Darwin
PM: Thank you very much to everyone for gathering here today and thank you most significantly to you for making us so welcome and for your long career here, working with people with disabilities.
And I know I'm looking out on a crowd of people, many of whom have devoted their lives and their advocacy to see a better deal for people with disabilities across our nation.
And so I'm very pleased, delighted, to be here today with the Chief Minister Adam Giles to say we're taking another big step to making sure that DisabilityCare comes right around Australia.
We've just signed the agreement which means we will roll out DisabilityCare here in the Northern Territory to make a difference to the 7000 people with disabilities in the Northern Territory, but also to give all Territorians the peace of mind that can only come with knowing that if disability struck you or a member of your family, you would be supported and get the help that you needed.
We've worked on this agreement and I very much thank Adam and his team and the Northern Territory Government for entering the agreement today. what it means is we'll not only have the launch site in the Barkly region - Tennant Creek and that region - it means we will build into full DisabilityCare across the Northern Territory by mid-2019.
In a year of operation, it means that the Northern Territory will contribute $99 million and the Federal Government will contribute $105 million. Because we have struck agreement around the Medicare levy too, a proportion of that money will come to the Northern Territory and that will be $10 million a year.
So this is a big step forward but I'm really conscious that it's the people in this room and rooms like it around the country who have been the ones that have really made this happen.
I've met people on this journey who have been arguing for a National Disability Insurance Scheme for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years. We've listened to you and today in the Northern Territory you can congratulate each other because it's been the power of your advocacy that has got this done for the Northern Territory.
As Prime Minister, can I take the opportunity to say I've got one more thing I need to do on DisabilityCare, which is reach agreement with Western Australia, but I certainly believe the momentum is there now to get DisabilityCare right around the nation, and then we will keep doing all of the patient work we've been doing to build it right around the nation based on these agreements and based on this agreement with the Northern Territory.
So Chief Minister, thanks, it's great to join you here today.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, does this deal with the Territory differ in any way from the other states?
PM: The foundations of this arrangement are the same as what New South Wales has signed up and the other jurisdictions. It needs to be like that because we want people around the country to have the same rights and entitlements.
People come and go, I've met a few people who've lived in the Territory here today who've been here more than 25 years - apparently that's the point where you get considered a Territorian the Chief Minister says - but as you well know people might come to the Territory to live a few years of their life and then go to Sydney, then they might go to South Australia.
We want to make sure that they can get a package of care everywhere.
JOURNALIST: Do you think (inaudible) that Colin Barnett will sign before the election?
PM: Well, I think the momentum is with us and I know that Premier Barnett has said he's got concerns about centralisation - he doesn't need to have those concerns. The essence of DisabilityCare is that the person with disability is in the driver's seat; they get to make the decisions.
So you couldn't have a more decentralised model than this. Premier Barnett has also said he's got concerns about the money, particularly he's concerned (inaudible) will go down, but of course this is about more resources in DisabilityCare.
JOURNALIST: The ABC's heard that the Government is planning on cutting the foreign aid budget this year.
PM: I'm not doing budget speculation today, we'll do the budget next Tuesday.
[ENDS]