Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to share with the House tonight a very special evening my husband Lindsay and I spent last Saturday with the Mayor of Lake Macquarie and his wife, Greg and Lyn Piper and two representatives from the Kiwanis Club at Maitland, Anna and Jamie Swanson. We were invited to a debutante ball at the Cardiff Panthers club. It was not your usual debutante ball; it was a debutante ball for dancers with disabilities. The group is the Waltz-Sing Matildas. These are a group of very special young people who sing together and provide entertainment for organisations, aged-care facilities and at special functions. They are quite a talented young group. They are also a group that have had to work hard and overcome a lot of barriers on their way to success. Previously they were known as Living Proof. They even performed at Disneyland when they were known as Living Proof.

John Thoroughgood and his wife, Carolyn, were the two people responsible for the tutoring and training of the debutantes and their partners. There was a box of tissues on every table, and those tissues were used by people that night. I cannot find words to express to you the way I and everyone else felt when a beautiful young girl got out of her wheelchair and was assisted by her partner to walk down the red carpet with a walking frame. It was a really special moment, a truly special moment. They had another wheelchair waiting for her when she reached the end of the red carpet. Debutante after debutante walked down that carpet accompanied by a partner who in many cases also had a disability. The light in their eyes, the spring in their step and the way each and every person there felt about that special night will stay in my memory for a very long time.

This was the second such debutante ball I have attended. There was another one with the same group seven years ago. At that time there was a different group of debutantes. At the ball they attended seven years previously one interesting thing was that each of those debutantes was dressed in red. When I spoke to the mothers, they said it was something that happened spontaneously; it was not something that was planned. I think that showed the joyous way they felt about the occasion.

Another highlight of the evening was when the debutantes did their waltz. They had been practising it since October last year, and they danced superbly. Once again, the moment that really left me with a lump in my throat was when the young girl in the wheelchair went out and danced. She had such grace. She moved so beautifully. She looked serene. It showed me what people with disabilities, people who have special challenges, can achieve. That night will live on in my memory forever. At the end of the evening, I was given a glass and they asked me to bring the glass to Canberra and put it in my office. I have done that, and each and every day as I look at that glass I will remember that special night. I wish all the members of the Waltz-sing Matildas all the best for the future. I know they will continue to succeed and sing. (Time expired)