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Results for Swimmers With a Disability for Wednesday 21st of March
Tonight was the second last night of competition in the pool at the Australian Swimming Championships from Adelaide. This means that there are now even fewer opportunities to make the Paralympic and Olympic teams for the London 2012 Games.
WOMEN’S 100m BUTTERFLY
1Amanda Fowler S14 1:11.56
2 Prue Watt S13 1:08.39
3 Sarah Rose S6 1:34.70
4 Teigan Van Roosmalen S13 1:08.89
5 Ellie Cole S9 1:11.48
6 Katherine Downie S10 1:12.64
7 Madeleine Scott S9 1:13.23
8 Maddi Elliott S8 1:20.06
MEN’S 100m BUTTERFLY
1 Timothy Antalfy S13 54.92
2 Mitchell Kilduff S14 1:01.18
3 Matthew Cowdrey S9 1:00.76
4 Daniel Fox S14 1:02.09
5 Brendan Hall S9 1:01.58
6 Aaron Rhind S6 1:14.19
7 Sam Bramham S9 1:02.24
8 Andrew Pasterfield S10 1:00.05
Swimmers with a Disability Results for 19th of March
MEN’S 100m FREESTYLE
1 Daniel Fox S14 54.38
2 Matthew Cowdrey S9 55.20
3 Timothy Antalfy S13 52.93
4 Mitchell Kilduff S14 55.71
5 Matthew Levy S7 1:01.67
6 Brendan Hall S9 57.21
7 Andrew Pasterfield S10 53.33
8 Sam Bramham S9 58.21
According to a tweet by Matthew Cowdrey he swam a PB in this event which means that he achieved a world record, which is great news in a Paralympic year.
WOMEN’S 100m FREESTYLE
1 Jacqueline Freney S7 1:08.03
2 Taylor Corry S14 1:02.05
3 Kayla Clarke S14 1:02.47
4 Katherine Downie S10 1:02.88
5 Ellie Cole S9 1:03.73
6 Maddi Elliott S8 1:10.78
7 Teneale Houghton S15 1:01.28
8 Kara Leo S14 1:06.44
Jacqueline Freney swam a world record time in this event so congratulations to her and good luck at the London Paralympics!
Swimmers with a Disability Results for Sunday 18th of March
WOMEN’S 100m BREASTROKE
1 Prue Watt SB13 1:21.37
2 Tanya Huebner SB6 1:42.79
3 Amanda Fowler SB14 1:23.79
4 Kayla Clarke SB14 1:24.54
5 Teigan Van Roosmalen SB13 1:24.54
6 Katherine Downie SB9 1:26.36
7 Madeleine Scott SB9 1:27.24
8 Dianne Saunders SB7 1:47.17
MEN’S 100m BREASTSTROKE
1 Blake Cochrane SB7 1:19.06
2 Matthew Levy SB7 1:23.86
3 Matthew Cowdrey SB8 1:10.07
4 Ahmed Kelly SB3 1:56.05
5 Grant Patterson SB2 2:20.11
6 Richard Eliason SB14 1:10.07
7 Rick Pendleton SB9 1:10.89
8 Jay Dohnt SB6 1:30.68
The winning effort by Blake Cochrane was also a world record in his classification.
Swimmers with a Disability Results for Friday 16th of March
The second day of events at the Australian Swimming Championships, doubling as the Olympic and Paralympic selection trials has just concluded in Adelaide.
Both the men and women competed in 50 metres freestyle.
WOMENS 50m FREESTYLE
1 Kayla Clarke S14 28.66
2 Taylor Corry S14 28.87
3 Annabelle Williams S9 29.63
4 Jacqueline Freney S7 32.31
5 Kara Leo S14 29.58
6 Esther Overton S3 1:13.58
7 Katherine Downie S10 29.03
8 Prue Watt S13 28.39
The gold medal effort of Kayla Clarke was also rewarded with a world record.
MENS 50m FREESTYLE
1 Mitchell Kilduff S14 24.84
2 Daniel Fox S14 25.12
3 Matthew Cowdrey S9 25.28
4 Andrew Pasterfield S10 24.28
5 Matthew Levy S7 28.75
6 Blake Cochrane S8 27.78
7 Matthew Haanappel S6 31.35
8 Michael Auprince S9 26.99
The winning effort of Mitchell Kilduff earned him a world record as did the bronze medal performance of Daniel Fox. Matthew Cowdrey’s exploits earned in this event also earned him a world record! Congratulations to Mitchell, Daniel and Matt!
The Sunday Sandwich (That’s a Wrap)
Another week in Australian politics and more sensational events which have overshadowed inter-party politics and policy for another seven day period. But this week has been different. A leadership challenge is now afoot
The week began with Kevin Rudd in Mexico G20 Foreign Minister talks followed by the now famous trip to the United States of America.
