Page 171 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2016
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I thank my colleagues for the conversation today. I think this is important. We need to find ways to help with the transition. I look forward to the report back in June, hopefully with good news.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (3.58): On the amendment, I thank Dr Bourke and Mr Rattenbury for their contributions in relation to the amendment. I believe that the amendment is well intentioned, but I do not believe that it goes far enough.
My office spoke with Dr Bourke’s office yesterday in relation to this amendment and said that what was being proposed by Dr Bourke would be acceptable if it were added to the motion rather than deleting words and substituting the motion. What we are actually having here is a lot of platitudinous things—“we will work”, “we will help people to identify”, “we will raise it with the federal minister for disabilities”. That has already been done. I welcome that Dr Bourke will be likewise doing that. And yes, we do need to report back to the Assembly on the state of Radio Print Handicapped as it goes out of its funding cycle.
But there is no safety net for the Radio Print Handicapped. They were given assurances by the disability council that they were likely to be funded. That has not proven to be the case. What we are having here is platitudinous assurances, again, from the government that they will work with Radio Print Handicapped, but there is no safety net for Radio Print Handicapped.
Dr Bourke gave a list of programs that met the funding requirements for the ILC program—organisations that were receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars for advocacy and the like. But he seemed to be saying that Radio Print Handicapped have to change their service model and that only if they change their service model to become some sort of provider of individual services will they be funded. It is not in their charter to be a provider of individual services, and it would be very hard for a volunteer organisation that runs a radio station to start providing individual services to people under the NDIS.
Dr Bourke and Mr Rattenbury have said that they value Radio Print Handicapped, that the community values Radio Print Handicapped, and that they are looking at every option—every option except one: to continue to fund our community organisation, Radio Print Handicapped.
Yes, there needs to be more done, as I have said before. We need to look at this not just through the prism of ACT issues but to look at the whole future and viability of Radio Print Handicapped across the nation. It is incumbent upon the disability minister to be raising this at disability ministers meetings, because there will be other radio organisations across the country who are starting to understand that they have a grim future.
In the meantime, every option has to include the continued funding of our community radio organisation by our community through a modest, as we have said, $38,000 from the ACT community.
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