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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-15 Daily Xml
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NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:37): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Disabilities a question relating to the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Yesterday's Australian newspaper reported:

Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan kept up their public pressure on the states, demanding they lift their disability funding to a new national benchmark to support the NDIS, which is expected to cost $15bn each year.

The Australian has learned the states will have to spend between $1100 and $2500 extra on services for each person with a disability before they can take part in one of the four launch sites for the first stage of the NDIS announced in the budget last Tuesday.

The government has set a new benchmark for disability funding by the states of $8738 a person.

Victoria and Tasmania are the only state governments that meet that level of funding.

I understand that, after a decade of Labor, the Productivity Commission has calculated that South Australia spends 15 per cent less than the national average on disability support. In answer to a question in this place on the National Disability Insurance Scheme on 2 May, the minister said:

The Premier and I have been lobbying for several months for a trial to be held here in South Australia, and I will certainly continue to advocate in the strongest terms for this to happen.

My questions are:

1. Is the government still pursuing an NDIS launch site?

2. Does the minister agree that to attain one of the launch sites in South Australia and the federal funds that come with it would require a significant increase in budget allocation to disability services?

3. How much would South Australia's funding for disability services need to increase in the 31 May budget for South Australia to be able to host a launch site?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:38): I thank the honourable member for his very important question on a very important issue and I acknowledge his ongoing interest in the area. I am very pleased to say that the federal government committed a significant amount of funding to the launch of the National Disability Insurance Scheme in last week's federal budget. I must say at the outset that part of the Hon. Mr Wade's explanation before he came to the question I think is probably in error. I think he said that the Productivity Commission calculates that the South Australian state's spend is 15 per cent less than the national average. My information is that that is not correct.

The figures that have been used from time to time in the other place based on national averages is actually taking a figure from the Productivity Commission which includes federal employment and training spending money and which is not included in the South Australian average spend. If you take out federal employment spending from the figures and you compare apples with apples, our spending, I understand, as at least of last month (certainly as at the most recent RoGS data), is that we are about $4 or $5 per capita less than the national average. In regard to his first question, the answer is yes; in regard to his second question the answer is yes; and, in regard to the third question, I suppose that we should say that he should wait for the budget to be handed down.

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