AnglicareSA

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:30): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding AnglicareSA.

Leave granted.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: The Marshall Liberal government has many times referred to their 'special relationship' with Canberra. My question to the minister is how has the minister utilised this 'special relationship' to advocate for organisations like AnglicareSA, who have been forced to shed staff to meet funding shortfalls due to block funding being removed throughout the transition towards the NDIS?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:31): I thank the honourable member for her question. In relation to the decision by Anglicare to make some staff who were undertaking work with the Exceptional Needs Unit redundant, I have explained in this chamber in the past that the National Disability Insurance Scheme can best be described while we are in this transition period as a series of moving parts in a range of different areas.

In her question, the honourable member referred to the transition from block funding to individualised funding for clients. That is a particular challenge for every single provider across Australia as the transition continues because they are moving to a contestable market. The situation previously, where they received a known quarterly block funding at the start of every quarter, was that they would receive a very predictable amount of funding compared with this new world, which has bipartisan—I would even say multipartisan—support for the National Disability Insurance Scheme to provide choice and control to participants to enable them to choose those particular services.

In this situation, we have a range of means by which to advocate. There is the Disability Reform Council, which consists of federal ministers and all the state and territory ministers. We have the Senior Officials Working Group, which contains senior officials from our departments and the commonwealth departments, and they work on a range of matters at a range of levels. Providers themselves have mechanisms outside of government that include organisations, such as NDS (National Disability Services), which is the peak body for the service providers.

All of those avenues are available to raise these issues. There are multiple issues raised throughout these forums. In addition, at a state level, we have what is called the quarterly check-in, which I think was initiated by the previous government and which is a very useful avenue for providers. We had one just last week, where some allied health providers had contacted me personally the day before. We were able to alert the NDIA to their particular issues to ensure that we connected them with the right people within the NDIA on a particular matter that was of concern to them. There is a lot of advocacy work happening at multiple levels.

Can I say in relation to this particular Anglicare decision that Anglicare themselves have described it as a pricing decision from the commonwealth government. They didn't actually contact me as minister about this prior to the decision being made. However, I am advised that they did contact the former government prior to the election to alert them to the fact that, when the Exceptional Needs Unit clients would be going through transition, they had some concerns.

I have since been in contact with Anglicare—since the story broke and the staff were advised—and Anglicare maintain that it is a pricing decision. Clearly it is a difficult decision that they have made, but they believe they cannot continue to provide the service at the current—well, let me rephrase that: they believe they can continue to provide the services to the clients; they don't believe that they can continue to fund their staff at those existing levels, and that is a decision that they have made.