Debate resumed from an earlier hour.

Mr McMANUS (Heathcote - Parliamentary Secretary) [7.50 p.m.]: I support the Minister against the scurrilous motion of no confidence that has been moved by the Opposition. It is fairly easy for those in Opposition to rave and rant about Government actions while dodging the destructive policies of the former Government. I appreciate that many members have not been here for 10 years and could not be expected to recall that when the Coalition was in government more than 1,000 Department of Community Services workers were sacked and the number of child protection officers in the system was drastically cut.

To a degree those cuts denuded the Department of Community Services and the Government is now unable to cope with all the problems it faces. The Government is trying to implement a program that is part and parcel of Opposition policy. If the Coalition were in government it would implement a policy similar to the program the Government is attempting to implement. The difference would be that the $30-odd million which will be recouped by the Government will be put back into group homes rather than into consolidated revenue. In other words, the Coalition would privatise the system, take all the profits and put them directly into Treasury coffers for other uses. The Government has done the opposite; it suggests that the community and the people who need these services will be best served if the services are provided by those best able to furnish them.

Since 1856 non-government organisations in this State have provided services for the disabled. In contrast, the Department of Community Services has been providing those services for seven years. Honourable members do not have to be Rhodes scholars to work out who provides the best service. The fact that the private sector provides the services more cheaply does not mean that those services are of a lesser quality. The Government understands the plight of the people with disabilities who need help and services. Tonight I do not speak merely as a member of Parliament, as many members of the Opposition have done, defending a political course.
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As the Labor Party caucus knows, for at least 10 years I have been involved in the battle over group homes.

I have been involved with Peggy Boucher from Parent to Parent in the Sutherland shire and with Margaret Chadwick, who runs an organisation of ageing parents with adult disabled children in the northern suburbs of Wollongong. I have defended the right of those parents to have an assurance, as they grow old, from this Government and from any other government that their children, who in many cases are severely disabled, will be protected. For the last 30 years many of those ageing parents have been looking after their children at no cost to government. In their twilight years and so that they can die in peace, they should be able to ask the Government to guarantee that adequate services will be provided to their children for the rest of their lives.

With this motion the Opposition has stooped to a new low. It is in the gutter and one wonders how much lower it will go. To use people with disabilities, who are amongst the most vulnerable in the community, as weapons in a cynical political campaign is absolutely disgraceful. The Leader of the Opposition wants an inquiry into the so-called privatisation of group homes that support people with disabilities. The call for such an inquiry is a load of rubbish. As the Minister said, it is simply ridiculous to have an inquiry into something that will not happen. One has to look no further than that to find a waste of Government expenditure. The Government’s initiative is designed to improve support for people with disabilities in group homes; it does not involve privatisation. The Government does not propose to privatise group homes; it is inviting expressions of interest from non-profit, non-government organisations. The Government will continue to fund all group homes. That has been its commitment for more than one decade.

The budget of the Ageing and Disability Department has increased by $36 million and its role as a funder and monitor will continue to expand. Thanks to the expressions-of-interest process there will now be an unprecedented level of accountability for disability service providers. I relate one example of a lack of accountability. I will not mention names, but a person to whom I refer has had close contact with me. Early last month a resident of a Department of Community Services group home was found wandering around Bexley without the knowledge of staff rostered on duty at the home. He was found with a broken collarbone and was taken to St George Hospital.

A Department of Community Services critical incident report indicated that two staff on duty failed to implement written shift responsibilities for the group home. Those responsibilities included hourly checks on clients. The client was not in the home. He was roaming the streets, exposed to the elements in the dead of night and his carers were not even aware of that. That is only one story. I do not want to dwell on this matter, but it is close to my heart. The Minister is dealing with it at the moment.

Alison and Greg Mokeeff have become friends of mine over the last few years. They have two boys with Angelmans syndrome who are both in need of 24-hour care. One son has been lucky enough to be placed, but the other is severely disabled and lives at home with his two elderly parents. Greg, a great man, belongs to Rotary and is a businessman in the community of Engadine. He has toiled his life away in small business and has kept his children at home as best he could. Alison and Greg are ageing and have one of their children at home. Alison can no longer cope. She has written to me on a number of occasions. Recently she said:

John the eldest is at present living at home with us. Paul - is living in a Community Services (DOCS) Group Home at Bexley . . . I have had a breakdown and suffer from Graves disease, osteoarthritis in my lower back, hip and leg. It is very painful and at times very difficult to walk (caused through having to lift and carry the boys earlier in their years).

This woman has given her life to looking after these children. Sadly she concludes by saying:

I am begging you to give John a placement in a Group Home in St George/Sutherland area. If anything should happen to my husband or me then both boys will still be able to stay in contact with each other and share their future. PLEASE HELP. We have kept John at home with us for as long as we were able to do so, but the time has come when we just can’t do it any more. Emotionally or physically. We are ageing and will soon be in our 60s. We need help.

Over the years I have also had regular contact with Karen Hair from Heathcote. Her son Andrew has severe global delay and an undiagnosed syndrome. Andrew is at an age when he is sometimes violent. She said in a letter:

Andrew’s display of aggressive behaviours to all family members, in particular me, has been very difficult on everyone . . . We have been trying to find full-time care for Andrew but to no avail. Andrew has been placed on a high priority list at Docs but we have been told time and time again that there is just no place for him.

The letter further states:

To be blunt, we are literally falling apart as a family. Bob is unable to do his job properly at work any more because he is so worried about me and has had to take quite some time off lately simply because I’m not coping at all.

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The frightening thing is that the letter further states:

Our marriage is under an enormous strain at the moment.

We must realise that, whether we like it or not, the Department of Community Services [DOCS] cannot perform the way we thought it would do, so an alternative must be found. Having been involved for 10 years, I am annoyed that members opposite have had the audacity to move a no confidence motion in the Minister. I am really annoyed about the way the honourable member for Hornsby raved and ranted about Mr Phillip French. He quoted comments by Mr French that were adverse to the Government. Mr French is the executive officer of People with Disabilities. He has written letters to the Opposition stating that the Government is doing a terrible thing and that DOCS obviously can cope. In a letter of complaint dated 22 March Mr French stated:

It is, frankly, no wonder that the Department is held in such contempt by its clients and the community.

In a letter of 30 April to the Director-General of the Department of Community Services, Carmel Niland, Mr French said:

[People with Disabilities] is very deeply concerned at the current state of disability services within the Department. There is currently no corporate leadership, expertise or commitment in relation to people with disability in the care of the Department.

Mr French is either a hypocrite or he is politically aligned for his own purposes. First, he wrote a letter to Carmel Niland stating that the department is not doing its job properly - something that I have been saying for some time - and then he wrote a letter to the honourable member for Hornsby stating that the honourable member should say that the Government’s decision is wrong. Mr French’s letters to the honourable member for Hornsby should be thrown where they belong - in a garbage tin. I do not know Mr French but he is playing games with the emotions of the people I represent. I despise the man even though I do not know him. One man who is not particularly known for his love of some Ministers is Alan Jones. A transcript of his program at 8.30 this morning shows that during a discussion with one caller Alan Jones said:

Now I have been given part of a submission, it’s called A Submission to the New South Wales Government on Disability Policy and Budget Priorities, submitted on behalf of the Australian Quadriplegic Association, Family Advocacy, People with Disabilities, Physical Disability Council of New South Wales, New South Wales Council for Intellectual Disability and New South Wales Safeguards Coalition.

He further said:

So it does seem to me that all submissions from the disability fraternity, prior to the last election, seem to be saying they didn’t want DOCS to be a disability service provider.

Suddenly I realised where all the complaints were coming from. Prior to the election mainstream service providers were saying by way of submission that they were concerned about DOCS and the way it provided services, yet after the election there is a war in the community about the Government’s intention to improve the situation. Obviously the issue is politically motivated. As I said in my opening statements, I am concerned that that political motivation is driven with the people with disabilities in my constituency and in the constituencies of members opposite at heart.

It is time to stop the rot and to bite the bullet. In my opinion DOCS cannot cope with the situation for some reason - it may be a cutback in numbers under the Coalition Government. Church groups and non-profit organisations have been providing disability services for decades. My constituents are saying that they do not care about who looks after their children as long as they can be guaranteed a service that is adequate or better than the service they receive at present. Elderly people with disabled children want to go to their graves knowing that a placement is available for their child. That is the most important issue of the day.

If Government and Opposition members do not accept that, if we cannot defend the rights of the disabled, if we cannot give them peace of mind that they can access a service that should be provided, particularly when most elderly parents have been looking after their children for decades at no cost to us, we are wasting our time being here. It is difficult to comprehend that although the Minister has moved to improve the situation the Opposition has decided to make it a political issue.

In November last year I talked to the Minister about this issue, and I mentioned the two people to whom I referred earlier. In her frustration the Minister went to Canberra to meet the former Federal Minister for disability services, the Hon. Warwick Smith, and to seek extra funding from the Commonwealth. I have no doubt she put these cases to him because she was as frustrated as I was. Yet the Minister left Canberra with an empty purse. Let us not kid ourselves that this is simply a State Government matter. The Federal Government also has a fairly disgraceful record in relation to looking after people with disabilities. If we start throwing brickbats at the Minister we must also start throwing brickbats at the mob in Canberra, because if this Minister is guilty the Federal Government is guilty as sin.

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The Federal Government can ensure that we provide the services. It regards this Government as a Labor government that should not be entitled to anything and it has not given us anything. It sent the Minister back empty handed. I am fairly disgusted. The Carr Government has increased disability services funding by 91 per cent over five years. The rate of funding growth for disability services in New South Wales is 40 per cent higher than the average in all other States and Territories. It is interesting that 63 per cent of group homes are already managed by non-profit organisations, yet 80 per cent of the problems and concerns have been raised by the DOCS sector. That says something in itself.

Only about 20 per cent of the complaints have been made by non-profit organisations, which run 63 per cent of the group homes; 80 per cent of the complaints come from DOCS but the department is demanding more services. If the department cannot perform the service we must ensure that we give the service to those who can do the job. I stand by the Minister and the decisions she has taken. I have no doubt that in the long term these moves will be great for those who need the service, and I commend them.

