NDIA Accountability Project

Concerns over restricting access to supports for older people with profound disability

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Lived Experiences for People With Profound Disability Living Outside the National Disability Insurance Scheme

This submission outlines the dangers of not creating robust foundational supports if government are going to further restrict access to people living with disability to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), from the lived experience of supporting family members who are excluded from NDIS on nothing other than their age alone.

Ideally, older people who acquired severe and profound disability in early childhood or who were born with congenital disability, should be entitled to participate in NDIS and an exception made to the age limit contained in section 22 of the NDIS Act. This would meet the intention of NDIS to assist people with severe and profound disability to get the NDIS back on track. However, this submission is based on the lived experience of supporting family members with profound hearing loss (culturally Deaf and use Auslan) who live outside the scheme, to urge the government to at the very least, to consider a statutory review of any changes to access requirements and foundation supports to ensure a robust foundation support scheme. People should not be jettisoned off into a worse-off situation where states have been incapable of providing those supports, as seen by placing older Deaf people in a comparative worse position than before NDIS was introduced.

Excluding people with disability from the NDIS based on the age limit has seen:

  • The loss and erosion of supports available to them prior to NDIS (ie state funded organisations like the Royal South Australian Deaf Society closing down);
  • Falling through cracks of state and federal support systems where neither government has adequately accepted responsibility for people with severe and profound disability who do not qualify for either NDIS or aged care home care packages;
  • Being discriminated from accessing state funded supports on grounds of disability - Older people with disability have been discriminated from accessing state funded supports on the basis that the commonwealth should be funding disability supports.

I have been told that I have to prove my parents do not qualify for Commonwealth package funding to then qualify for state supports (ie a form of discrimination that abled bodied people are not subjected to access state funded supports that has been

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created the misconception that all people with profound disability became a

  • Not being given the same right to choice and control – fundamentally being denied the right to consumer directed supports that NDIS and agedcare participants enjoy – older Deaf are locked to one interpreting agency which is block funded by the government. Some older Deaf do not wish to use the services of the service provider funded by government due to perceived conflicts, whilst others have no alternatives to accessing supports if that one service provider cannot be competitive with recruiting interpreters or offering work to registered interpreters;

  • Being restricted to a smaller pool of interpreters and thereby not having the same access to supports when the block funded agency cannot find an interpreter (ie an NDIS participant can shop around to find an available interpreter where an older person is restricted to only using interpreters registered with one agency – this means older Deaf people miss out where a younger Deaf person may not);

  • Where there is a shortage of interpreters and NDIS better renumerates interpreters, The disparity in the two different markets has the effect to divert interpreters away from non-NDIS consumers, effectively creating a second class of consumers who are ranked second in priority. – this has created a new conflict of interest in the community that has never existed before where it is younger Deaf people’s interest to keep older Deaf people locked out of the free market to reduce competition and make it easier for younger Deaf people to get an interpreter;

  • The distribution of interpreters and workers, where there is a shortage has fundamentally changed so that there are no interpreters attending hospital emergency departments and are diverted to other interpreting jobs instead (would you remove a doctor from an emergency department and put them in a sip and paint course?)

  • There is a perception of conflict with service providers allocated the block funding to provide services as there is no transparency as to how conflicts are resolved if the interpreting agency does not enough workers/interpreters and whether it prioritises NDIS clients who can choose to shift their funding to other organisations;

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     9.  Being segregated from the Deaf community in a form of apartheid determined solely

     on eligibility to participate in NDIS (eg not being able to participate in Deaf bingo

        unless you have NDIS funding).

The definition of disability has now become narrowed to mean those eligible for NDIS and

no longer is inclusive of those who are living with disability, even those born with profound

and severe disability, but are ineligible for NDIS on nothing except for chronological age

 alone. I have seen the Minister for NDIS being introduced to Disability Expos as the ‘Minister

 for Disability’, which is unfairly misleading. This denies the existence of people living with

profound and severe disability who are ineligible for NDIS and perpetuates misinformation

 that NDIS covers all disability and excludes those ineligible from NDIS from accessing

supports elsewhere. These people living with severe and profound disability and ineligible

 for NDIS, have been stripped of their identities as people living with disability and legal

rights to access the same types and levels of supports. People incorrectly interchange NDIS

participants as referring to ALL people with severe and profound disability, so that those ineligible are now invisible and treated as though the NDIS and their ineligibility ‘cured’ them. The language used even by Governors introducing the NDIS Minister is not inclusive of people ineligible for NDIS. This language is harmful as it perpetuates the systemic lack of services outside the NDISm and systemic discrimination and exclusion for people living with disability outside the NDIS. There is harm when implying that every person who was born with profound disability is covered by the NDIS, as this only perpetuates the problem with the lack of foundational supports. There needs to be shift in language to acknowledge that people with disability are not necessarily NDIS participants.

