By NOEL MURPHY
GEELONG’S much-vaunted NDIS centre might fall short of its hype without Canberra producing outstanding cash to train staff, a peak skills body has warned.
Community Sector and Health Industry Skills Council Services chief Rod Cooke said Federal Government had yet to stump up extra funding for developing the skill of disability carers.
He expected Disability Care, the new name for National Disability Insurance Scheme, would fail to eventuate without the Government radically overhauling training and opening the sector to foreign workers on 457 visas.
“The NDIS is indicating that (its) national workforce will double over the next five to six years from about 110,000 to 120,000 to 220,000 to 250,000 workers,” he told the Independent.
“To attract the workers we will need national and local recruiting initiatives, improved salaries and a focus on retention to keep good workers.
“This significant growth will require capacity building by disability service delivery organisations with a focus on new roles, expanded services and consumer led care models in the home and community.”
Mr Cooke said existing national training capacity delivered 15,000 disability qualifications “so we’ll need to double that annual capacity to meet this growth”.
His concerns followed similar claims in South Australia earlier this year about staff shortages and low-level wages.
Geelong is one of four centres across the country pegged as launch sites for the scheme, to be funded with an increased Medicare levy.
Federal Labor’s MP for Corio, Richard Marles, stressed the launch sites had always been declared a trial.
“The word trial is not about whether we do it or not but how we do it right and everyone in the system understands it as that,” he said.
“It does mean there is an element of learning and I suppose there’s an uncertainty about public policy of this size.
“This is a trial of how we make sure when it’s fully operational in time that we get it right across the country. Everyone understands this will be a learning experience.”
Mr Marles said raising the “critical” issue of skills was “absolutely right”.
The trials would examine the issue, he said.
“But our sense is that it’s right to start with.”
Mr Marles said questions still to be resolved under the scheme included who would be eligible and the level of services to which they would be entitled.