Mr GEORGE (Lismore) [8.10 p.m.]: Like the honourable member for Mulgoa and the honourable member for Heathcote, I too have been listening to my constituents. The message I am getting is totally different from what we have just heard from the honourable member for Heathcote. I have been receiving letters as well. I have not been out in my community stirring up a war on this issue. People have come to my office to deliver the message.

Mr McManus: It is the wrong message.

Mr GEORGE: I have been listening and I think it is time the Government started listening. People are angry about the Government tendering out disability services. They are surprised and very disturbed at the decision, which will generate predictable outcomes. Frankly, people cannot believe that anyone with a fundamental knowledge of the disability field’s history and needs could have recommended such a policy to the Government. They strongly believe that the way in which the issue has been handled, without consultation with parents and group home residents, is arrogant and insensitive.

No acceptable reasons have been presented. There is no reflection of community opinion from clients, families, carers or staff. No documented research or reports have indicated widespread community demand or support for the proposal. Families on the North Coast are concerned about the changes. People have come to me from the surrounding electorates on this issue. They fear that people may be underassessed or overassessed, causing the future needs of consumers not to be met. Profit margins at each end will be considered: high need and high risk.

What is the Government’s real reason for pursuing the tendering process? After questioning a few people I have been informed that it is required to allow the Government to maintain its credit rating. People have not been given a choice. They have been told what is to happen. Families and parents would rather go down fighting than just accept the inevitable. The families and carers that have made representations to me believe strongly that the Department of Community Services [DOCS] has very clear guidelines and high levels of accountability. Another concern relates to the expectation that non-government organisations [NGOs] will not have infrastructure for existing or expanded services. NGOs may not tender fully for infrastructure and therefore will need to cut services to avoid going over budget. What will the Ageing and Disability Department [ADD] do if service quality diminishes? The people affected will not be able to return to the ADD. What legal responsibility will a successful tenderer have to maintain a service, over time or in quality? The Government will be able to pass the blame or responsibility back to private providers rather than defend any criticism of its service delivery, which is more publicly accountable. As I said earlier, like the honourable member for Heathcote, I have received letters. I shall read one of those letters:

As parents of James Gorman at Mullumbimby group home we register our most vigorous objection to the proposed changes to staffing of DOCs group homes.

After almost 20 years of institutional living, James is at last being given caring and loving attention, reflected clearly in his response to those about him. He came to this home with a reputation and now after 4 years residency there he is known as a gentle and loving person with a sense of humour.

When we first placed James in Gladesville Hospital there was a very positive approach with plans and ideas for the young ones in care there. It wasn’t long till Government policy brought financial changes affecting staff morale and ratio leaks of staff to residents. As a consequence, poor care or even lack of attention followed, resulting in James being frightened, aggressive and frustrated. We saw him often in those days and say emphatically those conditions must never be allowed to happen again.

The community considers good care of anyone with visual, physical or intellectual impairment to be one of our civil rights. We ask most firmly that the Government responsible withdraw from the proposed changes and not abrogate their responsibilities to those less able to care for themselves.

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Families believe, despite Government assurances to the contrary, that the new arrangements are not about providing the best service for people with intellectual disabilities. They see them merely as a cost-cutting exercise. As a consequence, a Far North Coast action group has been formed to canvass concerns as widely as possible to have the decision reversed. For these reasons I support the motion.

Mr McBRIDE (The Entrance) [8.16 p.m.]: I too have to express my disappointment at this debate. Moving a no confidence motion in the Minister for Community Services is a total and utter act of bastardry. In the management of her portfolio she is undoubtedly the most genuine, dedicated and sincere Minister in this Parliament. She has demonstrated commitment well above what is expected from a Minister. Everyone knows that the management of the Department of Community Services [DOCS] has been very difficult over the last 10 years. This motion is more than hypocritical because some members of this Parliament were in the previous Coalition Government that was responsible for substantial cuts in both funding and staff numbers in the department. Cuts were made to the whole spectrum of services provided by the department. I can see in the Chamber now members of the previous Coalition Government who were in office when those things occurred.

Mr Rozzoli: You do not know what you are talking about.

Mr McBRIDE: Yes I do. They knew what went on. I would expect those people to exercise their consciences when reflecting on what happened under the previous Coalition Government. Newer members might not be familiar with what happened in the department at that time but members of the Coalition Government know about the cuts and the actions taken. In 1995 when Labor gained office Minister Ron Dyer, a very genuine and sincere person, a principled Minister, became responsible for the department. Anyone who questions his integrity is beneath contempt. Ron Dyer is of the highest integrity. There was a campaign like a dog chasing a bone to use the portfolio as a tool against the Labor Government. There was no concern about the damage done to those in receipt of the services provided through the department. The tactic was to drag through the media unfortunate case after case. The people concerned were treated like cattle. Opposition members were not interested in resolving the issue; they wanted negative publicity about the Government.

Mr Rozzoli: How extraordinary.

Mr McBRIDE: That is a fact. The honourable member may shake his head but he should shake it in shame. He knows that it is true. I expect better of him because he displayed integrity in the office he occupied in a previous Parliament. In fact, I value some of the advice he gave me. The honourable member should know that what I am saying is true. The Coalition pursued Ron Dyer and was successful in pulling him down and gaining a scalp. But it was undeserved, because without doubt Ron Dyer was a perfect choice to be Minister for Community Services. He was totally committed to doing something for ordinary people and the most disadvantaged in our society.

As I said, the department was left in total disarray with regard to both its management and delivery of services. Since 1995 this Government has been committed to improving the situation of the less fortunate in our society. It is clear from this debate that the Opposition is again about exploiting the most disabled and the most disadvantaged in our society for its own political benefit. Why? Because since the election the Opposition has gone backwards - and even I thought it could not go any further backwards! There is no real Opposition. This issue has simply been whipped deliberately in an attempt to create a crisis amongst those who are least able to look after themselves. That is what this motion is about. As I said, this has been the ongoing political tactic of the Coalition since it was removed from government.

As honourable members know, and as the honourable member for Heathcote said, the suffering, the difficulties and the trials that aged parents on the Central Coast are facing now in regard to their middle-aged dependent offspring is a real issue. The honourable member for Heathcote and the honourable member for Lismore related stories about people in distress. Any front-line lower House member knows that is true, because their constituents come through their electorate office doors and tell them about their problems. I recall one such case of an aged pensioner couple in their late seventies having to care for their middle-aged son who was totally and utterly uncontrollable.

Without warning he would go on a rampage and cause all sorts of trouble for his parents. He smashed up the house and sometimes his parents, to the point where they had to call the police and have him taken away. But there was no way of processing him in the system; there was nowhere for him to go. There is a huge demand on the Central Coast for such services. The Government and the Minister are trying to deliver those services to these people. As I said, every front-line lower House member has similar stories he or she could relate.

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There is no doubt that the need for such services is extreme and universal. They are needed on the Central Coast, on the South Coast, in the southern suburbs of Sydney, and in country areas. I am sure it is even a bigger issue in rural areas, where the services are not available. Of course, there is even limited availability in the larger, metropolitan areas, where there are real problems relating to disabled offspring. I know of one country couple who have looked after their disabled son for something like 45 years! I give credit to country people for the way they cope in such situations. Their communities rally around them and support them. As I said, there is a universal need.

This motion is a disgrace. There is no doubt that the Government has a vision for people with disabilities. We are trying to provide a better and more secure future for them. Parents who put their disabled children into a group home do so in the knowledge that they are safe and secure, so that when they go to sleep at night they do not need to worry about them. That is what the Government is seeking to do. As the honourable member for Lismore said, in the last five years during the term of this Government funding for disability services in New South Wales has increased by a massive 91 per cent.

In fact, the latest figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that the growth in disability funding in New South Wales is 40 per cent higher than the average for all other States and Territories. The same problems are being experienced throughout Australia. As I said, it is universal. We all agree on that. The Government is delivering on its commitment to people with disabilities. Five years ago the Ageing and Disability Department was formed to fund and monitor the delivery of disability services in this State. This year the department’s funding has increased by $36.4 million. Its role as a funder and monitor will continue to expand as the Government forms more and more partnerships with the community to help deliver to people with disabilities the best possible support and services.

As pointed out by previous speakers, for more than 100 years partnerships have been entered into for the provision of disability services in New South Wales. The concept is not new; we have been doing it for a century. One would be forgiven for thinking, given the flak that is flying around in the media at the moment, that this a radical idea being introduced for the first time. Almost two-thirds of such services have been provided by non-government organisations. Who is responsible for the myth that the Government has decided, all of a sudden, to privatise these services? It is a complete furphy.

I can speak from experience about the provision of community services in my electorate and on the Central Coast. We have made tremendous advances in the provision of services by entering into partnerships with non-government organisations. I refer in particular to a service on the Central Coast for youth suffering mental distress. Part of that service is provided by the Central Coast Area Health Service and part is provided by a non-government organisation. This is a good merger of two bodies working together. I recall that when the service was launched the Director of the Central Coast Area Health Service said it was a first, with a government agency, that is the health service, going into partnership with a non-government organisation. It has been suggested that a tribal type of system existed in government bureaucracies in that they did not want to share their turf; they did not want non-government organisations involved in their organisation. Why? Because they did not want to give others a window into how they were providing services. They did not want people from outside knowing how services were being managed.

A similar great initiative was the volunteers in policing scheme, which provided a window into police operations. It was a monitoring system, a controlling system. I do not think it was designed that way, but that is the way it worked. It broke down the culture in which it was believed that only the police had the answers. People could talk to ordinary people about police operations. The scheme has changed the nature of police operations on the Central Coast for the better. Similar service improvements are achieved in other partnerships. I have witnessed it on the Central Coast. The rigid, institutionalised approach is broken down.

We even experience that approach here in Parliament House when we have to fill out a form to get paid for something; we have to go to a lot of trouble to get reimbursed. And if we do not fill out the form correctly, if we do not lodge the return on the right day, we will not be paid for eight weeks. As a cleaner said to me, "I bet you it doesn’t happen to any of the Clerks in Parliament. They will not have to wait eight weeks to get paid because they didn’t get the form in on the right day." Mixing the two together brings an improvement, because that breaks down institutionalised behaviour. I think everyone would agree that there must be flexibility in the provision of these services to the community. The rigid, bureaucratic style of delivery of services is basically and fundamentally flawed. Any reasonable person would agree with that. These partnerships are part of the Government’s policy.

