Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night I talked about Olympic silver medallist Jacqui Lawrence, and today I want to talk about a remarkable young man, Adam Sanders. Adam aspires to compete at the 2012 Paralympic Games. In April this year, Adam represented New South Wales at the Australian Athletes with Disabilities Table Tennis Championships in Scarborough, Western Australia. Adam is quoted in our local Grafton based Daily Examiner on 27 March this year as saying:

That’s everyone’s dream. I’ve got four years to get ready for the next one (Paralympics). If I put in the training, hopefully, I’ll get the reward.

Adam, you have already got the reward. Born without full-length arms, Adam has been playing table tennis from his early years. Adam trains hard, puts in the hard yards and works part time at a local successful company, Westlawn Finance, in Grafton. This organisation is a great community asset and gives support to many worthwhile causes and events. Adam is testament to what drive and determination can achieve. With his focus and use of his ability, he does not let his disability hold him back. I will leave the last word to Adam. He said in the same article cited above:

Don’t hold back. You never know where trying might lead you.

Adam, I hope it leads you to the 2012 Paralympics.

Over the past two months, I have conducted five income support forums, and I have two more planned. The purpose of the forums is to engage with local communities, seeking their direct input into the government’s income support pension review—a review that is long overdue and one that could have been undertaken by the previous government but they chose not to. It is a bit rich when some from the other side talk about pensioners doing it tough when they had a long time—12 years—to tackle it but did not. They talked about it but they did not act. We are acting.

In the government’s first 12 months, we will have completed a systematic review of income support, done within the purview of the comprehensive taxation review under Mr Henry, the head of Treasury. A discrete pensions review will also be done within that comprehensive review under Mr Harmer, the Secretary of FaHCSIA.

The Prime Minister first raised this issue in March 2008. The Treasurer cited the comprehensive review in the budget, and Minister Macklin made a ministerial statement on the matter on 15 May. I note that FaHCSIA is currently holding community consultations on the pensions review. By the time my seven forums have ended, I will have completed a submission that will go into the pensions review on behalf of income recipients and pensioners right across the electorate of Page. Approximately 1,000 people will have direct input through the forums, emails, meetings, letters et cetera.

Do some pensioners want the base level of the pension to be raised? Of course some do, and some say that they are okay. It depends on each person’s particular circumstances. However, we have to look at it in a general context. Are some doing it tough? You bet. We know that. But this situation did not just happen after November 2007. The problems are systemic and long term and have been a long time in the making. We all want a rise in income; that is normal. The review has to look at the need, how to fund it and how to fund it over the long term if that is what is decided at the end of the review.

My mum is a pensioner, she is married and she rents. She is in the category of someone doing it tough—not as tough as the single pensioners. She says that it is okay and that they are doing fine but that it would be nice to have a rise. Of course it would be nice to have a rise. That is the message that I am getting from the community. A whole range of views are being put. But, basically, people say they welcome the opportunity to have their say at what I call the income support forums; they welcome that they are being listened to and that they can have direct input into the review. My role as a representative is to do precisely that: listen to the constituents and lead by representing them here. That is why I am choosing to do it via seven forums right across the seat of Page, and those forums have been appreciated by the wider community.