Sydney
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
The members of National Disability Services support some of the most disadvantaged Australians - those to whom we owe the greatest duty of care.
Every day you provide support and assistance that changes lives.
But I know each of you are frustrated that our fragmented and underfunded disability support system doesn't allow you to offer to everyone in need the right level or quality of care.
So today I want to say two things: firstly, I say thank you. Thank you for your great work. Thank you for always believing in the dignity and rights of those with disability.
But thank you is not enough. You know it. I know it.
Patching and mending a broken system doesn't cut it anymore.
That's why beyond the thanks and the hopes and the kind words, there's something better on the way: the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The NDIS will be transformational. A plan that spells hope. A once in a generation opportunity for change.
The NDIS is starting and as Prime Minister, I am determined it will be here to stay.
We started the journey on Budget Night in May with our commitment of $1 billion of new funding.
The scheme will be complete by the end of this decade. And like the old age pension, it will serve for decades as a trusted and fundamental part of our nation's social safety net.
As disability organisations, you are part of the NDIS from the beginning. You will help forge the Scheme's final legislation through your input to the Senate Committee.
We want to work closely with you on the NDIS rules, including the process of registration.
You will also help shape the unfolding nature of the launch sites as we learn from experience.
In all of this, we will value your advice and rely on your expertise. Because while the government can create the NDIS, it is you who will deliver it.
This is where your organisations, with their wealth of experience, can help shape the future - including your experience of how not to do things.
But of most immediate importance is the policy work required this week.
This is, of course, the week of COAG - the Council of Australian Governments. When those of us entrusted with the future of our nation sit down to establish how that future will look.
In the room will be just nine of us as First Ministers, plus our colleague representing local government. But the ten of us will be watched by 410,000 Australians.
The 410,000 Australians living with disability who are waiting to see their lives transformed.
Five of those Premiers and Chief Ministers agreed earlier this year to be part of the NDIS launch sites.
So this Friday, on behalf of all Australians with disability, I will be holding those five Premiers and Chief Ministers to their word, as they will be holding me to my word.
I want you to do the same.
Talk to the Premiers and Chief Ministers, the State and Territory Treasurers and Disability Ministers. Tell them that you want to see this done.
But don't leave it there.
Remember that as we begin this journey, it is incomplete because our two wealthiest and most dynamic States haven't yet come on board.
Tell them that you want them to stay engaged and at the table, so that they are part of the national scheme when it is agreed.
But notwithstanding, I want to leave the COAG table on Friday with the key arrangements to launch the first stage of the NDIS settled and bilateral agreements secured with the jurisdictions that will host a launch site: NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia the ACT.
With those Agreements, and the legislation to be passed next year, we can get the launch sites underway.
Starting in the middle of next year, those launch sites mean that 20,000 Australians in five regions with significant, lifelong disabilities will start to benefit from the NDIS.
These are not trial sites. Let's get that word out of our lexicon. This isn't an experiment or a pilot scheme that may or may not go ahead.
It is the beginning of the full NDIS. That's why we call them launch sites. Just as when you lay the foundation slab of a house, you don't says it's trial. You say you've started building the house.
Our house of care and inclusion, the NDIS, is under construction.
The foundation stone has been laid. And we will keep building until the house is completed and everyone is safe and secure inside.
The launch sites will be where it all unfolds.
There we will gain insights into how best to support Australians with disability at different stages of their lives, including through times of transition.
So different approaches will be taken to the first stage of the NDIS across the launch sites.
At the South Australian launch site, for example, we'll be focusing on services and support to children from birth through to age 14. This will be a chance to explore options and opportunities for managing early intervention.
Across the Bass Strait, at the Tasmanian launch site, the focus will be on 15- to 24-year-olds. This will let us learn how to better support young people through the testing physical, emotional and practical transition from adolescence to adulthood.
It will also let us develop a system that is better able to manage the all-important transition from school to post-school options like work, or further training.
These transitions are crucial not just for the young Australians living with disabilities, but also for their carers.
Without meaningful post-school options, parents and carers can find their own work options and life choices dramatically circumscribed.
At the ACT launch site there'll be an initial focus on addressing capacity gaps in 2013, followed by a more general subsequent roll-out to eligible members of the community.
Here in NSW, three local-government areas in the Hunter Valley will be first participants.
In Victoria, it will be residents of the Barwon region.
The work done at these first five sites will shape the full roll-out of the scheme in later years.
But be in no doubt:
We have started a journey that I am determined will only end in one way: with the full NDIS, completed, funded and fully in place in the years ahead.
The full roll-out of the NDIS will take years, not months. Even the most passionate advocate accepts that. Even the Productivity Commission accepts that.
