Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The early years are the most important life, and there is no reform more important that we can bring in this place than looking after our zero to five-year-old children, identifying and acting on developmental delay, making sure they get every chance when they get to school and every chance in life.

I would like to commend the Imago Project conceived by the Greater Metro South Brisbane Medicare Local and Simon James, who came down from Brisbane to launch that event here in Parliament House. The members for Indi, Mitchell, Durack, Hindmarsh, Bendigo and Tangney were all there.

The commitment that this place has towards early intervention will be measured in Bowman by the first universal trial of the use of Medicare item numbers to look after, through chronic disease management plans, children who are struggling. We will see the engagement of allied health and ATAPS resources for behavioural issues for children aged zero to five, to build the critical mass so that we have allied health, Medicare funded workers visiting childcare centres throughout the seat of Bowman and reverse referrals, because childcare workers raise their capacity to identify developmental delay. The Imago Project offers us this promise with virtually no new resources, but just using existing resources better. No child between zero and five deserves to turn up at school unable to hold a pencil or not knowing how to open a book. The Imago Project is the first step in turning this around for Australia.