Congratulations ACT Labor –
Let’s work together on disability
People With Disabilities ACT (PWD ACT) congratulatedthe re-electedBarr ACT Labor Government and todays appointment of Rachel Stephen-Smith as Minister for Disability. PWD ACT had strong engagement with Minister Stephen-Smith during the campaign and look forward to working with her. Weacknowledgeformer Ministers Dr Chris Bourke and Joy Burch for work on disability issues, especially the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
During the campaign we welcomedLabor’s commitment to a cabinet level Minister for Disability and an Office for Disability with responsibility for the National Disability Strategy and to maintain the ACT Governments role in NDISgovernance. As we’ve seen in the last week independent governance is vital to ensurethe full rollout occurs as intended. We must protect vulnerable services during transition especially SHOUT, TADACT and Radio 1RPH.
While NDIS provides overdue disability supports we look to the new ACT Government to strive foran accessible community. We have an ageing population and are a launch site for NDIS so broader access and inclusion is a key role now form the .
We welcome the Governments commitment to improve transport infrastructure and note the Government has emphasised a mandate for light rail. We hopeitwill meet and exceed disability access standards across the city. Rail needs to be allied to fully accessible buses; paths of travel to and from the tram stops; improvements to wheelchair taxis; plus a strategy to help disadvantaged people living off trunk routes get where they need to go.
Accessible transport needs to be linked to good city infrastructure. We’re a growing city with an ageing population. Our cityscape remains broken and inaccessible to people with disability -we can’t visit friends in their homes, move around the city, get on a bus or find inclusive affordable and accessible housing.We need a mechanism to feed lived disability access subject matter expertise into both built environment and transport investments.
We’re pleased at the commitment to a Disability Justice Strategy. People with disability are overrepresented in the justice system and advocacy is also underfunded here.
We welcome grants to support third sector organisations improve access and inclusion of volunteers. We canadvise how these might be best targeted to support full inclusion.
We look forward to working with Andrew Barr and his team to create an inclusive and accessible Canberra.
Media enquiries –Craig Wallace, Campaign Manager, on 0472 522 402
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