Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Disability Reform) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Capricornia very much for her question. I was very pleased to be in Sydney this morning with the Acting Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and others to welcome home from London our Paralympic team. They were incredibly pleased to be home and, of course, very, very proud of their achievements. I know you are not supposed to have favourites, Deputy Speaker Burke, but my favourites really were the wheelchair basketballers, both the men and the women, who were fantastic competitors—incredibly tough. Congratulations to them and all of the other athletes, who showed that the Paralympics are all about hard work and dedication to your sport, demonstrating to not only the Australian people but also the world what extraordinary talent we have in this country. We are proud of our Paralympians because they also demonstrate what people with a disability can do, even when faced with sometimes very serious disabilities.

This government is determined to do what we can for all people with disabilities, their families and their carers by building a National Disability Insurance Scheme. In building that National Disability Insurance Scheme, we want to make sure that we do everything we can to support people with disabilities so that they can meet their aspirations, find what it is that they can do, rather than have the system focus on what they cannot do. We believe that Australia needs a disability insurance system and, at long last in this country, we will have one. We are determined to deliver it to end what so many people have called 'the cruel lottery'—the cruel lottery that at the moment says that you get a certain level of care and support depending on where you live, depending on the type of disability you have or depending on how you got your disability, not depending on what your needs are. We want to turn that around and make sure that the National Disability Insurance Scheme we have in this country will determine what people get on the basis of need.

We have already agreed that the scheme will start in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and here in the Australian Capital Territory. So we will be starting from the middle of next year. Twenty thousand people with disabilities will benefit, and so will their carers and families.

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