Page 245 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 December 2008
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The additional funding for the disability sector is welcome, but how much of this funding will be wasted on red tape and bureaucracy? By way of example, this announcement regarding the national disability agreement comes 12 months after the Rudd government had promised to fast-track the renegotiation of the next disability agreement previously known as CSTDA.
Disability services are an area of critical need, and, as Ms Porter has stated, she would like to encourage the ACT Minister for Disability and Housing to support this model by moving towards its implementation. We wholly support this worthwhile suggestion. In fact, I would like to make some practical suggestions to the minister. I would like to see the ACT’s share of this additional $1.3 billion funding be used to implement some direct action by creating job opportunities for people with disabilities. The minister and I were at a function just recently where the question of the number of people with disability in government employment was raised, and I think we are both of the opinion that that is an area that we should be able to address or the minister should be able to address.
I would also like to suggest further direct action to provide some ongoing relief for parents with special needs children who require assistance with after-school care or, especially, with school holiday care provision, which, at the moment, as I understand it, is not available. I have had a number of constituents come to me with this request, and I would like the minister to take note of this and see what is possible to be done with the additional funding. The federal government is banking a lot on this new agreement by claiming that there will be improvements in many areas of disability service provision. Can the minister for disability give us some indication of what plans are in place to utilise this additional funding?
In conclusion, can the minister give the people with disability, their families and carers any information regarding what current federal responsibilities will be transferred to the ACT government?
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for Disability and Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Corrections) (5.03): I am delighted to support Ms Porter’s motion congratulating the Rudd Labor government on this proposed new disability services model.
I begin by responding to a couple of points that Mr Doszpot made, and I welcome his expression of support; it is refreshing, let me say, and I hope that this is not going to be something that will be strange to us. I am looking forward to it. At the end of the day, these people need us more than we need them, and we need to respond.
Firstly, the discussion on the new version of the CSTDA, the commonwealth, state and territory disability agreement, with regard to ageing—and I know this is a little bit off the beat—talks about the federal government being responsible for services for people over 65 with a disability and the states and territories being responsible for people under 65 with a disability. So we are looking at the extent to which that may be applicable.
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