27th of August 2024, 5:39pm
Legislative Council of Victoria, Melbourne
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan):
My adjournment to is the Minister for Disability. The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability highlighted the vital role that independent advocates provide for people with a disability and their families.
From helping people to navigate the tortuous bureaucracy of the NDIS to supporting them to access the best educational environment for a child with a disability to advocating for housing that fits their needs, disability advocates work for the rights of their clients to live their lives the way they want to live them.
For vulnerable people with a disability who do not have a family, they can rely on an advocate to support them, and this is ever more crucial. Over the previous decade the disability advocacy sector has evolved from being largely made up of volunteers to a professional workforce. This professionalisation has been welcomed by the sector, but it does come with increased costs.
Aside from wages, advocacy services must meet the costs of compliance, training and long service leave entitlements, so the annual $3.8 million base funding the sector receives from the state government is no longer adequate. Most advocacy organisations are already working at capacity, some operating on deficit budgets. Disability Advocacy Victoria predicts that if nothing is done, two-thirds of these organisations will be forced to make staffing cuts by the end of the year.
The sector is also in a state of transition. The recent NDIS review recommends establishing a system of foundational supports. These support services for people with a disability, including advocacy support, will sit outside individualised NDIS funding. These are the sorts of supports that were funded by the states before the establishment of the NDIS, but there is some disagreement over which level of government will now pay for these foundational supports.
While the state argues with the feds over who will foot the bill, the need for advocacy support to tackle abuse, discrimination and violence towards people with a disability continues to grow. So the action I seek is for the minister to provide emergency funding to Victorian disability advocacy services until the NDIS’s recommended system of foundational supports is in place.
The Hon. Lizzie Blandthorn (Minister for Disability):
A number of members have raised matters, but before I come to those I just want to respond to Mr Ettershank’s matter for me in relation to disability advocacy funding and thank him very much for raising this important issue.
As Minister for Disability, I am certainly very well aware that this is a time of great uncertainty and indeed of critical importance for our disability sector as we respond to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability and we consider the ways in which we implement those and also the national disability insurance scheme review. Indeed to attend adjournment tonight I walked out of a meeting with some of my colleagues from other jurisdictions about these very issues.
But can I also acknowledge at the outset the importance of disability advocacy groups in supporting the more than 1 million Victorians living with disability here in our state. That is the very reason why as a government we have boosted funding for disability advocacy groups by 50 per cent over the past five state budgets – to help them meet the increased demand and cost to deliver these important services.
We know that advocacy is absolutely critical to people with disability, both for them as individuals and also for their families and their community as a whole. This also included $1.9 million in the 2024–25 state budget to continue to boost the capacity of the Victorian disability advocacy program, and it builds on historic investment.
Since 2017–18 we have provided $17.5 million for disability advocacy groups in addition to their core funding. But as I said, we know that this is a particularly difficult time for those in the disability community. It is one of the reasons why we have advocated very strongly to the Commonwealth across jurisdictions and one of the reasons why the Commonwealth are indeed looking at other ways in which they can also, as a result of that advocacy both from the disability sector themselves but also from states and territories, ways in which they can support disability advocacy in this uncertain time.
I would also note we are contributing more than $3 billion towards the NDIS in 2024–25, and all levels of government, as I said, are working on the recommendations that are to be implemented. In addition, the 2024–25 budget provides $24 million to continue to deliver the Victorian disability advocacy program, as I previously outlined, supporting Victorians with disability who are ineligible for the NDIS, autism assessment grants, family service specialist disability practitioner programs, the Steps to Confident Parenting program, the parenting children with complex disability program, and supporting children with complex disability and their families to access mainstream supports.
But as I said, it is why my colleagues and I have advocated strongly to the Commonwealth that in these uncertain times further support for advocacy does need to be there. In particular, I take up Mr Ettershank’s point – and I have made this point myself – that we need to ensure that these advocacy organisations are here for the long haul.
Prior to the NDIS but certainly also since the NDIS, Victoria has had a strong network of disability orgs and services that have continued to provide for those with disability, and it is really critical as we step into this order of disability reform that those organisations are there to take the journey with us.
I thank Mr Ettershank for raising this important matter and agree with him that we will continue to work with advocacy groups to ensure their future and indeed their capacity to ensure the future of people with disabilities in Victoria.
[Ends]
