We are older parents with one adult son on the NDIS. Our other adult son will be his carer when we are deceased. Any changes in the NDIS Act directly impact my son and our family. I have grave concerns about setting our son up for an adult life and our ability to safeguard his future with the changes proposed in the Bill.
We think the Bill should be rejected in its current form and re- written.
The changes proposed to the NDIS Act are also vast and complex and only a short time was given for submissions. Ordinary people will be unable to understand the ramification of what is being proposed and will be relying on advocates to criticise the detail. It is disappointing that the Government has not taken the initiative to have more public consultation before they drafted a Bill which makes so many fundamental changes to the NDIS and I hope they will now pause the Bill to inform and consult the disability community.
We ask that fundamental NDIS scaffolding is placed in the primary legislation, not the NDIS Rules.
This will ensure that the original intent of the NDIS is upheld and that the integrity is preserved for the future. Provisions in the Act should be made where the Federal Government and the NDIA are accountable, and not given legal largesse to act in ways contrary to the UNCRPD. Give disabled people and their families certainty that human rights can be upheld into the future.
Could the Federal Government outline what they want to achieve?
It would appear the aim of the Bill is budget cuts to limit the growth of the cost of the Scheme. However, sustainability is more than saving money and making it affordable. Simon Duffy, a leading UK disability e expert on schemes such as the NDIS said, “A sustainable system is a system that does not erode all the things that societies can’t buy with money: citizenship, family, community, love and a commitment of social justice”.
Rapid monetary savings engineered by changes in this Bill comes at the cost of eroding human rights.
All levels of government have a responsibility to be accountable for a humane and realistic plan if services are to be transitioned to “foundation supports” which currently don’t exist or are abysmally inadequate. It can take one day to demolish a building but many months or years to build one again. At the moment there is no commitment or assurance of ongoing, strong foundational supports being implemented alongside this Bill.
Needs based assessments
The Bill gives the Minister and the Government powers to create and enforce a compulsory needs based assessment and to use this to determine a budget. A ‘needs assessment’ would not be a ‘reviewable decision’.
How are they different to independent assessments (IA) ? Could the government please elaborate and explain. It seems that the current government is adopting a type of IA which they rejected whilst in Opposition. We need so much more information from the Government,
If this is to go ahead then the legislation should also mandate that the assessment tools can only be implemented if co-designed in consultation with the disability community and subject to modifications and change with regular ongoing scrutiny so they are fit for purpose.
The Government should be transparent and explain the method they will use to turn a needs based assessment will into the dollar figure of a reasonable and necessary budget.
The Bill should allow the participant to submit evidence such as a functional capacity assessment and other necessary evidence.
The Bill should allow for the participant to receive a draft of the assessment, with explanation of how it was calculated and given an opportunity to correct any errors.
Classes of Participants
Classes of Participants is a classification that is not explained or defined and is mentioned almost 80 times within the Bill so it is obviously it is crucial to the implementation of the Government’s plans.
Could the Government please explain what these classes might be? Could the government be more transparent and give us more information?
It sounds like the 400 personas that were rejected with IA.
Our son will be put in some new unknown classification system for unknown reasons. We feel anxious because the reason for it is shrouded in mystery. When reasons are deliberately hidden it is natural to feel threatened and imagine the worst.
Submission 2 by NDIS Occupational Therapy Community of Practice (NDIS OT CoP) delineates the danger of this Class system: “Classification systems segregating groups of participants determined by ‘identifiable characteristics’, are at risk of becoming discriminatory and of creating policy segregation”.
We imagine that Autistic people will be in a class but how will the different levels be classified, and those with intellectual disability, will they be in another class? The system only allows for one impairment. The inclusion of multiple disabilities is currently unclear and unresolved.
Early Intervention
Being a participant on the NDIS means that there is proof of permanent disability. We do not agree in having adults who have been granted access being reassessed with the purpose of revocation of participant
status eg classifying adult Autistic people as Early Intervention with the
view to removing them from the Scheme.
NDIS Supports
to be truly based on human rights the Bill should ratify the whole UNCRPD not cherry pick. Currently the proposed NDIS supports are too narrow; there will be important omissions. rules will dictate where you can spend the funding. Does this mean it will be illegal to flexibly purchase supports that are not listed (like employment and personal care). could the Agency raise a debt?
these lists of supports need to be co-designed in consultation with the disability community and explained ahead of time. Perhaps it would be better to list clear exclusions only. an exhaustive list may not be possible or even desirable from a working perspective.
Can we see the data that underpins the Government’s decision to list supports? What modelling has the actuary done? what are they actually hoping to achieve?
How these changes could affect our son
i imagine there might be an ndis rule that the Class of autistic people are only to be funded for and have approval for ot and speech therapy. It is already apparent that the staff at the ndia have been told to deny Autistic people funding for exercise physiology and dietician services as they do not (according to the ndia) need these for their disability. Without understanding the breadth of this neurodevelopment disorder, I expect Psychology and Physiotherapy will also be denied.
The whole premise of budget flexibility will be constrained by the Rules for your class.
We can see that employment support is excluded. Finding a job for a disabled person is very challenging and innovative options like micro- Enterprises, Job carving and customised Employment (which are not interchangeable with des) were new individualised solutions funded by the NDIS. These are not on the list of NDIs supports. Could we still use Our flexible funds on employment Support?
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We hoped to have our son move out of home.
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Home and Living, as well as personal care are not on the list of NDIS Supports.
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If he is funded at a 1:3 ratio only for community participation, and needs support to live independently, then he will be inadequately funded.
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The burden of care will fall to us, the parents, and then to his brother.
Currently parent training and peer support are helping our family cope, thrive, plan for the future, have community, share resources and ideas. These are not in the list of NDIS Supports.
We are dreading our son having to undergo a compulsory needs-based assessment. We would want it to be a fair and accurate, well-designed process based on best clinical practice with trained staff and the absolute right of appeal.
Thank you for giving us an opportunity to share our thoughts and fears.