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

Submission 264

To whom it may concern,

I write with deep concerns about the so-called “ Getting the NDIS Back on Track“ bill.

The Bill must take a whole-of-person approach, not pushing a person inaccuracurately into a box of “primary disability”.

There must be no punitive measures, and no restriction of formerly incarcerated persons’ right to NDIS support - this is a breach of Australia’s international law obligations, and Australia remains the only country to have been censured under OPCAT.

Furthermore, forcing medical assessments to be acquired will further negatively impact Australia’s already struggling health system, with doctors’ time taken up by even more appointments that are not medically required.

The limit of choice and control regarding supports and support providers is appallingly bad financial decision-making. Registered-only-providers is meaningless if registration does not actually keep Disabled people safe, and if I were limited to for-purpose equipment with my funding, then a device I use solely for communication, that cost the NDIS $340 because I was able to purchase a simple off-the-shelf tablet, would have cost tens of thousands of dollars as a specialist, crip-taxed device.

The Council for the Australian Federation does not think this Bill (legislative, or Shorten) will actually make a meaningful difference to the amount of fraud, which is overwhelmingly perpetrated by registered providers, not by participants or unregistered providers, and neither do I. This Bill is not fit for purpose.

I am also deeply troubled by the lack of mandatory legislated co-design in the Bill, especially for one so unpopular and concerning to and among Disabled Australians and disability peak bodies in Australia. Co-design must be enshrined as the first principle of any legislation affecting Disabled people’s lives - nihil de nobis, sine nobis (“nothing about us without us”)..

There must be a clear and enshrined way to appeal any decisions made about participants’ lives. Oversight of appeals should include Disabled people as decision-makers.

Defining “NDIS supports” only after the bill passes is a dangerous Trojan horse, allowing anything to theoretically be retrospectively confirmed as the set definition referred to in the legislation.

Minister Shorten’s behaviour surrounding the bill has been entirely inappropriate, including lambasting Disabled people for theoretical and supposed misuse of funds while paying for a campaign billboard which claims he acts in Disabled people’s interests more than a Disabled person (a Senator, Steele-John). He has completely lost what trust the Disabled community has previously had in him.

I trust that this email, in which I exercise my right to participate in a civic process open to the public, will in no way negatively impact Disability Representative Organisations in which I am involved, nor my NDIS plan and supports, current or future.

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

Submission 264

With regards, Maria Scharnke

                    Maria Scharnke Autism Writes
                             Disabilitv Right$, Theorv, Advocacy, & Justic$
                                                      aacil.neocities.org
                                      autismwrites.neocities.org | autismwrites.creator-spring.com
                                      linkedin.com/in/maria-scharnke | twitter.com/MScharnke