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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-02-15 Daily Xml
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COMMUNITY AND HOME SUPPORT SA

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (14:58): I seek leave to make an explanation before asking the Minister for Disabilities questions regarding incompetence in the office of Community and Home Support SA.

Leave granted.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: Which one do you think? Incompetence most certainly. It's probably both. As Mr President is no doubt aware from previous speeches I have made in this place, there are more than 1,000 South Australians with disabilities who are currently on a government waiting list for accommodation. That is more than 1,000 South Australians with disabilities who this government acknowledges are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Given this high figure, and the huge cost in terms of human tragedy it represents, one would think that the government would have its best and brightest working on this crisis. However, I regret to inform the chamber that recent experiences related to my office indicate otherwise.

In one example, a client of Disability Services who has an intellectual disability was told by the disability organisation that provides her accommodation that she would need to find a new home as they intended to sell off her current house. The organisation also imparted this information to the department no less than eight months before the property needed to be vacated. Despite this, the department has failed to rehouse this constituent before the vacancy date.

In fact, even when the client's family found a suitable place for her to live which met Disability Services requirements, the department took so long to approve this application that the property was given away to another tenant. This is, of course, just a glimpse of the blunders made in this case; there are far too many to fully list here. But the important thing to note is that the department's inability to do its own job of rehousing this woman within an eight-month period has left her at imminent risk of homelessness.

Another example: a client with complex physical disabilities and mental health problems has been waiting for an accommodation placement for no less than a year and a half. He had spent that year and a half languishing in a hospital bed, with poor quality of life. Recently, he was called to a meeting about a potential placement in supported accommodation, but he was, of course, seriously disheartened when he learnt that the placement was unsuitable for someone who needed mental health support.

This is frankly ridiculous. Why would Disability Services organise a meeting about an accommodation placement which was plainly unsuitable for a client? This kind of mistake is a waste of taxpayers' money and it also places a cruel burden of anxious confusion on top of the worries already faced by vulnerable clients with disabilities. My questions are:

1. What consequences are there in place for Disability Services staff who perform their job with such incompetence that the life of people with disabilities is made significantly worse, not better, by their actions?

2. Given the multiple layers of bureaucracy present in the Disability Services system, how can the minister identify areas where staff are not providing adequate services?

3. Will the minister take responsibility for the multiple examples of incompetence in his department listed in this question?

4. Will the minister take responsibility for the stress and worry this incompetence creates in the life of people with disabilities who rely on his department for essential services?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (15:02): I thank the honourable member for her very important questions about waiting lists and accommodation for people with disability.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I think the honourable member asked her question, and I will answer it in the way I wish. The honourable member raised the issues relating to a couple of people. It is not going to be my habit in this place to respond to the personal cases of people—they have privacy that we should respect—but I will talk in generalities as best I can in this regard.

One of the issues she raised, in fact, is the responsibility of Julia Farr Association. It was the landlord of the person, I am advised; it was their role to advise the tenant about its intentions for the home it owns. But my agency, I have been advised, has been meeting with the family regularly. Options have been offered to the family which, at this stage, the family has not found suitable, but my department has assured me that it will continue to work with the family involved and that it will not leave that person in the lurch; appropriate accommodation will be found for that person.

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