Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on something important, and that is DisabilityCare Australia. The creation of DisabilityCare Australia, popularly known as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, is a reform which comes around only once in a generation. It is a reform that has taken vision and courage. It is hard to overestimate the effect that this policy will have for those Australians with disability and their families and carers. DisabilityCare Australia will provide people with severe or profound disability and their families and carers in my home state of Tasmania and across Australia with the support and care they need when they need it to help them lead rewarding lives. It is a change that is as fundamental to the social fabric of Australia as the introduction of Medicare or the superannuation guarantee.

DisabilityCare is being launched in stages simultaneously around the country. Last year I and my fellow Tasmanian colleague in the chamber here tonight, Senator Carol Brown, sat down with representatives from Baptcare to hear from them as to why Tasmania would be a perfect location for an NDIS launch site. We heard that Tasmania has both the need as well as organisations with the capacity to implement the NDIS. We heard that many Tasmanians with disability and their families are not getting the support that they need. We heard that people in the disability care sector are excited that finally someone is doing something after decades of neglect to improve the disability care sector.

I was extremely pleased, then, as a Tasmanian—