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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-11-28 Daily Xml
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Disability Advocate

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (14:22): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding the Disability Advocate.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: In May this year, Labor sought to amend the Disability Inclusion Bill to include a disability advocate. The amendment sought to:

…establish an independent disability advocate to safeguard the rights of people with disability and ensure that South Australians get the support they are entitled to under the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The advocate would provide a stronger voice for people with disability and help improve service delivery...

The Disability Inclusion Bill passed the parliament on 6 June, meaning a disability advocate could have been established nearly six months ago. My questions to the minister are:

1. Why was a disability advocate a bad idea in May but a good idea in November?

2. What has been the source of the delay in the announcement of Dr David Caudrey as Disability Advocate, given the minister's comments to the media in April concerning her commitment to a disability advocate?

3. Does the minister regret delaying yesterday's announcement, given the ongoing delays and rollout issues for the NDIS we have continued to see across South Australia during 2018?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:24): I thank the honourable member for her questions. Of course, I would expect that all South Australians, particularly those with disability and with particular needs, would welcome the appointment of Dr David Caudrey to the position of independent Disability Advocate. He is a highly respected individual who understands these issues very deeply.

I stand to be corrected, but I understand that he was the driving force behind the Disability Inclusion Bill, which was commenced under the previous government and passed this parliament as the first piece of legislation in the new parliament under the new government, and we are very proud of that fact. As I have stated in this place before, I think members of the opposition either suffer from—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: They suffer from lots of things.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: They do suffer from many things. They suffer from poor memory, lack of understanding in relation to funding issues, they don't read comments—

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: Eight months and you've done nothing.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Hunter, I can't hear the minister!

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: —that have been made in the past—a whole range of afflictions for which we pity them. In relation to this particular issue, as I have outlined in this place before, I made the commitment to fund this role in April on the understanding that it had been funded. Indeed, I made some comments on, I think, 5RPH to say that I was really pleased to see that the former government had been able to obtain funding and, on that basis, we would continue that in government. I was absolutely horrified to find that this was just another Labor slogan.

The Hon. C.M. Scriven: You could have fixed it. You could have agreed to the amendment.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: The honourable member may think that money grows on trees but, again, perhaps she has been failing to pay attention to the cost overruns in health of some $300 million; TAFE, tens of millions of dollars; child protection, tens of millions of dollars. Every agency across government has to find funding and savings because of the abject and complete financial mismanagement by the Labor government: a very, very sloppy group of individuals who should not have been in charge of South Australia. In fact, I note that the people of South Australia only voted for the Labor Party once in the last 30 years, which was the 2006 election.

In terms of this particular position, we needed to obtain funding for it, which we have now been able to do. We wanted to make sure that we got the role right and someone who was well respected. In fact, I saw the member for Light yesterday and he indicated that he thought it was a good appointment. We look forward to working with Dr Caudrey as we go through to full transition to the NDIS. I am sure that he will make a great contribution to assisting us in this role.

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