National disability insurance scheme
Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (12:55): (1316) My question is for the Minister for Disability. Minister, the Commonwealth has announced significant cuts to the NDIS that are estimated to see 160,000 vulnerable people with disabilities removed from the scheme, with many more to be affected. The recent state budget includes funding for foundational supports for people with disability, but the funding amount is still to be confirmed. What specific supports can you advise will be provided, and how will people access and be assessed for these foundational supports?
Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:55): I thank Ms Gray-Barberio for her question. Obviously the federal budget is still to be delivered today, and what has been reported is a fair degree of conjecture until the point Treasurer Chalmers hands down his budget, and like everyone in this place, I look forward to reading it. In relation to the national disability insurance scheme, it is obviously a national scheme and it is a scheme which we have discussed at length in many different ways in this place certainly in the time that I have been disability minister. As Victorian disability minister, we have continued to engage with the Commonwealth in relation to what the future NDIS looks like, and in particular indeed, in intersection with my two portfolios, we have continued to engage with the Commonwealth about what that particularly looks like for children, ensuring that no child gets left behind and that every child and every person gets the disability support services that they are entitled to. So we look forward to continuing to have those conversations with the Commonwealth. We hope that they are productive, and as those conversations proceed we will continue to keep the chamber updated.
Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (12:57): Thank you, Minister. In January you stated that there would be no changes to NDIS access and eligibility before foundational supports are implemented at scale. Given the Commonwealth has announced support needs assessments will begin from April 2027, can you confirm whether your above statement still stands and foundational supports will be fully implemented in Victoria before these changes take effect so people with disabilities are not left behind?
Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:57): I thank Ms Gray-Barberio for her question. As many of my colleagues will assuredly attest, I will resist the temptation to express some of my broader views in relation to access to the national disability insurance scheme. But I have never at any stage said – quite the opposite of what Ms Gray-Barberio has just put into the room, it has always been my concern that children in particular, and people more broadly with disability, may in national changes that are being put forward by the Commonwealth government indeed miss out on the services that they are entitled to. I have been arguing with the Commonwealth about this for the last three years, and indeed Victoria has been the loudest of advocates in relation to this point for the longest time: that people should not be removed from the NDIS in order to solve a budget problem, that there absolutely is reform work that needs to happen for the NDIS, that for all people the NDIS should be the insurance scheme that it was set up to be for people with disability and that in relation to the changes that the Commonwealth have been foreshadowing there absolutely needs to be a plan to ensure that where there are changes that result in people no longer being able to access the NDIS – (Time expired)