Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the legislation before the Senate to establish a National Disability Insurance Scheme. The Greens are strongly supportive of the scheme and delighted that it is being brought forward and then voted on before we go to an election this year. It is a major reform in this country. We are delighted that it is happening and we are very pleased to stand and support it. We certainly welcome the fact that the Gillard government has moved in this way to provide care for people living with disability, no matter how that disability was acquired, to ensure that people will have daily care and to support delivering basic needs to allow full participation in society.

The legislation represents a combination of a strong community campaign. I congratulate all those campaigners and advocates for the determination and dedication that they have demonstrated over the years. Today is a great day for you, for all of those people out there who have made it their life's work. I congratulate them.

The scheme will support more than 400,000 Australians with a disability, their families and their careers. We know that disability currently affects one in every five Australians and that 95 per cent of Australians will enter the disability community, either temporarily or permanently, at some point in their lives. The scheme will pay for carers to give parents of children with disability a break. I know that everybody will have met or been part of a family trying to support a family member with a disability. It is absolutely essential that people are supported so that they can have a break in order to maintain the ongoing work that they do and to enable them to continue the loving support that they give to their family member with a disability. The increase in the Medicare levy equates to an extra dollar a day for the average income earner and I would suggest that it is a dollar a day well spent.

As disability advocate Stella Young has said, it is hard to think about dollars when it may mean how many showers we get to have per week or whether we can get a mobility aid that will let us leave our houses. That is the practical reality of how to support people so that they can participate in society. I have to say that Stella Young has been a fantastic advocate for this national disability insurance scheme. I welcome the fact that the trials will be beginning in my home state of Tasmania in July. That will be very genuinely appreciated by the Tasmanian community.

The Greens have successfully amended the legislation to allow the national disability insurance scheme to ensure that the other essential services that people living with a disability need do not end or are not curtailed. Those services include transport, housing and education. This means that service providers will be required to continue to provide those services.

I welcome today's announcement that adopts our recommendation from the inquiry that establishes a trial specifically for Aboriginal people living with a disability. The Australian Greens recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living with a disability often have significant difficulty accessing appropriate services. We welcome the flexibility in the scheme to meet those needs.

I recognise the time constraints on this debate and so I will conclude my remarks by reiterating how pleased the Australian Greens are to have the opportunity to stand here today to support the establishment of the national disability insurance scheme. I congratulate my colleagues for their work in ensuring the amendments to the scheme. I congratulate all the advocates. I congratulate the government for the work that has been done on this. I congratulate my colleague Senator Siewert for her dedication to this and for securing these amendments. I look forward to the passage of the legislation and the pilots starting and the money being made available to support the scheme.