Disability advocacy groups across the country are facing closure as states withdraw funding ahead of the transition to the national disability insurance scheme.

The sector is warning the cuts threaten to leave “huge gaps” in representation for the rights and interests of people with a disability, at a time when it is most needed.

Most states and territories plan to withdraw their long-standing funding of disability advocacy as part of the NDIS rollout but the scheme itself does not properly replace advocacy funding.

The NDIS also does nothing for the vast majority of people with a disability who will not be covered.

The federal assistant disability services minister, Jane Prentice, is now calling on states and territories to maintain an “ongoing investment”, saying their contributions are needed to sustain the national advocacy system.

“All levels of government have a responsibility to support advocacy for people with disability to ensure they can exercise their rights and freedoms,” a spokeswoman for Prentice said.

One group facing the prospect of closure is the Physical Disability Council of NSW (PCDN), which campaigns for systemic changes to ensure people with a disability have equal rights and are included and ensured full participation in society.



The group has, for example, recently campaigned for proper disabled access to the pedestrian walkway on Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is one of 50 groups in NSW alone threatened by the move to the NDIS.

The PCDN executive officer, Serena Ovens, said the future was bleak for the organisation unless the NSW government commits to long-term funding.



“It’s significant,” she said. “It means there’s huge gaps in representation. If it’s an individual advocacy service, it can be that assistance side-by-side through a major issue, through the legal system, finding education ... dealing with the health department.

“For someone who might look to our organisation, it’s about all the representative work we do on their [behalf]. So trying to ensure there’s equitable access, that people with a disability can be full members of the NSW community, that they have the same rights as everybody else and a voice and a say in what happens in the community and inclusion.

“That’s a massive undertaking. To do that as an individual is a very difficult and nearly impossible thing to speak to government and talk about the change that needs to happen, one by one.”

A spokeswoman for Prentice said advocacy would be funded federally by grants for disability representative organisations, the national disability advocacy program (NDAP) and the NDIS appeals process.

But she said disability advocacy would rely on ongoing state and territory funding, noting that the vast majority of people requiring advocacy support would not be part of the NDIS.

“A national system of disability advocacy support also requires ongoing investment from states and territories to ensure their citizens can resolve issues with state-run services and advocates can participate effectively in state-based planning,” she said.

The NSW government said it was providing $10.6m funding, until mid next year, for advocacy groups, another $1.5m to help cope with the NDIS transition and a further $1.7m to existing advocacy services to meet extra demand during the move to the scheme.

“Advocacy providers have received record funding to help prepare themselves and people with disability for this major reform,” the NSW disability services minister, Ray Williams, said.

But the sector warns those commitments are simply a continuation of existing funding arrangements. They are worried about what will happen next year, when the state funding runs out.

Williams said the NDIS will fund $120m per year specifically for “information, linkages and capacity building (ILC), which will include advocacy support”. He said people with a disability can also have advocacy funded through their NDIS support plans.

But that is flatly rejected by Ovens, who said ILC funding is not designed for advocacy groups but rather for support coordinators who help devise and implement individuals support plans for people with a disability.

The NSW Council of Social Services chief executive, Tracy Howe, said the state government’s funding must continue after mid-2018.

“Representative advocacy and information organisations play a fundamental part in assisting the government to deliver on its inclusion agenda, ensuring the voices of people with disability are held in decisions affecting them,” Howe said.

“The transition to the national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) will not decrease the need for advocacy. On the contrary, representation advocacy and information are critical to ensuring people with disability can realise the choice and control on which the NDIS is built.”