Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to share with the House an initiative in my electorate that I found incredibly impressive. Last week I met members of the Rainbow Club. This is a swimming club run by parents and designed to teach children with autism to swim.

It was an absolute pleasure to visit the swimming pool and to meet the president, Steve Morgan. Steve founded the Rainbow Club after having previously founded Basecamp 3030, which was a philanthropically funded respite care service for families living with disabilities in Wyndham. He later hired a private swim instructor to help teach his autistic son, Cory, to become more 'drown proof'.

I know there are many families who have these fears and that those fears can be more acute for families with children who have a disability. I take my hat off to Steve Morgan for his inspired action in our community. He began by getting a swim instructor to teach his own son. By the second lesson there were two other students involved and now they have 17 teachers, teaching more than 100 children, three days a week, year round. This is an important piece of work run by parents, for parents. Being involved allows the children to learn to swim and it allows the parents to form a community group. They have plans for the future to expend their work.

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