Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the response by the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services, Ms Prentice, dated 4 December 2017, to the Senate resolution on disability advocacy agreed to on 15 November 2017.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I've been back in the building for less than a day and I had been wondering how long it would take for the government, in their infinite ability, to disappoint the Australian disabled community. Sadly, we haven't finished the day before that has occurred. I note the response of Minister Prentice, the letter written to the New South Wales government, in relation to the withdrawal of its funding for disability advocacy services in that state. To be clear, we have a situation in New South Wales in which 50 organisations that serve the primary role of giving voice to people with disability, to the disabled community more broadly, face closure at the hands of a Liberal government which is intent on simply sliding out of its commitments and responsibilities in this place.

This is at a time when the disability sector is undergoing one of the largest reforms in its history. Indeed, we are in the middle of implementing and rolling out the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which is the largest social services reform since Medicare. This is a time of great transition and change for disabled people and for the sector, and it is a time when it is most important to place the voices of lived experience at the centre of the conversation and flag those issues which are occurring in the rollout. This is the primary function of both individualised and systemic advocacy, and these are the institutions, the groups, which are being defunded by the New South Wales government—by the sheer, it would seem, pig-headedness of the minister responsible, Ray Williams. Yet all this government can seem to bring itself to do is request that the New South Wales government continue to play 'a role' in the disability advocacy space in New South Wales—not that it return the funding that it proposes to cut, not that it increase funding in line with the increased need for advocacy services given the rollout of the NDIS, but simply to continue to play a role. Well, that's just not good enough. We have a situation where people are about to lose their voice. They will lose people and organisations that, for decades in some cases, have supported them to live full and independent lives. They deserve more than a government which is willing only to mumble in the direction of a state counterpart.

I am thoroughly concerned by the lack of rigorous rebuke on behalf of the government and, indeed, more than a little bit disappointed in the general disinterest of the Commonwealth in bringing this issue to light. The disabled people of Australia deserve better from this government, and I intend to continue to hold the government to account and to get the kind of attention to these issues that is so desperately needed and deserved.

Question agreed to.