Page 855 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 22 March 2017
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in our community to ensure that SHOUT and the organisations that it supports continue to operate in a functional way going into the future.
I think it is important to put a couple of facts on the table in this debate. The NDIS, through the NDIA, was designed and has been implemented in the ACT to support people with a disability from birth through to 65 years of age. Currently anyone over the age of 65 who is not in the NDIS is ineligible to access this program. One only needs to cast their eye down the list of organisations which SHOUT supports to realise that many of them provide a great deal of assistance particularly to people who are beyond that 65 year age group. Likewise, many of the organisations on the list that SHOUT supports are organisations that provide support to people with a health problem: chronic disease, illness and the like.
It is important not only that we as an Assembly lead by example but, more importantly, that those on the opposite side of this chamber, as the custodians of taxpayers’ money, invest that wisely back into the community. Ms Lee’s motion calls on the government to guarantee funding through to the end of 2019. That is a guarantee that the government can give even with a condition saying that if funding for the ILC grants from the NDIA comes through, that offer of government money is withdrawn. That is fine, because funding surety will have been given. Given the guarantee that if the ILC funding does not come through the ACT government will continue to support local organisations, that is a simple solution to this issue. It gives surety for SHOUT and its board of directors to say that they are viable to run into the future and it gives the some 40-odd community groups that are operating under the umbrella of SHOUT the assurance that they can continue into the future.
I will highlight some organisations here, and some of the organisations on this list are all too familiar with the inactivity of this Labor government when it comes to funding shortfalls or the end of funding grants and the inaction that is systemic on that side of the chamber in giving any form of guarantee or support where it is needed.
The ACT Down Syndrome Association does not receive a dime in taxpayers’ money, and has not done, but when they lost their corporate supporter a couple of years ago, there was deathly silence from the former minister for disability and from those on the opposite side of this chamber in relation to giving any form of assistance. As a shadow minister, I was the one that managed to help rectify that situation for them. I used business connections that I have. Businesspeople in this community are brilliant when it comes to stepping up to the mark and supporting self-help organisations and community-based organisations, whether they are disability, health or the like, as we are discussing today, or sporting groups and other community activities. It is the business community that unequivocally does the large amount of heavy lifting in this space. They came to the party to make sure that the Down Syndrome Association continued to have their doors open. The Independent Property Group deserves to be put on the record for coming to the party on that issue, as they have, and have continued to do for a number of years now.
All we are asking for is that the government offer a guarantee of $110,000, in terms of the ACT budget, which is up around the $5 billion mark, a very small amount. Maybe we should pass the hat around here and all of us can chip in a small portion of our
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