Amendments to Victoria’s Disability Act, to help protect the rights of disabled people and cut through red tape for service providers were announced last week by Victoria’s Community Services Minister Mary Wooldridge.
The amendments have been made to address administrative and technical issues and to make several improvements to the original legislation. The changes include: broadening the jurisdiction of the Disability Services Commissioner; empowering VCAT to review assessment orders made by senior practitioners and streamlining processes to enable better service provision.
The Disability Act 2006 was established as a flexible support system based on a person’s choice, their individual requirements, and to help people with a disability participate more actively in the community. Ms Wooldridge said the changes to the legislation reinforced Victoria’s commitment to transforming the lives of people with a disability, their families and carers.
“This commitment is ongoing and underpins our support for a National Disability Insurance Scheme that aims to provide certainty of funding, fairness and choice for people with a disability, their families and carers,” said the Minister. Stelios Piakis – Manager of the Aged Care and Disabilities Services unit at the Australian Greek Welfare Society, told Neos Kosmos that he applauded the proposed amendments, which he said were aimed at integrating Victoria’s legislation with the Federal Government’s proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme.
“It’s great to see that they are broadening the jurisdiction of the Disability Services Commissioner, and to put greater focus on the disability sector, which has been neglected.
“This gives the sector more prominence and it’s a positive direction. These are administrative technical changes, but they are a stepping stone to the long-term goal of the national insurance scheme.” Vicki Papadopoulos, executive director of Agapi Care, which provides services to people with disabilities in the Preston and Oakleigh suburbs of Melbourne, said that she welcomed most of the proposed amendments, though had some misgivings. Ms Papadopoulos said that one of her concerns was in relation to the proposal for behaviour support plans not being required, when a person has a treatment plan in place.
“We need behaviour support plan, if they have behavioural issue. If we don’t, it could make it harder for us to assess a client coming into one of our facilities. “Also empowering VCAT to review assessment orders will make a longer action, it’s likely to take ages – sometimes we need quick action. So that’s a concern for us,” said Agapi Care’s director.