Disability Advocate

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (15:09): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding the disability advocate.

Leave granted.

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS: The rollout of the NDIS throughout South Australia is experiencing significant delays. The finalised rollout has now been postponed by at least six months. As more South Australians make the transition to the NDIS, significant gaps in service delivery have begun to emerge. Given that 32,000 South Australians are expected to access the NDIS when it is fully rolled out, can the minister update the council as to the progress of the Marshall government's pre-election commitment to a disability advocate?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:10): I thank the honourable member for her question. If I can just backtrack, prior to the election the concept of support for a disability advocate was actually a proposal of the then Labor Party in government. The article that the announcement in which it was published stated that the funding had been allocated, and that was certainly our position, and the community advocates, if you like, were of that impression as well. On that basis, I thought, 'Yippee,' because I think it is a good idea. We then said, 'Me too', if you like, and said that we think this is an important area, and that was the basis on which we matched that particular commitment.

When we came to office, one of the first meetings that I had was with senior people in my department who are responsible for NDIS transition matters. I said to them, 'So is this the amount of funding and has it been costed?' and all those sorts of questions that you ask as an incoming minister. I was advised, to my sheer horror, that the funding had not in fact been allocated at all and that no costings had been sought from the department on what this particular proposal would cost. As I have said before, this is something which is going to be part of budget discussions, so whether it is funded is a matter for the upcoming budget.

I would say, however, in relation to NDIS, that I am slightly bemused when I still receive letters from federal members of parliament asking me to intervene in NDIS matters. It shows that the level of understanding of what the NDIS is is the same level of understanding as the Leader of the Opposition in this place, in that we are transitioning to a federal scheme from the state schemes. There is a huge range of complex processes for families and providers, going from block funding to providers to individualised funding for people, and of course there have been the delays, as the honourable member referred to in her question.

On that note, I think it is important that the 69 members of this state house, but particularly our federal colleagues, are all advocates in this role. We are basically handing the baton from the state scheme to the federal system. I often urge people to raise these matters with our federal colleagues as well to ensure that they understand where the scheme is operating well and also not operating well, because they are the ones who need to take these representations up in Canberra.

We have policy in my office of 'no wrong door', so even though I am not directly responsible for the NDIS, we certainly are able to contact the National Disability Insurance Agency on people's behalf. There is a dedicated service there which is available to federal members and senators. It is also available to my office, and I think they have extended that to the shadow minister as well. We do take up individual advocacy on their behalf as well. I would urge all members to take an interest in this space and advocate on behalf of people who may be having difficulty with the NDIS.