David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to address the needs of a group within our community which deserves our respect and our support—places like the Elizabeth Special School and families that I have met around Claire, in the mid-north and through people like Maria Ross of the Northern Carers Network. These are families with a member who has a disability, perhaps quite extreme or perhaps barely noticeable except for some behaviour trait or physical characteristic. But each of these groups and families cares for those with disability. For some of these people, it means that their whole home is modified. For some of these people, it means that they have no normal life, as most of us would know it. Many of them have not been able to get away for a holiday as a couple—even a night away. I was speaking to one lady recently and in 14 years, since her son was born, she has not had a night away with her husband. It puts an immense strain on them. One of the reasons that they are under such strain is the shortfall in the provision of services.

Services are a joint responsibility between the Australian and state governments. The Commonwealth State and Territory Disability Agreement spells out the way in which the two levels of government will work together to fund disability services in each state. The federal government met recently, in April, with all the states and territories to look at negotiations for the new round of the Commonwealth State and Territory Disability Agreement. Essentially, the Commonwealth has offered to commit to a new agreement after the expiration of the current one at the end of June this year. It has a commitment to a multilateral agreement, so it is happy to negotiate individually with each state. In addition to continuing and indexing the $2.9 billion of funding that it currently provides to the states and territories for disability services to help them to carry out the responsibilities that they have undertaken to provide, the Australian government has also undertaken to provide an additional $400 million over the five years of the new agreement, on the condition that the states and territories focus on improving transparency and accountability, quantifying their unmet need, having some independent accreditation systems so that there is some accountability there and improving access to mainstream disability services for Indigenous people.

The Australian government believes that this is important because, for example, over the life of the previous agreement, some $700 million was provided over and above the disability agreement amount for things like respite accommodation, but with no tangible outcomes around Australia. So people deserve to ask the question: where has that money gone? I think the accountability and transparency requirements that the Australian government is asking for are quite reasonable. It also addresses some of the significant recommendations of the 2007 Senate inquiry into the funding and operations of the Commonwealth State and Territory Disability Agreement.

The last part of the Commonwealth’s offer is incredibly attractive, particularly to the state government of South Australia and more significantly to the people who need this support. The Commonwealth government has said, ‘Identify the areas of unmet need, quantify what they are, show us how you will spend the money to address these areas’—and the Australian government will meet 50 per cent of any shortfall. That is a very generous offer, particularly for South Australia when you look at comments from people such as Dignity for Disabled, who highlight that South Australia ranks last of all states in terms of its support for disabled clients, with a shortfall of some $112 million. In the figures that they quote, which come from the state government—it has a breakdown of state funding in 2005-06—in terms of funding to South Australia on a per capita basis, the federal government is top of the list, in terms of the amount we spend per capita, and the South Australian government is second from the bottom. This opportunity, particularly as it comes up to the state budget in early June, provides a magnificent opportunity for the South Australian government to commit to coming on board with the Australian government to provide record levels of funding for disability. I call on them to meet these people’s needs.

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