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

From: To: Community Affairs, Committee (SEN); Subject: Submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012 Date: Wednesday, 23 January 2013 12:34:04 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.

As secretary/co cordinator of the Peninsula Carer Council Inc I am writing on behalf of our 147 members. We are all volunteers, carers of people with a mental illness living on the Mornington Peninsula Victoria. We have had extensive both formal and informal discussions about the National Insurance Scheme and hope you will consider our submission carefully. The basic difficulty of the current disability system is the difficulty of identifying mental illness as a disability - we fear that this may be the basuic difficulty of the NDIS, MENTAL ILLNESS IS A CINDERELLA DISABILITY and we hope the NDIS will be our fairy godmother. Anyone living with a mental illness as a consumer, a care or a friend knows how important maore support is necessary ,

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

• Ensure support and equipment is available when needed, The ability to receive services when needed and in the way that suits the person, 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:

• Therapy and allied health services, Case management, planning and coordination, Crisis and emergency support

I support the introduction of the NDIS.

Our members are excited about the implementation of the NDIS but fearful that mental illness may not be included. We believe the scheme could benefit all the community if the following steps were followed.

1. Tax levy similar to Medicare ( ie protection for all .No-one knows when a disability will occur, especially mental illness and if a taxpayer does not have to access the fund in his lifetime he can just consider himself fortunate and the levy well applied)
2. Eligibility determined in same manner as eligibility for Disability Pensions with well trained professionals to ensure outreach and equal access regardless of social , economic or academic status. 3, Centralised services with less competition for services/submissions/funding.
3. More professionally trained, well paid support workers to advocate for all consumers regardless of economiic/academic/social status.

Inclusion of mental illness in the NDIS would be in the national interest. The Government would earn its place in history if it was courageous enough to legislate for a tax levy for the NDIS . There is a mean fringe in every culture and every political party but there is also a sound core of fair-minded, generous people who would support a levy to improve the quality of life for all citizens.

I agree for my submission to be made public

Regards,

ms Aline Burgess