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

Submission 288

deeply concerned about this issue.

Dear Secretariat

This below is the last paragraph of my submission uploaded at 12.42 pm today.

Further to my call to clarify, I am mostly referring to submissions sent from individuals separately that may appear as a template but are their own views that they have agreed with the template, and especially those that have added their own stories or views to the template.

There may also be organisations that submit separate submissions as a group. Even then, these submissions are often from people who have barriers to submitting themselves, The Committee should consider these difficulties when evaluating the individual submissions.

As discussed by phone, this group of people have a great deal of variance in capacity, and need support. They are likely very different to other groups parliament deals with.

It is also in the public interest that the template submissions, if grouped, have the numbers of submissions identified. This did not happen in the “campaign” entry of submission 205

I am happy for this extra detail to be considered as my supplementary submission

From my submission

It has also come to my attention that template submissions are considered a campaign. This is ableism as many disabled people have barriers to submitting individually. Others may see no need to reiterate obvious arguments. Any submissions on a template that have a person’s own story and/or opinions should be listed as a separate submission.

I know of one PhD Occupational Therapist, on linkedin, who added his own views on a template and was annoyed to be slotted in a campaign sub 205. This whole bill, and submissions dates, has been rushed from the start, and politicians with other matters to deal with, disabled people struggling with life, professionals with their work to do, and advocates with people to help, have all been railroaded and rushed in the process.

I would urge the Inquiry to review these template submissions and at least state on the website how many have been received.

Kind Regards

Shirley Humphris