Page 1000 - Week 03 - Thursday, 23 March 2017
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The time frames are set. I will take on notice the particular time frames for Access Canberra but what I can assure you is that not only has there been improvement, there are also ways of being able to register the increased satisfaction of the people of Canberra. We have a wonderful way as Canberrans of being able to access Access Canberra services. We are getting the feedback that people are well satisfied.
SHOUT—government support
MRS JONES: My question is to Minister for Community Services and Social Inclusion. I apologise in advance if it is stressful for the minister, but I think it is quite stressful for SHOUT as well. How can you justify not funding SHOUT while happily spending $44,000 per year providing an apartment to a light rail official who earns $600,000 per year?
MADAM SPEAKER: Minister, are you taking it under the disability portfolio? The minister for disability.
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: Thank you, Madam Speaker; I am taking this question as the Minister for Disability, Children and Youth. I note that I am not the minister responsible for light rail. I refer Mrs Jones to my previous answers, which, to summarise, indicated how committed I remain, the Minister for Health remains and the ACT government remains to working with SHOUT and other community organisations, particularly with SHOUT members, to ensure that the important services that SHOUT members provide to the people that rely on them—whether that is through peer support, information or community engagement activities—are sustained. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that those organisations are sustained and those activities continue.
MRS JONES: Minister, how can you and the government justify not funding SHOUT at the same time as the LDA has purchased lakeside properties for 10 to 20 times their value?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I would also point out that I am not the minister with responsibility for LDA. I would also go back to an earlier point I made that actually the ACT government does not currently fund SHOUT. SHOUT is currently—
Mrs Jones: But it has.
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: funded under the NDIS. Mrs Jones makes the interjection that it has. Yes, the Disability ACT program that previously funded SHOUT was transitioned to the National Disability Insurance Agency as part of the transition to NDIS. This program did not fund only SHOUT. It funded a range of community organisations. An assessment was made of each of those organisations as to whether they fitted into the information linkage and capacity building element of the NDIS.
SHOUT was assessed as absolutely fitting into that and that is why it received 100 per cent of its previous ACT government funding in new funding as part of the transition. But this new funding came from the commonwealth government.
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