The Government is determined that people with disabilities, their families and carers will have a
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better future. Some of the more scandalous misinformation, which borders on fiction, is that the Government is privatising disability services. That has been proved to be a myth. It is not true. The very people responsible for the proliferation of the myth claim that people with disabilities will be auctioned - to use the term that they used, as if these people are cattle. We could not have a more sincere and genuine Minister. To suggest that the Minister would allow anything like that to happen is contemptible. It is that sort of ill-founded rot that is causing immeasurable harm to the disability community, and in particular to the carers.

As if life were not challenging enough, people in group homes, their families and carers have been subject to a disgraceful scare campaign. The truth is that the Government will continue to fund disability services. There is no question about that. In a bitter irony, those now peddling the groundless garbage are the very same people who before the last election lobbied both sides of politics for dramatic changes to disability services. At that time they slammed the Department of Community Services [DOCS]. They attacked DOCS for not having the corporate leadership, the expertise and the passion to operate group homes for the disabled. They said in effect that DOCS could not do it. They wanted something better.

Now those same people are saying that DOCS should be running these services, that the Government should be involved. Despite the emotional nature of the rhetoric, which demanded the removal of DOCS from disability services, the Government listened and heard the message. The Government continues to listen. It has looked at the number of complaints about DOCS group homes registered with the independent Community Services Commission. As was pointed out by the honourable member for Heathcote, no less than 80 per cent of complaints -

Mr Rozzoli: You have said that three times.

Mr McBRIDE: Do you have a problem with that?

Mr Rozzoli: It is tedious repetition.

Mr McBRIDE: I am disappointed that that comment comes from a member with your integrity. I am disappointed that you would make such a trivial comment on such an important issue. It is certainly not the way you behaved when you held the office of Speaker. All you do now is bring further disgrace on yourself. As I was saying, no less than 80 per cent of complaints about disability services related to services provided by the Department of Community Services. As was pointed out, that department delivers less than a third of the total services provided. Clearly, there was a need to review the provision of disability services, and the concerns of the sector were addressed in the most direct way possible, with plans to keep expanding the funding, and most importantly, monitoring the role of the Ageing and Disability Department.

Savings that may come from this process, and hopefully will come from it, by providing a more efficient service and better quality of service have been the subject of an assurance from the Minister. The Minister stated that any savings made will go directly back to the department to provide further services to the community. What can be wrong with that? The Opposition spoke about an unmet need, and we say we are trying to improve the quality of services and reduce the cost. We are saying also that we will pour all that money back into providing additional services. Everyone should want that. There should not be any question about that. The Government is determined to maximise the value of disability funding. I know that Minister Lo Po’ will use any money she can to help make a dent in the enormous unmet need for more group homes and respite care for many parents, some of whom have not had a holiday for as long as 30 years.

But the advocates were not alone in demanding change. The Opposition demanded in its disability statement made before the election that the Auditor-General investigate the effectiveness and efficiency of DOCS-run group homes. In other words, the Opposition was expressing concerns about the existing system. The Government has acknowledged those concerns in the best way possible: the Government and the Minister are looking at ways to improve those services and their delivery to the community. As I said earlier, the Government has listened to what the Opposition and the representatives of the disabled people have said, and the Minister has acted on those concerns. Those concerns were proved by review to be real, and the Government and the Minister have responded to those needs.

The system of self-assessment for DOCS group homes will be banished forever, and the quality of support for people with disabilities will improve as non-government organisations continue to set new standards in expertise, innovation and compassion. The House should condemn the Opposition for its abuse of parliamentary process in that it has attacked a Minister who has an outstanding record on looking after the community in accordance with her portfolio responsibilities. No-one can doubt the sincerity of the Minister.

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Mr ROZZOLI (Hawkesbury) [8.35 p.m.]: I support the motion, but I do so with a heavy heart for a number of reasons. I start by commenting on a statement made by the honourable member for The Entrance towards the end of his speech. He made a plea that honourable members should support the Minister because of additional money that is being put into community services and for her dedication to the job at hand. That would be all very well except for one fundamental problem: what the Government is doing is not working.

I have known the Minister for many years. She represents an area near the electorate I represent. I knew her before she became a member of Parliament. I knew her when she was mayor of Penrith. I remember commiserating with her when she got dudded for pre-selection by the former member for Londonderry and now member for Blacktown. I thought she would make a good member of Parliament. I was impressed by her sincerity and obvious desire to do the right thing by the people she represented then as an alderman of Penrith Council, and shortly after as a member of Parliament.

However, I come back to the point that in reality, despite the Minister’s obvious sincerity and desire to do something for her portfolio, she is not getting the desired results. I have worked in the disability area for well over 20 years. When I say worked, I mean worked in an active and hands-on sense. I worked with four or five organisations in their places of operation. I am deeply involved in the administration of those organisations, and I have daily contact with them. The message that is coming through clearly and unequivocally is that the Government is just not getting it right. That makes me sad.

I do not disagree that the Government has put more money into the disability area. I do not even disagree that it probably has the intention of doing the right thing. But the reality is that it is not being effective. The Minister asked in her contribution to this debate what the Coalition was doing in Opposition, what had it done in the past, and what are its present policies? The fact remains, as was pointed out by the Opposition when the Coalition was in government: The Government has the carriage of the matter on the day and it is that Government’s obligation to deliver on whatever is the area of departmental responsibility. If the Minister had the close contacts that she claims to have in the disability area, she would know of the enormous discontent that exists throughout the State regarding the administration of the Department of Community Services and her administration as Minister.

Because of my long association with disability services, I receive letters from all over New South Wales mirroring that concern. The Minister has to realise that she cannot get away with merely believing that she is doing a good job. She has to look long and hard at the situation and realise that the system is failing. As the Minister she must do more to address the problem than she is currently doing. The Government has told us about the 91 per cent increase in funds that have been allocated in the past five years. I am pleased if that amount has been provided in a material way. But it is ineffective if there are not achievements on the ground which deliver services to people with disabilities and to their carers.

As the honourable member for Heathcote rightly said, carers are just as disadvantaged as are people with disabilities by an inability to deliver to them the necessary services. All honourable members have heard stories of families who have grown old caring for their disabled family members. A gentleman in The Hills area, west of Sydney, was told 11 or 12 years ago that his daughter was on the top of the priority list for respite care. Eleven or 12 years later she is still on the top of the priority list for respite care, but she has not received it. In the meantime his wife has suffered a serious illness, and now he cares for not only his disabled daughter but also his disabled wife. He is not getting any assistance whatsoever.

It could easily be said that the Federal Government is not putting in enough money, and there is probably some truth in that. But the historical situation puts New South Wales behind most other States in its care of people with disabilities. Over many years this State has not had a good record. To show that I am ecumenical in what I say - I believe in giving credit where credit is due - one of the first Ministers I remember having a breakthrough in this area was Rex Jackson. For all his rough and tumble ways, Rex was a good-hearted, caring person who understood the problems faced by people who go through life looking at the wrong side of the coin. He used his rough and tumble ways to drag a great deal of money out of Treasury, more than had been previously provided. We have moved a long way since that time and, for whatever reason, we are now failing.

As much as I like the Minister for Community Services - we have been colleagues in neighbouring electorates for a long time - I have absolutely no confidence in her capacity to deliver on her portfolio because she does not have the runs on the board that demonstrate that she, or her department, is coping. Before the last election I was very involved with the campaign run by the disability movement. Because
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of my long association, on many occasions I advised disability groups on presenting a case to both the Government and the Opposition. I do not care who gets the credit for providing material benefits to people with disabilities and their carers. All I want are results. I want real benefits on the ground for those who have done it tough for so long.

We must always remember when dealing with and talking to people who represent people with disabilities that they have a considerable burden even before they start worrying about organising themselves into groups and lobbying the Government and the Opposition. They lead a difficult and traumatic life, and most of them do it with great dedication to the people they care for. To place enormous additional burdens upon such people, as the Department of Community Services often does, is totally unfair, insensitive and unfeeling. Before the last election I attended many disability group meetings. At not one of those meetings that I attended was there a representative of the Government.

The Hon. Patricia Forsythe attended the majority of the meetings. She obviously could not attend all of them, but the Opposition was represented at each of them. The Government was not represented at any of the meetings that I attended, which drew a considerable amount of criticism from the group organisers. However, again to demonstrate my ecumenical approach, when it came to the crunch before the election and the Coalition released its policy on caring for people with disabilities, those disability groups were just as disappointed with the package we proposed as they were with the Government’s proposal. We resiled from the opportunity to put more meaningful dollars - and meaningful dollars is a critical point - into the disability area.

At the election the disability groups did not know who to support because they did not have confidence in either side of politics. However, because the Government continued in office, the disability groups took its policy statements at face value and hoped for a better deal. The Government has let them down. The real reason they feel let down is because of the lack of consultation. It is my experience in the disability area, as it is in most human resource areas, that there is not one solution. A suite of solutions must be implemented. The non-government sector has cared for people with disabilities for many years. The Government has, in its own fashion, but often not very well, cared for people with disabilities.

There is a role for government and for the non-government sector. In my electorate an organisation called Warrah, a non-government organisation at Dural, which has been in existence for about 25 years, does a fantastic job looking after people with disabilities. Many people with disabilities have grown old in the system, having been there for 25 years, and their parents are now in their fifties, sixties and seventies. Because Warrah has been around for so long, it historically receives a low level of funding. It only receives about a third of the level of funding that similar organisations receive. Despite its pleas and all its good work, despite the fact it deals with many people with multiple and severe disabilities, it cannot get additional funding.

Therefore, when it is impossible to continue to maintain a person in its system with the necessary level of care to protect not only that disabled person but also the other disabled people and its staff - the disabled person may have become increasingly difficult and violent with age - that person must be placed in a government-run institution. Therefore, there is a role for government sector intervention. People with disabilities and their carers want deep and meaningful consultation on how the package is put together. That is the area in which they feel so let down. They also feel let down by the fact that management of the group homes is being put out to tender. Rightly or wrongly, there is a perception that the homes are being sold off to the lowest bidder.

