People with Disabilities and World Youth Day

Mr GEOFF CORRIGAN: My question is addressed to the Minister for Ageing, and Minister for Disability Services. Can the Minister update the House on plans to help people with disabilities to participate in World Youth Day?

Ms KRISTINA KENEALLY: There are 28 days until World Youth Day; 28 days until the biggest event on earth outside the Olympics comes to Sydney. With half a million people coming from Australia and around the globe, it is natural that people with disabilities will come to participate in World Youth Day. The Catholic Church advises that to date 817 people with a disability and 236 carers have registered to come to World Youth Day events. Making World Youth Day accessible has been part of the Government's planning for this event and I am pleased to update the House on some of the plans we have in place, plans that will benefit people like Naomi Elswyk, a 25-year-old woman coming to World Youth Day from Moe in Victoria. Naomi has cerebral palsy, uses a wheelchair and is very excited to be coming to World Youth Day celebrations. I understand that she particularly wants to go to the Stations of the Cross and the final mass at Randwick.

To support people like Naomi and all people with a disability who are coming to World Youth Day we are today launching a guide to disability services for World Youth Day, including transport and accessible walking routes to the event venues, contact details for help and other disability services. We are also putting in place shuttle services for those people with a disability who want to access the events at Randwick racecourse. For those people who have registered for World Youth Day events, a shuttle bus will operate from Central Station to Randwick racecourse on 19 and 20 July from 7.00 a.m. to 11.00 p.m. For those members of the public who have a disability who want to go to Randwick on the Sunday, a shuttle will operate from Bondi Junction to the Centennial Park precinct from 6.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.

We are aware that people with a disability in Sydney may not be attending World Youth Day events but may be impacted by the events, so we have been doorknocking those streets next to major venues, ensuring that people who need additional support receive it while there are large crowds in their area, whether it is ensuring that the attendant carer can still come into their home or that they have special parking provisions in place to access their home during World Youth Day celebrations.

I thank those organisations that have assisted the Government to ensure that World Youth Day is a fully accessible event. That includes the Disability Council of New South Wales, Vision Australia, the Guide Dogs Association, ParaQuad, the New South Wales Council of Intellectual Disability and Carers New South Wales. With 28 days to go, we are ready, we are willing and we are able to put on a fully accessible event—the biggest celebration Sydney has seen to date, all of us participating, including people with a disability.

Question time concluded.