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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-11-28 Daily Xml
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International Day of People with Disability

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (15:23): I rise to talk about the extraordinary situation that happened in this house regarding a motion that was put up by the member for Light. The member for Light is a very hardworking local member, and also a former minister for disabilities, who has shown nothing but tremendous commitment and advocacy over a number of years. It was a show of indifference regarding the commitment to advocate for the full and proper rollout of the NDIS that has led me to bring this again to the house this afternoon.

The motion was supporting the people in our community living with a disability and the celebration of their lives on the International Day of People with Disability that is coming up on 3 December next week. As part of the motion, the member for Light proposed that this house:

(d) calls on the Liberal-National federal government to ensure that the NDIS is properly funded, so it can improve the quality of the lives of people living with disability as was intended when the previous Labor federal government established it.

During the debate I was gobsmacked to learn that the member for Colton moved the government amendment that struck out completely this last part of the motion. I just feel that is an extraordinary own goal. The thousands of people in South Australia who live with a disability rightly expect that the state government, and indeed the opposition, will do everything they can to ensure that in this environment of transition everything possible is done to advocate for the full and proper rollout of the NDIS.

We have seen many challenges and many issues with the NDIS rollout over the past four years. We have seen debates and arguments about how the NDIS is funded. We have seen one group being pitted against another in some kind of funding Hunger Games where the newly appointed Prime Minister, Mr Scott Morrison, woke up with some thought bubble to move $3.9 billion out of a security fund from the NDIS into a drought relief fund for farmers.

Nobody is going to argue that we need immediate relief for farmers, but to play that off against people waiting for plans, people struggling with a disability, is an outrageous turn of events. Then today, again, we see that the state Liberal government is going to do nothing to stand up for people living with a disability in South Australia. They are not going to put a call out to the federal government to say it must be fully funded. There is no way that this scheme is anywhere near fully funded at this stage. We are waiting on thousands of plans to be approved and rolled out.

Last week, we were in the Riverland and I spoke to many people up there. There are specific and different challenges for people living with a disability in the country in terms of getting therapists to go up there and see them because the transport is not being funded for them to get up there, being able to keep people in the country to provide ongoing therapy so that there is some consistency in that. That is an enormous challenge for people in rural Australia and I hope that the South Australian Liberal government will stand up and say that we must fund these things properly. I will certainly be standing up to say that.

Only yesterday was it announced that a disability advocate is now being appointed and then today we have a situation where the minister is not able to tell us how that appointment happened. This appointment is only happening for 12 months. Well, that provides no comfort to people with a disability who have no certainty around the advocacy they need in an environment where an NDIS plan is almost having to be begged for by people who are not getting their equipment, not getting their therapy and not getting their supports.

There was a $600,000 commitment made on 1 April by this government, by the minister in the other place, to fund and support disability advocacy, and today we are told again that it is only $200,000. I am very disappointed and it is a shame to this Liberal government for voting down that part of the motion today which calls on the federal Liberal government to fully fund the NDIS. Block funding has fallen apart. There is a range of issues with the NDIS and I call on the government to change that motion back.

Time expired.

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