1125 5MU Radio South Australia Morning Show with Adam Connelly
CONNELLY:
Murray Bridge has seen the opening of a new office for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and one man who is quite pleased about that is the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Senator Mitch Fifield. Senator good morning.
FIFIELD:
Good morning Adam, great to be with you.
CONNELLY:
It’s great to have you here as well. Yesterday was a big day for the folk of the Murraylands?
FIFIELD:
It was a great day for this neck of the woods. We opened the first regional office of the National Disability Insurance Scheme in South Australia. We’ve already got offices in Adelaide – in St Marys and Elizabeth – but this is the first regionally based one.
And it’s a great thing because part of the purpose of the NDIS trial sites is to learn lessons and to make adjustments before we move to full national rollout. And it’s really important that we have the experience of regional areas of people with disability – that we have that knowledge and make any changes that we need to.
CONNELLY:
The previous government to yours said that the NDIS is going to revolutionise the way people with disabilities are able to interact with the broader society. Your Government whole-heartedly agrees. Can you tell us, for those who aren’t part of the disability community, why it’s such an important idea?
FIFIELD:
At the moment the level of support that you receive if you have a significant disability is determined not by your need but by how you acquired your disability. So if you live in Victoria and you’re in a car accident, you might get a pretty good level of support from the Transport Accident Commission. If you live in Sydney and you have a workplace accident, you might get reasonable support from workers’ compensation arrangements. But if you are born with a disability, or acquire a disability by falling off the roof at home, at the moment you’re essentially subject to state government schemes which have as their features rationing – taking a number, taking a place in a queue and if the pot of money runs out before you get there, then too bad.
So the NDIS is really putting in the place of the current state government responsibilities a national scheme, and doubling the amount of money that is spent by Commonwealth and state governments on disability. So we’ll go, at full scheme, from about $11 billion a year at the moment to $22 billion a year. So you won’t have 11 year old kids who need a wheelchair waiting two years to get them, by which time they’ve outgrown them. That’s really the genesis and object of the scheme.
CONNELLY:
The office in Murray Bridge, obviously for those in the Murraylands and the Adelaide Hills and Mount Barker and such, is a great step. We hear often that regional folk, especially when it comes to health services and disability services, get a shorter stick than their city counterparts. How are we going at lengthening that stick?
FIFIELD:
The first thing is there’ll be a doubling of the amount available for non-income supports for people with disability. So whether that be personal attendant care, or taking part in a day programme, or an aid or a piece of equipment – there’ll just be more resources available.
The other significant change is that at the moment, it tends to be state government supporting disability organisations by way of block grants. Under the NDIS, the money will attach to the individual. So they’ll have their need assessed, and then they can take their entitlement to the service provider of their choice. So there’ll be more choice and flexibility for the individual. There’ll also be a lot more in the way of dollars going to support people.
CONNELLY:
Excellent. Yesterday, the new office opened here in Murray Bridge. You’re expecting it to be up and running and fully functional straight away with all the people able to access it?
FIFIELD:
That’s right. There’s about ten staff who are based there at the moment. As the NDIS rolls out to full scheme – at the moment it’s covering a youth cohort state-wide – as it’s progressively rolled out to other age groups, then there will no doubt be more staff there. And I know Tony Pasin, the local member, is very keen for more jobs in the region – and if the NDIA can make a contribution to that he’d be a happy man.
CONNELLY:
Absolutely, and so would the folk who use that service around here. When will we see the full rollout?
FIFIELD:
Well over the next six months I’ll be negotiating with each of the states for what the rollout will be beyond the trial sites – so what it will be beyond 2016. As this is a joint venture between the Commonwealth and the states, we as the federal government can’t dictate how it will be. We’ll have to negotiate that with the states. And what rollout looks like may vary from state to state. One state may decide that they want to progress on a geographic basis. Another state might decide that they want to do it on an age cohort basis. So that’ll be the subject of negotiations with my state counterparts over the next few months.
CONNELLY:
It’s always a thing federal Ministers have to do is chat to seven people every time in order to get a nationalised scheme. Let’s hope that it’s not a protracted process.
FIFIELD:
I think we’ll get there. There’s enormous goodwill. There’s strong bipartisan support not just in the federal Parliament, but in state parliaments as well. This is something really which should have happened long ago. This is the core business of government – providing a bit of extra help to people who face challenges for reasons beyond their control. So we’ve got to make it work, we have to make it work, and we will make it work.
CONNELLY:
Excellent, thank you for your time this morning explaining all that to us. The Assistant Minister for Social Services, Senator Mitch Fifield joins us on the line, thanks for your time.
FIFIELD:
Thanks Adam.
ENDS