Page 3074 - Week 07 - Thursday, 30 June 2011
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look to their spirituality for support, and limiting an inmate’s access to appropriate places to practise this seems contradictory to the goal of rehabilitation.
I will make one very brief comment on the NSP because obviously this is also a program which comes under the Health portfolio. Again I would urge that all stakeholders engage in the review that is being undertaken and look to the evidence on this from overseas where NSP programs operate.
I would also like to address the issue of wheelchair accessible taxis, which sits within this directorate. One of the biggest difficulties people with a disability have in the ACT is access to transport, wheelchair accessible taxis being a prime example. For too long people who use wheelchairs, especially electric wheelchairs, have had ongoing problems with the transport system. This has left them socially excluded and experiencing difficulties going about daily tasks such as social, educational and health activities.
Through this budget the government has declared its intention to improve the wheelchair accessible taxi regulatory system and while I sincerely hope these aims are achieved, I do have some doubts and would still hope that the government does not rule out looking at having a salaried driver model as a way of achieving much-needed improvements. Already the ACT government spends significant funds on subsidising the current wheelchair accessible taxi system. Essentially we have a social service being run on a for-profit basis, and this does not deliver the type of service people with a disability need and deserve.
The government has appropriated around $600,000 to establish a centralised booking system and will look to introduce tougher sanctions for non-compliance with service standards by operators or drivers. The question is: when you put together all the existing subsidies and costs to run the wheelchair accessible taxi service it may indeed be comparable and more efficient and effective to run a salaried driver service. The report prepared for the government on the taxi industry did not actually cost this model which was put forward by the WAT consortium, representing disability advocates and groups.
The Greens requested answers from both JACS and Community Services about the total amount the ACT government spends per annum supporting the wheelchair accessible taxi service. The answer received was not clear, but we can assume it is somewhere in the vicinity of $3 million per annum.
The estimates committee has recommended that the Justice and Community Safety Directorate report on the level of effectiveness of the wheelchair accessible taxi regime in their annual report. I note Mr Stanhope, the previous minister for transport, stated that if there were not dramatic improvements to the WAT service within two years the government would look at a salaried drivers model. So we do hope the government will keep to that promise.
I want to briefly make some comments about road safety, given that transport regulation now sits with the portfolio of Attorney-General. Through the estimates process I asked a number of questions about the vision zero strategy, including about
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