From: To: Community Affairs, Committee (SEN); Subject: Submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012 Date: Thursday, 17 January 2013 10:38:01 AM
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.
The power to decide a person’s future is in the hands of entrenched service providers, which have become distant from the actual needs of people with disabilities in favour of the service providers’ perceived priorities.
The existing system places multiple hurdles in the path of people with disabilities and their families (e.g. the ritualistic need to apply and justify need for funding assistance despite no change to disability status year-in-year out). The fragmented, state-specific, system that puts process ahead of productivity, and perceived requirements ahead actual needs must change.
The main features of the NDIS that will make a difference to the community are:
People with a disability can choose the types of support to use, People with a disability can plan their lives and pursue their goals and dreams, The ability to receive services when needed and in the way that suits the person
The most important services for the NDIS to provide are:
Equipment and home/vehicle modifications, Employment support, Flexible in home/outside home respite
I support the introduction of the NDIS.
The NDIS, if delivered as the Productivity Commission has recommended, will provide a unmatched guarantee of support for people with disability.
The proposed NDIS places the power in the hands of people with disability and their families. For too long the disability system has focused on the ‘perceived’ requirements of people with disability as dictated by entrenched service providers at the cost of actual needs of people with disability.
The NDIS has the capacity to change people’s lives and provide the mechanism by which the aspiration of an inclusive society is finally realised. An inclusive society recognises, enhances and embraces the capacity of all its members to be productive and fulfilled.
I agree for my submission to be made public