Disability advocates 'really heartened' by Budget 2020's $830m funding boost

Lyall Thurston, left, with son Simon Thurston in 2009. Simon has a disability related to a neural tube defect. Photo / File

Disability advocates are "really heartened" by a $832.5 million funding boost for disability support services in the 2020 Budget.

CCS Disability Action midland region general manager Colene Herbert said it was "long overdue" funding that her group had lobbied hard for.

"The sector's been parched and it feels like we've got some rain."

CCS Disability Action helps about 85 to 100 people living with disabilities in Rotorua, including assisting with supported living, finding meaningful and paid work, advocacy, and accessibility lobbying.

Herbert said the funding boost would "mean a lot" for the people her group supported, and it meant they could provide more than "just the basics".

The group had been looking at restructuring, including redundancies as it looked to "trim fat that's not even there".

"It will help us stay afloat."

Lakes DHB member Lyall Thurston said one part of the Budget that "really excited" him was the boosted support for disability services.

He had been an advocate for people living with disabilities for some time and said the $832.5m for Disability Support Services (DSS) was "great news for people living with a disability" and was "commendable".

But it was "long-waited for".

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"I think most disabled people would say they are invariably at the end of every queue."

Thurston said Covid-19 had proved a catalyst for a lot of the initiatives in the 2020 Budget.

"It's an extraordinary Budget in extraordinary times."

The funding boost to disability services would be $104m in the 2019/2020 financial year, with the $182.2m spread over the following four years.

Lakes DHB member Merepeka Raukawa-Tait said the significant increase in vote health was "absolutely necessary".

"Some services and how they are delivered must change. It is Primary Health, well-resourced, that will make the quantum leap forward particularly in reaching families as early as possible, with information on how to keep themselves healthy and out of the health system altogether."

"The Covid-19 pandemic has presented New Zealand with an unprecedented health, social, and economic challenge."