Page 3483 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 22 October 2014
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subsequent notifications of successful and unsuccessful providers, thorough contract negotiations, and clear discussions between infrastructure and capital works and schools. The NDIA also must advise organisations who tendered of the outcome before making significant public announcements.
One would hope that the opposition would not want to jeopardise this tender process by playing cheap politics. I am disappointed that Mr Wall chooses to spread misinformation about this process at a time when parents are naturally concerned about these changes for their children.
This morning Mr Wall put out a media release in which he claimed that “early intervention and therapy services will end at the conclusion of the school year”. Mr Wall knows quite well that Therapy ACT services will continue until the end of 2016. So let me be clear about that for Mr Wall: the government will withdraw from early intervention school-based services at the end of this year. Therapy ACT services will continue for another two years, until December 2016.
I remind Mr Wall that within days of the government’s announcement of withdrawing from being a provider of special disability services, Mr Wall locked the Canberra Liberals into supporting that policy. He knows that it is the right thing to do and he supports that position.
I am fully committed to ensuring that we have high quality providers ready and able to deliver early intervention services from term 1 of next year. I know the National Disability Insurance Agency is also wholly committed to this for our community.
Mr Wall is on record as supporting, as I said, the withdrawal of government provision of these services, yet I believe that, again, he continues to raise and heighten concern by telling families that there will be no providers for these services next year—and he has continued to do that. I think it is unfortunate that the cheap political shots at me—and he was very colourful in his language about my performance in this regard—are not going to the heart of the matter. We should be standing as one in supporting the national disability insurance scheme, supporting the work of the agency and supporting families in this transition process.
In relation to the information about 20 organisations, this is information that is publicly available. If Mr Wall goes to the list of publicly available providers that are on the NDIA’s website, it shows that there are registered organisations. Providers of early intervention services include Assistive Technology Centre, Community Options, DUO, and others; and there are nine organisations that are providing both early intervention and therapeutic services, including ASPECT, Neurospace, the Shepherd Centre and Therapy 4 Kids. The NDIA has also confirmed that since that list was put up on 9 September seven more organisations have been registered.
That is on top of what will come through with the NDIA tender. While I do not know the outcome of that tender or who has applied, the fact that we have so many providers already registered clearly demonstrates that there is a strong market interest in supporting early intervention services for families. When the tender is announced—and, as I understand it, that will be within the week—I hope that Mr Wall does not
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