The exposure draft report for National Disability Advocacy Program review: http://www.health.gov.au/ood/advocacy/advocsumm.htm And the Plain(er) English version: http://www.health.gov.au/ood/advocacy/advocenglish.htm The deadline for providing comments on the report-- next Thursday, 11 February 1999. I have a personal plea for you all: "Put in a submission. Please." I live in Victoria. Last year, almost all of our state-funded disability advocacy services were defunded. Now, most of the commonwealth-funded services are also under threat (the review talks about funding "at the most 3" organisations to do systems advocacy-- the unofficial word, however, is that they're planning to fund only one). I don't want this to happen. I don't want any more disability advocacy groups to die-- in Victoria *or* interstate. I don't want it to happen *anywhere*. The government *counts* review submissions. Numbers of submissions are seen to reflect degree of interest in the issue-- and potential electoral consequences. The more submissions we get in, the more carefully the government will tread in the implementation of the recommendations of the review. The length of the submissions, the amount of detail included in them, is (in some ways) secondary. If you have the time, and the energy, to write a detail response to the advocacy review recommendations-- that's wonderful. If not, tho-- even a one sentence or one paragraph response will help. "I have major concerns about the review recommendations"-- that's all you really need to say. If you have time/energy-- add some of your specific concerns. Victoria and WA have both developed consensus responses-- you may want to refer to them. The Vic consensus response is available from Ian Parsons at Villamanta Legal Service ([EMAIL PROTECTED]); the WA consensus response is available at http://www.dice.org.au/advocacy/WAadvocacy.html The Australian Advocacy Network's response is also available online: http://www.dice.org.au/advocacy/aanintro.html http://www.dice.org.au/advocacy/aanresponse.html Submissions should be forwarded to: Chair Disability Advocacy Program Review Steering Committee c/o Office of Disability MDP 112 Dept of Family and Community Services PO Box 7788 Canberra Mail Centre ACT 2610 Alternatively, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (In general, tho, posted or faxed submissions are better.) Everyone-- again I plead: "Please put in a submission." And get at least one colleague or friend to do the same. - Ria -- *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* * Ria Strong * 1. Labels are for jars, * * Melbourne, Australia * not people * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * 2. If you MUST label people, * * ICQ #5689114 * include ALL ingredients! * *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html
