Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to enlighten the House about my recent activities with organisations and individuals who are making a big difference to the City of Brisbane. I was delighted to have Senator Mitch Fifield, the shadow minister for disability services, come to host a disability forum in Brisbane recently. I thank the senator. I was very pleased with the turnout and the feedback that we received in this very important area. We heard many stories of dedication and commitment. We unfortunately heard many stories of the current system of disability support that is broken. The coalition recognises that people with disabilities, their carers and their families deserve a better deal. We support the NDIS. Along with the heart-warming stories we heard, we were also told about the woeful state of disability services in Queensland.

Queensland's disability service is probably one of the worst in the country. It is an embarrassment and we must do more. We heard stories of a completely dysfunctional system that places a great deal of reliance on service standards compliance that proves to be a waste of time and money. This money could be used to improve the lives of Queenslanders with disabilities. It is estimated that some $500 million is spent each year by the not-for-profit sector just on regulatory compliance. Additionally the government has stopped listening to those who know what needs to be done. We hear examples of consultation processes with key stakeholders that occur after the policy has been decided, and those people really feel that they are not being listened to. I would like to thank two of my constituents, Mrs Ursula Agnew and Michelle Lawson, who was instrumental in arranging this forum. They have firsthand knowledge of the effort and commitment required to care for kids with disabilities.

The day following the forum, the senator and I had the privilege of attending the Red Hill Special School for a disability tea. The event was to raise awareness of a national disability insurance scheme and the campaign to make every Australian count. I would like to highlight the great work being done at the Red Hill Special School and in particular Ms Cath McCulloch, the occupational therapist at the Red Hill Special School. I would also like to thank the principal, Pam Stack, and her entire staff for their hospitality and the terrific work being undertaken at the school. The school was established in 1986 to provide specifically for the educational needs of school aged people with multiple disabilities. An early special education class was established in 1995 and it was extended to cater for local children with a broad range of special educational needs in 1999. The programs cater for children and students from birth to 17 or 18 years of age, and approximately 50 children from birth to five years access the early childhood development program. There are roughly 40 kids of six to 17 years of age enrolled in the same school. Those early intervention programs are vital to the development of children with disabilities.

Finally, I was very pleased to visit a great organisation making a really positive impact on the lives of Queenslanders. Community in Bardon were instrumental in helping the people of Brisbane in the aftermath of the floods earlier this year. However, they do much more than that. Some of their services include aged and disability services, child care, community development, community education, emergency relief and settlement services. They have been working so hard in the community for over 30 years to develop and deliver locally based services and activities in response to the issues and opportunities that life can present. Their mission is to strengthen the communities' capacity by responding to the diverse needs and interests of their members. Community utilise an integrated recovery focused approach to assist people experiencing long-term mental health issues. This was why I was very pleased to meet with the manager, Ms Karen Dare. I was told by the managers that there are large numbers of families who are coming to them for financial assistance, particularly to pay bills and for food and clothing. I thank Senator Fifield for his time in Brisbane and his commitment to disability services. I also applaud the fantastic work that is being done at the Red Hill Special School and, particularly, the fantastic work that is being done in community.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to continue the speech in which I was so rudely interrupted in quorum calls today by the silly opposition in this parliament. I think it is really a bad thing for the opposition to play political games when backbenchers are trying to make their contribution to the House. It is very disrespectful to the House and to the people of Australia. I want to continue on the schools assistance legislation and why it is so important to Tasmania.

I particularly want to talk about the importance of small schools in country areas. I was talking about how technology has improved the opportunities for small country schools and how they have so many opportunities for both classwork and the extras such as sport, music and other activities. In Tasmania, where a cluster system has worked quite well in the past, many of these schools interact on sports days—football matches, hockey and netball, all with the strong involvement of parents, teachers and the local community. There is a growing body of evidence that small schools can and do deliver comprehensive education.

The assumption used in Tasmania to justify small schools' closures—the economies of scale argument often advanced—is that reduction of expenditure per pupil would translate into greater public pupil achievement because the money saved could be invested in school improvement. However, where there have been closures in other countries, there is no evidence to support this finding. There is, in fact, a growing body of research that, far from seeking to defend the retention of small schools, actually seeks to examine the success of small schools. In general this research points to the human scale of small schools, the satisfied and willing cohort of pupils, socially independent school leavers transferring to post-primary schools, committed teachers, the opportunity for parents to exercise choice of school that numbers of small schools typically afford, relative autonomy and distance from bureaucracy, excellent responses to the local community and a good school-pupil and school-family match.

Financial concerns taken in isolation might present a potential argument for some in favour of the amalgamation or closure of small schools, but it is important that such argument be counterbalanced by other considerations such as the adverse effect of children being bussed to different environments; the sociological importance of rural schools in the community; its role in the preservation of memories of local families and local history, culture, folklore; its significance in the pride of the town; and the attachment of the people to the school. There is also the small business effect: who is going to deliver the newspapers and who is going to run errands around the local shop? Who is around to pack groceries in the store on school holidays? In Tasmania these tend to be done by secondary school students. Many who come from country towns will return at weekend to that town if their childhood links are there. As mentioned previously, small schools can assist in change—not only changes in education but also changes in their communities—that can be just as good as economic drivers.

To get back to the bill before the parliament, the national curriculum provides an advantage to these small schools because once again they can be part of the national scheme by providing education, as they are now linked to almost anywhere in the world. Rounding up a pile of small schools into one is not going to improve their educational outcomes. It will merely remove the driving force of the community and lose its direction and pride. With the huge investment that Labor has put into schools it has become possible to change the face of education. In the new funding rounds government will oversee the rollout of the first phase of the $69.1 million Empowering Local Schools initiative to a thousand schools in 2012 and 2013, giving school communities more say in decision making. I hope we might be able to obtain and use some of that money to allow Lyons' small schools to develop their future sustainability and ensure their continuation. (Time expired)