Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I also want to congratulate the member for Kingston for bringing this motion to the House and I point out to the members that I too have a definite interest in autism. I brought a similar motion to the House on Monday, 6 December 2004, should you wish to look at Hansard.

Everyone has a story to tell of autism. My story is the recent walk I undertook on behalf of autism. It was from Friday, 23 March to Thursday, 5 April this year. I conducted this walk for autism throughout my Canning electorate. The walk kicked off at the Mandurah foreshore and involved my walking through the electorate and visiting many of the schools in the electorate to raise awareness for the autism spectrum disorders. By speaking to the students about autism I was able to raise some awareness of the disorder and encourage the students to be respectful of their peers who may live with autism. Autism affects one in 160 children and it is true boys are four times more likely to have autism than girls. It is likely that these students will come across some peers that have some elements of the autism spectrum disorder at some stage, and that was my point to them.

The walk also helped to raise funds for the Autism Association of Western Australia to go towards funding early intervention and respite centres, such as INKA Respite in Lake Clifton in my electorate. INKA is run by Todd and Margaret Jarvis. The couple have dedicated a significant amount of their time to setting up the centre. Located on a rural property, INKA provides children and families with emergency and flexible respite in a unique farm-style environment. The centre receives very little government funding, meaning that Todd and Margaret have had to put a huge amount of their own savings into keeping the centre running. I hope that some of the funds that I have raised will go towards assisting INKA Respite.

I was also joined on much of the walk by young Dermott Barnard. I first met Dermott when he adopted me through the Adopt-a-Politician program back in 2005. Dermott lives with autism and has made tremendous progress with the assistance of organisations such as the Autism Association and his schools. At the age of 13, Dermott is now part of mainstream schooling at Canning Vale College.

Over the 10 days I visited 42 schools and walked about 100 kilometres, raising over $22½ thousand for the Autism Association of Western Australia. I was overwhelmed by the level of support that I received from the schools, the wider community and my fellow parliamentary colleagues who were able to join me on the walk. These included Chris Pyne, Peter Dutton, Bob Baldwin and the local member for Darling Range, Mr Tony Simpson.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank some key people that made the walk a success. These include Dermott's mum Lynne Hearne, Dermott himself, Alyce Barnard, Dermott's sister, and the Autism Association of WA. I was grateful for the support and endorsement of the Autism Association of WA, led by Joan McKenna-Kerr and Paul Baird. The funds that I raised have been invested and deposited with the Autism Association of Western Australia, hopefully earmarked for flexible respite.

The other support I received was from the Australian Hotels Association, Therapy Focus, the City of Armadale, the City of Mandurah, the Shire of Murray, the Shire of Boddington, Mr Len Buckeridge, Mr Stan Perron, Dean Capelli, Arthur Metaxis and all the wonderful schools and community members that made generous donations throughout my walk. I would like to thank Nicole Green from my electorate office for organising the itinerary and the program.

One size does not fit all and there are other alternatives: I will mention one. I would like to commend not only the Autism Association and not-for-profit organisations such as INKA Respite that address this important disorder, often with restricted funding, but also another WA based autism organisation that has been significantly affected by a lack of funding. this organisation is called the LEARN Foundation. As I said, there are many approaches and some fit some programs better than they fit the programs offered elsewhere. The LEARN Foundation offers an alternative approach to tackling autism. This is known as applied behaviour analysis. After recently meeting with the foundation CEO, Ms Mandy Mason, I have found that this has proved to be highly successful. The ABA approach involves intensive work by highly trained behavioural therapists and psychologists and has transformed the lives of many children. Uniquely the LEARN Foundation has been willing to take on the very challenging children who have been unable to interact with others and even shown self-injurious behaviour, such as self harm. It has made tremendous progress with such children.

LEARN have been through some financial difficulties. They need to raise $300,000 to stop their doors from closing. They are trying very hard with little state government funding. Any funding that can be given to them will be well spent. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.

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