CareWest provides support in Orange for up to 300 people with a disability and their families. 

“We were apprehensive coming into the budget that there would be no new money for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

“But the new money the government has put aside in the budget for the NDIS is as much as we could have hoped for,” Mr Curran said.

However Mr Curran says the news is not so good for people under the age of 25 with a disability who became eligible after 2008 for a disability pension.

He says under the budget changes those people will have to be reassessed and many families are worried about how they will cope.

“There is a lot of anxiety particularly for parents and carers of people with a disability about outcomes,” he said.

Any negative outcomes Mr Curran says will come down the track.

“I think in three or four years we will really see what is happening,” he said.

“What I fear from any of these changes to the disability pension is that many people will end up living in poverty.”

CareWest which is currently based out of the former United Protestant Association’s Astill House, provides a number of day programs for people with a disability, and also helps out with supported accommodation.

Wangarang and CareWest have some shared responsibilities with particular clients.