Page 2392 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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developing the supports that are necessary and will be part of the services that implement those supports. I have great faith that the human services blueprint, with the input from all of those community services sector organisations, will be able to deliver for the people in west Belconnen.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (9.02): I rise this evening to speak to the budget line item relating to disability education. This line item warrants particular attention as we debate the appropriation bill this evening.
As I have said earlier during the debate, the national disability insurance scheme is supported by all sides of politics and is welcome reform for those with a disability in our community. Both sides can also agree on the position that the government is not best placed to act as a service provider under the NDIS. However, what we have seen in terms of education provision for young children with a disability from this government here is a rapid withdrawal of service delivery in the early intervention space. Closures of early intervention units and other supports, and leaving kids with an unsure future, are an absolute travesty.
This government have made a decision—goodness knows when they made it, but nonetheless, the decision has been taken—which has allowed them to make an early exit from the cost of maintaining an early intervention service to children in an educational setting in the ACT. The excuse that has been used has been the arrival of the NDIS trial in the ACT, but the government have failed to consider the more than 300 families that are currently accessing and relying on these services on a daily basis. These families rely heavily on the success and the stability that these services have provided in the past.Just last week, I tabled a petition that had almost 2,500 signatures on it. It sought to ensure that early intervention units attached to schools across the ACT would be maintained. Again, because of a lack of preparation from this government, parents, carers, teachers, therapists and advocates are left anxious and desperately seeking information about what services will be operational by the end of the 2014 school year to replace the early intervention services that they currently access.
The minister continues to give assurances that services will well and truly be ready by the end of the school year—in fact, that by the beginning of the last school term this year, service providers will be available to talk about what services are on hand. However, I note that the language is getting much more measured when affirming this commitment. Last week in a ministerial statement, Minister Burch said, and we have the actual excerpt here, which seems to be a practice the opposite side is failing to follow tonight:
I have said I would make available, for a limited time—
a limited time—
facilities in schools to assist organisations in establishing their services. I made that decision as it will assist children to remain in familiar school surroundings for the time being.
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