The segregation of older people from NDIS has meant they are no longer adequately represented by peak consumer representative groups that have had to focus on NDIS related matters. For National Deaf Week, a breakfast was held in Canberra but it seemed no older person ineligible for NDIS was invited, demonstrating that older Deaf ineligible from NDIS on nothing except for their age alone, are no longer considered Deaf and have lost their identities, as they are no longer included to celebrate National Deaf Week and this is now limited to only NDIS participants1. This is similar to displacing First Nation people from Maralinga to Yalata and disregarding Deaf culture. Older people who are ineligible for NDIS 1 https://ministers.dss.gov.au/speeches/12451

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have lost access to advocacy and are no longer included in peak advocacy body submissions

which concentrate on NDIS participants. Some advocacy services are limited to only provide

advocacy to those eligible for NDIS, meaning older people cannot access advocacy services

for people with disability and are further marginalised.

The lived experience of supporting family members who would otherwise meet eligibility for

NDIS, but are at law ineligible on nothing else but their chronological age alone, has been

devastating. My lived experience is witnessing cascading systemic discrimination that my

parent has even been denied public hospital treatment effectively on the basis of their

ineligiblilty to participate in NDIS. Providing interpreters for public hospitals is a state

concern. However, if the state cannot compete and pay the same rates as NDIS, or limits

itself to one interpreting agency, so interpreters are often unavailable. An NDIS patient may

use their NDIS funds to provide an interpreter, whereas a patient without NDIS is unable to

provide their own. I was contacted by the public hospital and told treatment was cancelled

on the basis the hospital could not provide an interpreter and we could do not have funding

to try and procure one from a different agency and denied treatment. Being excluded from

NDIS has devastating cascading consequences that those who are excluded, now face

inequities and dual discrimination that even exclude them from accessing the same

treatment from a public hospital that an abled bodied person could, or even an NDIS

participant. Imagine if the law was people of a certain race or religion were ineligible for

NDIS and the cascading result of this policy meant they were unable to access public

hospital treatment? Yet this is what my family face in 2024. Wondering if we will be denied

treatment that everyone else can access because our family member lives with disability but happes to be an older person.

My father was born in 1946 and at age 22 months, contracted meningitis and was expected

to die. However, he survived. As a result of the brain injury, he became profoundly deaf. He

was not diagnosed until he was four years old. He grew up with language deprivation

during a period when deaf children were banned from using sign language and is now

illiterate but intelligent. He worked as a cabinet maker until he retired.

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My mother was a rubella baby and born in 1950 with profound sensory losses including hearing and smell and with balance issues caused by congenital differences to her inner ear.

Like my father, she attended a special school for deaf children and was impacted by language deprivation. As a result, understanding information and accessing information has been very difficult.

They used to belong to the Deaf community. However now the Deaf community are segregated into age groups depending on who is eligible and who is not eligible for NDIS.

Since then, the community does not interact with the non-NDIS participants who are excluded from some activities which are NDIS funding dependent. The disparity of access to levels and types of supports is huge. I have seen my parents not be able to participate in social activities held for the Deaf community because they do not have NDIS funding. They have been marginalised and cannot even access the supports of an interpreter even in a life and death situation anymore as a result of the introduction of NDIS and being left out.

In 2021, Leading Age Services Australia published a Discussion Paper ‘A funding analysis – Comparing aged care and NDIS Support’ which included a Comparative Analysis comparing a 63 year old with vision impairment participating in the NDIS with an 84 year old with similar vision impairment and support needs. The NDIS plan for the 63 year old was $250,000 per annum. Whereas the funding for the 84 year old was a Level 3 home care package of $34,175.00 per annum, of which 30% was management fees2. It is difficult to reconcile how similar levels of disability, such as people with profound hearing loss who identify themselves as culturally and linguistically Deaf, are treated so differently based on a person’s age at the time of NDIS roll-out.

