Page 844 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 22 March 2017
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MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I move:
(1) In paragraph (1), omit “notes”, substitute “notes that”.
(2) Omit all text after (1)(b), substitute:
“(b) under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), the ACT has been transitioning disability services funding across to the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA);
(c) specific funding has been provided to help organisations transition to the new funding environment, including SHOUT, which received a $20 000 grant in 2014 to help it get ready for the NDIS;
(d) ahead of the rollout of the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) grants, the ACT Government secured transitional funding of $124 790 for SHOUT from the Commonwealth for 2016-17;
(e) the ACT Government recently negotiated a further two-month extension to the transitional funding, until August 2017, which was intended to provide certainty and stability following a delay in the ILC funding rounds; and
(f) many of SHOUT’s members are small community organisations entirely managed by volunteers, who rely on backend and administrative support from SHOUT to assist thousands of Canberrans; and
(2) calls on the:
(a) NDIA to provide certainty for community organisations and individuals being supported by ILC-type services, by promptly finalising the outcomes of the recently closed ILC grants rounds;
(b) ACT Government to reaffirm its appreciation of the important support that small and volunteer-based organisations have received from SHOUT over many years; and
(c) Ministers for Health and Disability to continue working with SHOUT and other community organisations to ensure that its members are supported and that the transition to any new funding arrangement is as smooth as possible.”.
The government recognises that SHOUT has been providing an extremely valuable service for a range of self-help and other community organisations for many years. As I have stated publicly and told SHOUT directly, the government is committed to working with SHOUT and other community organisations to ensure that their member organisations continue to be supported.
I met with representatives from SHOUT on 10 March to discuss the organisation’s funding situation. Suffice it to say that I have a somewhat different interpretation of the outcome of my meeting with SHOUT and was somewhat surprised to see the
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