Dyson Ruth: Budget Debate 
Dyson Ruth: Budget Debate 
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Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 It is fantastic to be able to contribute to this debate in support of our Budget the fourth Budget presented by the Hon Dr Michael Cullen. It is one of which I am particularly proud personally because I am in Cabinet for the first time. It is a great responsibility privilege and honour to represent my constituents and the sector for which I have responsibility. 
I would like to give a little attention to my portfolio areas: how they were voiced in the Budget how that is reflected and what we are going to do with the additional money that has been given to us. Within my area of disability issues and as Associate Minister of Health with responsibility for aged care I can say that we have had a lot of concern about the increasing workload of caregivers. Caregiving is across the board and involves providing support in people’s homes in rest homes and community facilities and of course includes those who are employed in providing support through the Accident Compensation Corporation. Those caregivers have never been recognised as the integral part of the health system that they are. I am delighted we have recognised that in the work we have done over the last 3 years. We now have a specific focus on improving quality and safety issues for caregivers. 
In this year’s Budget we received $1 million for a project that looks at quality and safety issues including specific workforce issues for caregivers. That is backed up by the work the community support services industry training organisation is doing in developing a nationally recognised certificate for caregivers. The aim is to address quality and safety issues so that we can be confident of the level of care that caregivers are providing. We also want to be confident of care workers’ safety. In return for an increased level of qualification that is nationally recognised we are sure that the improved funding that providers of caregiver support receive will be passed on to the paid workforce. This will be a win-win situation for the workers the people who are receiving the service and of course the general public. 
This year in the areas of disability we have focused on tertiary education and that is sorely needed. People with disabilities are under-represented in their attendance in tertiary institutions as students and we are determined to continue to address that. So this year we have seen an increase in the total funding for the special supplementary grant and an ongoing commitment from the Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) and myself to continue to look at how that special supplementary grant is spent and how best we can improve access to tertiary education for students with disabilities. We have also made a commitment to fund accessible format material for blind tertiary students for another year. This is critical because if students cannot access the material from which they are to learn then their learning will be of very low quality indeed and that would not be acceptable to us. 
An innovation that has significant funding is to improve the coordination of the support resources for deaf students in tertiary education. We are now working through with all the key stakeholders how we would operate a resource centre of excellence offering support primarily through sign language interpreters and note takers. This will be based in the Auckland region in order to pool the resources and share them fairly amongst the different tertiary providers there. It is a huge step forward. I look forward to the collaboration and cooperation of all the tertiary providers in the Auckland region so that we can work together to improve access to tertiary education for deaf students. 
A little while ago the Minister of Communications and I announced the establishment of a telecommunications relay service as a telecommunications service obligation under the telecommunications legislation. In this year’s Budget we have $540000 to fund equipment for deaf hearing-impaired and speech-impaired people so that they can access the telecommunications relay service. This is fantastic news for people who are looking forward to the opening of the relay service. Deaf hearing-impaired and speech-impaired people in New Zealand can finally access the telephone system in the same way as people who are not hearing impaired or speech impaired. That $540000 grant will enable people to access the equipment they need to use the relay service. 
Finally I would just like to move on to my other portfolio of Accident Compensation Corporation and talk about the additional money that it has received in the Budget to improve subsidy levels for health providers. Every time accident compensation claimants go to a health provider the Accident Compensation Corporation gives the provider some money and the claimant gives the provider some money. That money is called the Accident Compensation Corporation subsidy and it was set in 1988. In 1992 the then Accident Compensation Corporation Minister Bill Birch looked at the level of subsidy and said: “That’s not very much money; what shall we do with it?”. He cut every health provider subsidy across the board by 15 percent and the subsidies have stayed at that level ever since. 
That is not acceptable to this Government which believes in funding high-quality health service at a fair level. So this year we have had increases in the subsidy level for health providers for the first time since that was altered—slashed—by Bill Birch in 1992. For physiotherapists an additional $12.3 million has been allocated across the board which will enable the Accident Compensation Corporation to roll out the endorsed provider network over the next few months. Physiotherapists will now have a higher level of qualification there will be improved reporting to the Accident Compensation Corporation and the claimant has no co-payment at all. In my city of Christchurch—home not only of endorsed provider network physiotherapists but also of the Crusaders—the whole city has access to free physiotherapy treatment for accident compensation claimants. We have increased the subsidy for dental treatment for under - 18-year-olds and we have increased the subsidies for primary practice treatment materials for practice nurses for counsellors and for rural general practitioners. 
So this is really fantastic news for accident compensation claimants. It has been a real pleasure working alongside the Minister of Health Annette King to ensure that accident compensation and health work in tandem rather than operating separately as they have done in the past. This has particularly been the case with the increased subsidies of rural general practitioners and practice nurses. 
Canterbury has been a real winner out of this Budget. Not only will we win the final on Saturday night against that team from the secondary island of the north but we have also been good winners in—I am not going to talk about the netball because Canterbury has not done as well in that but it does not matter. In the areas of health and education particularly the people of Canterbury can be very proud of the gains we have made. 
I want to mention one other measure that has been long called-for in Canterbury and that has been achieved in this Budget and that is the youth residential drug rehabilitation centre which is part of the youth suicide prevention centre. It has a $620000 operating expenditure and $250000 in one-off capital expenditure. That has been very warmly welcomed in Christchurch and I am very pleased to stand alongside my colleague Jim Anderton who has been a very strong promoter of that. 
In my own electorate another special announcement that I want to mention briefly is the urban search and rescue team. It is based in my local area of Woolston and has had a significant increase in the amount of funding that it has received. They are an internationally recognised best-practice team. I am particularly proud of them as the local member so is the whole of Canterbury and so is the country just as we are of the Budget.