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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3714 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

They are more empowered within their own lives, and in fact they need less use of more expensive acute care services. But these groups are not given any responsibility. These groups are not given any credit. Their funds are cut. They are not looked at for their role in the health services and community care services across the ACT.

Mrs Carnell has talked about the importance of enabling people with disabilities to participate in community life. That is very important for those people, but there is nothing to facilitate their participation. She talked about the response to individual needs, but people living in the community disability group houses find it very hard to get an individual response to their needs. If the group wants to do something it can happen. Obviously, in any family life, there has to be discussion and negotiation, but to put pressure on adults to all do the same activity at the same time does not indicate a concern for the individuals within those community houses. After looking at some of the complaints that I have received about the disability group houses, it seems that all that has happened is that there has been a change from using John Knight Hostel, a large institution, to using small institutions dotted throughout the community.

It is difficult for a number of these people to feel that they can be part of the community when there are restrictions on what actions they can take and on what activities they can participate in. There seems to be little attention to individual needs. Obviously, one of the ways for people to be able to participate in community life as much as possible is to do simple things like going out for dinner or going to the movies, but not necessarily during the day. But, with the cuts to services and the cuts to the amount of money that is provided to disability group houses and to community organisations providing support to people living in the community, they do not have sufficient funds to pay people to assist these people to participate in community life in the way that anyone would like to do. It is good to go out for lunch, but sometimes it is even better to go out for dinner. I am quite sure that none of us would like to go out for dinner but have to eat by 5 o'clock because the person assisting us is not able to be paid to work past 5 o'clock. It really takes away the joy and pleasure of a special dinner when you have to have it by 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

Mr Whitecross: If you can find one.

MS REILLY: That is another problem, of course - finding somewhere where you can eat within that time. I am quite sure a number of people would also like to attend performances at the Canberra Theatre. That is also difficult to achieve unless there are matinee performances. A number of organisations have spoken to the Chief Minister about the difficulties of trying to manage a budget where there is not sufficient money for salaries. The needs of the workers in these organisations are important. It is important that these people are paid their proper wages. I think it is sad that on one level we talk about looking after individuals, but we provide nothing to facilitate individual needs being met.

Another important thing for people living within the community and having government services is the opportunity to have access to a proper complaints mechanism. There is very little information about how you complain. I think this is important because this is a way in which services can be improved. It also gives the opportunity for people

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