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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-05-15 Daily Xml
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National Disability Insurance Scheme

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (15:45): Today, I rise to highlight the horrific deficiencies in disability services in South Australia, particularly in relation to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the bureaucratic hurdles our most vulnerable people often have to leap through to get the support they need and deserve. As the shadow minister for disabilities, I receive numerous queries from constituents approaching me and my staff with complex disability inquiries. Whilst I take the opportunity whenever I can to listen, I can only do so much with the resources I have from opposition.

These constituents include mums who have children with complex needs who end up in hospital beds due to a breakdown with their support provider; terminally ill patients who choose to voluntarily end their lives after being kicked off the NDIS due to being palliative; schoolchildren and young adults waiting two years for assessments they desperately need relating to autism and ADHD diagnoses, delaying the support they need and deserve; and clients who have had changes in circumstances where their needs increase and their funds dwindle while they wait months and months to receive a response from the scheme.

Whilst the federal NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, holds the looming threat of NDIS cuts over the heads of clients, this state's human services minister, Nat Cook, stays quiet. Premier Peter Malinauskas and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are taking their time to decide where the funding will come from for people who are struggling to get the basic care they need, let alone foundational supports, early interventions or simply just advocacy. The Labor governments are more concerned about negotiating GST top-ups, who is going to pay for what, and more or less responsibility, while clients sit in the dark.

On Wednesday 10 April this year, the human services minister played politics when the member for Flinders, Mr Sam Telfer MP, asked in the other place about the 134 patients who were supposed to be moved to permanent out-of-hospital disability housing under the department's Transition to Home scheme. I know of multiple children living with disabilities who have gone into hospital this year because there is nowhere else for them to go. At a time when South Australia is experiencing a health system in crisis under the pressure of unprecedented levels of ambulance ramping, a hospital bed should never be a replacement for a safe home in our community.

From the perspective of providers, they feel under-engaged and under-supported in having to meet the new guidelines such as the 1:3 ratio of clients to support workers for SIL accommodation. The shocking truth is that there are beds and vacancies that providers have, but there is no way to fill these vacancies due to the changes in the ratio.

Many properties do not accommodate the three-plus NDIS participants and are remaining vacant. This is also resulting in enormous delays from the NDIS, meaning clients are waiting for their packages instead of accessing the services they need. With a new Assistant Minister for Autism, an NDIS review, a royal commission and a federal NDIS minister, the South Australian Labor government have all the resources at hand to change and deliver.

In fact, over seven months ago now, the final report of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability was released and the state minister, Nat Cook, is yet to respond. Of the 222 recommendations for root-and-branch reforms on how education, health, housing, employment and legal systems are run for people with disability, not a single state Labor minister has responded let alone acted. Whilst the report recommended all governments must publish responses to the recommendations by 31 March this year, the Labor governments have put it into the too-hard basket.

From the all Labor Joint Statement on Australian State and Territory responses to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, I quote:

Given the scale and complexity of reform recommended, and the importance of consulting widely and understanding implications, all governments will formally respond to the Royal Commission's final report after 31 March 2024.

This is unacceptable. Four years of a national $600 million investigation and report with almost 10,000 individuals sharing their experiences and Labor still wants more consultation; 222 recommendations and they still cannot understand what is being asked. Labor must listen, they must act and they must do it promptly.

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