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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-02-16 Daily Xml
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CLARE VALLEY RESPITE SERVICES

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:41): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Disabilities a question about respite services in the Clare Valley.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I seek to raise the case of a person with a disability and their family. In doing so, I make clear that I am acting with their consent, so the minister should not, as he did yesterday in response to a question from the Hon. Kelly Vincent, use so-called privacy issues to avoid accountability of his officers, his department and his government.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The member for Stuart, Mr Dan van Holst Pellekaan, is advocating for constituents—a man with a severe disability and his parents who are his primary carers. The man receives a disability pension and he is supported with a day program, transport to SCOSA each week and the costs of medication and incontinence aids.

The family accesses respite services for two to three hours on weeknights and weekends. The family also accessed four weekends of respite in 2011 at Grevillea House in Clare, which is managed by the Country North Community Services. When the family called to make their bookings this year, they were advised that there were no spaces left for 2012 due to the high level of demand for the service. Grevillea House is a well-run operation and, whilst it has capacity to provide more respite, there is insufficient funding to meet the operating costs required to offer more services.

Grevillea House is open for only one respite episode per month for carers of adults with a disability and one respite episode per month for families with children with a disability, to be shared over 40 families in the Clare region. My question is: can the minister advise the council what the government is doing to address this gap in services so that families can access the respite they need and to which they are entitled?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:43): Let me make it quite plain to honourable members what my approach will be in this chamber when members raise concerns around particular clients of one of my agencies. They may feel they have—and they may have—the consent of those persons to raise those topics in this house, and it is perfectly legitimate for them to do so, especially when they are trying to address issues perhaps of systemic failure in the system.

I myself will not comment on those issues relating to those people as I do not have their consent, and as minister I am privy to information that goes beyond what honourable members may have. It would be wrong of me, even though it will be very tempting sometimes, to actually explain to honourable members in this place the concerns around some of these cases, but I will not do so. If honourable members wish to raise any of these particular cases about their clients with me privately, I will have my department investigate those issues very quickly and respond to them as soon as I can.

In relation to the case the honourable member has raised, let me say this: I am advised that my department has been in contact with that service and has asked them to talk to us about their service delivery. We are ensuring people with high needs are having them met as per those service contracts.

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