The much disparaged here Gillard's NDIS is now adopted by all of Australia except WA and NT. It now covers 90% of Australians, in Liberal and Labor states.
ABC Online.. Queensland has signed on to the national disability insurance scheme, with Premier Campbell Newman declaring it a "historic day" for the state and a victory for disability campaigners.
Mr Newman made the announcement with Prime Minister Julia Gillard at Autism Queensland's headquarters in Brisbane today.
The deal leaves Western Australia and the Northern Territory as the only jurisdictions yet to sign on.
The scheme, which is now known as DisabilityCare, will cost the state $1.9 billion over the next decade and provide support for 97,000 people.
With Queensland on board, almost 90 per cent of Australians will be covered by DisabilityCare.
The rollout will begin in 2016 before hitting full-swing in 2019-20.
Mr Newman congratulated disability campaigners who have fought for the the scheme, saying they have "fought the good fight".
He said he has been "painfully conscious" of the need for improved disability funding and that he himself has a close relative who has been affected by disability.
"It's a fair comment to say that as you look across the nation I don't think you will find too many families where somebody doesn't have a close relative or a close friend that is affected by a disability," he said.
"And indeed that is the case in my own family where a close relative lived a normal life for many years in business and then ended up with an acquired brain injury which meant they had a significant disability, having to then live with their elderly mother as their carer on an ongoing permanent basis.
"So throughout this whole debate I've been painfully conscious from a personal perspective of the needs of people with disabilities and particularly what it means to families to have to care for somebody, a close relative, in such circumstances."
Ms Gillard said the scheme will provide "practical, real-world solutions" for people with disabilities and their families.
"Here, particularly in Queensland, people have felt those stresses and strains," she said.
"People with disabilities, their families, their carers, their friends, their loved ones have for a long period of time now asked us as a nation to do better. For too long their voices went unheard."
"[This] will make a difference to almost 100,000 people in Queensland for severe disabilities.
"This is a big thing to do. It's also a costly thing to do and so as two governments we've had to work together to put the money together to make this happen."
'Big decision'
Mr Newman praised the Prime Minister for proposing an increase to the Medicare levy to fund the scheme, something that he suggested last year.
He said the state currently commits $900 million a year to disability services, but that would rise to $1.8 billion over the next five years.
Mr Newman said the increase in the Medicare levy would push that figure to $2 billion.
"I want to thank the Prime Minister for making the decision on the levy," he said. "I acknowledge that it was a big decision for the Prime Minister to make that call last week."
"Essentially you're seeing approximately a 50/50 arrangement with the Commonwealth.
"It means we go from just under 45,000 people a year getting support, as the Prime Minister said, to around 97,000 people across Queensland getting that support."
Case study: Oregan-Young family
Ten-year-old Connor has cerebral palsy spastic quadriplegia. His family hope a NDIS will deliver not only immediate benefits but long-term help.
Ms Gillard used the announcement to call on Western Australia and the Northern Territory to sign up to the scheme.
"The agreements are done to cover almost 90 per cent of Australians," she said.
"So can I use this opportunity to say to the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory and to the Premier of Western Australia, I do want to work with you to make sure that those places and the people in the Northern Territory and Western Australia get covered by this scheme too."
Meanwhile, Western Australian Disability Services Minister Helen Morton has said the state will not be disadvantaged by a delay in signing up to the scheme.
The WA Government has offered to host a trial, but is yet to formally sign up because it does not want disability funding and services to be controlled from Canberra.
Ms Morton said disabled Western Australians will not miss out.
"We have every intention and believe it will happen that we will be a part of the NDIS, but in that process we will protect our higher level of funding that's already available in WA and we will also get our level of the NDIS funding."
New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory have already signed up to the scheme.