[Interruption]

The honourable member for Heathcote says that our mob - I assume he means Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition - is promoting this perception. But we got that perception from the disability groups. As their representatives in this debate, we are merely reiterating the facts they have put before us. As a further example of the lack of consultation, I believe that many people in critical areas of DOCS do not understand what they are doing. I work in another area of disability, the drug and alcohol field. Only in the past few days we have discovered that the Government is reviewing the continuing existence of the Intoxicated Persons Act and has given an indication that it will repeal the Act.

The intention is to put the proclaimed places, which are set up under the Intoxicated Persons Act, under the supported assistance program [SAP], an accommodation program. The Intoxicated Persons Act and proclaimed places are part of an alcohol treatment and alcohol abuse management system, not
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an accommodation system. I do not want to go into the details of that matter. The critical point is that there is no-one left in DOCS who understands the Intoxicated Persons Act or how proclaimed places work, why they work and what they are.

Mr McManus: You sacked them.

Mr ROZZOLI: The Labor Government sacked them all or forced them out. No-one understands it. Who are the last people the Government has talked to about how the Act works and about proclaimed places? The people who are involved on the ground doing the job. One would think that the basis of consultation is that the first people to talk to are the service providers. That is the essence of consultation, because it is the service providers who are at the pit face day after day who know the grind of the job, know the difficulties and put up with all the problems. They are the last people who are being consulted. If a government wants to get a group offside, the best way it can do that is to withhold on proper consultation. I heard the Minister say in her speech that the Government has gone past consulting and is working with the service providers.

The service providers have difficulty in distinguishing what it is they are supposed to be involved in. The message that they give to us, and I know it is echoed in other elements of the disability industry, is that the same accusation of lack of consultation goes through the whole of the industry. A post-school options group program that runs in my area caters to a number of people who may well be contenders at some stage in their future life to go into a group home of some description, whether it is run by a non-government sector organisation or a government organisation.

They received a letter that said, "We have given you funding for a bus with wheelchair access" - one of these Hiace buses - "in which to take your post-school option program young people around." They were not asked whether they wanted a bus or whether they could find the money to operate it if they were given the money. They were allocated $49,000 for a Hiace bus that they cannot use because they do not have the money to service the use of it. Again, there was no consultation.

Funding for DOCS has increased by 91 per cent. If it is being spent on projects like buses on which the recipients are not game to spend the money because they cannot maintain them and the money is left sitting in the bank, it is small wonder that all the extra funding for DOCS is not going very far. I have today retrieved from the Questions and Answers paper some answers to questions that I asked the Minister for Community Services on this very subject. As I am in the process of analysing the answers I did not bring them down to the Chamber tonight. The answers are vague, global answers, yet the questions were specifically framed.

The Minister through her departmental officers - I am not saying that it was the Minister herself - said, "We do not keep statistics in these areas. We do not know the break-up of people in fully supported accommodation or partly supported accommodation. We do not know how many respite care beds are being taken up by people who have drifted into full-time accommodation because the people looking after them just will not take them back." The department does not keep basic statistics to analyse what the problem is that it is supposed to be working on and funding. Until they understand the very basic point of the problem they face, they will never get it right.

I do not criticise the Government for not putting enough money into DOCS. I criticise it for not spending the money wisely. I have said to the disability groups, "Before we ask for more money, what I would like is a guarantee that the money that we have got is spent wisely, carefully and sensitively." I support this motion, not because of any feelings of personal animosity or otherwise towards the Minister, whom I quite like as a person and as a colleague of many years standing, but because I, through my hands-on experience of work in the DOCS area, have no confidence that she or her department is on a course of action that will deliver the services desperately needed in the community, by the people with disabilities and by the carers of the people with disabilities.

As people in the system get older the problem gets greater. The greatest fear that older people have is that when they go there will be no-one left to look after the person they love. It is probably hard for those who have no experience of living with people with disabilities to understand how passionately devoted one can be to a person who has been a burden, in a sense, all one’s life. But parents and carers are passionately devoted to their disabled kin and they want more than anything else to know that there is a system that is guaranteed to pick up those people and look after them for the rest of their life. I do not think that, in the sort of society we live in today, that is too much to ask.

Mr IEMMA (Lakemba - Minister for Public Works and Services, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Citizenship) [8.55 p.m.]: The honourable member for Hawkesbury touched on some very
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relevant points in the conclusion of his speech when he talked about the attitude of parents with children with disabilities, especially aged parents. He correctly pointed out their greatest fear of dying and the care that will be provided for the children with disabilities that they leave behind. They approach the resolution of that with great passion, as the honourable member quite correctly pointed out.

In all of the words that have been spoken today and all of the criticisms that have been made, one would think that people would be prepared to say at least, "Let us have a look at some options to try to improve the system for providing additional care, additional support, for people with disabilities, particularly children with disabilities, to the care provided under the current system that operates in group homes now." Parents approach the issue with passion. There would not be one member of Parliament who has not been approached by parents who ask, "Can we get some additional accommodation and support for our children? What will happen to them when we are no longer here?"

However, many members would have had the same parents give a list of the problems they have had in dealing with the management and the staff in group homes. There are significant problems in the management and staffing of group homes. The Minister is trying to rectify that and, in so doing, provide additional resources for additional places, just as her predecessor Minister Dyer did. In one of the first actions of this Government in 1995 he released the $50 million that had been locked up and unspent to provide additional places for people with disabilities in group home accommodation, supported accommodation and respite care.

I cannot understand how, on the one hand, the Opposition is critical and wants to close the door on the option to try to find the solution. One option to explore is putting out the management of some homes to the community sector that for decades has provided the sort of care that a range of disability groups have said the Government should let them manage. I want to quote some excerpts from one of the many letters that I have received in my time in this place since 1991. It is an example of a mother in her fifties and her mother, the grandmother, who is pushing 80, and the battle they have had not to get their son and grandchild into a DOCS place but to get him out because of what was happening to him. I have plenty of other letters, but this is probably the worst. I will not name the child or the group home or identify anyone. The letter, which is dated 4 March 1998, states:

They [DOCS staff] have now refused to allow [name of child] to return to his home at [name of group home].

He has not had a trial but is being treated worse than a criminal.

Parents are treated like second class citizens and their word is never believed against corrupt staff.

[Name of child] has the intellect of a 4/5 year old [and has been] a resident [of this place] for 8 years.

Management plans put into place never adhered to.

Staff that are supposed to stay over do not. The accounts of the house are poorly managed. Moneys identified as belonging to the residents still have not been returned to the residents of the group home. One has to ask: What sort of courageous person would steal money from an intellectually disabled person with a mind of a four- or five-year-old? But they exist in the system. There has been a litany of criticism against DOCS and the management of some of the places when disability groups have claimed that there has been a cover-up or an inappropriate response to deal with these matters. Today the very people amongst the disability groups that are criticising this Minister for having responded are the same people who were going to bat for my constituents and other constituents and claimed that the system needed reform and that the community sector needed a greater role in providing care and the management of group homes.

When this Minister tried to explore that option some of them backtracked very quickly. What is their motivation? All their words are couched in terms of care, compassion or of providing assurance of mind to parents who are getting on in years and whose greatest fear is that their child will not be secure in a home before they die. The Government is asked not to improve the situation but to close the door. The parents and grandparents of the child mentioned in the letter I quoted had a four-year battle with DOCS. During that time they had custody of the boy. Their long-running battle resulted in them losing custody and control of the child. It is true that some staff are incompetent, inefficient and sometimes corrupt. They will gang up on any parent or grandparent who dares to speak out against them or about the uselessness of some of the management of these places, which is what occurred in this particular group home.

On this occasion the parents and grandparents lost out and were devastated to lose control over the destiny of the child. The Government is asked to ignore that but the Minister says that she will not allow that to continue. Such things happen and just because it is public sector employees of the Department of Community Services nobody can do the job better. The mother, grandmother and I do not accept that. Parents of other children who have
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made allegations of abuse, inefficiency, maladministration, support services not being provided or daily activities being undertaken with nobody organising the people concerned to get back to the group home do not support that.

Parents not only lobby members of Parliament about getting placements but also about the sorts of practices that go on in lots of these places. This motion asks that the Government does not explore that option but increases the role of the community sector. My experience is that DOCS staff, casual or part-time, comprise people such as fruit pickers who have no qualifications to provide the sort of care that is needed. I do not have a lot of confidence in them. I have a lot of experience in dealing with complaints of parents and grandparents.

Mr Windsor: You are insulting fruit pickers.

Mr IEMMA: I am not insulting fruit pickers but I do not see that a fruit picker would have qualifications to deal with people with intellectual disabilities, or managing a group home. I am not saying that all the staff are corrupt but a lot do not have the skills to deal with the residents of the group homes or in managing the accounts because they have not been trained. They do not have the skills to implement the care plans that are put in place. It is not the case that they are all corrupt but there are inefficiencies; some staff do not have sufficient training. Honourable members should not ignore the benefits of having other organisations with a much better track record and longer involvement in providing care getting involved. It is good if at the same time the Government makes some savings that could provide more places and would satisfy criticisms of parents that there are not enough places. That option involves people who have more skills and capability to provide the care.

That should involve an Opposition engaging the Minister in a co-operative way to assist in the reform process and not induce a no confidence motion. It reflects poorly on the Opposition that it has chosen this issue to attack the Minister. Opposition members have not got clean hands, given the performance that occurred between 1988 and 1995. In 1995 Minister Dyer had to release a large amount of money that was hidden away unspent. The money was set aside specifically to provide more placements but left in an account earning interest. That money should have been used to provide more care for people with intellectual and physical disabilities. Parents could then be reassured before they died that somebody would look after their children. The previous Government was not very courageous. Ron Dyer will forever have the credit for his action in this regard. This Minister is carrying on his good work but she is going a few steps further.

My constituents who have been fighting against malpractice in some of these group homes for eight years are not demonstrating against the Minister. They are urging the Minister not to give up because at last they have some hope that something might happen to reform a system that is not working. They are looking for a parliament that will provide them with some support, not one that will be debating a no confidence motion against the very person who is trying to bring about this change. It does not reflect well on the strategists in the office of the Leader of the Opposition who picked this issue on which to attack the Minister with a no confidence motion.

Members opposite can point to the people who were outside Parliament House yesterday. I could wheel out the mother and grandmother of that child and parade them before the cameras, but I will not exploit them. They are not looking to this House to pass a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Community Services; they are looking for an overwhelming vote of confidence. And that is what the Minister will get when the vote is taken. In a letter to the Manly Daily an activist in disability organisations, Chris Agus, said:

People with disabilities, the ‘hands-on’ group home staff supporting them, and their families are having to bear the brunt of this poor management.

