NFPs Petition Victorian Premier on NDIS

Disability organisations in Victoria have begun petitioning the Premier, Ted Baillieu to urge him to agree to fund a trial of the National Insurance Disability Scheme.

The Gawith Foundation has set up an online petition calling on Premier Baillieu to return to the table with the Prime Minister to get the NDIS in Victoria.

The Gawith Foundation is a charity that supports people with intellectual disabilities across Melbourne.

The Foundation says people with disabilities are amongst the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in Victoria, with lower quality of life, shorter life expectancy, higher rates of chronic illness, and much lower rates of workforce participation.

It says a National Disability Insurance Scheme would ensure that people with a disability could finally become included in all aspects of community life, through employment, volunteering and recreation. It would give certainty to the parents of children with a disability that they will be cared for in later life.

At the Council of Australian Government (COAG) meeting on Wednesday, Premier Baillieu failed to reach an agreement with the Prime Minister to bring a pilot NDIS site to Victoria.

The Gawith Foundation says this is despite the Commonwealth Government offering an additional $100 million in funding on top of the over $1 billion already committed.

It says Victoria only has to provide an additional $43 million over three years and other states, like Tasmania and South Australia, will be getting launch sites for an NDIS, which will provide certainty for people with a disability, their families and carers in those states.

One of Victoria’s oldest disability day service, Inclusion Melbourne, is also supporting the petition.

The CEO of Inclusion Melbourne Daniel Leighton says the National Disability Insurance Scheme is urgently needed by people with disabilities, especially the people that Inclusion Melbourne supports, who are people with an intellectual disability.

“We, like many other disability services, were hopeful that the Victorian Premier and Prime Minister Julia Gillard would agree to the arrangements that would secure a pilot NDIS site in Victoria.

“On behalf of Inclusion Melbourne, I urge Premier Baillieu to return to the table urgently to reach an agreement with the Prime Minister.”

Inclusion Melbourne was founded in 1948 by parents of children with an intellectual disability to provide high quality, personalised services based in the community.

People with Disability Australia (PWDA) is calling on State and Territory governments to put aside party politics and stand by their commitments towards establishing a strong and sustainable National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

Matthew Bowden, an Executive Director of PWDA said “A strong NDIS should bring back entitlement, equity and adequacy of resources to the disability support system, regardless of where people live in Australia, so the fact that yesterday governments failed to reach an agreement on the funding of the NDIS is disappointing. We hope that this can be resolved as quickly as possible.”

The petition is being hosted on the change.org website here.