It will be carefully staged. It has to be, if we are to get it right. And together we will get it right.
We'll get the NDIS right because the disability sector will continue to renew and upgrade and unify itself.
You've come a long way already.
The launch sites are just the beginning.
You and your organisations have an important stabilising and steadying role to play in this regard. That in itself may be confronting for some. For people with disabilities and for service providers.
My assurance to you today, and the message I want you to take back to your communities is this: change will be staged and it will be managed.
My Government will work with providers to make sure they understand what the transition means for them, and for the individuals they support.
We propose a series of local conversations over the coming months between program managers, the Launch Transition Agency and service providers.
So far, some small-scale, informal conversations have been held in South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria.
Similar sessions are planned for NSW and the ACT.
In the New Year there will be more of these conversations. There will also be a series of public forums in launch locations, to prepare the broader community and potential NDIS users for the transition.
These conversations will help us all make a smoother transition and allow us to manage the change.
So too, the practical ideas that will emerge from projects funded under the $10 million Practical Design Fund will give us ways to prepare everyone for transition to the NDIS.
I'm looking forward to seeing submissions from those with ‘lived experience'. People living with the challenge of a serious disability. Their families and carers. Disability care workers, service providers and advocates.
Coming up with projects that explore practical solutions to challenges of providing support and services to people in remote locations, perhaps. Or innovative ways of attracting and retaining the staff we'll need in our future disability workforce.
The Minister for Disability Reform Jenny Macklin will announce the successful applicants to that Design Fund later today.
Also critically important during the early days of transition will be the $122.6 million my Government has allocated: to prepare the sector for the new way of delivering disability services; and to help people with disability develop the capacity to exercise more choice and control.
This investment will drive innovation and support current providers through the transition ahead, with a focus on the launch sites.
It will also help people with disabilities, their carers and families understand the options available to them through the NDIS.
The key to this journey we're embarking on is that it is adaptive.
We'll learn from each other as we go. We'll share successes. We'll pass on lessons.
That means we'll need to hear from you, and from the people you serve. We really need you to talk to us - and we'll be listening.
I know that what we are embarking upon is change on a scale the disability sector won't have been confronted with previously.
We'll all be expected to think differently about what we do, and how we do it.
So there's a lot you need to think about.
But there's also a lot we need to do as the national government.
I've spoken often about my determination to get the NDIS done. You can see that in the legislation I brought into Parliament last week. Historic legislation that will change our nation forever.
But the Australian people want to know that those legal words will have meaning where they count - in funding.
So I can say this today: we are inscribing the NDIS in the laws of our nation. We will also inscribe the NDIS in the finances of our nation.
It is true we don't yet have the full details on our funding package beyond the $1 billion already committed.
We will need to find responsible savings across the Commonwealth's outlays.
That will require some tough decisions - but government is about setting priorities.
We can have responsible economic management and invest in the new services our nation needs.
This work is underway and will continue in earnest over the summer break and into the New Year. And we will have more to say on this important question in the Budget ahead of the launch of the NDIS in the middle of next year.
We'll fund the NDIS in the same way we've funded landmark reforms like our historic pension increase and paid parental leave: by making tough decisions which also happen to be the right choices.
Just as we have done by means-testing the private health insurance rebate.
Just as we have done by closing fringe-benefits loopholes and getting rid of tax concessions on superannuation for high income earners.
Just as we have done by eliminating tax breaks for golden handshakes.
We also need to work respectfully with the States and Territories on what might be an appropriate share for them to contribute, and those discussions are underway right now.
But be in no doubt about the commitment I bring to the NDIS.
As the 12thbiggest economy in the world. We will fund it.
As a nation with a big and generous heart. We will fund it.
As a government that gets the big things done. We will fund it.
And if you hear people saying the NDIS is a cruel hoax, or we have jumped the gun, or we're raising un-meetable expectations, then those saying such negative, bitter words will simply be proving they are policy weaklings, who lack the capacity or will for a change this fundamental.
As a government of purpose and strong policy commitments, we won't be distracted by their weakness and negativity.
On this, the International Day of People with Disability, I tell you and the Australian people, we will deliver this historic reform and we will deliver in all its parts.
The legislation, the rules and the public sector framework. The Agreements with the States and Territories. The training and sector development. And, yes, the funding as well.
To those who say the country cannot afford this reform, I say we cannot afford to any longer tolerate a broken system. A system that condemns almost half a million of our fellow Australians to a kind of second-class citizenship.
NDIS is the right thing to do. Now is the right time to do it. And led by me, we will get this great thing done.
Thank you very much.