Page 2661 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 11 August 2015
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We are finalising our proposal to the commonwealth to invest the remaining sector development funds of close on $2 million in building the workforce we need to deliver the services for people who will be seeking NDIS packages and, for the first time, seeking new services—not being locked into what a service provider can provide and offer but, rather, seeking what they choose across a range of providers in our community.
The ACT government will provide just over $104 million in the 2015-16 financial year to continue to strengthen the capacity of people with disability in their families and carers to receive the services that they are desiring. The funding also includes therapy services for children, young people and adults with a disability. Therapy ACT continues to work with clients and their families as they transition to the NDIS.
The ACT government is also committing over $3 million to the child development assessment and referral service. Just last week I spoke on the child development service in this place and provided an update to members. I noted with a level of interest that earlier in discussions Mr Wall made mention of early intervention services. As I have done a number of times in this place, I provided information that we have, through the NDIS, block funded six early intervention services and currently, if one was to look at the NDIS website, 160 registered NDIS providers. That is a growth in the provision and choice for providers and for community members in this city. I think that is a good outcome.
Mr Wall also made mention, and I do not want to verbal him, of some sort of slowness or some problems with transitioning to the NDIS. We are sitting on, I think, just over 90 per cent of our targets in the bilateral agreement. We are above the national average, but clearly we are not meeting 100 per cent of our targets. I think I have brought motions to this place or requests for us to speak as one to ask the federal government to commit to providing, as they ought, the staff within the NDIS to make sure that our transition plans are done in a timely manner. I ask those opposite, if they have a comment about the timeliness of the NDIA moving clients through, to see that it is a problem that may come, in part if not wholly, from the commonwealth government putting a freeze on employment through the NDIS so they just do not have the planners in place to have that transition support for our community.
Mr Wall also made mention of the tier 2 services. Tier 2, the local community coordination and linkages program, is a very important part of supporting people within our community. I and every disability minister across this country are waiting for a determination and information from the federal government about where their position will land on funding for T2 or the local area coordination and linkages program. We have made the decision locally that we have funded all those services for another 12 months, until June of next year, while we wait for the commonwealth government to make that determination. It is problematic. I just wish they would get on and make that determination, because it is important for our services.
To finish on Mr Wall, I refer back to his comments in October of last year. He was more than happy to provide misinformation. I quote from Hansard:
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