Page 2361 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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For example, I am pleased to note that organisations such as L’Arche, which provide accommodation for 13 people with a disability in our community, have been given some guarantee by the ACT government that their service agreement will remain in place until it is time for their clients to phase in to the NDIS. L’Arche was on the brink of ceasing to operate because of a lack of certainty around its funding arrangements. We simply cannot allow one person to slip through the cracks as it will undermine the viability of the entire service operated.
It is also appropriate to note during this debate that it is with some alarm, by the Community Services Directorate’s own admission, that 400 jobs in the sector will cease to exist as the transition progresses. It is appropriate to reminisce about the cries of the current minister and the relevant union during the last election campaign when my colleague Vicki Dunne made reference to the fact that the philosophy of having the right person in the right job in the Community Services Directorate equated to job cuts, yet here we are with the loss of 400 positions and there seems to be silence from those members opposite on the issue.
This is another area where we see a real lack of forward planning and where real gaps continue to appear. Anecdotally, I am receiving comments and hearing about situations where disability carers are simply not turning up to clients’ homes from one day to the next. I am also hearing about physios, speech pathologists and occupational therapists who are actively seeking more stable employment because they simply cannot wait for things to settle down internally. How prepared are we for this inevitable change? Time will tell as the transition progresses.
I applaud the estimates committee’s recommendation 79:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government consider ensuring that the funding levels of current disability service providers which do not necessarily fit the NDIS model are maintained until December 2016.
That recommendation is most laudable and will provide much-needed confidence to disability services here in the territory.
With regard to Indigenous affairs, as I have said before in this place, a disproportionate amount of money from both the ACT and the commonwealth is spent on services directed to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders within the ACT, with little in the way of outcomes being seen given the substantial investment. There is some conjecture about the exact figure, but, on paper, we can see it is around the vicinity of $231 million. That is the figure we are talking about. On a per capita basis, that equates to around $38,500 per person. Given that so much of the disadvantage is borne out of poverty as opposed to race, the question remains to be asked why we continue to see such disparity in outcomes.
I again applaud the estimates committee for recommendation 82:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government include strategic objectives and accountability indicators in the 2015‐2016 budget papers that reports specifically on Closing the Gap initiatives for the ACT’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residents.
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