Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Boothby for her question and her strong advocacy for the 3,475 participants in her electorate. The government commenced planning for issues of disability when COVID started striking in February. We've followed this plan and we've been updating it ever since. Disability ministers from around the country gathered on 18 March, and we've gathered four times together to ensure the needs of people with disability throughout the pandemic are considered and responded to quickly. We established the Disability Information Helpline to provide information and support to people with disability. In early April, to build on these plans, both at the NDIS and at the national and state level through the DRC, we established an advisory group to develop and implement a further management and operational plan for people with disability, as part of the Australian health sector emergency response. The first version of this was released on 18 April.

We moved quickly to provide access to personal protective equipment, PPE, from the National Medical Stockpile for self-managed participants and providers if they were unable to access it via normal channels. We've allocated currently 1½ million masks to that area. Participants who are receiving face-to-face supports in New South Wales, Victoria and now the restricted areas of Queensland are able to claim the costs of all the PPE through their plans, and providers in those areas can claim the costs of PPE directly from the agency. Indeed, in Queensland we put this in place within hours of the public health alert that came out on the weekend. We've proactively spoken to 67,000 vulnerable participants right across the country, including 7,000 participants in Victoria. Planned flexibility has been introduced, including with assistive technologies such as iPads for participants who can't leave home. For children and families, we've ensured existing core supports can be used flexibly to provide disability related supports at home to assist participants—or, frankly, to give mum or dad a break if they're caring at home for a child who would normally be at school.

Additional funding is available for deep cleaning. Indeed, in Victoria we've established four very large providers as providers of last resort, to ensure additional workforce capacity and support is acquired immediately if needed, and Aspen Medical has been contracted with to provide a clinical first response. The pandemic leave disaster payments are also available, of course, for everyone in Victoria, and we're also working closely with all state governments in terms of their planning, including with Victoria, where we've been part of their Disability Rapid Response Group since 29 July. All of these measures are designed to keep people with disability safe and to ensure they continue to receive the supports that they need. On this note, I thank all of the state disability ministers for the hard work they're doing with the Commonwealth to ensure we can deliver responsibly.

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