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

Submission 79

To whom it may concern,

I am very concerned about the government’s ‘Getting the NDIS back on track Bill’ and believe much more co-design with NDIS participants and analysis by legal experts is needed before it is voted on in the senate.

As an NDIS participant myself my main concerns are that the bill will negatively affect our:

• choice and control (individualisation of supports): there is ‘no one size fits all’ for any human’s needs including disabled people. We may have the same disability as someone else, but have very different comorbidities, life circumstances, housing, informal supports, goals and aspirations, and therefore we may need very different supports and amounts of support. Limiting our lives to predetermined ‘NDIS supports’ and putting us into disability ‘classes’ is like sending the disability community back decades to when we weren’t seen as full humans deserving of individual needs, goals and aspirations. Please keep our right to supports that are ‘reasonable and necessary’.

• choice and control (plan management): participants should always have the right to self-manage our plans, so we can self-manage our lives. Taking away this right is dehumanising and disempowering. No human’s life plays out in a neat ‘pro-rata’ way. Our needs increase and decrease throughout the year depending on bodies, our functionality, and our circumstances throughout the year. We know our lives best and should always be able to manage our own budgets if we choose to.

• legal protection (right to appeal): This is perhaps the most important issue for me - please do not limit our right to appeal NDIS decisions, especially decisions about our entry onto the scheme, our plans, our funding, and our supports. These are our lifelines and we should always have the right to legal protections through appeal processes. The NDIA doesn’t always get it right, and is not above human error.

• legal protections (agency powers): It is not acceptable to give one person (the NDIA CEO) more powers. The CEO can change, and with it how those powers are used. Disabled people’s lives should be protected by detailed legislation no matter

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

Submission 79

who the CEO is or who is in government. I would also like it written into the bill that

no suspension or cancellation of NDIS participants’ plans or supports will ever

happen by automation. I do not want to see another robo-debt like tragedy again

effecting some of the most vulnerable members of our community.

Please listen to the disability community and take the time to get this bill and the

NDIS rules right before passing this legislation. Rushing this legislation and failing to

protect disabled people could have dire consequences for our lives. It is not good

enough to wait five years to review the changes. We need to be confident our rights

and lives will be protected before any legislative change happens.

Thank you for your time