❓ The Minister for Disability Services outlines the government's response to the impact of COVID-19 on people with disability, including flexible funding, support for service providers, expanded testing, a disability-specific task force, and hotlines for support and disaster response.
AnsweredQoN 276Legislative Council
QuestionView source ↗
CORONAVIRUS — DISABILITY SERVICES
276. Hon PETER COLLIER to
the Minister for Disability Services:
I refer to the impact of COVID-19
upon Western Australians. What is being provided by the government to assist
people with a disability?
276. Hon PETER COLLIER to
the Minister for Disability Services:
I refer to the impact of COVID-19
upon Western Australians. What is being provided by the government to assist
people with a disability?
AnswerView source ↗
I thank the Leader of the Opposition
for some notice of the question and, indeed, his interest in service provision
to people with disability and support for people with disability, their
families and service providers in this space.
Significant
work is occurring within the WA government, the commonwealth government and the
National Disability Insurance Agency to safeguard the health and
wellbeing of people with disability and ensure continuity of support. This
includes people being able to use their funding flexibly and providing
additional supports to replace services that cannot be provided due to social
distancing regulations.
The WA government is also focused on
providing timely and practical support to disability sector organisations registered with the Department of Communities, and
maintaining disability support workers in the sector to continue to
provide services to people with disability. The WA government has recently
expanded the COVID-19 testing regime to include disability support workers with
symptoms of a fever of 38 degrees and above who have acute respiratory illness,
giving them parity with health and aged-care workers.
The disability-specific task force
established at my request comprises sector, advocacy and union representatives.
This group has met multiple times over the past weeks and is working on a number
of critical matters, including access to personal protective equipment,
developing workforce readiness and contingency planning, sharing resources, and
establishing protocols with relevant mainstream agencies such as WA Health. The
Department of Communities has established a disability sector support hotline
so that registered providers can escalate any issues they may be facing as a result
of COVID-19. A disaster response hotline will soon be available for anyone,
including people with disability and their families and carers, who have been
instructed to self-isolate as a result of COVID-19 and/or are experiencing
difficulties with accommodation, food and/or other essential items.
A
great deal of work continues to be done in this space. It changes on a daily
basis. My office, the department and various groups in the sector are working incredibly closely. Access to personal
protective equipment remains the biggest issue for many people—families,
carers, people with disability and service providers. I am working with my
colleagues in cabinet and, indeed, nationally, to see whether we can get access
to PPE sped up. That remains the biggest concern but, certainly, people with
disability, like those in every other sector of the community, have lots of
questions and remain concerned. Together, all our work and our job is to spread
the messages and to work hand in hand so that we can bring those issues to the
fore as quickly as possible and deal with them. Hon Peter Collier's
office and his electorate officers have been working incredibly closely with my
ministerial office. I thank them and, indeed, other members here, including Hon Alison Xamon, whose officers are very engaged
in the disability space and bring their concerns to the attention of my
ministerial advisers so that we can work to address those issues as quickly as
possible.
for some notice of the question and, indeed, his interest in service provision
to people with disability and support for people with disability, their
families and service providers in this space.
Significant
work is occurring within the WA government, the commonwealth government and the
National Disability Insurance Agency to safeguard the health and
wellbeing of people with disability and ensure continuity of support. This
includes people being able to use their funding flexibly and providing
additional supports to replace services that cannot be provided due to social
distancing regulations.
The WA government is also focused on
providing timely and practical support to disability sector organisations registered with the Department of Communities, and
maintaining disability support workers in the sector to continue to
provide services to people with disability. The WA government has recently
expanded the COVID-19 testing regime to include disability support workers with
symptoms of a fever of 38 degrees and above who have acute respiratory illness,
giving them parity with health and aged-care workers.
The disability-specific task force
established at my request comprises sector, advocacy and union representatives.
This group has met multiple times over the past weeks and is working on a number
of critical matters, including access to personal protective equipment,
developing workforce readiness and contingency planning, sharing resources, and
establishing protocols with relevant mainstream agencies such as WA Health. The
Department of Communities has established a disability sector support hotline
so that registered providers can escalate any issues they may be facing as a result
of COVID-19. A disaster response hotline will soon be available for anyone,
including people with disability and their families and carers, who have been
instructed to self-isolate as a result of COVID-19 and/or are experiencing
difficulties with accommodation, food and/or other essential items.
A
great deal of work continues to be done in this space. It changes on a daily
basis. My office, the department and various groups in the sector are working incredibly closely. Access to personal
protective equipment remains the biggest issue for many people—families,
carers, people with disability and service providers. I am working with my
colleagues in cabinet and, indeed, nationally, to see whether we can get access
to PPE sped up. That remains the biggest concern but, certainly, people with
disability, like those in every other sector of the community, have lots of
questions and remain concerned. Together, all our work and our job is to spread
the messages and to work hand in hand so that we can bring those issues to the
fore as quickly as possible and deal with them. Hon Peter Collier's
office and his electorate officers have been working incredibly closely with my
ministerial office. I thank them and, indeed, other members here, including Hon Alison Xamon, whose officers are very engaged
in the disability space and bring their concerns to the attention of my
ministerial advisers so that we can work to address those issues as quickly as
possible.
Explore WA Government Data
Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.
Explore more
Government Gazette
Appointments, regulatory notices, planning changes.
Hansard
Debates, questions, speeches and sentiment.
Tabled Papers
Reports and documents tabled in Parliament.
Committees
Committee profiles and recent reports.
Regulations
Subsidiary legislation with filters and summaries.
Bills
Proposed laws and parliamentary progress.
Acts
Current WA legislation and summaries.
Explanatory Memoranda
Bills with EMs (text/PDF) available.
Members
MP profiles, party breakdown and rankings.
Pollie Rankings
Data-driven rankings across 19 categories.
Amendment Chains
Track how schemes and regulations evolve over time.