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I acknowledge the First Australians on whose land we meet, and whose cultures we celebrate as among the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
It is a great honour to be part of The Shepherd Centre's 2009 Graduation and I thank Anthea and Michael for this opportunity. I must also say a big thank you to Aleisha and Lewis for their help in presenting the certificates to everyone - and congratulations to you Lewis on being named Graduate of the Year.
And well done to all of you on that fantastic song. I might get some of my friends at Parliament House to learn that one !
Thanks too to young Christa for these beautiful self-portraits. I remember Christa served me 'tea' when I was here in June, and a little birdy tells me that there was a bit of coaching going on to try to get her to call me Prime Minister instead of Kevin. I assure you, she is only following instructions - I told her to call me Kevin.
According to Mum Tricia, every time Christa sees me on TV she yells "there's Kevin", and I'm also advised she is now multi-lingual - she mutters under her breath in both English and Greek.
But I know that Tricia sits here today the very proud mum of a Shepherd Centre graduate. When Tricia was asked what the Shepherd Centre has meant to her for the last five years she said, very simply - "everything." So I understand that today is a very happy day, but also a day when you have to say goodbye to some people who have been a major part of your lives.
To all the staff, the graduates and all the parents and carers I offer my sincere congratulations.
To see the sense of pride and achievement the children have today is quite overwhelming. It is days like this that make the teachers, and the sponsors and donors, feel that their hard work and generosity is all worthwhile.
And days like this that vindicate Bruce Shepherd's tenacity in fighting for hearing-impaired children to be part of the hearing world.
Much is owed to Bruce and his late wife Annette and their unswerving belief in the benefits of Auditory-Verbal Therapy. Bruce said of Annette, and I quote, "We complemented each other. She got the ideas and I guess I made them work."
Dr Michael Brydon, who shared Bruce's belief in early intervention, described Bruce as "a hurdler of hurdles".
Michael recalled a conversation where he told Bruce about the group from the Royal Hospital for Women working on a shoestring budget to set up a pilot program for newborn screening. Michael told Bruce their greatest obstacle was an inability to purchase the actual equipment to carry out the screening.
But Michael said that in typical Bruce fashion he just replied: "Leave it to me, I'll fix that."
And fix it he did, by personally funding the equipment that allowed the very first trials of screening newborns at the Royal Hospital for Women - an unproven concept that Bruce Shepherd made happen, and that pilot program led the NSW Health Minister at the time, Craig Knowles, to introduce newborn screening in NSW.
The benefits of early diagnosis are now accepted.
So since my last visit to The Shepherd Centre in June this year, I have asked all states and territories to fast-track the introduction of neonatal hearing screening for all Australian newborns.
COAG has agreed that by the end of 2010 every child born in Australia will have access to screening for congenital hearing impairments. Each state and territory will be responsible for the delivery of the individual program. And a Neonatal Hearing Screening Working Group across Governments is working to guarantee a nationally consistent and comprehensive quality screening pathway and system.
I'm advised the Working Group has circulated the new draft national standards to stakeholders, and the Department of Health and Ageing is arranging a workshop this month to discuss the document.
One of the challenges is how to stop children from being lost in the system once they've been identified as having a hearing difficulty, so a national register will be established as part of the approach to universal neonatal screening. The register will be a central point for collection and management of all data, and stakeholders will be consulted on how best to set this up.
The Working Group will also take into account the need for families to be able to make informed decisions about the options available, the need for evidence-based information about approaches to communication and early intervention
The Senate has also referred the Inquiry into Hearing Health in Australia to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee, to report in February 2010.
When I attended the Newborn Hearing Symposium in August this year, which was hosted by Bruce's good friend Brendan Nelson, I said to the delegates that the Government understands this clearly: that diagnosis is just the beginning, not the end.
Universal neonatal hearing screening will complement the Government's existing Hearing Services Program. This program provides free hearing services, like assessment, rehabilitation, the fitting of hearing aids and maintenance, and speech processor upgrades for children with cochlear implants.
Overall, we'll invest about $349 million in the program this financial year - including about $18.7 million to provide services to almost 26,400 children. Last financial year, Medicare paid $4.6 million for cochlear implant insertion surgery and another $33.9 million for programming implant speech processors.
In addition, Australian Hearing, the Government's statutory authority, provided about $4 million in 2008-09 to replace, repair, maintain and upgrade cochlear speech processors for children.
When you hear the stories of parents discovering that their child has a hearing impairment, the initial feeling is, commonly, one of despair, not for themselves, but for the child they love who will face challenges that at times may seem insurmountable.
Every parent wants the best for their child. That was what drove Bruce and Annette to set up the Shepherd Centre.
The Shepherd Centre gives parents and carers the full picture. It gives hope, hope that their children will be able to fully participate in the hearing world, and so today - graduation day - is the culmination of a true team effort: the staff, the children, and the parents and carers.
For the majority of parents with a baby diagnosed with a hearing impairment, teaching them to speak is the ultimate goal. Graduation means you have achieved that goal, and that means the closing of a chapter, a chapter that at times, I'm sure, was testing and overwhelming.
But it is now time for children and parents alike to embark on an exciting new chapter. Congratulations to you all as you begin that next chapter - in a hearing, speaking world.