The Federal Government has announced that it will extend the funding for the National Disability Advocacy Program (NDAP) and NDIS Appeals Funding to June 2020.
Minister for Social Services, Christian Porter, and Assistant Minister, Jane Prentice, announced ongoing funding for the National Disability Advocacy Program (NDAP), the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Appeals providers, and a new funding round for Disability Representative Organisations (DRO).“All levels of government have a responsibility to support advocacy for people with disability to ensure they can exercise their rights and freedoms,” Minister Porter said. He stated that the importance of advocacy services was highlighted in the Review of the National Disability Advocacy Program − consultation report.
This announcement brings a welcome degree of security for the federally-funded advocacy organisations for the next couple of years.
Mary Mallett, CEO of Disability Advocacy Network Australia (DANA), welcomed the federal government’s commitment to extend the federal funding, but stated that the biggest immediate risk was in New South Wales where very experienced advocacy organisations were facing closure or cutbacks as state funding will stop in June 2018.
The New South Wales government is not listening to the advocacy sector. “They are trying to deflect these issues to the Commonwealth government where instead they need to own the issue and take responsibility for funding.”
The same problem is arising in other states as the NDIS rolls out because the funding for advocacy was included in the bilateral agreements between most states and the Commonwealth govt.
The new funding round for Disability Representative Organisations (DROs) − no date announced yet, but expected soon- is the funding for national peak and representative disability organisations. The last round in 2014 created a divisive split as a small number of organisations received funding and DANA, AFDO and all of the disability-specific peaks were unsuccessful. The unfunded organisations represent people who are blind, deaf and hearing-impaired, have autism, intellectual disability, acquired brain injury, physical disability, Down Syndrome, and the advocates who work with all of these people. The organisations have hung on but the situation is unsustainable and a solution needs to be found by the Ministers and the department that will provide enough funding so that all of the national peaks, DPOs and representative organisations can work together on essential national representation and systemic advocacy issues.
If you want to discuss funding related issues, please contact Mary on ceo@dana.org.au.