the disability inclusion legislation that, following parliament being prorogued, was later progressed by the former government. As I spoke to at that time during the debate in this place on the now Disability Inclusion Act, this legislation rightly promotes the recognition of essential human rights in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

This legislation responded to the need to shift our focus from one solely focused on the delivery of services to individuals to a focus on our whole state's role in supporting and empowering people living with disability. This focus was about meeting people living with disability and where they were at and about ensuring that what was available to them to be able to access, enjoy and be a part of responded to their needs and the aspirations they had articulated.

This focus was to ensure people living with disability are at the centre of all decisions that impact them, and that their voice is heard, amplified and acted upon. To ensure that that is the focus, what this legislation promotes is that we all have a role in our community to support, to include and to empower people with disability—individuals, organisations and all levels of government taking up that responsibility.

The Disability Inclusion Act initiated the overarching State Disability Inclusion Plan and made requirements of almost 100 state authorities, including government agencies and all local councils, to develop their own disability access and inclusion plans, known as DAIPs. These disability access and inclusion plans—which, since the operation of this legislation, state authorities have completed—have promoted really important community discussions and have also acted as a call to action to ensure that our entire community is focused on making services, programs, access to goods and homes, and participation in every aspect of community life accessible to everyone.

I welcome, and I am so grateful for, the actions taken by agencies through the development of these plans to consult and engage with the community and to truly analyse the services that they provide—and how they provide them—to ensure that every community member's needs and aspirations are reflected in those services so that they can fully participate and reach their full potential.

These conversations, this engagement, has been so important. As I said many times when I was the minister, and before and after that time, the doing is so important but the shaping of what you do, and the true inclusion of people in deciding what that doing encompasses, is crucial. It is what makes people know that they are respected, included and will be treated with dignity. It also absolutely makes all that we do more effective.

Last year, four years after the commencement of the act, a review of the operation of the act was undertaken by independent reviewer Mr Richard Dennis AM, PSM. The review involved the contributions of a range of individuals and organisations with interest in this area. Amongst them were the Commissioner for Children and Young People, Active Inclusion, the Disability Rights Advocacy Service, the LGA, the Public Advocate and many others.

Amongst the contributors was Natalie Wade, founder of Equality Lawyers, who also sits on our Premier's Council for Women and who was a driving force in drafting the initial bill and ensuring that that drafting deeply reflected the will of people living with disability. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00.

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