The Greens urge Labor to commit to People with Disability Australia's 2024-25 pre-budget requests

Today in Parliament, Abigail gave notice of a motion calling on the NSW Government to commit to funding the disability sector in the upcoming budget. Last year's budget invested next to nothing in improving the lives of people with disability. It's time Labor took far bolder action to meet the demands of the sector.

Abigail gave notice of the following motion:

(1) That this House notes that:

People with Disability Australia (PWDA) has published its pre-budget funding needs and recommendations for change for 2024-25, which builds on investments made in the 2023-24 budget, aiming to address service gaps and respond to the Disability Royal Commission’s findings; and
these funding recommendations include:
- an investment of $1 billion per year for 10 years to accelerate provision of additional accessible social housing stock;
- ensure social housing is suitable and accessible for women and children with disability leaving domestic and family violence;
- an investment of $500 million per year to secure additional Temporary Accommodation and ensure its accessibility;
- an investment in building all social and affordable housing to at least the gold Livable Housing Design Standard to maximise accessibility;
- an investment of a further $50 million over two years in the “Together Home” program;
- duplicate the 2023-24 Budget investment of $35 million, to support critical maintenance on NSW social housing stock;
- increase the Official Community Visitors Scheme funding by $700,000 per year for the next four years;
- an investment of $5 million over the next two years to create a supported decision-making research fund;
- an investment of $1,802,817 over five years to continue delivery of the PWDA Building Access Project to all NSW domestic and family violence (DVF) services;
- a requirement for all NSW Health practitioners to upskill in cognitive disability health in 2024-25 using a curriculum co-designed by people with disability and their representatives;
- that professional Colleges, especially the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) be tasked with developing their capacity to train specialists and upskill all their members to minimum baseline in treating people with disability inclusively and for nursing colleges to develop specialised certificates for training and professional development, commencing 2025;
- funding for protective measures to prevent people with disability contracting COVID-19 while accessing health care, residential support and public transport;
- funding for protective measures to prevent COVID-19 infection for people with disability and additional support, similar to the COVID Positive Pathways program;
- improve health data collection to understand how best to reduce fatalities and poor health outcomes for people with disability;
- commit to desegregate education in NSW within ten years in line with the Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education’s Driving Change roadmap;
- develop a roadmap to inclusive education that steps through the reallocation of funding to Schools for Specific Purposes funding to inclusive education;
- an investment of $250,000 to fund a one-year pilot of Family Advocacy’s work transition program and use the lessons learned to improve employment for people with disability;
- an investment of $450,000 to fund three pilot projects to study applying supports to improve learning outcomes;
- ensure that people with disability hold at least seven per cent of public service positions by 2025 and nine per cent by 2030;
- appropriately resource the NSW Public Service Commissioner to audit the performance of each agency against the disability recruitment targets and require them to report back within one year to the Minister for Disability Inclusion on this and provide recommendations on how to boost representation of people with disabilities in the State Public Service; and
- extend the NSW Public Sector employment targets for people with disability to local government.

(2) That this House calls on the NSW Government to commit to meeting the funding requests of PWDA and the disability sector.

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

NSW is missing out on tens of billions of dollars. By introducing a progressive coal royalty structure similar to the one in Queensland, we would have raised an extra $20 billion last year.

The NSW Government owns and controls, on behalf of the people of this state, the rights to the minerals and materials that naturally occur in NSW land.

Huge fossil fuel companies are only able to extract and sell these commodities with the consent of the State. It’s time they paid a fair price for that privilege.

The fossil fuel industry has made hundreds of billions of dollars out of their cosy relationship with governments. Granted permission to extract and sell coal, these large multinational fossil fuel corporations pay just over 7% in royalties back to the people of NSW – keeping the rest as mega-profits for themselves. These companies have a track record of taking more than their fair share and leaving communities suffering and stranded with poisoned groundwater, devastated landscapes and a stranded workforce when it suits their business models.

Globally, the hyper-inflation of fossil fuel prices driven by price-gouging opportunism and war profiteering from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered record windfall profits to these already obscenely wealthy corporations. In the last year, NSW coal exports totaled over $70 billion dollars, but the people of NSW will only see about 7 cents in every dollar, or about $6 billion dollars of that amount.

Rather than going toward schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, billions of dollars went into the pockets of multinational mining corporations. The Greens believe there should be more money for schools and hospitals and less for mining billionaires.

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

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The Greens urge Labor to commit to People with Disability Australia's 2024-25 pre-budget requests

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

Will you sign?

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