The AFDO logo with Australian Federation of Disability Organisations next to it

Are you in the loop?

Resources

< Back to resources

Meeting highlights - COAG Disability Reform Council - April 2015

The government ministers in charge of disability across Australia come together sometimes to talk about the NDIS. This is called the Disability Reform Council.

They met on 24th April 2015. After the meeting they let everyone know some of the things they talked about. You can find this information here (html).

 

How will the NDIS roll out?

The governments talked about ‘initial suggested approaches’. That means the information below is not final and might change.

By July 2016

  • All of the ACT

By July 2018

  • NSW - staged with a mix of people who live in different areas and people who use certain supports
  • South Australia – clients coming across to NDIS

By July 2019

  • Victoria - through clients coming across to NDIS
  • Queensland - through clients coming across to NDIS
  • Tasmania - new and existing clients coming across
  • Northern Territory – by different regions

No date was given for Western Australia’s roll out. Western Australia is running an NDIS trial site, but is also trying a different system called NDIS My Way. The WA government wants to see how these trials work out before making more decisions.

More information about the details of when and where roll out will happen should be available in August 2015.

 

What else are the governments working on?

 

Making sure there will be enough supports in the NDIS

Governments are working on a paper about how to make sure there will be enough supports in the NDIS. This paper is called the Market and Workforce Strategy. It is due to be finished in June 2015.

 

Making sure people who aren’t in the NDIS can get support

Earlier this year the Australian government put out a paper about how people might get support if they can’t use the NDIS. This paper was called the Information Linkages and Capacity Building Strategy. For a long time this was called ‘Tier 2 supports’, but it will now be called ILC for short.

The government asked everyone to say what they thought about this paper. Now they are adding and changing some of the ideas in the paper based on what everyone said. The governments said they would have more information in June 2015.

 

Housing

The NDIS will have money to build new housing for people with disability. This housing will be for people who cannot use other kinds of housing because of their disability.

The governments agreed to try some new and different ways of setting up housing for people with disability. This will happen in the trial sites which have enough funding to try some new things.

 

Advocacy

Advocacy is when someone speaks up about something that needs to change. This might be for one person or a large group of people.

The governments said that advocacy for using the NDIS should be paid for through the NDIS. Advocacy about legal issues and advocacy about issues affecting large groups of people should be outside the NDIS.

The governments recognised that this is a very complicated area. There is a document that talks about how advocacy in Australia works, called the National Disability Advocacy Framework. The governments said that the Framework will be reviewed between April and July 2015, with a report due to governments about the Framework in December 2015.