Page 3955 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 5 December 2007
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providers to provide increased flexibility in the delivery of services. There have been improvements to the ACT taxi subsidy scheme and increased support for our disability support staff.
Following the additional money announced in the last budget, approximately an additional 60 people and their families who have not been receiving recurrent support services will now receive recurrent support services. This support will be provided through: 20 places in accommodation support; extra hours of community access, up 30 per cent from 2004 figures; increased centre based respite care nights, up by 1,054; an increase in the respite care that is offered in people’s homes, up by 1,100 hours, and increased community support for 170 additional people.
These areas, of course, are targeting the government’s priorities. These priorities are to support people who have not been receiving the service in the past, who have high support needs and who will require ongoing sustained support services. We will also look at children of ageing carers who require accommodation support. Importantly, we need to look after the post-school options graduates, the graduates leaving Black Mountain School. Traditionally we have not had enough resourcing going into this area and for many parents it comes to a choice of leaving their jobs to care for their children, almost young adults, once they finish school. I am very pleased that we are seriously looking at this group and making sure that we are providing the services and support they need.
Of course, there will always be the need for additional respite bed nights. Under the commonwealth-state disability agreement, which we were negotiating with the previous federal government, they had sought a commitment from the state and territory governments to put more money into disability services and then they would match that new money. We put in $15.7 million. We were unable to reach a final conclusion on those negotiations prior to the federal election, but we are hopeful that Labor’s policy that they announced in the federal election campaign actually is along similar grounds.
MR SPEAKER: Is there a supplementary question?
MS MacDONALD: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, are there any further details that you can provide?
MS GALLAGHER: In relation to the Commonwealth State/Territory Disability Agreement, federal Labor’s policy was to accept the extra money that the commonwealth was putting into disability services. We are confident that we will still be able to secure those much-needed funds for people with a disability here in the ACT.
This is such an important area in terms of government service delivery. Traditionally, the ACT has done very badly in disability funding. Where some states have received 40 cents in the dollar in their allocation for disability services—40c from the commonwealth for every dollar they spend—the ACT government has been receiving 17 cents in the dollar, under the Commonwealth State/Territory Disability Agreement that has just expired. I think only Victoria was below us, at 16 cents in the dollar.
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