Official opening of Project Dignity 120, Springfield

Thank you, Mr Burrell, for your kind introduction.

I too acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we gather, and their Elders past and present.

I am honoured as Patron of MS Queensland to be asked to officiate today in what is my third visit to the suburb of Springfield and my twenty-first to the City of Ipswich – on such a significant and joyful occasion for everyone involved.

It is a day that has been long in the planning, and I congratulate and thank everyone who has played a part. 

It is also a day of hope for the entire MS community – for those living with the disease – but also for their family and friends, who have been faced with the possibility or reality of loved ones living in aged care facilities from a young age.

MS is a complex disease, with its progress impossible to predict.

No two cases of MS are the same, and therefore no two sets of housing requirements are the same. 

Until now there has been very few options for those with complex housing needs.

When young Queenslanders have been in housing situations which have been unable to adapt to their changing needs, they have had to move out of their homes and into high-dependency accommodation.

Generally, as Mr Burrell mentioned, that has meant moving into aged care accommodation.

While there are certainly excellent aged care facilities in our State, many people living with MS who require such assistance do not fit within the usual aged care demographic.

Living with illness is one of life’s great stressors. Moving home can most certainly be another.

This is the point where Project Dignity 120 helps to change lives.

For the first time, people with MS and other progressive neurological diseases have access to purpose-built, age-appropriate, innovative high needs accommodation, where they can live with the independence and quality of life that is sometimes taken for granted by others their age.

And this is just the beginning. A total of 120 life-changing apartments are planned across the State of Queensland.

There are many representatives here from agencies and organisations who have been instrumental in the creation and fulfilment of the project, and to you I extend my warmest thanks.

MS has no cure as yet, although with the help of MS Queensland some most significant strides are being made in that direction.

It is to be hoped that one day in the very near future there will be a cure. While we await that day, we celebrate what Project Dignity 120 is achieving here in Springfield.

Mr Sinnathamby, you and Springfield Land Corporation are to be congratulated and thanked for your facilitation of this greatly beneficial development.

Your work here never ceases to amaze. Just as I was so pleased, as Governor, to open your Mater Hospital, I am most honoured tody to open this wonderfully specialised MS facility.

And so I declare the Springfield Apartments officially open.