Representatives of disability organisations were outside Parliament House yesterday shouting "poor management", "malpractice" and "reform the system". Now that the Minister has gone down the path of reforming the system they are backing away at 100 miles an hour and attacking her. The statement by Chris Agus is exactly to the point. He hit the nail on the head, as did the constituents in my electorate, in terms of poor management. The letter further stated:

People with disabilities are being ‘set up to fail’ without management allocating proper systems or fully trained staff to group homes.

Yet again Mr Agus has analysed exactly what the problem is: poor staff, lack of training, lack of skills and poor management. Residents of group homes have had to put up with those problems. What are the consequences of those problems for people with disabilities and their families? They are no different to the consequences for my constituents. For
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example, the mother must go to the group home and provide the care that her son does not receive there. She does a roster with her mother; the grandmother is at the group home when the mother is not there.

Their lives revolve around being at the group home to care for the child and filling in when the staff cannot do their job, which happens most of the time. That situation is not acceptable to me, and it is not acceptable to the mother and the grandmother. Unfortunately, they do not have much say in the matter any more because it has been taken out of their hands. The 80-year old grandmother will not rest in peace when she leaves this earth, and that is the great tragedy. Another tragedy is that we must debate this idiotic motion of no confidence because the Minister has dared to go down a path that should have been followed a long time ago.

The Minister is simply responding to the criticisms made by people in the disabilities sector about the management of group homes; they have been asking her to go down this path. For base political reasons some people in the disabilities sector have been convinced that they should back off and that they should use cheap political tactics to attack the Minister. As I said, when the vote is taken later tonight the Minister will get an overwhelming vote of confidence, and she will continue on the path to reform a system that is failing people with disabilities and their parents - something which cannot be allowed to continue.

At the end of the day our objective is to provide care for people with disabilities. If we are to provide the support and accommodation they need, we must go down the track of putting management of group homes into the hands of people who not only know what they are doing but will also employ others who know what they are doing to run these places and care for these people. The Government can then free resources to do another great thing, that is, provide more units of accommodation, group homes, respite care and supported accommodation for children with intellectual and physical disabilities.

After all, that is the only thing the parents and grandparents of these children are asking for. They want to know that when they die their children will be left in good care in good accommodation and will be looked after. They want to know that their children will not be ripped off by gutless people who think that it is courageous to steal money from children with intellectual disabilities; who think it is a joke to organise an activity day and not bother to organise transport back to the group home; who think it is a joke to have people with disabilities sleeping in the lounge rather than in the bedroom accommodation provided; or who might think it is funny to abuse them physically or sexually. That does occur in some of these places. I am not saying that all group homes are afflicted by these problems, but there are enough of them for us to take notice and to take action. That is exactly what the Minister is doing and good on her.

Mr WINDSOR (Tamworth) [9.15 p.m.]: I will not be supporting this motion of no confidence. I have been in this place for eight years. From memory I think I have supported one no confidence motion. I consider a motion of no confidence to be an important motion. Although honourable members know that this motion will not get up today because the Government has the numbers, I believe that one of the most critical issues this House can debate is a motion of no confidence in a Minister.

I am making a contribution tonight because I do not have a great deal of confidence in the way the Minister has carried out this part of her duties. I have a high personal regard for the Minister, and I do not have a political barrow to push in relation to this issue. However, the constituents in my electorate who have spoken to me - a number of members have talked about their constituents tonight - have not been given a political push to approach their local member. They have not been encouraged by various disability groups to push a barrow. They have not been pushed by the Department of Community Services to approach their local member.

I have real concerns about the professionalism of some people in the Department of Community Services across a range of levels. One common denominator among Opposition and Government members seems to be a great concern about the Department of Community Services. Constituents in my electorate of Tamworth have approached me in some fear about the future of their children. Rightly or wrongly, that fear has come about as a result of the absolute lack of consultation on the Government’s decision to tender for the allocation of group homes.

I do not know whether tendering for group homes is a good or a bad idea. If it is a good idea, one way to market the decision to the constituency would be to involve the people in the decision-making process. In most cases the people we are talking about, the carers, have served their children for many years. They have looked after their children and have grudgingly been given assistance from time to time, for which they are grateful. However, they are always afraid that that assistance
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will be removed, reduced or changed. They treat any change in the status quo with suspicion.

Several Government members said that the whole strategy in relation to this issue is to obtain savings, to have the group home facilities operated more effectively and the management reviewed. Perhaps non-government organisations can operate group homes more effectively. One cannot argue against that logic, but the fear factor comes in again. History shows that when governments make changes they do not return the savings to the service.

People are saying that if we can make savings there will be more places. Nobody would argue with that if it were the case, but is it the case? Some of the people who work in the group homes and some of the families that use the group homes harbour a very real fear that the savings will not increase the number of places available. The fear has arisen, not particularly because of the Minister’s activities - although I have said that I do not believe she has handled the issue at all well - but because the community believes that the directive has come from Treasury. The behaviour of the Treasurer in recent weeks has only increased that belief.

In view of all factors the fear is that the money will not be returned and there will not be more places. There is a risk that there may be fewer places for our children because of the intervention of Treasury. I do not have that view about Treasury but when there has been no consultation with the people one can understand people’s fear of change. I suggest that when we are dealing with the disadvantaged, whoever is the Minister, we should pay special attention to concerns in the community. All members who have spoken in this debate have referred to their constituents who are in great need and, in many cases, on the verge of panic. Some of my constituents with sons and daughters in their fifties are worried about their future. Many honourable members know of similar cases. Floating a major change - it may be a good one; I am not suggesting that it will not be - without bringing those people into the process, and not expecting rebukes from the community, is almost farcical. It is a mistake that the Minister has made. I do not think it is worthy of a no confidence motion and therefore I will not support the motion.

Mr TRIPODI (Fairfield) [9.22 p.m.]: When the Coalition parties champion social welfare one must be immediately suspicious, and I oppose the no confidence motion. If we were talking about introducing a new accounting standard or a structural adjustment issue in relation to the economy the Coalition probably would have a lot more credibility, but on this issue it has practically no credibility. I recall that when I was elected in 1995 the first function I went to was at Ettinger House in Canley Vale. Its viability was put in jeopardy when the Federal Coalition Government was elected and slashed its funding. It continues, on a shoestring budget, to research parenting needs, assistance and a whole range of other social welfare services.

It was explained to me at the meeting that the organisation had just survived a seven-year freeze on the Department of Community Services [DOCS] budget. Every year, as inflation rose, real funding had declined, 1,000 positions had been slashed from the department and one quarter of the offices had been closed. There was a real freeze over seven years. That was the legacy that these people had been left with. With the election of the Labor State Government in 1995 there was finally fresh air. Ever since then we have been delivering consistently increasing funding and services to the neediest part of the community.

Having resurrected the sector from the smoking ruin left by our predecessors, the Carr Government’s commitment speaks for itself. There are 1.4 billion reasons why I need not elaborate on the depth of the Government’s dedication. There are just as many reasons why we should be asking the Federal Government to come clean and admit that it has no intention of fulfilling its obligations and commitments to the disability sector. The Ageing and Disability Department [ADD] was set up four years ago to fund and monitor the delivery of services to people with disabilities. I am proud to say that the department’s role is continuing to expand as we recognise the need for all support services, government and non-government, to become more accountable. By measuring the performance of group homes managed by the Department of Community Services with the services offered by non-government group homes the standard of support for our clients can only improve.

We have a benchmarking process, assessing performance and effectiveness. After the assessment each dollar in the bigger budget will deliver more service. That is why we are implementing these reforms. It is a true and honest commitment to increasing the level of services. We are not merely increasing the dollars; we are ensuring that those dollars will go further. The reform is about ensuring that we attain the best performance from every dollar in terms of the service provided. As has been said, all lower House members of Parliament would have had a parade of people through their offices
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wanting to get off the waiting list and needing help. It does not matter how much lobbying or petitioning of Ministers we do, we always hit the budget restraint. So we need to ensure that each dollar goes further. That is what this reform is all about.

At the moment non-government organisations, which run 63 per cent of group homes in New South Wales, are subjected to rigorous guidelines set by the Ageing and Disability Department. These organisations pioneered the support of people with disabilities. I am happy to say that the vast majority have done nothing but uphold, and indeed build on, their fine reputations for compassion, expertise and innovation. As a Government interested only in the wellbeing of our clients we would be foolish to ignore the initiatives of the non-government sector in supporting people with disabilities. Its performance has been exemplary.

The vast majority of organisations applying for government funding do not just sneak into contention but pass with flying colours. They have set high standards for the care of people with disabilities, and it is the Government’s job to make sure that that continues to be the case. That is why the capacity of the Ageing and Disability Department to monitor will continue to grow in the role for which it was so precisely designed four years ago. But for the first time since the Department of Community Services started managing group homes it will undergo the same scrutiny as its non-government counterparts.

Once again, there will be benchmarking, assessing and implementing of the changes to stretch each dollar that much further and to reduce the waiting lists. The Government has acknowledged that the work of its own department can be enhanced only by applying the high standards demanded of its non-government counterparts. A few weeks ago the Minister for Community Services, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability Services, and Minister for Women was furious to learn that certain elements of the media were laughing at calls for a stop to what she called a cruel scare campaign, which continues to distress people with disabilities.

That brings me back to my first point. We need to be wary and suspicious when the Coalition parties ride the social welfare wagon, when they proclaim that the social welfare industry is not receiving the assistance it needs. I view that claim with enormous cynicism and some disgust. In effect, the weakest and most vulnerable members of the community are being exploited by political parties to enhance their position. When that message comes out people will be very cynical about what has been said. The Minister genuinely cares about reforming the system and delivering the highest level of service possible. The Government policy is about reforming the system to ensure that each dollar stretches further and waiting lists are reduced.

The misplaced mirth, the tasteless cynicism, was adding insult to considerable injury. How anyone could see a funny side to the support of people with disabilities is beyond me. At one stage some of the rot, barely passing as fiction, was even suggesting that the Government was trying to save $12 million by transferring group homes to the non-government sector. That is definitely not what the Government policy is about. Despite speedy and emphatic denials from the Government, some groups claiming to represent the sector were still peddling the same nonsense about cost cutting. In spite of the Government’s assurances that savings, if any, would be ploughed back into the disability sector, some were still ignoring the facts.

