National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024

Submission 101

Dear Committee,

Thank you for extending the submission date.

I am a person with complex disability and have been an NDIS participant since 2019.

I am a single adult woman, who has no in-home informal supports, and very limited external informal supports, and is therefore heavily reliant on my NDIS-funded support services.

I am very worried about the needs assessment and the lack of detail that will only be known later. We do not even have certainty that a qualified person will be the assessor or whether our own information will be allowed. It is especially concerning that there is no right of review of the assessment, only a request of a replacement that can be refused.

I feel that assessment detail is too important to leave to a later legislative instrument and I do not see how the bill should be approved without more certainty.

I understand that other impairments, that may not meet the disability access criteria, have now been included in a proposed amendment. According to the explanatory memorandum, however, other impairments will only be picked up in the tool.

The tool has not been described in the bill, yet the bill states it must be used. That detail is to come later. That is very worrying that it will be an inappropriate tool for me, yet the tool will be used because the law will say it must be.

Even though a proposed amendment states the other impairments will be assessed, the bill also states in s34 1 aa that only those impairments that meet the disability access criteria will be funded. That is a contradiction.

As someone who has many impairments that need funding, this clause 34 1 aa is very concerning. It will lead to harmful under-support and this clause must be removed from the bill.

The support of the whole person had been promised in the NDIS Review and this bill does not do that.

I am concerned about the following aspects of the Bill:

• The NDIA can demand any information from you and kick you off if you don’t give it to them in 90 days.
• The NDIA can decide your main disability without telling you, and you can’t dispute it.
• The NDIA will only fund supports based on what they think your main disability is, even if you disagree.
• The NDIA can make you pay back money if they don’t like how you spent your funding - You could get in trouble and have to pay back money for what your support coordinator does, even if you didn’t agree to it.
• The NDIA can force you to use supports that don’t work for you or aren’t available where you live.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDI Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024

Submission 101

• The NDIA can make you use providers that treated you badly and make you feel unsafe.

• The NDIA can make you use providers that go against your identity, culture, religion, or sexuality, even if it’s discrimination.

• The NDIA wants to assess your funding without explaining how and won’t promise to listen to disabled people later.

• The NDIA will have confusing lists of what supports you can and can’t get, and can make you pay back money if they think you used a wrong support.

• The NDIA can demand all your private medical information without saying why, and you can’t say no.

• You could get punished and have to pay back money because of a provider’s mistake that wasn’t your fault.

• The NDIA can take away your control over supports if they disagree with how you used your funding.

• Hard times in your life could get you kicked off the NDIS without you realising it, leaving you with no supports and bills to pay.

• The NDIA can change how you manage your funding. From Self-Managed or Plan- Managed to Agency-Managed because you didn’t spend your funds exactly how they thought you should.

Thank you for your due diligence on this vital legislation. It is important to so many that it is sound legislation.

Regards,

NDIS Participant Victoria