NDIA Accountability Project

Disparity of access for disabled people and families

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Submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry

General Issues around the Implementation and Performance of the NDIS Independent Assessments

To whom it may concern,

I speak to you today as disabled person, spouse to a disabled defence force veteran, and parent to disabled young people. My request is that you please challenge the proposed introduction of ‘independent assessments’ for NDIS access and ongoing scheme participation.

My reasons are:

Disparity of access

First and foremost, IA will not increase equitable access. They will instead decrease it. They will widen the gap yet again between those who have resources such as time, capacity, and finances, and those who do not.

Those with capacity will appeal a refusal for access, will seek further assessments, will engage advocates, and will be able to persist in seeking access for themselves of their loved ones. They will see the process through, will tie up resources, cost the NDIA more money, and will in all likelihood eventually gain access.

Those less fortunate families and individuals who do not have access to these resources will accept the refusal of access, and continue to experience the compounded discrimination caused by being both socioeconomically disadvantaged and disabled.

Lack of Evidence

  • The Productivity Commission did not recommend Independent Assessments in the manner proposed.

  • The detailed Tune report (at considerable expense and consultation) did not recommend Independent Assessments

  • AAT decisions have not found Independent Assessments to be accurate.

  • The pilot was abandoned and lacks transparency.

Systemic Problems

  • Full function capacity assessments (FCA) must be conducted by fully qualified and experienced Occupational Therapists (OT). The Occupational Therapy Association was not consulted and has many concerns.

  • The NDIA currently provides fund for participants to engage OTs to conduct FCAs. The funding allocation for this is for between 10 – 15 hours OT time. The proposed IAs are for 2.5 – 3 hours, including “administering the standardised Functional Capacity Assessment Tools, undertaking the interaction/observation session and then completing the written observation Report.” (based on the tender document [attached]), or 1 – 4 hours including all the above (based on NDIS website “The independent assessment process”). Even 4 hours is simply not long enough to appropriately assess an individual’s full needs.

  • The ideology behind this proposal is that disabled people and carers are seeking unfair or unjustified supports, are inherently duplicitous, and out to ‘rip off’ the NDIA. As yet I have seen no evidence to justify this accusation. Even assuming that a small percentage of the population may come from a place of dishonesty, as one would assume for any subset of Australians, this would in no way justify the punishment of all disabled people.

  • “Independence” of assessment. This just means another stranger in our lives, poking, prying,

     questioning, because the above mentioned ideology somehow translate to NDIA distrust of

   all our allied health professionals.

  • The Disabled Community has not been consulted and overwhelmingly fears loss of supports.

My Submission to this Parliamentary Inquiry is due to deep concern about the proposed Independent Assessments impact on all disabled Australians, their carers, and their families, as well as to our

tire society. Not only will this further disadvantage those with lived experience of disability and/or

caring, it lessens us as a country.

This proposal cheapens us, it devalues all our citizens, and sends the message that we continue to

blame disabled people for our disabilities, to view us as burdens on society, and it robs society of the

immense contributions we all have to offer.

I have been fighting with the agency for over four years. It took the first two of those to get access for one child. I haven’t even started trying to think about access for either of the adults in my family.

In those four years I have been ignored, spoken over, accused, and threatened.

I’ve been told that “it is what it is” when I shared terror for my child’s impending homelessness and possible suicide.

I’ve been told that if I didn’t get a new FCA within 10 days my child’s scheme access would be cancelled.

I’ve been told my child’s first plan was “unusually generous” and I shouldn’t have brough [sic] it to agency attention. It was approximately $12k for my child with multiple disabilities.

I’ve had a delegate tell me that “all she knows of my child is that she has a ministerial flag on her account”, and that as such the delegate “expected this meeting to be hard”.

I am already exhausted, disheartened, and out of hope. And I’m one of the lucky ones. Please don’t make this already combative system even harder.

Thank you for your time today, and your consideration of this matter. I beg you to try, even for a short moment, to imagine yourself as a disabled person trying to fight this system that sends us constant messages that we’re lucky to get anything, that we better be prepared for a fight, that we’re a burden, and we aren’t worthy of support.

If that’s too hard, try to imagine yourself as a parent, trying to get access for some supports for your child, and realising that to do so you have to suit up, work yourself to the bone, and spend hour after hour listing your child’s ‘deficits’ and ‘impairments’, all while being on constant alert to try avoid your child describe them in such ways.

Please don’t allow this to proceed. Please show us that Australian are better than this.