National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024
Submission 195
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024 submission to Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry
deeply concerned about this issue.
Dear Committee
Thank you for extending the submission date
I am a person with complex disabilities, also a parent of 2 children, and one adult son with complex disabilities, and a support coordinator working in the NDIS space.
I have seen so much in the last two years working in this space of how much is not right currently with the NDIS and have many suggestions for how to help make it a much better system.
Personally I am exhausted from trying to just live and be a mum living with disabilities. The NDIS is supposed to be able to help me with my disabilities and without the help and support of my treating professionals and my support team I would not be able to function well. I am in a severe burnout at the moment which has lasted for months. I have not had a support worker for many months and this is now showing how much I really do need this support to function well. I am currently interviewing to find the right fit.
I am very scared for the future of the NDIS with the current bill proposed, and what its effects will be on my family and the disability community. We have already had to fight so hard for what we currently have, and I know that its breaking me personally having to fight for myself and my children.
I am very 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.
This scares me and the general disability community to death quite honestly.
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 a completely inappropriate tool for myself and my family. Thus tool will be used because the law will say it must be.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024
Submission 195
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, including my children, 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.
Thank you for your due diligence on this vital legislation. It is important to so many, that it is sound legislation.
Regards