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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-09-20 Daily Xml
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DISABILITY SERVICES

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (15:17): My question is to the Minister for Disabilities. Minister, could you outline how your disability staff are allocated to front-line services and what their responsibilities are?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (15:17): I thank the honourable member for his most important question, and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to respond. At the moment Disability SA and disability and domiciliary care services have a total of 2,198 staff employed, or 1,743 full-time equivalents. Approximately 88 per cent of staff in Disability Services are classified as direct care staff offering front-line services.

They are the speech therapists, the nurses, the physios, the occupational therapists, the service coordinators and the disability care workers, to name just a few of them. These staff work hard to meet the growing need in our disability community. Like many in the community, I was horrified last Thursday when I heard the Leader of the Opposition slip up and reveal that the Liberals plan to slash the public sector by 25,000 to 35,000 employees—25,000 to 35,000 employees.

And while the Hon. Isobel Redmond has since come out and said that she was mistaken, I think that we should reflect on comments made by Ms Redmond's deputy, Mitch Williams, to The Australian on 13 September, who said that his leader's comments about cutting the Public Service by 25,000 to 35,000 employers were not a mistake, that the Liberal Party was, and I quote, 'of one mind' on this issue, and that her plans were 'consistent with the views of everybody in the party room'. It is also interesting to note the comments made on ABC 891 last Friday by the new chief executive of Business SA, Nigel McBride, who said of the incident:

Isobel is a very straightforward, straight speaking kind of gal. I think she has made the mistake of being not politically astute.

In other words, Ms Redmond was actually being very truthful and frank when talking about the Liberals' plan to axe a quarter of our Public Service. Her mistake was just talking about it publicly. The opposition has confirmed that should they win the next election, they will create an audit commission, based on the Queensland audit commission approach. If they follow the approach of the Queensland Liberals they will then use the audit's findings to justify savage cuts to the Public Service, savage cuts that they have already decided upon—already decided upon. We just have to look to Queensland to see what South Australia will look like under a future Liberal government.

Just last week, 14,000 Queensland public servants were sacked, including nurses, child protection workers, hospital orderlies, school cleaners—people in front-line services. Of course, what Isobel Redmond is planning is much more extreme than what is taking place in Queensland. The impact of these proposed cuts to the disability community would be enormous. Currently, this government supports 21,822 South Australians living with disability. Now, you cannot rip 25,000 to 35,000 public servants out of the system without front-line services being affected. You cannot make those kinds of cuts without significantly affecting our 21,000 plus clients, their families and their carers.

It is important to note that our current Public Service system has only 27,000 people classified as working in admin and policy roles across the whole system.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Therefore, a significant amount of the proposed cuts would have to come from front-line services. Under this plan, the Liberals would sack teachers, nurses, police, doctors, and front-line staff who work in my department in disability support. If you reduce the Public Service by a quarter these are the sorts of jobs that will have to be cut. I ask the SA Liberals: what front-line services do you plan to cut? How many disability support staff will you be sacking? The answer to this question I am sure will be of huge interest to our community, because for the past few years the disability community has been crying out for more services, more support, more resources—not less.

The Weatherill government has certainly heard these cries and that is why it has invested a record amount of funding into disability support services in recent years—$212.5 million in the last budget. What was your promise at the last election? What was it—$10 million? That is also why we strongly support the launch of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. With the South Australian launch site commencing in July 2013, there is a great deal of work to be done to prepare the sector for the new system. This important transition work will continue as the trial progresses and we work our way towards full implementation of the NDIS.

As I have explained in this place before, introducing a new national disability system is a complex task. At the moment, we have officers from the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Department of Treasury and Finance, and the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion, all working with our federal counterparts to implement this new support system. These are not faceless bureaucrats; they are not some policy wonks sitting behind desks in an ivory tower. These are skilled officials dealing with high level, complicated negotiations that will ultimately lead us to a new national disability support scheme.

Preparing for the NDIS is going to take considerable time and resources, and this work will be ongoing for years until we finalise the full rollout of the NDIS. We definitely cannot afford to lose a quarter of our staff at such a critical transition time. Regarding the NDIS, it is interesting to once again look at Queensland to see the Liberal government's lack of commitment to disability reform. The Queensland Liberals have refused to commit to an NDIS launch site and there was no funding allocated for the NDIS in the recent state budget in Queensland. Instead, Premier Newman prioritised a racing industry over and above people living with disability and in desperate need.

Here in South Australia we will be rolling out the NDIS for children from next year. However, I cannot recall seeing a single press release from the opposition disability spokesperson or the Leader of the Opposition confirming the Liberal support and long-term commitment for the South Australian NDIS launch. This silence is remarkable, given that this is a once-in-a-generation reform and a major focus of the disability sector.

I fear, and parents of children with disability should fear, that this Liberal opposition will roll this commitment back. Let me be clear: the Liberals European-style austerity measures are not necessary and will have a detrimental impact not only on the disability community but the economy as well. Just consider the impact on our economy if 25,000 to 35,000 workers, wage earners were ripped out of the workforce. We would surely be headed for a recession. At a time when the disability community are calling for more resources and more support we cannot—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: This is a clear indication of their lack of understanding about what workers in the public service do.

The Hon. T.J. Stephens interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: It will come in due course, Mr Stephens, and you will see another excellent Weatherill Labor budget. Let me make it quite clear that the last budget delivered $212.5 million over five years for disability.

The Hon. T.J. Stephens: Debt, debt, debt.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Are you going to take it away from them, Mr Stephens?

The Hon. T.J. Stephens: Debt, debt, debt.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Are you going to take that money away from them? Let us know. The community wants to know what you are going to do. All the Hon. Mr Stephens wants to do is cut, cut, cut, and that is what we will see from a Liberal government.

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