It is not the only time that the facts have been ignored by the scaremongers, and their timing has been woeful. They set out to cause a great deal of unnecessary alarm just when the departments were relying on them to play a vital role in the process of consultation. The Treasurer had barely stepped back from the microphone after the delivery of his Budget Speech in this House when both directors-general addressed the sector on the details of the budget. However, I am sad to say that the actions of the directors-general, Carmel Niland and Marrianne Hammerton, have not been reciprocated.

Instead of a sensible, constructive and compassionate contribution to discussions about the future of our clients, some members were hell-bent on continuing down the reckless path of destruction and distress. We called it cruel and we called it callous - and we meant it. Somehow even those words seem to fall short of describing the real extent of the terrible anxiety now being suffered by some unsuspecting clients, their families and their carers. People say you need pretty thick skin to be in politics, but it could hardly match the hide of those responsible for launching a deliberate campaign of misinformation.

These rumour mongers would have the world believe that disability services are being privatised, that the Government will no longer fund people with disabilities, when in reality the funding for our clients has increased by $36 million to a record $740 million. As I said in my opening remarks, I recall what a relief it was to this whole industry in 1995 when finally the Coalition Government was
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thrown out, when the seven-year freeze on the industry’s budget was finally lifted and they could once again see the flow of funds into that industry.

The same people have been calling on parents to boycott the forums being staged by the Ageing and Disability Department, which are aimed at informing and involving families and carers in the plans for improvements. These rumour mongers would have the world believe that somehow a system of accountability - a system which guarantees the delivery of better futures for people with disabilities - should not apply to the Government’s own department. The Government has been accused of not acting on the concerns of those representing the sector. Last year the People with Disabilities organisation wrote to Carmel Niland just after her appointment and told her that the Department of Community Services was not qualified to support people with disabilities. The letter stated:

PWD is very concerned at the current state of disability services within the department. There is currently no corporate leadership, expertise or commitment in relation to people with disability in the care of the department.

I say to Mr French that those criticisms, harsh as they were, have not fallen on deaf ears and that is why this Government has resolved to create a better future for people with disabilities. But, in spite of Mr French’s grave concerns about the ability of DOCS to support people with disabilities, he insists on attacking any plan to address his concerns. He is now telling families and carers to fight for the retention of a system he once so savagely decried. These rumour mongers have implicitly, and in some cases explicitly, attacked the integrity of organisations that have spent decades building proud records for care and compassion.

One learns to deflect the rubber bullets of rumour and innuendo - it goes with the territory - but I will not stand by for a second and witness the groundless attacks on upstanding and reputable but defenceless organisations. They would have my every sympathy if legal action were the only option to deal with the defamatory assaults on them. These are organisations that can manage to operate quietly and efficiently without feeling the need to see their names in the press, and provide a blueprint to which government agencies can aspire and one day equal.

That has been my experience. Often when representatives of these reputable organisations come to my office they are very careful to say, "We do not want to cause harm to this Government because this is the only government that ever helps and this is the only government that ever listens, but we have concerns." Quietly and constructively we address those concerns. We invite that same response again. We invite that same mode of co-operation, participation and activity, as has been traditionally the case - not the hysteria that has been whipped up particularly by the Opposition.

As a government fully aware of its accountability, we would be falling short of our responsibilities to turn back the hands of time for people with disabilities. This evolution of care knows no political agenda, it is unrelated to ego, and until now it has flourished without having to battle the cancer of deception. Ultimately, the evolution has been advanced by love - an emotional commitment from the families of those with disabilities. This Government recognises this lifetime investment of care, and will do everything within its power to finance its ongoing vitality. Our only concerns about the whole evolutionary process relate to the rubbish peddled by those who would be just as willing to have us all believe that the earth is flat. We will continue to counter the cruel concoctions cooked up by those making the most mischief.

Although I obviously feel strongly about the destructive and ill-informed innuendo which continues to fly around, we want people to ask themselves about the real issue - that is, creating a better future for people with disabilities. The Government will be there to care. We have the record, we have the budget figures to show that, we have the commitment, and we have the desire to reform the system. It will not be an overnight process, and in the meantime the Government’s invitation for families and advocates to play an active and constructive role in the plans remains open, but our minds should remain closed to any half-baked allegations which struggle to bear the vaguest resemblance to the truth.

Ms SEATON (Southern Highlands) [9.36 p.m.]: I support the motion of the Leader of the Opposition of no confidence in the Minister for Community Services, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability Services, and Minister for Women. Tonight’s debate has exposed the hypocrisy of many members of the Government, whom honourable members have heard on many occasions denounce economic rationalism - very often without even understanding what they mean by that. They have denounced all of those sorts of issues. Here we have them supporting a Minister who has rushed into what is essentially the privatisation of the care of disabled clients, with absolutely no consultation or negotiation with those who are to be affected by that decision.

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I heard the Minister say earlier today that people with disabilities have been used as pawns in this debate. She talked about them being exploited, and I think the honourable member for Fairfield used similar language. This is an insult to those people, who were so incensed and distressed by the Minister’s plans that yesterday they took to Macquarie Street to protest at what was being foisted upon them. I did not see any pawns in Macquarie Street yesterday, and I know that no-one on the Opposition benches would say that they saw any pawns either. The people we spoke to were all genuine, many of them older people, carers of sons or daughters who themselves are perhaps in their fifties or sixties. People with disabilities were out in force, protesting the Government’s action in telling them that the Government knows better what is in their best interests, and failing to consult them. All of those people were expressing their distress, their confusion, and what is essentially a betrayal of trust.

The Minister for Public Works and Services, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Citizenship also got it very wrong. He has completely missed the point. This is not about preserving bad management in group homes, it is not about preserving poor practices, it is not about protecting people who steal the money of other people, and it is not about rewarding or protecting people who treat people with disabilities badly in their own homes or in group homes. It is not about any of that. The Minister has really got it wrong. It is not about resisting improvements to the system either. It is not about whether the non-government sector or the Government sector is better or worse at a particular sort of care delivery. It is about finding the right solution, the best outcome for each and every one of those people, and doing that by consulting with those people, by talking to them. It is very much a case of having to get out and meet with people face to face.

I need more accommodation for people with disabilities in my electorate. I particularly need accommodation for people who are in the care of very elderly parents. I need accommodation for a lot of young people who have acquired brain injury one way or another and at the moment find themselves in inappropriate care situations, perhaps in nursing homes in the company of older people, and I need a large number of respite beds. The way to do that is to consult with those people to find better ways of delivering a product more efficiently and getting the best out of the dollars available. It is also a matter of talking to people. It is not a matter of telling people, "The Government has figured out a whole new model and we hope you like it." The truth is that they will not like it, because it is not the right model. We really need to talk to people.

Since I was elected four years ago I have had many discussions with people in my electorate who have disabilities, and with their carers and families. I have learned that of all the groups in my electorate - and I am sure it is the same for most of my colleagues - if there is one group that needs careful discussion, careful understanding and time and effort put into understanding and solving problems, it is the disabled community.

Many things are important to people who either have a disability or find themselves caring for someone with a disability. First of all, many of those people, as most honourable members who contributed to this debate have noted, are elderly. Elderly carers in particular want to know who will be responsible for their child when they are no longer around to help. They want to know that the future of their child is absolutely secure. People with disabilities generally need a high degree of consistency in their lives and in their domestic environment and, if they are working, in their working environment. That is of overriding importance.

Consistency is terribly important, and any disruption can set back hard-won gains in acquisition of general skills and living skills and achievement of certain levels of confidence. Ultimately, for many people, loss of consistency can mean movement backwards from a situation in which they were perhaps achieving a degree of independence. People with disabilities whom I have met in my community value very much the relationships that they have developed with housemates. Often, those relationships are longstanding. The people have got to know each other since they were teenagers and are now in group homes together, learning about life together, and learning to become more and more independent but nonetheless dependent on the friendship and consistency of friendship with each other.

An example of the importance of this consistency in relationships came from two points of view in my community recently. One followed the closure of a large institution in the Blue Mountains. Some people from that area came to the Southern Highlands electorate. The other was the closure of Ebenezer Lodge at Bargo. Residents went to various places after the closure of those institutions. Some arrived at a place called Bellevue Park in Bundanoon, within my electorate. Some of those people were particularly confused and distressed.

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In each situation the years of consistency had gone in an instant. Many of the disabled persons did not even know where they were being sent to; they just arrived there on a bus. The carers who received them knew that their biggest job was not the medical or intellectual specifics of the person’s disability; the biggest challenge they faced was to create an environment in which the person could be settled and stabilised so that all of the skills and the confidence that the person had had in another place could be recovered and built upon.

The parents of one child who had been at Ebenezer Lodge rang me in great distress saying they did not know where their child, who was in the middle twenties, would go. Would it be to a government group home? Where would it be? Would it be far away? The worst fear they had was that there would be a huge setback to that person’s equilibrium and a deterioration in the skills that the person had acquired in previous years.

One only has to talk to groups in the Southern Highlands electorate who deliver services to disabled people to appreciate the problem. The providers at Amaroo, for example, and all the people who do the fabulous work of running the Dadirri homes will tell you that the key aim is to provide an environment of consistency. Everything they are about is aimed at settling someone in a residential situation, building relationships between those people and other residents, then helping the person to develop skills and possibly the ability to take the next step of going out to find employment. There are a number of supported employment opportunities in and around my area. Even better, ultimately they will acquire the degree of independence necessary to enable them to live on their own or perhaps with one or two others in a private residential situation.

Parents desperately want to know that their children will be set up in a secure situation for the rest of their lives and that they will receive an appropriate level of care. Carers want to be secure in the knowledge that when they are no longer around their child will not be bounced around by a bureaucracy from one organisation to another, effectively to be placed with the lowest bidder. I would like to quote from a statement of a parent of a 41-year-old resident of a DOCS group home at Evans Head. This statement says it all:

My son is 41 and it has taken him since late March [1998] to settle in, now he is worrying again what will happen to him, thanks to being told about the change months before it will happen . . . We are in our eighties and after looking after him for 41 years we are looking forward to a comparatively peaceful old age . . . we are now faced with great anxiety about what will happen to him, even this change is only for 3 years.

