Senate Submission: NDIA Amendment Bill
Dear Senators, You are being asked to vote for a Bill which is based on the premise that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is unsustainable and that the Bill will fix this undesirable situation.
The premise is not in and off itself sufficient to guarantee the forecast outcome. The Amendment Bill is a Trojan Horse. The real purpose of the Bill is to remove ‘choice & control’ and ‘reasonable & necessary supports’ that enable Participants of the National Disability Insurance Scheme to live a life with the certainty and confidence that we enjoy. It proposes doing so by placing this choice and control in the hands of public servants who will be empowered to make arbitrary rules and arbitrary decisions with the confidence that the Participant is unable to request an external review of the Decision.
For over 13 years I have been the primary carer and advocate for a 61-year-old gentleman who endures cerebral palsy (the Participant). I have observed firsthand the astonishing indifference of the National Disability Insurance Agency as it omitted or cancelled essential Plan Review meetings without genuine reason. I have watched the Agency rely upon lawyers from the largest law firm in Australia to obfuscate the external review process. I have concluded from transcripts and evidence that they have prejudiced the case by misleading the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT). I have observed the Agency’s henchmen conduct the matter with complete disregard to the ‘Obligations of the Model Litigant’. Predictably the Agency sought to settle the matter within days of the scheduled Hearing at the AAT. About 2% of cases are resolved at a Hearing. This matter became one of the 98% only one day before the Hearing. The Agency had little choice to do so given that the Functional Assessment requested by the Agency and ordered by the AAT completely supported the Participant’s application. Ultimately almost four years elapsed between the scheduled Plan Review Meeting and the commencement of a new Plan. In other words, the Participant was denied ‘reasonable & necessary supports’ for almost 4 years whilst spending over $50,000 on lawyers (some of whom worked at reduced rates) who simply asked the Agency to give effect to the NDIS Act.
How does this Bill propose to provide a remedy to such unacceptable circumstances? It proposes to remove the right to review. As if it is not enough that people with disability in our community (some of whom have relied upon
Senate Submission: NDIS Amendment Bill
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the disability pension their entire life) are the least resourced in our country to question the arbitrary and indefensible decisions of a faceless public servant who enjoys remuneration, exceptional superannuation and security of employment that are beyond the imagination of the disabled person. The Commonwealth is without question the best resourced litigant in Australia. It is not a level playing field in any sense. It does not provide a remedy which is within the life of the NDIS Participant’s Plan.
But wait, there is more: The Bill proposes that the Agency will decide what a ‘NDIS Support’ is and what support is not a ‘NDIS Support’. This will be a matter for a public servant with no knowledge of the person, no knowledge of the person’s disability and no knowledge of disability. It is inevitable that ignorance, predice and the aspirations of a public servant seeking promotion will influence the decisions made.
In the days of the State based systems a stranger would knock on the door of a person with disability and inform them that their task was to shower, dress and eat them. For the first time in the history of our nation people with disability were given ‘choice and control’ over who came into their home, who undressed them and who washed their genitals. I am informed that currently there are approximately 165,000 providers and that they are divided into three distinct groups.
- The first group are referred to by the Agency by the prejudicial name of ‘un-registered providers’. This is the largest group of about 150,000 people. It is my contention that this is the largest group because Participants currently have ‘choice & control’ over who they appoint.
- The second group are referred to by the Agency as ‘Registered Providers’. By prescription these are Companies registered with ASIC who submit to the administrative burden of registration and the significant cost of application and auditing of the registration and operation.
- The third group are unregistered providers who are employed by the Registered Providers. These are the frontline workers who are subjected to the commercial targets and commercial interests of an employer with higher administration and compliance costs than the unregistered providers.
Senate Submission: NDIA Amendment Bill
The Bill proposes that all providers must be registered. The case for this is invisible. One only need watch A Current Affair to know that the most disturbing failures of care have been due to the lack of diligence and oversight of $2 companies that have bought the Registered Provider crown.
In effect, Bill proposes that the Government should have arbitrary and discretionary control over who will walk in the door of a Participant’s home. There are five significant problems with this:
- The Bill proposes ignoring Australia’s endorsement of the United Nations Charter on the Rights of Persons with Disability.
- The operational detail is absent from the Bill (people with disability do not like surprises) and they do not trust the Agency.
- The Bill in effect completely ignores the landscape of the current marketplace where people with disability choose a support person from the cohort which represents over 90% of the marketplace.
- The Bill proposes that the Participant’s ability to choose a Plan Manager to perform the administrative tasks of authorising payments to providers and reconciling the use of funding to the Agency be removed. Plan Managers provide a level of personal service and familiarity with the Participants’ Plan that the Agency is unable to match. Plan Managers are amongst the most efficient businesses in the NDIS marketplace performing their dimensionless task with diligence for a very modest fixed price. On the other hand, the Agency relies upon a primitive XL spreadsheet and staff who lack the knowledge and familiarity to give appropriate advice to Participants who are unable to navigate it either. The elimination of “Plan Management” will be disastrous for people with disability who might lack strong organisational skills, knowledge of the NDIS Act and a high level of computer literacy. The elimination of Plan Managers will also send these businesses to the wall and their caring employees to welfare.
- The Bill proposes that even though a Participant has already endured an intrusive Functional Capacity Assessment by a person appointed by the Agency and that even though that person has been assured by the Agency that they will never be requested or required by the Agency to endure such an assessment again that they actually will be required to do so under threat of losing funding.
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I acknowledge that change is needed. But change must start with both the Government and the Agency. Currently staff at the Agency rely upon opaque guidelines rather than the NDIS Act to make decisions. Staff at the Agency require intrusive personal reports by expensive specialists, general practitioners and therapists then ignore them by either making an arbitrary decision which they are unqualified to make or failing to even conduct a Plan Review Meeting or to review a Plan based upon the professional reports submitted prior to the proposed Plan Review Meeting.
I have been informed by more than one staff member at the Agency that it is presently drowning under a tidal wave of Plan Reviews which have been entirely foreseeable. This is not the time to empower it or to get the tools out and play with the NDIS engine.
Despite the inefficiency of the Agency, the NDIS is independently credited with delivering over $2 of benefit for every $1 invested in it. Someone asked me recently how could this be so? I asked him how much money he had invested in his car. I then asked him how much he had invested in ABS brakes, traction control, seatbelts, side intrusion panels, a collapsible steering wheel and airbags. He didn’t have an answer, but he conceded that the cost of hospital care would be far more expensive than whatever he had invested. If we could eliminate the inefficiencies of the Agency it could deliver even more benefit!
I have participated in the Governments expensive consultation process. I have had to identify myself before I entered so called townhall meetings and I have been informed that I will be recorded. I watched as only three people from the floor were given a limited opportunity to participate and contribute. I had to agree with other attendee’s that it was not a genuine consultation process.
The Government seeks to distract you with dialogue that is constructed to seduce the attention of Ray Hadley and harvest rage over the uncosted and undisclosed value of sex workers for persons who have had their needs validated by the Federal Court.
Please don’t let the Government distract you. Please vote against this Bill.