I have seen the systemic discrimination with not being able to participate in the free market. They are treated as second class consumers. On paper, the government might say they are entitled to free interpreting funded by the Department of Health and Ageing but this is far from the reality where they are in practice restricted and limited from the same access to those supports. They do not have independent choice and control over their interpreting supports. They are designated to use one agency. If that agency does not have an interpreter available or says there is none available, there is nowhere else to go.

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parents** are restricted to a smaller pool of interpreters. This also means that where there is shortage of interpreters, the interpreters are being diverted away from older Deaf people as thought they are second class consumers. If this agency cannot provide as competitive remuneration as that being paid by the NDIS, then interpreters are not incentivised to register for this agency. Further, there is no transparency as to what happens when the agency has more booking requests than interpreters and perceived conflicts of interest that arises to prioritise NDIS clients ahead of older clients, as the NDIS clients can choose to allocate funding to another interpreting agency making it appear there is a commercial incentive to prioritise NDIS clients ahead of those who are still part of block funding.

Last year, my father had a stroke. He sat in the triage emergency department for hours. I called the hospital more than four times to advise that he needed an Auslan interpreter. My baby had just been discharged from NICU so I was not able to immediately leave. When I arrived, my father was left sitting in the waiting area and nobody knew he had suffered a stroke. No interpreter ever arrived. If he had a clot stroke, he would have been denied the opportunity for telestroke treatment. He was discharged on the basis that he would receive tensive outpatient rehabilitation treatment over a six week period. However, after discharge, I was called and advised the hospital could not get interpreters and so had to cancel and withdraw the treatment. The hospital had a contract with Deaf Connect but did ot try other agencies. We did not have funding to provide our own. Before NDIS, the Deaf Society used to have the main monopoly of interpreting services and would triage interpreters on the basis of need, so that an emergency department request would take priority over a social event. However, since the NDIS, it seems interpreters are distributed by market forces, by who has the most funding and that means diverting interpreters away from older Deaf people. Older Deaf do not have the same option as NDIS clients to find alternative interpreters in the event the organisation who the state have tenetered are unable to provide an interpreter. Older Deaf have a smaller pool of interpreters and are restricted to the same access as younger Deaf people to interpreters.

Prior to the stroke, he had an ACAT and was told he was ineligible for a home care package. He could dress himself, shower himself, prepare his food, walk to the shops to buy food and pay bills at the Post Office. However, nobody understood his deafness and how language deprivation has impacted him to access information. He was unable to call an ambulance.

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We applied for a personal alarm through the state funded program and was told because of his disability, he should qualify for commonwealth funding supports and we had to prove he did not qualify for commonwealth funding first. This obstacle would not be presented to an abled bodied person. We were referred by the ACAT assessor to Deaf Connect with a CHSP code to access assistive technology to get an alarm. However, Deaf Connect said they did were not funded for this. My father was given a list of nine providers to call. He is deaf and cannot use a phone and does not have literacy to communicate. Nobody wanted to know about him as he was not an NDIS participant or person eligible for a home care package. He fell through the cracks of federalism because he was not eligible for NDIS and the agedcare system did not recognise his disabilty. The previous year, my mother had a fall and lacerated her head and my father was unable to call her an ambulance. They had caught COVID and could not leave the house to ask a neighbour to help. They were not offered any supports during COVID with assistive technologies and one on one training to use an iPad and apps to access Telehealth through video relay interpreting or using Convo (an app to access a video relay interpreter at any time) which is limited to NDIS clients only. This meant they could not access healthcare where abled bodied and NDIS participants could access healthcare. My mother had developed a UTI but could not access healthcare as she was denied the supports to assistive technology, apps to access video relay interpreters and one-on-one support workers to train her on how to using video relay interpreting to access telehealth.

My mother suffered extreme language deprivation and is not literate. Although Deaf Connect provided a group session, it was a very large group and the supports were inadequate and inappropriate for someone like my mother with limited digital and English literacy. The government increased the assistive technology allowance to $2,000.00 during COVID under CHSP, but this information was not made accessible to Deaf people in Auslan. Deaf Connect did not seem to share this information with my parents and by the time I found out, it was too late. It is unclear if information on CHSP is not well disseminated due to the state Deaf Society closing down and Deaf Connect (interstate Deaf Society) seeming to only show interest to Deaf clients who have NDIS or home care funding.

