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

Submission 24

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

Attn. Legislative Affairs Committee

Date: 10/07/2024

Dear Legislative Affairs Committee,

I am writing to express my deep concern and alarm about the planned reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), as articulated in The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024. This is my supplementary submission.

Since my first supplementary submission, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), as articulated in The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024. has passed through the House of reps, the Senate has voted the senate take a greater look. I thank the Senate for taking this seriously and for the extra time to raise our concerns.

The Bill still allows for the minister to create lists of things that are “NDIS Supports” and what ar not. This is problematic and dangerous.

For example, the Minister of the NDIS, Bill Shorten, has publicly discussed what NDIS supports will be. While he was talking about sex work, it was clear he had already made up his mind about it being out. Whatever your opinion is on sex workers, replace that with a sensory aid or a custom wheelchair; all of these decisions will be up to the minister of the day if this Bill goes through. We can’t allow it. This is about cuts, not sex. We were also promised co-design. We also don’t know if the states are aware that these decisions are being made with them or not.

This bill is a cruel response to agency incompetence, as 80,00 people are waiting for an S45. I believe the minister is holding those back in the cruellest way until this bill is passed so the NDIA can reject those who have submitted S45s with a budget of zero and have not supplied any information apart from having a budget of zero with no rights to review.

Participants, the NDIA, and the minister know all the reasons an S45 might have been submitted without information.

A few reasons are:

• Poor advice from the NDIA. Many participants, myself included, are often told, “You have plenty of money; come back when you have only $1000 left” If this advice is followed, many participants would not have enough funding for reports supporting genuine S45s requests.

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

Submission 24

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

Another reason could be poor service delivery by a support coordinator or OT. Some SCs are still unaware of how to appropriately support a participant in submitting an S45—that’s if a participant even has the funding to engage those supports.

What this bill allows is the NDIA to deny all S45s that are not backed with any information. A participant could go to the AAT/ART; however, the new law allows the participant to be denied and left without funding.

The NDIS currently doesn’t have any crisis support process or guidelines, so when a person is to be denied without funding or support, they are placed back on the non existent state systems or into life-threatening situations and could face death. Federally decided death.

This bill should not pass. It can not pass, and I urge you, as the decision-makers, to stop it in its tracks.

Thank you,

Jarrod Marrinon