Disability Council NSW has released a position statement urging the State Government to build a regulatory and funding framework to support disability advocacy.
The Council said there were fears in the community that Government supports for disability advocacy organisations and services could become substantially less than that allocated in the past and people with disability would suffer as a result.
“The Disability Council strongly advises the government to take action to allay these fears by establishing a system that provides certainty and security to the future disability advocacy in NSW,” the Council said.
“Disability advocacy performs an essential function in ensuring that the rights and interests of people with disability, both at an individual and systemic level, are respected and upheld by all sectors within the community,” it said.
“Disability advocacy can in no way be considered an optional extra in the support that is provided to people with disability.”
The Council said much of the concern around the long-term security of the funding arrangements for advocacy services stemmed from the fact that there was little scope for funding disability advocacy within the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and its allied programs.
“This is despite the fact that funds that NSW has directed to the NDIS, previously went towards disability advocacy services when the NSW Government was responsible for the delivery of disability services,” it said.
The Council said it supported the recommendations made by the NSW Ageing and Disability Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald in his report Review into Disability Advocacy in NSW, published in December.
“At the core of the Commissioner’s recommendations, was that the NSW Government needs to create a permanent and sustainable framework for disability advocacy provision coordinated by a new independent body, the NSW Disability Advocacy Futures Program (DAFP),” it said.
The Council made several recommendations, including that the State ensure any guiding committee for DAFP included members who had lived the experience of disability as well as a representative taken from Disability Council NSW.
The Council’s four-page position statement can be accessed at this PS News link.
