Disability Sector

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:37): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Human Services a question regarding disability.

Leave granted.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: On 26 March, there was an urgent call to action made by the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability to all Australian governments to ensure that the response to COVID-19 included dedicated strategies and to take all necessary measures to protect and support people with a disability. At a broader level, the sector contributes approximately 9.4 per cent to our gross state product. My questions to the minister are:

1. Is the minister aware of any representation made to the government from organisations concerned about the potential collapse of the non-government disability sector in South Australia during this crisis?

2. What dedicated measures are in place today to support people with a disability as part of the COVID-19 response?

3. Given its large contribution to gross state product, what precisely has the minister done to fix the lack of Human Services representation on the Premier's Industry Response and Recovery Council?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:38): I thank the honourable member for her question. There has been a great deal of work that has been taking place at both state and national level in relation to people with disabilities to ensure that they are kept safe. In terms of our key areas in Human Services, the four areas that we are activating and have activated on at the moment, given that this situation is one that fluctuates a great deal, are: support and care for people with disability; support for vulnerable families and children, including those experiencing family and domestic violence; sustaining the non-government sector and community sector; and emergency food and financial assistance. I think I have referred to some of those matters in response to questions since this crisis has come upon us.

In particular, we have welcomed actions from the commonwealth government to ensure the wellbeing of Australians with disability during this pandemic. I think I mentioned yesterday that the NDIA or the federal government announced on the weekend that there is a specialised service being provided to NDIS participants, of whom there are in the order of 350,000 nationally and 32,000 in South Australia, so that they are a priority customer for food delivery from supermarkets. In addition, the commonwealth is making calls to 3,000 of the most vulnerable clients across Australia to check in on them regularly.

We have a telepresence tomorrow with all the state and territory ministers and the Disability Reform Council. The commonwealth announced its own advisory group on 3 April. The Department of Human Services (my department) has a working group for a range of disability providers in South Australia, which is regularly gaining advice about what is taking place and what their concerns are. We have also done a sector-wide group to ensure that we are getting information from the sector, including the disability sector.

We have been through our own COVID-19 non-government senior officers sector intelligence group, which meets regularly. That is feeding information into the state emergency centre. We had an online forum with NGO leaders on 26 March, which I presented, as did the Premier, for a considerable period of the webinar, and we have a disability preparedness expert reference group, which brings together key sector leaders from accommodation services.

Within our own accommodation services sector, we have been operating a transition to home program, which is operating from U City and Hampstead, to enable people who are discharge ready to leave hospital and receive care and support in the community. We have also restricted visits into our accommodation services group homes, with protocols being developed for a range of scenarios. To assist families who have people in our accommodation services, we held a forum on 6 April, and those will continue to be held regularly. We are also working on recruitment strategies to enable an adequate pool of support workers.

In relation to any of the providers who are experiencing particular COVID difficulties, as well as the responsibilities of the commonwealth government, which is the regulator and funder of the NGO services, the state government also has the $250 million Community and Jobs Support Fund, which is under the auspices of the Treasurer and has representation from a range of stakeholders, including a representative from the community sector.