Natalie Ryan remembers the first time her daughter Lucy heard a kookaburra cackling at dusk.

Soon after being fitted with hearing aids at 11 months old, Lucy, who was born profoundly deaf, turned her head toward the bird.

Lucy Ryan, who had a cochlear implant a year ago, with her sisters, Hannah, 4, and Bella, 11, and mother Natalie. Credit:Janie Barrett

"It's just amazement, the first time your child hears anything. It's all so new and wondrous," Ms Ryan said. A cochlear implant then helped Lucy catch up developmentally with her twin, Hannah.

Lucy, now four, is among hundreds of thousands of hearing-impaired people assisted by Australian Hearing, which is one of several public entities the government is proposing to privatise as part of its budget measures.