Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Parry, for your additional comment. The idea is that you keep some cards in your wallet or handbag and, when you are in a public place such as a restaurant or cafe and you find the noise levels are causing discomfort, you can leave the card for management to let them know. The card has a few practical things that the venue can do to make it a little easier for people to hear, such as acoustic barriers between tables, sound absorbent hangings on the walls, soft furnishings and floor coverings, and isolating background noise in areas such as the washing and kitchen areas. Mr President, I am sure you could think of instances when you might like to use the card within this chamber. I am sure that during certain question times it might come in useful! This simple yet effective idea may well contribute to these venues considering the hearing impaired and lead to better hearing environments in such public venues.

Today's netball game was proof of how far we have come. The hearing impaired faced challenges, but their ability to adapt was remarkable and our inability to adapt was probably less remarkable—you could have seen the writing on the wall there. To foster this development, those who are not hard of hearing must adapt to ensure our society is inclusive of all. It is important that society continues to include the hearing impaired and find ways in which they can actively participate in the workplace, sport and the community.

I finish with a quote from Helen Keller, who was both deaf and blind:

I am just as deaf as I am blind. The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus—the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir, and keeps us in the intellectual company of man.

Blindness separates us from things but deafness separates us from people.

Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and often painful process … Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare.

I wish everybody a happy Hearing Awareness Week, and I wish the hearing participants of tomorrow's touch footy game all the best. I hope they do better than we did against the hearing impaired in netball this morning.