Page 1177 - Week 04 - Friday, 23 April 2021
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I have recently been doing that. I have talking with Garran residents around accessibility issues around the shops and I have been talking with Narrabundah residents about safety issues in and around Narrabundah. Some of those issues were related to the peak hour population there as well as broader safety issues for children and the like. I respond to those concerns. They just need to be raised with me, and there is no need to play politics with a supplementary like that.
Disability services—National Disability Insurance Scheme
MR BRADDOCK: My question is to the Minister for Disability, regarding the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Minister, why isn’t the government doing more to support NDIS participants, who are among Canberra’s most vulnerable?
MS DAVIDSON: Thank you for the question. There is quite a lot that the ACT government is doing to support people with disabilities in the ACT. We fund individual advocacy organisations, such as Advocacy for Inclusion and ADACAS, to support people who are going through what is sometimes a very complicated process to get NDIS support. We also provide support through the ISRP to people who need intensive support for complex needs that are sometimes not covered well by the NDIS.
At a national level, I am advocating for the community’s position on reforms for the NDIS and continuing the longstanding ACT government position of supporting the human rights of people with disability around choice, control and continuity in making decisions about the supports and services that will help them to achieve what they want in their lives.
MR BRADDOCK: Minister, what have you achieved in lobbying the federal government to do its bit in supporting NDIS participants?
MS DAVIDSON: That is a very fair question. I made the ACT government’s position very clear at the most recent meeting of disability ministers: that we would like to see the pilot of independent assessments cease so that we can have genuine consultation with people with disabilities around the reforms that they would like to see for the NDIS.
Given the concerns that people have raised around the independent assessment process and the difficulties that it causes for people, the trauma that it caused for some of the people who participated in those pilot assessments, it would be best for those to stop while consultation with people with disabilities happens.
MR DAVIS: Minister, what has the new federal minister for the NDIS said to you about the future of the scheme?
MS DAVIDSON: The communique that came out after the meeting of the disability ministers, including the federal minister, stated that there would be further consultation needed for NDIS reforms. I noted some reporting in the media from the federal minister around the pilot continuing to completion and then there being a pause for consultation.
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