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

Submission 82

To whom it may concern

I am a NDIS participant and I am totally opposed to this legislation going through the senate.

The whole bill runs counter to the precepts of choice and participant control on which the NDIS was based.

The legislation would leave ‘rules’ & ‘tools’ of the program and people on it vulnerable to change at the whim of the government of the day. This will only serve to create more distress and uncertainty for participants.

It is dangerous to take away any rights of appeal for disabled people

The ‘rules’ & ‘tools’ that underpin the proposed system should be co-designed with disabled and made transparent before this legislation is passed.

In its current draft It is reductive and dehumanising to turn people into categories. Each disabled person is different and deserves to be assessed as such .

Disabilities are complex and our medical professionals and those close to us are sometimes the only ones that comprehend the nature of our disability & circumstances. Assessment should be a whole person circumstance approach .

The journalist who broke the robodebt debacle has warned that the legislation is open to put the lives of disabled people at risk and cause distress by using same methodology as robodebt.

This commentary has been laughed off by the government but no protections are in this bill to prevent this from happening .

I apologise for the disjointedness of this letter but it is all I could pull together in the timeframe .I hope you listen to myself and other disabled people & I implore the senate not to pass this legislation.

Sincerely NDIS participant