The taxpayer bails out private companies when they go into default, yet just a small percentage of that bail out could fund multifold, the needs of people with disabilities.

Surely one valued doctor appropriately qualified, who has the support of his community, is worth more than the inexcusable number of doctors practising in Australia under spurious guidelines which allow overseas doctors whose qualifications are not recognised in Australia to enter as so called area of need specialists. They can then bypass all language proficiency requirements, do not need to do the Australian Medical Council Australian competency exams, obtain registration with a specialist college, and medical board, and then with their provider number charge both Medicare and private Health Funds. The cost borne financially to the public as well as the incalculable cost of iatragenic outcomes is far greater than any economic rationalist could justify.

A government that bails outs the banks, bails out the motor industry, bails out child care centres and can't allow a child with a disability in certainly dispels the myth of those who were so demonizing of the Howard Governments. The ethnics of those who work out the cost of bringing a disabled child into the world as opposed to aborting it is nothing short of disgusting. I wish no judgement on this nation but no one could ever complain in the least if it happens. We are following the godless path to destruction. I think it was Billy Graham who said that God would need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah if America was not judged. God won't be apologizing to anyone but I sure hope a few apologize to Him before it is to late.

I agree that the treatment of Dr Moeller and his family is nothing short of appalling, as is the discrimination against disabled people generally in our immigration policies.

However, Reist's gratuitous linkage with abortion diminishes her argument irredeemably. This is nothing more than a cheap 'bait and switch' exercise from a Catholic Right-to-Lifer.

Reist conscripts people with disability in order to push her usual barrow. Shame on her.

I agree with CJ Morgan. Reist draws attention to a genuinely tragic social problem (the oppression of individuals with disabilities), and is to be commended for that. That this kind of oppression - indeed, that any kind of oppression - exists in the twenty-first century is shameful.

Yet Reist manages to use this issue to push her familiar anti-abortion stance. SURPRISE! This is a stance which she and others share with the Catholic Church and prominent members of the previous Liberal government, i.e. Tony Abbott. And we seemed to hear little from right-to-lifers about the Howard government's appalling rejection of refugees and asylum seekers. SURPRISE!

Well someone has to give the negative to all this emotive, but fact free outpouring of genuine desire to help disabled, without counting the costs.

One agency in our nearby town has 4 high needs [downs syndrome] clients on their books. These require full time, 24 hours a day, care for in community living.

The wages bill for each one is a bit over $350,000 a year, plus another $50,000 in additional costs, with vehicals for transport etc being absorbed in their budget for other services to the aged.

With housing, pension, & medical costs added, the cost approaches half a million each. Thats $500,000 a year each.

This is a sore point for my 80+ year old pensioner neighbour. He is getting some home support, shower assistance 3 times & cleaning one hour a week, for which he pays a subsidised $22 per week He is very grateful, but he needs just a little more, particularly with his washing, which he finds very heavy.

One more hour a week would do, but with 10 ahead of him, on the waiting list, & no more budget, a few will have to die, for him to get his help. As it is, without help with things like shopping, by his neighbours, he would be in a nursing home now. Is it any wonder he sees $500,000 on one cliant as a bit excessive.

We really can't afford to import too many $500,000 a year disadvantaged, when we have thousands of "old" Aussies, who have paid their dews, struggling for the want of just 1 or 2 thousand extra, in support.