The Australian has grim news of just how the Gillard Government is going to plug the gap of its runaway spending.
With the bodies of EL1s and 2s it seems:
Finance Minister Penny Wong said the public service would be asked to find $580 million in savings to help fund the NDIS and Gonski.
The savings, over four [...]

ACT Minister for Disability Joy Burch has revealed the funding details for the National Disability Scheme.
By 2019-20, the ACT Government will provide about $167 million a year to the cost of care and support for people with disability in the ACT through DisabilityCare Australia. This will be 49 per cent of the cost of the [...]

ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher and ACT Minister for Disability Services Joy Burch have declared their support for the Medicare Levy to pay for National Disability Insurance Scheme.
“Having signed up to be one of the first jurisdictions to see full implementation of the NDIS, the ACT is set to benefit from the funds made available [...]

In response to Masquara’s post about the NDIS this morning Joy Burch’s office has sent in this response:
The $5000 per person funding is separate to the $10.6 million from the NDIS agreement signed by the Commonwealth and ACT Governments that has been referred to in several public statements the Government has made recently.
The $5000 figure [...]

So, the term “several thousand” would have to mean “at least 3,000 families, in common parlance. Katy Gallagher has announced that $10 million will be spent on funding “several thousand” families with “$5,000 a year” under the first stage of the NDIS, “from July” with “full rollout by 2014″.
It turns out that the full rollout [...]

Joy Burch has released her Ministerial Statement on what we can expect from the National Disability Insurance Scheme later in the year:
From July 2013, the ACT and Federal governments will invest $10.6 million dollars to respond to the demand for disability and mental health services that we know exists today, and from July 2014 eligible [...]

Joy Burch has announced the makeup of the NDIS Expert Panel:
ACT Minister for Community Services Joy Burch today announced the membership of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Expert Panel, which will guide the launch of the landmark disability funding program in the ACT.
Ms Burch said the Expert Panel included representatives from the community sector, and [...]

Fifteen years ago a friend of mine with a profoundly disabled son requiring 24-hour care moved to Canberra all the way from WA specifically because of the standard of care the ACT offered. He lived on in high care for more than ten years.
Does anyone know how these NDIS “launch sites” will work, and whether [...]

Yesterday the ACT was chosen as one of three trial sites for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, along with South Australia and Tasmania. The trial will begin in July next year and will involve 5000 Canberrans. Currently 1,400 Canberrans receive disability support. New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia have all refused to [...]

The disability support system in both the ACT and Australia wide has long been in need of an overhaul. People with disabilities are often unable to participate in all aspects of life like people without disabilities, because there is not enough care and support available to them.
Nearly 100,000 Australians have already put their hope for [...]