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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-03-14 Daily Xml
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DISABILITY SERVICES

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (14:18): Supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Regarding the Premier's response in relation to the 2,200 people who got letters last week, when are the other 90 per cent of Disability SA clients going to have the same opportunity?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Minister for State Development) (14:18): Thank you; it is a good question. There is a staged rollout of the self-managed funding model. I do not have the details with me at the moment, but it certainly moves through the various types of service providers and different types of disabilities. So, I think at some point it will be people with intellectual disabilities supported by carers, parents or guardians, and we move through the various stages. I think the last area of support is some of the more challenging areas of supported accommodation.

So, there is a program to roll this out. This is a different program of rolling it out from the one recommended by Monsignor David Cappo—he suggested a much longer time frame. We were persuaded—I certainly have been persuaded for some time—that self-managed funding is really a precondition for reform. We do not want to put resources into a system that doesn't work; we want to reform the system first, and that is why we have chosen to have a comprehensive rollout of our disability services system in this way under the new funding model.

I was powerfully influenced, when I was Minister for Disabilities, by Dr Paul Collier who was, of course, the Dignity for Disability candidate who tragically died before the last election, and by his story about the way in which he had to, essentially, compromise his dignity to receive disability services; not able to make choices about when to go to sleep, about what to watch on television, about who would come into his house. This reform addresses those needs, and I pay tribute to his leadership in this area. I also acknowledge the former minister for disability, the member for Wright, who played an important role in bringing us to this place.

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