The agedcare system is income and means tested requiring people with disability who have worked in factories throughout their lives to be means tested through a system that is not Deaf friendly. Services Australia are impossible to access for an older Deaf person with

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literacy issues caused by language deprivation. They cannot use the phone or computer due

to literacy barriers caused by their disability. When I have called Services Australia

requesting to book a face-to-face appointment with a Financial Information Services Officer

(FISO), I have been told only the caller can make an appointment. When I explained my parents were Deaf and couldn’t book an appointment as they cannot use a phone or computer, I was told I could book an appointment with a FISO in my name except then I would be unable to book an Auslan interpreter. Again, we do not have funding to provide our own interpreter. We are forced to go into a Centrelink office for the sake of booking of a future appointment. The process was traumatic as it disempowered my parents entirely. The service provider insisted on a direct debit for payments which represented 65% of my parents income. They would have 35% of a pension equivalent to survive to pay food, bills, utilities and insurance. My parents were unable to access Services Australia themselves to work out the mistake. They entirely relied on the support of other people and Centrelink would only allow one nominee at any one time.

There is a Blind Pension and exemptions for blind people does not extend to Deaf people. Being ineligible for NDIS, means you are no longer considered a person living with disability. You belong to no-mans land where neither the state or federal government accept responsibility to provide the same access to supports. The state MP for my parents wrote to the health minister about concerns my parents could not access an ambulance. The state health minister referred their MP to agedcare supports. We are constantly referred and passed around. The state health Minister’s response did not address the inadequacies with not having the support worker support to learn how to use telehealth and video relay apps, nor access to services that provide access to 000. The National Relay Service is closed on weekends and seems to be at risk of losing funding. Older Deaf cannot access instantaneous relay services to contact an ambulance or access services like Healthdirect as Deaf who are NDIS participants. They do not have the same supports to enable them to even call an ambulance in an emergency and have a conversation with paramedics/emergency services. Older Deaf people excluded from NDIS are not given consumer directed choice with respect to their interpreting supports and in practice are now denied the same access to interpreters as a younger person. NDIS and Aged Care were meant to be designed around the concept of consumer directed supports and individual choice and control. However,

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older Deaf people are denied the right to choice and control of their service provider for

Auslan interpreting supports. The Disability Royal Commission heard evidence that there are

d numerous interpreting agencies for Auslan interpreters across the country. However, older

Deaf ineligible for NDIS are restricted to only one agency. They are denied choice and

control, and denied the principle of consumer directed care which is fundamental to NDIS

and agedcare.

  • If the government are going to create foundation supports and further restrict access to the

NDIS, they need to hear the lived experience of those living with severe and profound

disability who are living outside the NDIS and the systemic discrimination that results. The

exemption from the Age Discrimination Act is against the protections in the UNCRPD and

was unfairly justified on the basis that agedcare provides similar supports. This was

inaccurate in the case for older Deaf people who did not have funding to access interpreting

supports at the commencement of NDIS. It also creates a model for two classes of

consumers, where non-NDIS consumers are given second priority and effectively excluded

from supports, even when facing a life and death emergency.

  • It is absurd that NDIS has shifted the distribution of interpreters from triaging according to

need, to now allocating interpreters according to who has the most funding and best NDIS

package, which is not reflective of who is in most need of an interpreter at a particular point

in time. Those in the Deaf community who are most literate with the NDIS system, are not

necessarily the people who were impacted the hardest by language deprivation. The NDIS

has seen interpreters distributed in accordance to those who are most literate rather than

those who are most in need.

  • I urge the government to not create parallel markets with foundation supports as in

practice, it simply diverts and channels supports away to the more lucrative market and

there is no transparency with how these conflicted services are resolved.

  • It is a privilege to walk into a hospital and not have to worry whether you will be able to

access treatment because you have a disability and subject to discriminatory laws that

determine that you are ineligible for NDIS. The NDIS has diverted supports away from state

provided supports. The state hospitals say ‘we cannot provide an interpreter’, even in life

and death situations, and that is because the NDIS market seems to have created disparities

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which ultimately divert the supports away from people living with disability who are outside

the NDIS. This creates a second class of consumers living with disability. The potential

danger is if in a Discrimination action against the state, a court finds it reasonable to not

provide the supports because there was nobody available, when some have been diverted

away from emergency hospitals to NDIS clients instead. It is bewildering to sit in a hospital

and know there are interpreters working for other less urgent requests and you are unable

to access one the discriminatory laws with the age limit for NDIS, effectively prevent you

from accessing an interpreter and in turn, prevent you from accessing treatment. Not

everyone can walk into a hospital and know they will get treated and not discriminated. Not

every Deaf life matters the same when you have a fixed block funded market operating

alongside a free market and shortage of interpreters. This results in shorter life expectancy

and is the systemic discrimination faced by people left out of NDIS.

