Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to particularly thank the member for Melbourne Ports for his question because he is a great advocate for people with disabilities. As he said, tomorrow is a very significant day for people with disabilities. Last Saturday, at the Council of Australian Governments meeting, a major agreement was reached that will certainly help to see the lives of people with disabilities, their families and their carers improved. At that meeting it was agreed that the Commonwealth will inject more than $400 million in new funds for more services and important reform in a new National Disability Agreement.

It is very important to acknowledge that this is on top of the $1.9 billion agreed to by disability ministers in May this year. At that meeting in May of all the state and territory disability ministers along with my Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services, the member for Maribyrnong, it was agreed that this money would be spent to provide more than 24,000 additional places in much needed supported accommodation, respite and in-home care. All of these additional services have now been rolled into the National Disability Agreement.

The $1.9 billion included $100 million which the Prime Minister announced in May. He announced that additional $100 million to go specifically to meet the needs of those carers who are getting older and are finding it more and more difficult to care for the people they love. The Prime Minister and my cabinet colleagues will recall that at our community cabinet in Penrith earlier this year a mother told an extraordinary story of her life caring for her son, who is now 26 years old, and of just how difficult it has been for her and the burden that she has carried for all of his life as she has cared for him. She of course has done that out of love for him, as all members would acknowledge. But, more than anything, she is concerned about what is going to happen to him as she ages. So that was the purpose of the additional $100 million in funding that was announced following that very important meeting in Penrith.

The Commonwealth is now providing the highest level of indexation—more than six per cent—ever provided under a disability agreement. The new National Disability Agreement will see Commonwealth investment into state run disability services reach $5.3 billion over the next five years. This will bring the Commonwealth’s contribution to these disability services to more than $1.25 billion a year by the time the agreement ends in 2013. This is a very significant increase on the $620 million that was provided by the previous government in the 2007 funding year.

We now have common agreement across the states and territories for reform in this important area. Our funding commitment includes a $70 million sign-on bonus to promote our reform agenda, and that will cover population service benchmarking, single access points, improved access to aids and equipment, and better quality assurance. This has, I am pleased to say, as recently as yesterday been recognised by Carers Australia. They said:

The National Disability Agreement reached on the weekend shows that the Rudd government is not only listening to the concerns of people with disability, carers and their families, but is also prepared to act.

We are acting to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people with a disability. We want them to be able to live as independently as possible; to participate in the community, free from the barriers of access, discrimination or exclusion; and to get the services and support that they need.

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