Little was said by Kevin Rudd about the G20 talks and the same went for his trip to the United States, though meetings he was there for were of a high-level nature, including meeting with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
But then came that bombshell that changed the complexion of the rest of the week. Kevin Rudd called a late night press conference at the Willard Hotel in Washington DC with reporters over there covering the trip scrambling out of bed, rushing to get to what was sure to be a press conference of major significance, given the time and location. Kevin Rudd was resigning his post as Foreign Minister as the position had become untenable in recent weeks with colleagues openly and privately telling him to throw out his leadership ambitions and Rudd saying he did not have the support of his ministerial colleagues.
From the speech onward you knew that was far from the end of this epic story of a party in trouble not least because of leadership tensions in existence within the party- which usually do no de-stabilise this much. Kevin Rudd was to return to Australia on Friday where he would make a definitive statement on his future, which everyone knew, was almost certainly going to be a tilt for the leadership.
The Prime Minister then came out and announced that on Monday at 10am AEDT there would be a leadership spill and that she would be contesting that ballot. Senior Ministers then began filing out one by one in support of the Prime Minister even before Kevin Rudd confirmed he would contest the leadership vote.
That confirmation from Kevin Rudd came from the second press conference he held on Friday, after his return from overseas, where he outlined his vision for the future and canvassed some of the things he regretted from his past time in the Prime Ministership.
Prior to the official announcement by Kevin Rudd of his part in the ballot, ministers like Kim Carr and Robert McClelland gave their support to the former leader in the event he ran.
On another front, Chris Bowen, the Immigration Minister under Prime Minister Julia and Assistant Treasurer under Prime Minister Rudd indicated that he would encourage the former Prime Minister to run, all but indicating formally that he would support Mr Rudd in the ballot.
But it was Saturday that saw the Rudd camp attract its most high-profile Cabinet supporter, in one Anthony Albanese, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and the Leader of the House, a day which also saw Senator Mark Bishop, a Gillard backer in the last ballot, switching sides.
The battle looks set to be a win for Julia Gillard to continue her Prime Ministership, looking like polling about 2/3 of the caucus vote on Monday. Though how this could really be seen as a win for Gillard, 30 odd is still a significant number that just contributes to the already toxic image of the Labor Party and damage done to Labor that will just be made even worse when it comes to light during the parliamentary week ahead.
In other news the Gonski Report into education funding was released this week but obviously completely overshadowed by the leadership tensions especially because the Gillard Government has not yet even committed to anything recommended in the report.
The only thing the government has said is that independent schools will not lose a dollar of funding and this would certainly add to the budget woes of the government were it to take immediate action which they need to do at least in the area of disability and indigenous loading.
The week has been dramatic, certainly the most dramatic since the leadership coup in 2010 in my relatively short time observing and commenting on politics from Canberra. Even after tomorrow the story will be far from over with Rudd seemingly likely to continue his campaign to become Prime Minister. I can smell the Labor Party rot from here.
NDIS, But When?
Today marked a potentially momentous day in the lives of people with a disability around this fair nation of Australia. Today marked the day where, after a prolonged period of campaigning, the Gillard Government, in response to a Productivity Commission report, announced it would pursue a National Disability Insurance Scheme. To their credit, the Liberal and National Party coalition also announced support for the scheme.
The type of scheme recommended by the Productivity Commission is a commonwealth funded scheme, costing $6.5 billion and covering everyone who has a disability or acquires one. It would include all reasonably required programs of care and support to make the lives of people with a disability easier than the state and federal-based schemes currently available.
Having an overarching scheme, run by one tier of government, but with input from the states will cut duplication of services and potentially cut substantial waste, compared with the current approach which has little uniformity in available services.
Prime Minister Gillard announced that discussions and work on the scheme would commence from the very next Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting where the states will be invited to form a committee to work on and oversee implementation.
States having a role in the implementation of the new scheme means that the current services offered by states, in differing ways can form part of the infrastructure to be built upon, rather than starting the scheme from scratch.
Presumably too, as part of this new National Disability Insurance Scheme, all existing laws in the states would be either added to or brought up to the same standard as each other and consistent with commonwealth legislation. For instance, housing and accessibility laws would need to be tightened across the country to make it easier for people with a disability to access universal design housing and to have easier access to buildings in general.
The question of cost is a very important one, particularly in the economic circumstances we find ourselves at present. We simply haven’t got $6.5 billion dollars to spend without either borrowing more from overseas, an unpalatable option, or increasing taxes, the most unpalatable of unpalatable options.
The Prime Minister today put forward those two options and also a third, cutting spending by doing a tax swap deal with the states. Without knowing the figures, I cannot see for certain how this would work so I will halt judgement on that option.
It seems to me that this program is of the utmost importance and has been needed for some time. It is a shame that any future overspending may put it in jeopardy into the future and again relegate the politics of disability into the ‘not sexy’ basket.
Work is not over for the NDIS movement and its followers. It is incumbent upon us to keep pursuing the matter right through to expected delivery in at least 7 years time. From that time the job will be to make sure the scheme is meeting all the expectations of its users and to be loud in calling for reform when it does not. Anything less will not see this become a positive reality.
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