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

Submission 33

Community Affairs Legislation Committee Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600

dear committee,

 My name is                 . I am a mother of an adult accessing the NDIS and have managed her plan with support from Support Coordinators since the NDIS was brought into action. My daughter’s quality of life is largely dependent on the NDIS providing her with the supports she    -needs and I am very worried about the changes proposed by the new NDIS Bill and how this impact my daughter’s ability to engage in work, social, and therapy supports.

I have noted my concerns below:

• Getting rid of Reasonable and Necessary and replacing it with: NDIS Supports. I am worried that this also comes with possible and ambiguous constraints such as who you can see (registered or not, but also potentially naming a provider), how much funding can be spent in a period, and a movement towards funding budgets instead of funding individual supports

• Bringing back Independent Assessments but rebranding them as Needs Assessments. These assessments have no clarity around who performs them, their qualifications and experience, what assessment tool is used etc. and have no clearly legislated right to review/appeal

• Primary Disability being the only one funded, and any others that contribute, but don’t meet eligibility criteria detract as a percentage of impact on the funding (how this is decided and who makes this decision is not clear).

• Reviews and appeals of decisions are not currently guaranteed in the new Bill. And decisions with the possibility of following a recommendation for a class of participants or supports and based on the information we put in this algorithm. There doesn’t seem to be information about how decisions are made and if there will be a person doing this or if it will be automated.

• Revoking funding in 90 days (if the NDIS think you’re now ineligible) or 28 days (for a new plan assessment) and any debts incurred will be passed to participants (if their funding is revoked and they still have invoices payable). I am very concerned about how this would impact participants financially – especially when a lot are on the disability pension, and for adult participants, their parents are often retired (like myself and my husband) and unable to pay for these services.

         I don’t support this Bill and it is not clear enough about what will happen to participants for this Bill to pass into law. The Senate can’t make an informed decision about this Bill because there is a distinct lack of clarity on most of the changes.
  

Yours Sincerely,

Support Coordinator/Disability Advocate/Early Childhood Teacher-