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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-06-19 Daily Xml
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Motions

Meals on Wheels

The Hon. R.B. MARTIN (16:51): I move:

That this council—

1. Recognises that 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of Meals on Wheels;

2. Commemorates the work of Doris Taylor in establishing Meals on Wheels;

3. Acknowledges the importance of Meals on Wheels as a social institution that supports the wellbeing of some of South Australia’s most vulnerable residents; and

4. Commends the essential work of all Meals on Wheels staff, volunteers and members.

Meals on Wheels is a not-for-profit, community-based volunteer organisation working throughout South Australia. Since 1954 they have assisted South Australians to live independently in their own homes by providing hot, delicious and nutritious three-course meals on weekdays and frozen meals for weekends and public holidays. Any South Australian who has difficulty shopping or cooking for themselves is eligible to become a Meals on Wheels client. The service is open to older people, people with a disability, people recovering from surgery and anyone who is a carer.

The service is based on need. It is not means tested and there are no waiting lists. Clients can receive a meal as often as each of the seven days of the week or on any basis that works for them. The meals provide important nutrition: a Meals on Wheels three-course meal accounts for over one-third of an older person's daily nutritional and energy requirements.

The organisation's motto, 'More than just a meal', refers to the fact that the volunteers delivering the meals ensure that each client is alright, and they do this through the personal contact that occurs with each delivery. These check-ins are a crucial part of the valued service and a crucial element in supporting clients to remain at home in an independent setting. It is a safeguard to ensure that their safety and wellbeing are being monitored, and it offers clients regular social engagement to help combat isolation.

There are 84 Meals on Wheels branches across South Australia, supported by the tireless work of many thousands of volunteers. Meals on Wheels is an independent, community-based organisation with oversight by a volunteer board. The cost of meals is primarily covered by the modest charges applied to meals, with the balance coming from government grants, public donations and legacies.

To do justice to the history of Meals on Wheels in South Australia, I must also tell the story of the exceptional person who brought the organisation into being. Members may be familiar with the work of Meals on Wheels in South Australia but may not realise that it was established by Doris Irene Taylor MBE. She is a South Australian legend, was a friend and contemporary of Don Dunstan and is the namesake for the state electorate of Taylor.

Doris was born on 25 July 1901 in Norwood, Adelaide, the eldest of the four children of Thomas Simpkin Taylor, who was a bricklayer, and his wife, Angelina. Doris spent her childhood first at Mount Gambier and then back in Norwood. A fall at the age of seven caused Doris to limp quite badly, and a second fall, several years later, truly altered the trajectory of her life. She sustained a serious spinal injury and was permanently paralysed. After several operations and years of extended stays in hospital, it was suggested that Doris should live in the Home for Incurables, which was by no means an unusual suggestion for the time, but she and her mother strongly resisted this proposal, and Doris went home. She was determined to remain independent, and she did, to the extent that she possibly could, for the rest of her life.

Her mobility only extended to her head and shoulders and, to a limited extent, her arms. The impact of her paralysis was compounded by severe rheumatoid arthritis. Using a wheelchair from a young age seems to have been formative to her values in life. While Doris was substantially dependent on others for her care needs, throughout her life she maintained a fierce desire to be independent. Although her hands were twisted and stiff and she could not raise her arms, she was determined to devise her own methods of doing things for herself.

Her character and determination led Doris to want to participate in society as much as she could. During the Depression, she became secretary of a local kindergarten mother's club, helping with fundraising and other roles. Her work in promoting a local soup kitchen heightened her awareness of social injustice. An experience that stuck with her occurred during the Depression when she witnessed a child at a local school taking sandwiches from a box next to the playground. This box was put in place by teachers for children with excess lunch, to leave food for their classmates who had little or nothing to eat. Doris noted the lack of dignity that was afforded to these children. Doris recalled:

This child, who could not get enough lunch, was like so many others, foraging for food…And there was I gadding about the countryside thinking all was fine in the universe and that sort of tragedy had been going on almost at my front door.

Not long after, therefore, Doris worked with the school to start a soup kitchen where students were charged a penny for each serve, but children who could not afford to pay did not need to pay. Every student was given a lunch ticket whether they were able to pay or not, in order to afford dignity to all children.

It was likely that her passion for social justice drove Doris to become involved with the South Australian Labor Party. As secretary of the West Norwood sub-branch, she was credited with persuading Don Dunstan to join the party and to seek preselection for the House of Assembly seat of Norwood in 1952. It was Doris who managed Dunstan's successful election campaign, and she did so despite Roy Moir, the Liberal and Country League member for Norwood, who Dunstan defeated at that election, being Doris's cousin. It is almost a Hood-worthy story.

Doris also increased the intensity of her own campaigning for improvements to social services for the elderly, the infirm and the disadvantaged—those who were most vulnerable in the community at the time. She saw that political action was essential to creating change and thought that legislation was the appropriate mechanism for advancing security and protection for all people.

While conscious that many older people required greater levels of help than they received, from personal experience she clearly understood their desire for independence and their wish to be able to remain in their own homes. As the public relations officer for the South Australian division of the Pensioners League, she championed the rights of older South Australians to live independently at home rather than in institutions. She did this during an era when many older people were being moved into psychiatric homes because they were undernourished.

Taylor saw a clear need for more services and this led her to establish Meals on Wheels. Don Dunstan, then the member for Norwood, served as the first chairperson of Meals on Wheels after assisting to draft the organisation's constitution. The first Meals on Wheels kitchen opened in Port Adelaide in August 1954. Building this kitchen was a collaborative effort, with Port Adelaide council donating the land, Le Messurier Timber at Port Adelaide putting together a Nissen hut, and the SA Gas Company installing a commercial stove with three large and three small burners.

Many local businesses opted into a bob-in collection system, where local employees would donate one bob, or one shilling, on payday. With the help of a young, newly minted local newspaper owner called Rupert Murdoch, Adelaide paper The News acknowledged all cash donations in print. Other Meals on Wheels kitchens soon followed in further metro suburbs. Operated by volunteers, Meals on Wheels then, as now, delivered five hot meals each week to those who were unable to cook for themselves. Taylor's vision also embraced other services: home help, hair care, laundry, library services and a hospital-based meal service.

The organisation she founded grew into a statewide body and served as a model for other states and nations to follow. Meals on Wheels began operating in Tasmania in 1955, Queensland in 1956 and New South Wales in 1957.

Doris Taylor travelled extensively in South Australia and other states, urging governments and local authorities to provide support, and she took the lead in negotiating an expansion of the service. In 1958 she became a paid organiser for Meals on Wheels, and a year later in 1959 she was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. In 1965, an adviser to the World Health Organization remarked that Doris Taylor had built up the best, most complete and most effectively integrated system of preventative medicine for old folks operating anywhere in the world.

A decade after its founding, Meals on Wheels served its millionth meal. Today, Meals on Wheels provides well over one million meals every single year. The work of Meals on Wheels and its thousands of volunteers across the state strengthens communities. They make tremendous differences in the lives of their clients. Each meal they deliver is truly more than just a meal. Each meal is belonging, is caring and is connection, and each meal is delivered in the spirit of Doris Taylor, because extending dignity and supporting independence for all people, no matter their age, ability or background, was her core business, as it is the core business of Meals on Wheels today.

I know she would be so delighted that the organisation she founded 70 years ago has continued to go from strength to strength. I congratulate Meals on Wheels on 70 great years of delivering more than just a meal. I commend every South Australian who volunteers with Meals on Wheels, I commend its leadership and its staff, and I commend this motion to the council.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. D.G.E. Hood.

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