This is about people caring for people. One particular woman in my electorate is the grandmother and sole relation of a child under 18 years who has an intellectual disability. This woman, who is in her eighties, regularly travels up and down the escarpment from Moss Vale to visit her grandson in the Bulli area. She is continuing to drive in her eighties but knows that she will not be able to continue to drive forever and that eventually she will not be around to be the sole visitor and guardian of the child. This woman wants to know that secure care arrangements will continue when she dies and wants to be confident in the knowledge that when she dies the child will be well looked after in a place that she knows about and trusts.

The Minister made an announcement about these changes without undertaking any consultation or negotiation. That has caused severe shock and distress to all sorts of people. There is in our current system a mix of government and non-government suppliers of services. In the Southern Highlands electorate are a number of extremely good suppliers of services to people with disabilities. I particularly congratulate the Dadirri homes, which I mentioned earlier. They look after two houses in Bowral which accommodate eight to 10 young women who have grown up together. Some of those young women work together in supported employment. They are surrounded by a huge network of very dedicated community and church representatives.

The Welby Garden Centre is a supported employment organisation, and the Amaroo organisation also provides supported employment opportunities in Bowral. DOCS, of course, has some of its own group home facilities. An excellent organisation called Rainbow is run by Joan Armstrong, who raises money and supplies moral and financial support to families of children with disabilities and with chronic illness. All of those groups work together and complement each other in the work that they do. This is about caring for each other. This underlines the necessity for the Minister to have undertaken extensive consultation when she contemplated these changes.

The Southern Highlands community is fortunate that a lot of care is given by providers and others in the broader community. For example, one of the local primary schools, Tudor House, has a regular program under which the primary school
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students visit a place called the Toy Box Playgroup, a place where children with disabilities meet for play activities, where parents can get together and support each other, and where certain therapies are delivered.

The parents of the children at the Tangara Special School worry enormously about the future of their children. They want to know that their children are well looked after. They do not want them involved in a bidding war and being bounced around. So the Southern Highlands area has a large degree of interaction between the non-government sector and the government sector. All of those groups, stakeholders and families consult with each other and negotiate. Most importantly, they care. That is unlike the action we have seen from the Government in this situation. The Minister said it all in Penrith when she said she was guilty as charged.

The Coalition will support carers and people with disabilities in our community. We have called for an immediate halt to the tendering process and for an immediate review of the rationale. It is important that the review be not only about economic issues but also about the social and family impacts. We particularly want to know what it was that Treasury said to the Minister. What was the motivation? How many dollars were involved and what instructions was the Minister given about how to implement this proposal?

The Coalition wants to talk to people about their experience in this process. The process has been destructive and questionable. Many experts and families in this arena have been surprised that the Minister would implement such a change with little consultation. The Opposition will do what the Minister has failed to do: stand up for people with disabilities, their carers and their families and try to return to them a stake in their own future. I support the motion.

Mr STEWART (Bankstown - Parliamentary Secretary) [9.50 p.m.]: I stand in strong resolve against the motion. In doing so, I take the opportunity to congratulate the Minister for Community Services for working in partnership with the not-for-profit non-government organisations to create a better future for people with disabilities. That is the crux of this debate - the future needs of people with disabilities and how their needs will be dealt with effectively through this proposal.

Surprisingly, the honourable member for Southern Highlands talked about the alleged hypocrisy of the argument put forward by the Government. She also talked about finding the right solution to this problem, but then did not offer one. Instead, she indulged in some rhetoric and talked about the needs in her area. That is commendable, but she offered no solution. She merely had a whinge about the matters that are being debated. The honourable member for Southern Highlands also talked about the need for continued dialogue with people in the disability area and said that if the Coalition were in government it would support people with disabilities and reverse this Government’s decision.

I have to ask the question: Why did the Coalition choose not to take that path during its seven years in government? Under the previous Coalition Government the community services department and its services were decimated. As has been said many times during this debate, more than 1,000 jobs were axed by the previous Coalition Government. There was no consultation about the axing of those jobs. The Minister made a sudden decision based on the economic rationalist approach of that Government. Almost overnight the infrastructure, the heart of DOCS, was ripped out.

Mr Fraser: Talk about the issue.

Mr STEWART: I am putting this matter into perspective, and that fact is important. I understand that under the previous Coalition Government about one-quarter of all DOCS offices were closed. That is atrocious. Yet Coalition members talk about hypocrisy! Their hypocrisy is even worse because dozens of child protection officers throughout New South Wales were sacked, which put children at great risk. When we came into government in March 1995 a great deal of work had to be done to bring up to speed the programs that DOCS should have been undertaking during the tragic seven years of Coalition government. We worked hard to do that.

The Minister for Public Works said in his contribution that the first thing Minister Ron Dyer did when he took over the portfolio was to look at where the money had gone. He found a great lump of money hidden away in a bank account earning interest but not doing what it should have been, that is, providing services to people with intellectual and physical disabilities, who had been left to the wolves by the previous Coalition Government. For Coalition members to now preach their rhetoric reeks of hypocrisy in the extreme.

I am pleased to be part of a Government that has looked at this problem in a concrete way, has asked what needs to be done, and has done it. This is about the provision of more adequate services for people with intellectual and physical disabilities who require group homes and respite facilities. Clearly, what was being done in the past was not meeting their needs. One does not need to be an actuarial genius to realise that it was not working. Thousands - not dozens or hundreds - of people were waiting for respite care and group home care.
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They were waiting because the Government has a finite cheque book which is resourced by the taxpayer and allocations must be prioritised.

The Minister has looked at providing increased services to the existing infrastructure, in co-operation with non-government organisations that have performed this work for many years. From the contributions of some Coalition members one would think that the provision of such services by non-government organisations only began overnight or a week ago. In reality, this type of service has been provided since 1856. Yet the Coalition members tell the House that it is a new invention, it has never happened before and the non-government sector cannot cope with this sort of service provision. That is nonsense. As all honourable members know, non-government organisations have a long history of expertise and a proven track record in supporting people with disabilities. The Government has recognised that and has harnessed the opportunity of a partnership.

As has been said on previous occasions, the Australian Council for Rehabilitation of the Disabled [ACROD], the State peak body for disability services, has issued a press release refuting incorrect and misleading statements about the non-government sector’s ability to provide services equal to those provided by DOCS. ACROD, the peak body in New South Wales, says that the argument put forward by the Coalition is nonsense. The Coalition preaches that second-class services are being provided by the non-government sector. That is nonsense. Coalition members should open up their eyes, get out in the community and have a look at some of the services provided by the non-government sector and the infrastructure they have in place. That is why the Government has harnessed this opportunity to enter into a partnership.

ACROD chairperson, Robin Way, dismissed as nonsense the suggestion in today’s Sydney Morning Herald that "there are substantial differences in the quality of care people receive in government and non-government run group homes." This issue is about better service provision, not weakening of the service provision. Robin Way said that people in group homes receive adequate care under private provision, no less a service than that provided by DOCS. The service is very adequate and in line with what the Government has acknowledged as a need for people with intellectual and physical disabilities in group home care. In a press release today Robin Way said:

The non-government sector has delivered a range of complex and ongoing services since 1856 to thousands of people with sensory, severe and multiple physical disabilities and with intellectual disabilities.

They have done this because of an ongoing interaction with families -

They have communication and open dialogue -

people with disabilities and people in the community who have recognised that partnerships with this sector provide opportunities for increased community awareness about disability issues and involvement with vulnerable people in need of support.

The press release continued:

To suggest that the funds that non-government sector raises through these partnerships is less valuable than those provided to DOCS through government funding is ridiculous.

During this debate we have listened to the ridiculous element of the Coalition’s argument which suggests that the funds will not be put where the people who need the services will receive the most value from them. The services will be as valuable as those provided by the government sector, except there will be more opportunities for people because the infrastructure and the partnership that the Government has created with the non-government sector will be widened. That means more places for people with disabilities and a reduction in the extensive waiting list.

Clearly, this comment speaks for itself. The Government agreed that the non-government sector was extremely well placed to support people with disabilities. I can speak with some experience in this regard. I have a young 11-year-old niece with severe intellectual and physical disabilities. I have watched my sister Carol go through the hardship of trying to deal with the problems of trying to find proper accommodation and respite care and the difficulty that that has involved. It is no easy journey. My sister has applauded this move by the Government. She knows that there is adequate care available through the non-government sector, and through her involvement with both government and non-government sectors in the care of her daughter Jessica she knows that there will be extra opportunity now for the care and needs of her daughter.

This initiative is not about taking away care opportunity, or a government that is not sensitive to the needs of people with intellectual and physical disabilities; it is about a government recognising that it had to look in the mirror and face the consequences that surrounded it - the significant waiting lists and the opportunities that could be harnessed if it worked in partnership with the non-government sector. The Government has not retreated from this situation but has met it full on, and for that it is to be applauded.

I was particularly interested also in the comments of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, or perhaps I should say the future Leader of the Opposition, the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai,
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who on the Richard Glover program on 28 June admitted to Richard Glover that this could be a reasonable thing to do. He was talking about the opportunity to look at private group home accommodation in partnership with the Government and said that it could be a reasonable thing to do if the money was not simply saved or the initiative was not seen as a way of ripping the money out of welfare.

Honourable members have heard the Minister this evening and we will hear her again. They know the script soundly at this stage, and that is that the Government is not intending to take money out of the system but to get better equity out of the money, manage it more responsibly and make sure that those in need get the best opportunity as a result of the finite funding that is available. I am convinced that this is the best way to go about it. Obviously the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai is as well, or he would not have mentioned it on 2BL.

I can assure the honourable member that any money saved through the process will be ploughed straight back into disability services to increase the service provisions, to manage the service provisions and to ensure that the future needs of people with intellectual and physical disabilities are met more effectively than they have been under the previous infrastructure that government only could provide. This is to be applauded.

I congratulate the Minister for Community Services. She is a deeply caring and responsible Minister who has had the guts to take on the issue and face some of the obvious opposition that would occur. That is a sound process. The debate is not a bad thing because it helps the Government to meet the situation more effectively. It involves effective and constructive debate. But the sort of nonsense that the Opposition has put forward during this no confidence debate can only be condemned, because it has no obvious foundation and the rationale behind it is completely destitute. I applaud the Minister’s decision and strongly condemn the motion before the House. I look forward to the Government’s continued response.

