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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 548 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

simply may be very problematic and requires to go off somewhere for a little while so that parents get their help. We have seen the services that provide that help. We have heard from them. I think you would agree with me that they all do an excellent job.

However, as the Minister knows, and as the Government knows, there is a considerable shortfall in what can be provided. I know that both the ACT Government and the Federal Government in recent times have made some contributions to respite care to try to ease that burden, to reduce that shortfall. Too often we heard that as families look for a measure of respite they are told that the books are closed; that they simply cannot take any more. We heard of the stress that families have and how difficult it is to get that little bit of extra help that is needed. I repeat that I know the measure of help that is already provided. There is a further difficult circumstance sometimes that people find themselves in because they have to track around a lot of agencies to try to find some help, yet those agencies tend to specialise, if I can use that word, in certain areas.

I know that the Minister has had a great deal to do recently with respect to disability services and lobbying the Commonwealth Government to try to get some extra money. I do not know whether the debate today will extend to a notice on the paper about his report of a disability services Ministers meeting where all Ministers, I believe, were disappointed that they could not achieve some greater increase in funding. I believe that Senator Newman has allocated more money, but it is much less than was very carefully quantified as being necessary by all those involved around Australia. So we urge on the Minister and the Government in their efforts to get more expenditure in that area.

I believe it would have been possible for the committee to come back with great detail and say, "We need another $1m here, $500,000 there, and $2m somewhere else". We could have come back with justification and indicated point by point where more money should have been spent, although I qualify that at the same time because one of our recommendations says we need to know more about where the shortfalls are. The committee chose not to go that far because we know the circumstances that this Government works in and we did not want to come back with a wish list that simply could not be met.

Our major recommendation is there and I am confident that Mr Moore will come back in a little time, as he has today, and say, "We accept all your recommendations and one in principle". The major recommendation, I would assert, in this report is recommendation No. 3, and I will read it:

I think that is our major recommendation. If we can draw the attention of the broader community and this Assembly more to the difficulties, because you all already know much about it, I think we have done an important job. There are a number of other significant recommendations relating to the way that care is provided that might ease the way for people and remove some of the complexities, such as ease in the number of examinations that are carried out and the assessments that are made for people. Sometimes they have to have one, two, three or four assessments from different groups. We need easier access so that people do not have to track around agencies. These are recommendations that might make it easier for those people who provide care.

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