Ms ROSOL – The National Disability Advocacy Framework of 2023‑25 includes an agreement by the federal and state governments to commit to sharing the responsibility for disability advocacy in their jurisdictions. In Tasmania, your government funds three organisations to provide individual advocacy for people with disabilities. That’s Advocacy Tasmania, Speak Out and the Association for Children with Disability.
The Association for Children with Disability provides some systemic advocacy, but the organisation that focuses solely on providing systemic advocacy for Tasmanians who live with disabilities is Disability Voices Tasmania. However, they received no funding from the Tasmanian government. Why have you chosen not to fund Disability Voices Tasmania, leaving them with zero funding now that their federal funding agreement has expired?
Ms PALMER – The first advocacy groups that you listed there are for individual advocacy, not for that broader advocacy. Through our NDIS commitment that we make each year, part of that amount of money, which is in excess of $280 million, goes into the bucket of money known as the ILC bucket, which is information linkages capacity. That money is then distributed by the federal government through a competitive process.
Organisations have to apply for that through the federal government and then the federal government makes those decisions. I think it’s about $35 million since 2019 that Tasmanian organisations have received the benefit of through that fund. It’s been good for Tasmania because it’s double what the contribution was to those organisations before it went through the federal government. This is the process that was set up by the federal government through the NDIS, that this is how these organisations were to be funded.
It was very disappointing when Disability Voices was not successful in their application. I absolutely accept, and have lobbied quite hard as the Disability Services minister for Tasmania, that the ILC funding model really is not fit for purpose. It doesn’t address core funding for disability groups. It is program based, so you almost have to look at what’s the criteria for this round and adapt what you do to a program.
As disability ministers across the country, we have been quite strong in saying to the federal government, who have been very receptive in this space, that it doesn’t work. We shouldn’t have disability organisations having to pivot what their core business is to try to fit a funding model. However, that is the model that we have at the moment. Quite possibly we will see that change as we are moving into a space now for general foundational supports that the federal government is going out to consult on now. We believe that could possibly replace the ILC.
I was very disappointed Disability Voices were not successful, but I’m not involved in it. It is with the federal government. Where I see my role as Disability Services minister is in that advocacy space, and I drew this to the attention of the federal Minister for the NDIS, minister Shorten. I laid out for him the importance of this organisation. I asked if there was an opportunity to revisit that or if there were other funding options that might be available to Disability Voices Tasmania.
My office has been advocating strongly for a number of months now. We really hope that we are very close to being able to see success for Disability Voices Tasmania and that they will be funded.
Ms ROSOL – Thank you. I note that in some of the other states around Australia advocacy peak bodies are funded by the state governments as well. There is capacity for state funding there. In terms of the development of the disability rights bill – I don’t know if I say it with ‘rights’ in it now, because that’s the amended title, but the Disability Inclusion and Safeguarding Bill – I noticed that Disability Voices Tasmania has worked collaboratively with you and with DPAC staff to identify amendments that have strengthened the bill. They say it makes it the most rights‑focused legislation in Australia.
Within the bill there’s a provision for the minister to fund disability advocacy organisations or disability peak bodies or representative organisations. Given that your department relied on Disability Voices Tasmania to improve parts of the legislation, will you commit to funding Disability Voices Tasmania as a state government once the disability rights and inclusion and safeguarding legislation is enacted?
Ms PALMER – I am really grateful for the contribution of Disability Voices Tasmania. It is important to remember that they were one of a number of individuals and organisations that have worked collaboratively with us for two years now in ensuring that the voice of people with disability was in that legislation. We are very grateful to all of our disability advocates – individuals, the Ministerial Disability Advisory Council and the Premier’s Disability Advisory Council – who contributed to the bill and to amendments that have been made, not necessarily officially on the floor, but this has been a living, breathing piece of work for a number of years.
We started this piece of work before the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission, so we had to incorporate changes there as well. Then there was the introduction of the NDIS review. At the same time as these enormous things are happening in the disability space nationally, we had to keep looking at, is our bill right? Are we going in the right direction? Do we need to add into that? Disability Voices Tasmania joined with many other individuals and organisations to play a part in that body of work.
As I’ve said, our taxpayer dollars are already contributing to the federal government bucket of money through the ILC. While we’re disappointed that Disability Voices was unsuccessful in that process, we have advocated very strongly on their behalf to look at what other options are available. The federal minister, Bill Shorten, has been fantastic in working with us in this process and I have every reason to believe there will be a great outcome for Disability Voices in the very near future.