Mr BARR (Manly) [10.04 p.m.]: The moving of a no confidence motion in a Minister is a very serious matter to which I have given a lot of consideration. I had wished to move an amendment to the motion, but I am told that under the standing orders I am not able to do so. My amendment would have been to condemn the Minister for her handling of the tendering out of group homes and the lack of process that has been gone through. But to vote for a no confidence motion I would have to be convinced that there was a serious systemic deficiency in the Minister’s handling of her portfolio. I cannot say that I have been convinced of that tonight.

I am convinced that this matter has been handled very poorly, and I do not think that the Government or the Minister have adequately explained to the House, but more particularly to the community affected, the whys and wherefores of the process. There has been little consultation. In the process that the Government and the Minister have gone through, if I can call it a process, they have succeeded in causing a great deal of angst and anxiety among the clients and the parents of the clients.

There has been debate tonight from this side of the House, somewhat surprisingly, about the inadequacy of DOCS group homes, or some of them. However, I know that there are parents who have children in DOCS homes who are very happy. They are now concerned about the future. At a public meeting I attended at Dee Why one of the senior bureaucrats made the point that there would be choice. My response is that there is no choice because there is a serious deficiency in the number of places available in group homes. The figure given was something like 8,000.

It has not been discussed in the debate tonight but one has to ask why the deficiency has been taken for granted. It has been argued that the deficiencies within budgetary constraints can be improved by going down this route of outsourcing. After many years of strong economic growth - 4 per cent to 5 per cent over the last two or three years - why is it that there is this serious deficiency in the number of places available? That is an indictment on us all and an indictment on the Government’s policies and priorities.

In the financial years 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 the net cost to government of its Olympic spending is $739.9 million. It is actually spending more but the estimate is that it will recoup money, so the net cost is close to $750 million. Over the period of approximately 10 years that the costs have been put in place for the Olympic budgeting the net total cost is $1,269.9 million. The actual outlays over the time will be $2.6 billion but there will be some returns from sales and tax and so on. Given that the Government is spending this kind of money on a large commercial activity, out of which, admittedly, most of us will get a lot of pleasure, one has to ask the question: what is our sense of priorities?

It is not just in disabilities that we are feeling the crunch, but in health, in education and also in policing, which came up earlier today. It has been argued that we want to have a debt-free Olympic Games so that no costs will be borne by future generations. I would argue the opposite: that there is an intergenerational inequity in funding all these activities upfront when future generations will benefit from the infrastructure that has been put in place. Why is it that there has to be such a crunch
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on disability and education and many other things when we are spending so much? Why should the current generation cop all the costs of the Olympic infrastructure? The priorities are quite wrong. At yesterday’s rally the feelings of people were genuine.

Tonight statements have been made about political manipulation. The feelings of the people at the rally were very real: they felt let down, that they had not been consulted and that their future was being left up in the air. That cannot be swept under the carpet, as has been attempted tonight. I am deeply concerned about this matter. I acknowledge that the Government has put a lot more money into this area than the Coalition did when it was in power. As the Minister for Public Works and Services said, members of the Opposition have not come to this debate with clean hands, which I accept. Nevertheless this Government is not doing enough. I said that this budget was a budget without soul. Technically it made the right noises and the right gestures to keep its credit rating but in essence the Government lost track somewhat with the general population on such issues.

A lot more money should be spent in this area. It is not unreasonable or irresponsible to reduce the number of places required to zero as soon as possible. In fact, it is socially irresponsible not to do that. At the moment it looks as though that will be a long way away. I have an open mind as to whether group homes should be managed by DOCS or by non-government non-profit organisations, and until I find out I will not vote for the no confidence motion. The Minister has not adequately demonstrated whether that is the case. The outcomes from the inquiry of the upper House should have been known before this debate. It is putting the cart before the horse. In the meantime, this process should be suspended until more facts are laid on the table and after more consultation with the affected parties. At the moment people are very angry and concerned about something which is of fundamental importance to them.

Ageing parents of people with intellectual or physical disabilities are concerned that when they die or become too old and infirm their offspring will not receive proper care. It is a serious shortcoming if society or this Government cannot address that matter adequately. I reiterate that a serious systematic deficiency must be demonstrated before the House can pass a motion of no confidence in a Minister. This matter has not reached that stage, but the Minister should be on clear warning that the way this process has been handled has been inadequate and unsatisfactory. This matter needs to be taken in hand and reviewed in close consultation with concerned families and clients. The Minister should meet with them to put their minds at rest. Their high level of anxiety reflects the bad communication process.

Mr FRASER (Coffs Harbour) [10.13 p.m.]: A motion of no confidence is a very serious matter in this Parliament, as was discussed yesterday during the debate on the changes to sessional orders. I am pleased that the Leader of the House has not gagged this debate today. A number of my friends and people I have known for more than 20 years have children in group homes in Tamworth, Port Macquarie or Kempsey. Those people have already received letters and, as was mentioned by the honourable member for Manly and other speakers, their fear is that they are getting older. I will not mention names but one good friend of mine who has a son in a group home in Tamworth is suffering from cancer. The parents, particularly the father, have a grave fear that their son’s future will not be guaranteed if something happens to them. Their son is 42 years of age, with a mental age of early teens at the best.

During this debate Coalition members have emphasised the lack of consultation with the people concerned. The demonstration outside Parliament House yesterday illustrated people’s fear in this regard. Disabled people and their parents are fearful and not sure of the future. For example, the Minister is well aware of a care home in Loaders Lane, Coffs Harbour. The care of those people was put out to tender. People from the private sector who tendered for the two people in Loaders Lane - people who were causing their neighbours merry hell - won the tender. As a result, DOCS wound down its care and responsibility because it was going to be taken over. At the eleventh hour the tenderer who beat DOCS - the service set up to care for these people - decided that the tender was not enough and walked away from the contract. DOCS had wound down its staff levels. One person was shifted and the other is still there, and receives what I believe to be inadequate care.

Due to conditions of contract, lack of money within the contract or any other reason, private providers may find reasons that they can no longer manage a group home and the people with physical or mental disabilities within such a home. The private providers will walk away from them. The service will not be properly structured, with employee numbers or funding to be able to take up the cudgel of that service. Therefore the service will not be run to the satisfaction of the client - that is, people with disabilities and the parents, relatives or carers of those people. The community fears that these types of things may happen as a result of the proposed changes, as has been evidenced by the situation in Loaders Lane.

Mr and Mrs Lucas from my electorate have a son with a disability in a home further down the coast - Coffs Harbour does not have a lot of group homes. The parents received notification from the department that changes were going to be made.
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They were so cranky when they got the letter that they tore it up and threw it in the bin. They brought the letter to me, which they had stuck together again. Elwyn and Vanda Lucas have a real fear that their son’s care into the future is not guaranteed under the proposal put forward. They have not had the opportunity to contribute to the discussion about the future of their child, who they know will outlive them. This process has not instilled confidence in the people who utilise group homes, the client, the disabled person, the parents and the relatives.

The community distrusts what the Minister and the Government will do. The only way to stop that distrust is to halt what is going on now and to hold an inquiry, with a full consultation process, to give those people the guarantees they deserve. A lot of people have had a very hard life because of the disabled people within their family. If we can do that confidence in the Minister and the Government will be restored. I will support the motion, much as I would prefer not to. As I said at the outset, this motion of no confidence is serious. People with disabilities deserve better support than we have provided. They need and deserve to be heard by the Minister and the Government,

Mrs LO PO’ (Penrith - Minister for Community Services, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability Services, and Minister for Women) [10.20 p.m.], in response: I thank honourable members who have contributed to the debate. I apologise for not being present in the Chamber; I have been at an estimates committee meeting. I am grateful for the honesty of the honourable member for Hawkesbury, who said that the disability sector was just as disappointed with the disability services policy announced by the Government before the election. That is an admission. I thank the honourable member for Southern Highlands for her support. She spent most of her time praising the non-government sector. I thank all honourable members who participated in the debate.

Question - That the motion be agreed to - put.

The House divided.

[In division]

Mr Hartcher: Point of order: I seek your concurrence to have the division called off temporarily as one Opposition member who is in the Chamber has been granted a pair.

Mr SPEAKER: My attention has been drawn to an irregularity in the pairing arrangements. So that the vote will be correctly recorded, I defer the division for 10 seconds.

Mr Brogden Mr Piccoli
Mrs Chikarovski Mr Rozzoli
Mr Debnam Ms Seaton
Mr George Mrs Skinner
Mr Glachan Mr Slack-Smith
Mr Hartcher Mr Souris
Mr Humpherson Mr Stoner
Dr Kernohan Mr Torbay
Mr Kerr Mr J. H. Turner
Mr McGrane Mr R. W. Turner
Mr Merton Mr Webb
Mr O’Doherty Tellers,
Mr O’Farrell Mr Fraser
Mr D. L. Page Mr R. H. L. Smith

Mr Amery Mr McManus
Ms Andrews Mr Martin
Mr Aquilina Ms Meagher
Mr Ashton Ms Megarrity
Mr Barr Ms Moore
Mr Bartlett Mr Newell
Mrs Beamer Ms Nori
Mr Brown Mr Orkopoulos
Ms Burton Mr Price
Mr Campbell Dr Refshauge
Mr Collier Ms Saliba
Mr Crittenden Mr Scully
Mr Debus Mr W. D. Smith
Mr Face Mr Stewart
Mr Greene Mr Tripodi
Mrs Grusovin Mr Watkins
Ms Harrison Mr Whelan
Mr Hickey Mr Windsor
Mr Hunter Mr Woods
Mr Iemma Mr Yeadon
Mr Knowles Tellers,
Mrs Lo Po’ Mr McBride
Mr Lynch Mr Thompson

Mr Armstrong Ms Allan
Mr Collins Mr Black
Mr Hazzard Mr Carr
Ms Hodgkinson Mr Gibson
Mr Maguire Mr Knight
Mr Oakeshott Mr Mills
Mr Richardson Mr Moss
Mr Tink Mr Nagle

Question resolved in the negative.

Motion negatived.