Commitment 5 – AFDO Political Platform
5. Commitment to funding national Disability Representative Organisations
We require a commitment to increased, ongoing, adequate, equitable and indexed funding to Disability Representative Organisations (DROs) that undertake systemic or individual advocacy, including specialist people with disability organisations that know and are experts of their communities.
Disability is diverse, meaning that there is a significant difference between the needs of people and that organisations that connect to their own communities and provide information and peer support are essential as we move to full roll-out of the NDIS, the priority of a renewed National Disability Strategy 2020 – 2030, and build the capacity of communities to become more welcoming and accessible.
Funding of DRO’s has been reduced and in the case of the AFDO led Consortium (11 members) bid resulted in a totally inadequate funding amount being awarded by the Department of Social Services of just over $27K per annum for each organisation to undertake this work! Other DRO’s received $300K each per annum in their own right?
The Federal ALP has previously committed to reinstating the funding for DRO’s back to the level provided pre-2014, with 2 million dollars promised in the 2016 Federal Election to be added to the existing funding allowance. We anticipate a similar commitment this coming election and whilst acknowledged, this would still not be enough to ensure that we have well-resourced and high functioning national representative organisations for people with disability.
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