During Parliamentary Budget Estimates on Thursday 4 August 2022, I asked about funding for disability advocacy services.
You can read the answers below or in the official Queensland Parliament Record of Proceedings (Hansard).
Mr BERKMAN: Minister, last year disability advocates rallied for an ongoing commitment to fund disability advocacy. At the time the government made a commitment to fund that disability advocacy until June next year, as I understand it. What is the Queensland government’s commitment to funding disability advocacy beyond June 2023?
Mr CRAWFORD: I am glad you asked that question, because it is a quite topical and important one. Without going into too much detail—I think it is something that occurred with the transition to NDIS across all states and territories—funding for peak bodies and those sorts of organisations is something that I would not say was missed but did not quite mature as everyone expected. We ended up in this space where we thought the Commonwealth government was going to be funding advocacy through NDIS. Anyway, we had what occurred. You are right: we went to work and we funded the advocacy program. There is no intention to cease that. Currently we have $6 million for disability advocacy, from 1 January this year to the end of June 2023. Obviously it is a budgetary process but there is no intention for us to shelve it.