Page 1535 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 31 March 2009
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Minister for Corrections): I rise to express my deep sadness at the tragic passing of Margaret Spalding and convey my heartfelt sympathy and condolences to her family.
Margaret was a proud mother to Ben and Jonathan and grandmother to their children. I am sure that this was her most important and cherished role. Perhaps it was the importance of this role that enabled her to reach out to so many of the Koomarri families.
She also understood the importance of looking after yourself and the need to balance her work with an active social and recreational life. I know that she recently took up golf and I know that she had many wonderful holidays with friends.
The Margaret we got to know over many years was a remarkable woman with a deep and active commitment to the city that she loved. And she was a true champion—a champion dedicated to improving the lives of the disadvantaged, especially people with disabilities. She was a wonderful and powerful advocate for the disability sector and was well known for her skills at the discussion table. She was also a tireless campaigner for breaking down the negative stereotypes of people with a disability.
Since December 1997, Margaret was the Chief Executive Officer of Koomarri, an organisation providing community support, housing and employment services for some 350 people with moderate to severe disabilities and their families. Margaret was very much the driving force behind establishing Koomarri as a respected and high profile business and, through this, raising the prestige and participation of people with disability in the ACT.
Prior to joining Koomarri, she was employed in a range of positions in human services, working from the grassroots level through to positions of senior management. She had more than 30 years experience in the government and community sectors and had enormous expertise in service provision and advocacy as well as purchasing and policy.
Margaret worked with the ACT department of health and community care and held community-based positions including being Executive Director of Headway Victoria, family coordinator of the advocacy service ADACAS and executive director of the family based respite service, FaBRiC. She also contributed to the ACT human service industry at a strategic level, with positions held including being a member of the ACT Community Inclusion Board, a cofounder and member of the ACT Leadership Development Group and a committee member of National Disability Services ACT. In this way she took an active and dedicated role in the reform of human services in the territory.
Mr Speaker, I would like to talk for a moment about Margaret’s active involvement in the disability reform process, a role that reflected her enormous drive and dedication to the people she served. Margaret contributed to the reform of the ACT disability sector through her involvement in the Disability Reform Group, which provided advice to my government on recommendations arising from the board of inquiry into disability services in 2001. From there she took on the role of co-chair of the Ministerial Disability Advisory Council. The council was established in 2003 to
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