The Disability Royal Commission recommended a Minister for Disability be established to help drive through reform around a myriad of interconnected issues impacting people with a disability and their families.

While the establishment of the NDIS was a watershed moment for people with disability, only 12% of people with a disability are covered by the scheme.

A specialised Ministry - as per Women’s and Veteran’s Affairs - will allow a specialist team to work across multiple departments to resolve ongoing, interlinked, and protracted problems facing people with a disability.

Through co-design with people with disability, a disability Ministry will be able to start addressing barriers to education, housing, and employment to not only help people with disability to thrive, but to reduce co-morbidities.

Employment is a gateway to economic freedom, purpose, and social engagement. For people with a disability, much progress has been made but there is further to go when it comes to opening up jobs and pathways to employment.

We want to see government lead the charge on disability employment by setting a 5% target to employ people with a disability in departments, government agencies, and government procurement and supply chains.

We’d also like to see organisations employing more than 200 people conducting diversity reviews into their workforce and reporting to a disability department on those numbers.

By getting a read on where disability employment sits and the reasons it may be low, government and disability organisations can co-design solutions that can help move the needle on employment and pathways.

The social services annual budget is $150bn. The NDIS budget is $42bn, with most of that going to disability service providers. But what about the voices of people with a disability?

Disability Representative Organisations (DROs) are after a modest $10mn per annum budget too help them co-design policy and to represent the views of people with a disability in govt.

DROs are a critical transmission belt between people with a disability, their family, and carers, and government.

Government funding will allow DROs to fulfil their roles in analysing government policy, co-designing policy, getting feedback from the disability community, and advocating for reform and the views of people with a disability: a critical function into the future.