It is a privilege to go to hospital and not have to worry that you are not going to be able to

access treatment everybody else can on the basis of your disability, and that as an older

person with disability, you are also ineligible for NDIS. This discrimination caused by the

cascading ripple effects of being left out of the NDIS must stop.

Now the government are contemplating excluding other people with disability from access

to the NDIS which has the potential to exacerbate the class system and divide between

people with disability. The apartheid and segregation is real. It has fractured and divided

the Deaf community. My parents don’t know younger Deaf people anymore as they have

been unable to participate in Deaf activities for the Deaf community since NDIS was

introduced. This means they cannot impart cultural knowledge and history. The community

is fractured. The apartheid also results in absurd outcomes like discrimination by state

public hospitals denying medical treatment on the basis the state cannot compete and

procure interpreters when NDIS has effectively diverted the available pool of interpreters

and stripped those supports away.

Ideally, there would not be two markets, one being a free market for NDIS participants and

the other a block funded fixed market running alongside, for Auslan interpreters, as that

has not proven to fairly work where there is critical worker shortage and disparity in

funding. It is like living in East Germany and watching younger Deaf people eligible for NDIS

living in West Germany. If the government considers there is no other alternative but to

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introduce foundational supports, then any foundational support system must be robustly designed and considered to avoid the systemic cascading discriminatory effect of being excluded from NDS that older people with disability have experienced.

The Parliamentary Joint Human Rights Committee recommended the age limit be part of the two year statutory review for the NDIS, but this recommendation was ignored. It is important that people are not thrown into state responsibility without requiring a review of how it is working. It is embarrassing that older Deaf people had to wait until the Aged Care Royal Commission to address the issue they had left behind altogether and had been stripped of access to interpreters (other than medical appointments which are part of the Medicare scheme through the National Booking Auslan Service (NABS) which is due to close). There needs to be a check on how the states will implement and provide foundation supports as history has demonstrated that states will not necessarily step up and provide those supports, even if as basic to call an ambulance or access a public hospital for medical treatment, where the state is supposed to provide those supports but in practice, NDIS participants are sometimes using their NDIS package funding and thereby disguising the problem for those people who are ineligible for NDIS who are further marginalised.

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Annexure

Section 22 of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (Cth) (NDIS Act) states:

A person meets the age requirements if the person was aged under 65 when the access request in relation to the person was made.

The issue is that for people born with, or who acquired disability in early childhood, but who had already turned 65 years old at NDIS roll-out, were thereby excluded from ever accessing NDIS, notwithstanding having acquired disability at birth or during childhood, and formerly received disability supports from the state which seemingly have been eroded since the introduction of NDIS.

Article 5 of the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)© provides:

Equality and non-discrimination

  • State Parties recognise that all persons are equal before and under the law and entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law
  • State Parties shall prohibit all discrimination on the basis of disability and guarantee to persons with disabilities equal and effective legal protection against discrimination on all grounds.

The NDIS Act was given royal assent on 28 March 2013 and enacted through the exercise of section s.51(xxix) external affairs law making power. The legal question is whether the external affairs head of power only gives the Commonwealth power to legislate in a way that is consistent with its obligations under the CRPD, and prevents it from passing a law in direct contravention of the CRPD. In other words, whether the age limit and broad and permanent exemption of the Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Cth) to the NDIS Act is valid exercise of constitutional power, where it directly contravenes Article 5 of the CRPD by legalising age discrimination towards people with lifelong disability.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (PJCHR) was created in 2012 to ‘examine all bills and legislative instruments for compatibility with human rights, and to report to both Houses of Parliament on its findings’ but was not afforded this opportunity in the case of the NDIS Act.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Legislation Amendment Act 2013 (Cth)© (‘Amendment Act’) was introduced into parliament on 15 May 2013 and passed both Houses on 16 May 2013. The Amendment Act significantly provided a broad and permanent exemption of the Age Discrimination Act to the NDIS Act.

