Page 1459 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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after-school care or the vacation care, but many will, and it certainly will make their lives a lot easier.
Mr Doszpot is very fond of getting out to herald himself as a champion of people with disabilities, but unfortunately when it comes to action Mr Doszpot stumbles at the first hurdle. I guess we would need to go to last week—
Mr Hanson: What about the Shepherd Centre?
MS HUNTER: The Shepherd Centre I did a lot of work with, Mr Hanson, but it is my turn to speak. Last week we had a motion about the wheelchair accessible taxis. Again, Mr Doszpot and the Canberra Liberals did not support that. This is something that has been called for for years and years by community groups advocating on behalf of people with disabilities who need access to the WAT taxis, and also people with disabilities whose only form of transport is these taxis.
So, unfortunately, we saw a stumble down at that hurdle. Then this week, when we are talking about families who need that support, teenagers with a disability who want to have that option also of having some recreation, having some fun, having some social engagement—again Mr Doszpot stumbled at the hurdle. Right at the end he stumbled at that hurdle, could not quite make it over, and it is very unfortunate
I have here an extract of an email I received from a woman constituent about what she needed to do in order to get a place in an after-school program for primary students. It very much spoke about the difficulty, the lack of options and the desperation that the family was feeling in not being able to access after-school care, particularly on the north side of Canberra. The mum had tried to get her son into the Warehouse at Gungahlin. Her son has been on the waiting list there for two years and he has been unable to get a place. The only other after-school care that she knows of is Black Mountain school, and that is only for children in wheelchairs. So this is yet another example of a mum trying to do the right thing by her son, trying to also earn money, who cannot access after-school care.
This mum booked her son into the after-school program in Rivett, more than 20 kilometres away from where they live. She says, “As you all know, the ACT department of education provides transport for children with disabilities to and from school.” They organised a taxi to take her son over to Rivett. But he is not able to travel in a taxi on his own because he wriggles out of the seatbelt, he unlocks the doors and so forth. So this of course has caused a lot of problems around transport. Again this is why we need to be able to provide after-school care, hopefully at a place close to where they go to school or close to where they live. This really does assist these families.
So it is very disappointing that the Canberra Liberals really stumbled at having an implementation plan, a sort of starting date and that—
Mr Doszpot: We have agreed with the implementation plan, Ms Hunter.
MS HUNTER: No, this is when—
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