Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I commend this motion to the House and want to add my support for people who have primary language disorder and their families. I recently met with a constituent of mine, Deborah Heller, a mother whose son lives with primary language disorder. I would like to publicly commend Deborah and her husband, Justin, for bringing their story to my attention and for their persistence and strength. They are truly remarkable parents. I would like to begin by telling you a little bit about their story. Deborah and Justin's son Cooper was born in 2007 and they realised early on in Cooper's life that something was not quite right. He could not speak at all and was becoming isolated from family and other children. Cooper became anxious and frustrated and was completely incapable of communicating the simplest of messages. The family also faced prejudice in the community, as you can probably imagine. Deborah said to me, 'Please take a moment to really think about how you would feel if other people watching your child grunting, squealing or being generally inappropriate for their age said to you, "If he was mine I'd kill myself."'

Deborah and Justin faced an uphill battle in getting help for Cooper as waiting lists for speech therapy were extensive in both the private and public sectors. They happened to live in Townsville at the time. After travelling from Townsville to Brisbane to see a neurologist, Cooper was diagnosed with severe speech-language disorder. Language disorders and impairments are very much a hidden disability in the community. Few people understand the disorder and we rarely speak about it. I would, therefore, like to bring this important issue to the attention of the House. Children like Cooper are often misdiagnosed, sometimes with autism or intellectual impairment. Primary language disorder children can have autistic traits, sensory issues, major behavioural challenges, delays in developmental domains and problems with gross and fine motor skills. These traits often combine to pose severe barriers to their ability to learn.

After approaching numerous schools in Townsville and finding none that could help, the family decided to move to Brisbane and attend the Glenleighden School in Figtree Pocket. This is a world-leading school, particularly in this field, and provides world-class PLD education through a combination of methods. Deborah told me that Cooper is very happy at the school and is getting a great education—although the family have had to make some financial sacrifices, as you can imagine, in uprooting their family from Townsville to Brisbane and taking care of all the special needs that their son Cooper has. Deborah wants her sons to have the same opportunities as the rest of us want for our children. Deborah and Justin tell me that people with PLD are more likely to enter the justice system, are at risk of long-term unemployment, have a higher incidence of mental health issues and are at risk of poverty and homelessness.

There is a lot more that we could do, and I think there are many things that we are actually doing now. Because this is a complex issue and not well understood in the community, there are often myths about what is happening. Unfortunately, it does come down to levels of funding and who provides what, where and how.

This government has a number of programs. One in particular is the More Support for Students with a Disability funding program, which provides $200 million in additional government funding to government and independent schools over last year and this year. As part of this funding $2.7 million was provided to the Queensland Association of Independent Schools and the Queensland Association of Independent Schools provided part of these funds to Glenleighden School specifically for this type of special benefit and training. The federal government also provides recurrent funding to Glenleighden School. In 2010 that funding totalled $853,000, or a bit over $12,000 per student. This has increased since then.

There is more good news. The Gonski review provided some very specific measures. Other people have spoken about this in different areas. Gonski identified that there was no consistent approach, there was a real mismatch between what happens at different levels. There is a better way and Gonski provides that mechanism. There is also limited and inconsistent data on the number and location of students with disabilities. It is important that we actually know this so that we can fund it properly. On 7 December last year all school education ministers gave provisional endorsement to a model for a nationally consistent collection of data on school students with a disability. This model moves away from an approach based on identification and support of students according to particular types of disabilities, and instead the model encompasses all disabilities and is focused on the level of adjustment provided for a student to access and participate in schooling on the same basis as those without a disability. It takes away that problem of whether one particular condition is in or out as part of this debate. Students will be included in the data if they have a condition, including a language disorder, which results in the person having a learning difficulty. This is an important part of the change that this government is bringing forward.

Unfortunately school funding from the state has been cut to this school. I know that has been acknowledged from the other side. I do not want to make a political issue of it but just state the fact that it has been cut. There was a promise from the previous government to increase funding from 22 to 40 per cent. It reached 29 per cent but that has now been a cut. I do not accept that school funding should be cut, but if there is one area where it definitely should not it is particularly in the provision of education for students with disabilities.

There are questions about what we are doing about this and I think they are fair questions. But there are answers. It is not as if this government is sitting on its hands on this very important issue. This government is committed to improving the lives of Australians with disabilities and under Australia's fragmented disability services system, which is highly complex, many people cannot get the sort of support that they need. This should not continue and we want to change it.

In recognition of this the Gillard government have already significantly expanded the support services we provide for children with a disability. In 2008 we assisted more than 25,000 children with a disability to access early intervention services throughout our Better Start for Children with Disability and Helping Children with Autism programs specifically. This debate tonight gives me the opportunity to provide a little more information about this particular program and how it relates to primary language disorder. It is claimed that perhaps the government made an administrative change in regard to PLD in terms of access to Better Start and that this was somehow removed. The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, which administers the Better Start program, has confirmed to me that PLD was never included as an eligible condition under Better Start. We cannot have changed because it was never in. Individual children with multiple diagnoses including PLD may have been included under Better Start but not on the basis of having PLD alone. It is important to get these things clear because that has an impact in terms of where funding is understood to have come from. It is also claimed that the government classified a condition known as pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified as an autism spectrum condition. This is not correct. The department has confirmed that the government do not set the definition the definition of autism in Australia; in fact, we use a diagnostic tool developed in the United States.

We know that despite progress we have had through these programs like Better Start there are still gaps and still inconsistencies. We need to continue to bridge those gaps and to rectify those inconsistencies because it is the right thing to do regardless of funding levels and models and whatever else may be out there.

These gaps and inconsistencies do affect people with primary language disorder. We know there is a better way to identify them—which is what we did, beginning last year—and to meet the needs of children and other people with significant disabilities. That is why we are leading the way to reform Australia's disability system through the National Disability Insurance Scheme, widely known as the NDIS—a massive undertaking by Australia, by this government, for a fair, constructive and progressive way forward to deal with the issues and take a more holistic approach.

A person's eligibility for the NDIS is not based solely on a diagnosis of their disability, because we recognise that that does not meet everyone's needs—just as, when it comes to issues such as autism, primary language disorder or other things, it is not the government that sets what is in or out; we work to frameworks and models, and that is obviously done at other levels by experts. The government's role is to make sure that people are not disadvantaged by the system—that the system actually helps, aids and supports them and provides the funding to the right people. I believe support should go to young people, particularly those with primary language disorder. It should help those parents who are doing everything they can in their struggle to make sure that their children have the same opportunities that everyone else's children have.

That is why I am very much in support of the motion put forward by the member for Ryan, because I think she raises a really good issue, and I know she is very genuine about bringing this forward. It is a school in her electorate, but I am very supportive and I think she will find that she has lots of support on the government's side and that, if we work together on this, and try to find where the problems sit, we can find solutions. So I am very supportive of the motion—that is why I wanted to speak on it—and also very encouraging of the parents who work so hard to make sure that their children get a fair go.

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