Funding shortfall for Bendigo's Vision Australia Radio raised in parliament

Bendigo's Vision Australia radio station is among the 10 facing closure in coming months, unless the organisation can secure $700,000 in federal funding.

The service gives people with vision impairment access to printed materials and local content, including readings from newspapers and community news.

Read more: Bendigo's Vision Australia radio service in doubt

Member for Queensland electorate Bowman Andrew Laming questioned whether Vision Australia was the only group that could provide a radio service for people with vision impairment in response to a motion put forward by Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters.

In this motion Ms Chesters called for the federal government to provide funding support to Vision Australia to continue its radio service.

Mr Laming said increasingly there was "scurrying" to find ways to throw as many services as possible into the National Disability Insurance Scheme, particularly from state governments, to get them funded by Canberra.

The comments were made in response to criticism from Labor MPs that the NDIS did not have the facility for block grants that would allow Vision Australia to run a service such as radio.

Mr Laming said he wanted states like Victoria to make the case financially that radio was where money in eye health and vision care should be spent.

He said he would go back to Vision Australia and ask for "the evidence".

"If we're going to be investing more money - the extra dollar - into health care, the question is going to be at the margins: where is it best spent?," Mr Laming said.

"If we're going to step back and take a health lens to this, the question really will be: is the money best spent in radio by Vision Australia or in early intervention and picking up vision problems with kids?"

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Vision Australia chief executive Ron Hooton said he believed services provided through radio to people who had a print handicap were very, very important.

Mr Hooton said the prioritisation of services - whether to fund Vision Australia's radio or eye-care for Aboriginal children - was a decision for government to make.

He said Vision Australia was looking for solutions to keep access for information going for clients, including creative ways to run services better and more cheaply.

"People who live in communities like Bendigo who are blind or have low vision can sometimes become quite isolated. Without being able to read the newspaper radio becomes quite significant part of their lives," Mr Hooton said.

"What we are really ... is a means of providing a social inclusion for people who are blind and have low vision."

Mr Hooton said transmission costs made up the majority of the $700,000 shortfall in funding.

Rising costs was one aspect, but the NDIS had diminished the organisation's ability to direct funds towards things like radio, Mr Hooton said.

Read more: Fixes for NDIS flaws, forum seeks to make it work

While there had been instances of state governments throwing as many services into the NDIS as possible, as Mr Laming mentioned, Vision Australia's radio was not one of those, Mr Hooton said.

The radio service had always been federally funded, he said.

Mr Hooton said Vision Australia had found it difficult to sustain services to areas like Bendigo under the NDIS.

This has meant the organisation has been forced to have "a hard look" at the services it offers, having to choose what to run.

Mr Hooton said a market like Bendigo with people who are blind or vision impaired spread across a large geographical area was difficult to service under the NDIS.

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