National Disability Insurance Scheme Expos

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Disabilities. Can the minister update the house on the NDIS expos being held around South Australia?

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD (Reynell—Minister for Disabilities, Minister Assisting the Minister for Recreation and Sport) (14:56): I thank the member for this very important question, and for her support for people living with disabilities, their families and carers and her support for the NDIS. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is the most significant social reform since the Hawke Labor government introduced Medicare. When the NDIS is fully rolled out, it will improve the lives of around more than 32,000 South Australians living with disabilities, and their families and carers—a reform that we can all be immensely proud of.

Reform of this magnitude requires extensive and coordinated communication and engagement with our community to ensure its successful implementation, and that is why the government has held and will continue to hold free NDIS expos across South Australia in every corner of our community. The expos aim to help South Australians with disability, and their families, to transition to the NDIS system by directly connecting them with service providers and with government agencies. With an estimated 6,000 full-time equivalent jobs to be created through the rollout of the NDIS, these expos also provide information for people interested in working in the disability sector.

Since May, there have been 14 expos held across our state, starting in Gawler and continuing in Mawson Lakes, Modbury, Murray Bridge, Berri, Mount Gambier, Naracoorte, Golden Grove, Kangaroo Island, Noarlunga, Morphettville, Victor Harbor, Port Pirie and Clare. About 2,000 people have attended the expos, as well as more than 600 stallholders. At the largest expo so far, more than 500 people gathered at the Golden Grove Recreation and Arts Centre in July. The feedback from the expos has been excellent, with many people saying how beneficial they have been in helping them make important decisions. Providers have told us that the expos have been very worthwhile. It has given them an opportunity to meet and to talk with people requiring services and support.

Further to the expos, the South Australian NDIS information campaign has reached 700,000 people through social media. I would encourage people living with disability, and people wanting to work in the disability sector, to visit the accompanying website at www.mysupportmychoice.sa.gov.au. Alternatively, they can, of course, attend one of the upcoming expos. Locations for these upcoming expos include Kadina, Port Augusta, Coober Pedy, Ceduna, Port Lincoln, Whyalla, western Adelaide, eastern Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has made these expos such a success already, and I very much look forward to receiving more feedback about the upcoming events.

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer asked me on what basis or authority I abbreviated the Minister for Investment and Trade's answer. No, it is not from standing orders, as he rightly observed: it is from page 362 of Erskine May, which reads, halfway down the page—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: This is the greatest moment of your life.

The SPEAKER: Yes.

…questions requiring information set forth in accessible documents such as statutes, treaties, etc., have not been allowed when the member concerned could obtain the information of his own accord without difficulty.

There was nothing in the question that indicated the minister would default to giving a list of grants. However, upon his doing that, a published list of grants, I believed it violated either the letter or the spirit of that rule. It is a question of saving time in question time.