Government to act on taxi subsidy

The Hodgman Liberal Government is absolutely committed to supporting Tasmania’s most vulnerable.
That is why we have strongly supported the National Disability Insurance Scheme from day one, and have committed $572 million over the next four years to fund it.
However, with every major reform like this there are implementation issues, and it is clear that in this case a small number of users of the Taxi Subsidy have been disadvantaged in the transition period.
In order to ensure nobody is worse off as a result of this transition, the Hodgman Government has decided to implement a transport Safety Net for NDIS trial participants.
Under the Safety Net, eligible trial participants who have exhausted all their NDIS transport support funding will be provided with a temporary Taxi Subsidy smartcard, valid until 30 June 2017.
This will provide time for the affected trial participants to seek to have their transport plans under the NDIS adjusted to more accurately reflect their circumstances, whilst not being adversely affected.
The Government will continue to engage closely with the Federal Government and the National Disability Agency (NDIA) to have this transport matter resolved, and to facilitate a smooth transition to the NDIS more broadly.
Rene Hidding, Minister for Infrastructure