Federal Budget 2023 key points
On Tuesday 9 May 2023, Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down the Federal Budget for 2023 with a range of key elements affecting people with disability. Key points include:
National Disability Data Asset (NDDA) - $31.4 million to progress the NDDA initiative, linking data to better understand the life experiences of people living with disability to improve supports and services. More information here.
Supported Employment sector - $57 million to enable the supported employment sector to evolve.
National Autism Strategy – $27 million to continue the development of the National Autism Strategy, with investment in early intervention pilots for infants showing signs of autism.
National Disability Insurance Scheme - $910 million over four years to the NDIS to improve the scheme and increase safeguards and outcome for people with disability. The NDIS remains demand driven with the development of a Financial Sustainability Framework with total costs of the scheme targeted at no more than 8%, rather than capping expenditure.
- $429.5 million investment in the NDIA’s workforce capability and systems resulting in better consistency and equity in decision-making for access and planning decisions for NDIS participants.
- $73.4 million to better support participants to manage their plan within budget.
- $56.4 million to strengthen supported independent living decisions, including by introducing a home and living panel with highly trained staff to improve consistency across decisions and updating guidelines for planners to improve participants' ability to live independently.
- $29.3 million to support the quality and effectiveness of services provided to participants, through improving oversight of services and increasing take up of evidence-based supports.
- $7.6 million to pilot approaches to partner with communities to improve access to supports in remote and First Nations communities.
- $142.6 million to support the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to do its job of keeping NDIS participants safe.
- $14.1 million to deliver a COVID-19 Leave Grant to help stop the spread of COVID-19 to vulnerable Australians and support disability workers.
- $7.3 million to further reduce the number of young people under the age of 65 living in residential aged care.
Cost of living package - $14.6 billion overall, including:
- $40 per fortnight increase for those on Jobseeker payments.
- $31 per fortnight increase for Commonwealth Rent Assistance.
- Extension of the cut-off age for single parent’s payments from eight to 14 for the youngest child.
- Households receiving income support payments will get $500 from July.
Women’s safety -$589.3 million over four years
- $194 million in funding going towards the establishment of a dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Action Plan, promising to support culturally responsive healing programs, addressing immediate safety concerns and community-led family safety services for First Nations children and families affected by family violence.
- $159 million to support frontline service delivery for family and domestic violence services.
- $18.6 million to prevent and address sexual violence, and funding to support migrant women, including women on temporary visas, to escape violence.
Strengthening Medicare - $5.7 billion to Strengthen Medicare and increasing access to bulk billing GPs.
Increasing the maximum amount of medicine dispensed - support more than 300 Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medicines to be dispensed in greater amounts, to get up to two months’ worth of medicine for a stable, chronic health condition.