From: To: Community Affairs, Committee (SEN); Subject: sub963Submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012 Date: Thursday, 17 January 2013 2:58:05 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.
At the moment I find that based on where you live, what council you belong to, the amount or type of assistance differs in a huge way. At times providers of care are required to stick to ‘rules’ governing how much assistance is given to whom and often the person with disability can fall outside the ‘catergories’ determined by the ‘rules’ and hence the assistance provided, including education, is not appropriate. This in turn causes people with disability to be prepared for full time care required as they age, rather than using their strengths to prepare them for some kind of independance. I feel the government often ‘shoots itself in the foot’, by not being flexible in helping children with education, and hence these children grow into adults that require full time care. When looking for assistance, it is always based on how black a picture you can paint about your situation, and this is used to grade how desperate you are for help and determines how high on the wait list you are put. Throwing money at a problem is not always the answer, as sometimes you have the ‘money’ but do not know where to get help, or when you look for help, people do not understand your problem and just tick you off as having been helped, when assistance is still required.
The main features of the NDIS that will make a difference to the community are:
Better access to education and work opportunities, Minimising the number of times people have to tell their story in order to get support, Less red tape, with planning done locally by people who know their community
The most important services for the NDIS to provide are:
Education support (technology/services/equipment), Support for families and carers, Case management, planning and coordination
I support the introduction of the NDIS.
I feel that a fairer system is required, but more importantly, a system that provides assistance to you as a known entity. I look forward to the day when the system does understand the needs of people under its care, accepts that not everyone fits into a single pidgeon hole and provides assistance as required. With a case manager who understands the person with disablilty, then, it means that they can provide the support required and ‘bat’ for them. Right now it seems that extra assistance is available if you have certain disabilities, and you can’t get the same assistance, even though you have similiar issues but do not have the same name for your disablity. Hopefully, each person will be supported based on what is needed and not what someone in an office, in another state, decides is required.
I agree for my submission to be made public