While the dust of the general election for House of Assembly settles, NDS is forging ahead with discussions with candidates for the Legislative Council elections in Hobart, Prosser and the by-election in Elwick. There are important discussions to be had about the disability sector over the coming months, so we’re keen to see the outcomes.  

I congratulate Minister Jo Palmer for maintaining the Disability Services portfolio and look forward to continuing our productive working relationship. The Minister has always been committed to hearing the perspectives of providers, which is crucial as the government frames its response to Disability Royal Commission and NDIS Review recommendations.  

NDS is thrilled that, despite adding the Education portfolio to her workload, the Minister can still open our State Conference on 9 May in Hobart.    

Supporting Tasmanians with Disability, the Liberal’s disability election commitment, was released the day before the general election for the House of Assembly. Unfortunately, while the government grapples with their response to recommendations, there is no commitment in it to fund the mountain of work we need to keep the sector afloat. 

NDS understands that Homes Tasmania is moving towards SDA registration. Once we know the details, including the time frames, we will let you know more. 

The office of the Tasmanian National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) are starting high-level mapping of residential aged care and disability support settings where people are or may be deprived of their liberties. We will send an email out to members about this soon. At our State Conference, the Director of NPM, Mark Huber, will talk about the role of his office and the OPCAT legislation that set it up.  

On 27 March, Minister Shorten tabled the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No 1) Bill 2024. Attracting much scrutiny from state and territory governments and disability organisations, the Bill enables many of the recommendations from the NDIS Review. Providers are likely to be affected by changes to the pathways by which participants enter the scheme, the redefinition of NDIS support, and a move to whole-person budget setting rather than building up a budget line by line.  

It also signals changes to strengthen the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Commission, but the details are lacking. NDS will submit a submission to the Bill through the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee. If you wish to contribute to this, please contact me.  

We continue to hear of industrial relations issues in the sector, the most pressing being the uncertainty about how the SCHADS Award applies to work immediately before and after a sleepover. The unions favour the interpretation that a sleepover and any periods of work immediately before and after it constitute a single continuous shift. This would place severe financial and administrative burdens on providers. The Australian Industry Group submitted an application to vary the SCHADS Award to address these concerns.  

Our State Conference is coming up in a couple of weeks and I’m looking forward to seeing all our Tasmanian members there.