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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-02-29 Daily Xml
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DISABILITY SERVICES

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:03): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question on the disability act to be drafted to the Minister for Disabilities.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: Among other reforms to the disability portfolio, as members are well aware the Weatherill government has indicated that we will soon debate legislation to replace the Disability Services Act 1993. Given that the report of the Office of the Public Advocate tabled this week, the Social Inclusion Unit's Strong Voices blueprint document and no less an institution than the United Nations have all recommended that in public policy we must move away from what the Public Advocate termed a 'welfare-based approach' to a 'rights-based approach', my question is very simple. Will the minister now commit publicly to the fundamental principle of a human rights framework to underpin the new disability act? Specifically, will this legislation be based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (15:04): I thank the honourable member for her very important question. There has been significant change—and the chamber knows this—in the thinking, context and delivery of disability services in this state in the last 18 years since the South Australian legislation was first enacted. The Social Inclusion Board's disability blueprint Strong Voices was released on 19 October 2011. It recommended that a new disability act replace the existing Disability Services Act 1993. On 19 December 2011 Premier Weatherill announced that the government would be drafting a new disability act.

Updating legislation in the context of both the United Nations Convention and the Social Inclusion's disability blueprint will significantly affect the structure and the function of the new act. However, I certainly give the position of myself as minister that when we come to drafting the new act we will be consulting with the community and particularly those affected, people living with disabilities, very widely on the new act.

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