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The Amendment Act effectively bypassed the PJCHR, which was not afforded adequate time to report on concerns for the inequality and discrimination that would result5.

The PJCHR referred to comments it had made previously about the need for a legislative timetable to permit sufficient time for the PJCHR to scrutinise bills before they were passed6.

In addition, the PJCHR raised concerns at the general and permanent exemption from the Age Discrimination Act, which was not restricted to the reasons provided that is for a temporary purpose of establishing launch sites7.

The PJCHR raised concerns that the substantial differences between supports provided to individuals in the aged care system, compared to those on the NDIS, which could result in the inequitable treatment of people who were 65 at time of NDIS roll-out, and therefore result in discrimination towards people living with disability based on age alone8.

The PJCHR also expressed concerns the concept of disability used for the purpose of the NDIS was not as broad as that contained in the CRPD. Article 1 of the CRPD provides that ‘[p]ersons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others’. The definition of disability has arguably changed to refer to those who meet the eligibility to qualify for NDIS. Some older people who have lived with lifelong disability feel as though they have been stripped of their identity and status of a person with disability. Some report feeling segregated and isolated from their community and identity, as they are no longer eligible to participate in some social activities run by disability service providers that are now exclusive to NDIS participants only. They also report of no longer being included or represented in discussions with the federal government, about critical issues for people with the same disability, because the discussion of these issues now excludes anyone who is not eligible for NDIS, notwithstanding older people having the same lifelong disability. Similarly, older people with lifelong disability since birth or early childhood from rubella or polio, do not qualify to access state funded legal services to assist people navigate the NDIS. These older people do not have an equivalent exclusive specialised service, to assist navigate disability supports outside the NDIS.

5 Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights for the Scrutiny of Bills, Parliament of Australia, Seventh Report of 2013 (Report 5 June 2013), pp 17-20 as accessed at https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Human_Rights/Scrutiny_reports/2013/2013/72013/index 6 Ibid 7 Ibid 8 Ibid

Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights for the Scrutiny of Bills, Parliament of Australia, Third Report of 44th parliament (Report 5 June 2013) as accessed at https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Human_Rights/Scrutiny_reports/2014/344/~media/committees/senate/committee/humanrights_ctte/reports/2014/3_44/d08.pdf

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The PJCHR accordingly recommended the age limit should be evaluated when the NDIS Act 2013 was set to be reviewed after two years in accordance with section 208 of the NDIS Act9.

despite the PJCHR’s recommendation and concerns raised about inequitable treatment of older persons living with lifelong disability and discrimination, these concerns are ignored and dismissed and the age limit was never part of the two year review10. The Assistant Minister, responded that ‘Subject to the agreement of the Disability Reform Council, the age restrictions on eligibility could be part of the review into the operation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 that is required under section 208 of the Act.’

However, the Disability Reform Ministerial Council, does not include the federal Ministers responsible for aged care11.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (‘Aged Care Royal Commission’) heard evidence about the gaps in services between the National Disability Insurance Scheme and My Aged Care. One example was how Auslan (Australian sign language) interpreters were available through the NDIS, but had not been available to older Deaf Australians through My Aged Care.

As a Deaf elder, I am exhausted and feel broken along with my friends who are in the same situation as me. We feel excluded, neglected and now isolated because of our disability and age. Where do we belong? When are we going to be included and accepted as valued Australian citizens? We just want the right to gain access to services and funding that allows Deaf Elders the right to communicate freely in our own country’.12

The justification for the age limit to access NDIS, were economic cost blow-out, to target NDIS resources towards people of working age, and that aged care would provide equivalent support. The Minister reported to the PJCHR that the aged care system could meet the needs of individual consumers, including needs that relate to a person’s disability13. However, information reported to the PJCHR, the Aged Care Royal Commission and relevant to the class action consistently shows the substantial differences between the aged care system and NDIS means the aged care system is unable to provide the same type and level of disability supports to all individuals born with lifelong disability or acquired in early childhood and is resulting in inequitable treatment.

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Recommendations 72 of the Aged Care Royal Commission addressed inequity for older people living with disability.

However, this recommendation has not been adopted by government showing the danger if there is no robust safety net or checks in any alternative foundational support scheme.

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