Spam: Submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012

From: To: Community Affairs, Committee (SEN); Subject: Spam: Submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012 Date: Friday, 21 December 2012 8:37:34 PM

Please consider this email a formal submission by me to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012.

The current disability system has many problems that need to be addressed.

There are no services to support our family. We have one respite house in our area which has 80 families that use it. Currently there is a long waiting list - into July 2013.To receive some respite a form is sent out which you fill in 3 months in advance & if you are lucky you might get 2 or 3 nights quite possibly none of which you asked for. A weekend is impossible.Our son is 25 with severe Autism with behaviour issues. We cannot use the respite house because of his behaviour so we are left to cope on our own. Its ridiculous after so much red tape we were told to say we would relinquish our son if there was any hope of getting an ISP for him. After 4 letters from medical proffesionals and over a year of meeting after meeting and so many forms to fill out we were offered a small package. We soon found out services were so limited we struggle to use any of the funding.The harder your child / adult is the fewer or should I say nearly nothing is available to help you. No one from DHS even saw our son or us as a family so really they have no idea of our real situation. I rang BIST on several occasions as my son be quite aggressive & violent - lock him in his room if thats what you have to do was there advice. I am apalled at the lack of help , empathy & understanding in this country of ours. The lucky country they say - I think not for our disabled & their families. I cant see the NDIS working for years & years as the system is so badly broken & it will take so much money to fix it the goverment wont follow through. Another sports stadium or art centre will need funding which is so much more important than disabled people. We will just keep going & have no life & no one cares.

The main features of the NDIS that will make a difference to the community are:

• Increased ability to coordinate services to suit the “whole” person/family,
• Minimising the number of times people have to tell their story in order to get support, Older parents and families will not worry what happens when they can no longer provide support

The most important services for the NDIS to provide are:

Accommodation options, Flexible in-home/outside home respite, Crisis and emergency support

I support the introduction of the NDIS.

I would love to say I support it but I cannot see it really happening properly. I think it will be a quick fix as so much money needs to be spent on it. Government do what they want then the elections come around and whoever gets in decides what stays & what goes. Time will tell but I not expecting anything life changing for people with disabilities & their families. We cant even get one night respite now thats how bad things are.

I agree for my submission to be made public

Regards,

Mrs Victoria Ostergaard