Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently had the privilege of hosting my colleague and very good friend the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Senator the Hon. Mitch Fifield, to a day in my electorate of Higgins in Melbourne. This day was shared between three very special groups—children with life-threatening conditions, the elderly, people living with a disability and their carers. Higgins is home to the first children's hospice in Australia, Very Special Kids, which remains the largest of two such facilities operating in Australia servicing the needs of 825 families across Victoria, providing flexible family support programs including respite for families with children with life-threatening illnesses and planned and emergency end-of-life care for children. VSK has an operating budget of just over $5.6 million per annum. Incredibly, it generates 70 per cent of that through its highly successful piggybank appeal, donations, trusts and community and corporate events. The remaining 30 per cent is provided by the Victorian government.

I am, therefore, always delighted to advocate to my federal colleagues on behalf of VSK and was pleased that the minister was able to visit Very Special Kids to see the extraordinary work that is being done there and how much more could be achieved with a little more assistance. The truth is that Very Special Kids is, without any pun intended, a very special place. It is a place of love and care, led by the most professional and dedicated of teams, both paid and voluntary, headed up by their founder and patron, Sister Margaret Noone, and run by the incredible CEO, Sarah Hosking.

Back at my electorate office, Minister Fifield participated in two roundtable discussions. The first was a discussion on aged care. I was delighted that so many organisations were able to participate in a roundtable, including Alzheimer's Australia Victoria, BlueCross, Bupa Care Services, Glenloch Homes for the Elderly, Kiverton Park aged care, mecwacare, Regis Group, St. Michael's aged care facility, the Villa Maria Society and The Armitage Assisted Aged Care. These organisations work with our elderly every day, caring for their daily needs, both physical and mental, and supporting them at their later stage of life, which, as we all know, like many stages of life is not without its difficulties. The minister and I were able to discuss issues and receive invaluable practical feedback on the impact of changes to home care from mid-2015, reforms to residential aged care, including workforce training and support, and the current review of the dementia and severe behaviours supplement. Their feedback raised the pressing issue which our whole society faces around the ageing of our population and the measures we need to address in government to plan for this known challenge.

The second roundtable was on disability issues, once again with local representatives from Ashburton Support Services, Better Hearing Australia, Blind Sports Victoria, the Craig Family Centre, the Prahran Mission, Vision Australia and Belonging Matters. Each of these organisations provides varied and important services throughout Higgins to this day. They are incredibly diverse in both the services they provide and, indeed, the people they provide those services to. Discussion focused on the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, concerns about how small providers would fit within the scheme, transitioning arrangements as part of the NDIS including the impact on those organisations currently receiving block funding, employment opportunities for people with disabilities, respite care for families and carers, the importance of maintaining mental health and wellbeing for people with physical disabilities, and payments to people with disabilities over the age of 65 years.

I would like to acknowledge and thank all of the participants at both the disability and aged-care roundtables and Dr Hosking for hosting us at Very Special Kids. It was a very full day but a very productive one. While I am constantly out and about in my electorate talking with people and community organisations, I nevertheless found these discussions very informative, particularly as to the focus that we had on practical issues facing these community related organisations. I would also particularly like to extend my sincere thanks to the minister for his interest and support in visiting my electorate, including his ongoing assistance with helping Higgins constituents.

Families and individuals dealing with disabilities face a daily challenge to their lives and in living those lives with meaning and dignity and in full. At the end of the day in Higgins, I reflected to Minister Fifield that his portfolio was undoubtedly one of the most difficult. His response was that his role was not difficult but the life journey of people with disabilities and that of their families was extremely difficult and that, while their lives would always include hardship, his job as minister was to make it, wherever possible, just that little bit easier. I thank the minister and I thank the House.