2017-03-03
The Greens have reaffirmed their calls to suspend and renegotiate the National Disability Insurance deal that the Barnett Government signed with the Federal Government following a report that has been condemned by people with disability and the Department of Social Services.
Greens disability spokesperson, Senator for WA Rachel Siewert said during estimates on Thursday the Department was scathing of the Stanton's International WA NDIS evaluation report.
"People with disability also have huge concern with the detail of the report," she said.
"On the ground, it has become clear that people with disability and their families are concerned they will end up with a worse deal than their Eastern State counterparts.
"The WA Government politicised the future of the NDIS in WA when they announced they had signed the deal on the day they went into caretaker mode. People with disability had been calling for a resolution for months and months, now they are apparently stuck with a situation where people with disability in WA may be worse off and the State paying more.
"Following my questioning to the department, I also have major concerns about the Specialist Disability Accommodation Funding operation in WA as this was not resolved as part of the deal."
Greens candidate for North Metropolitan Alison Xamon said despite the Greens call for transparency, it would appear even the reports that are released were raising more questions than answers.
"During the course of this campaign I've been talking to numerous people with disability and their families after expressing increasing levels of alarm about the way in which the bilateral agreement was signed," she said.
"We still don't have clear comparative figures as to the cost of the WA lead scheme as opposed to a federal scheme and it would appear that decisions have already been made as to how the scheme will be run without ever having been co-designed with people with disability."