Submission 1495
This year, I have managed to run two community events (a writing event at my local library via a facebook group), and a trivia night for the Leukaemia foundation at my local volleyball club. I’ve also started studying a certificate 2 in Auslan interpreting, and I’d really like to do a certificate 3 next semester.
Absolutely none of this would have been possible without my NDIS supports, because without them I would have been burnt out from full time work, unable to sort through my tasks due to executive function failure, and unable to handle the stress or timeline of my assignments. I would not have been able to focus on these activities without my cleaners helping me with my chores, because removing them has removed bodily stress (as the scent of cleaning products would give me headaches and the repetitive motions resulted in flare ups of chronic pain), or without my therapist support to help me understand the pitfalls of communication that may arise during these events due to my communication preferences, or my support worker helping me break down these goals into tasks I could actually action, or practicing phone calls with me so I had a proper script of questions that needed to be answered, or helping drive me to places to identify if they were suitable.
Even before these changes were announced, the barrier of access for NDIS support was incredibly difficult. I’ve had my diagnosis since I was 3, and submitted multiple supporting documents from that period, the period when I was ten, the period when I was a teenager, reports from high school, AND reports from university, all stating a need for external assistance in order to function, and I was still initially denied when I tried to access it myself because I had not been able to word my disability and goals in a way that was believed “necessary” for NDIS access. I had no full time work, struggled with communication, and was trying to pay for the support I needed completely out of pocket, resulting in higher financial costs for my needs in comparison to my currently-abled friends.
The proposed NDIS changes actively continue to perpetuate the disadvantages already held by disabled people, and will make it harder to access and continue appropriate support. How is someone able to afford treatment for something expensive if they are disabled to the point they cannot work? How are you supposed to take care of your family or loved ones while also needing to work full time to have the salary to SUPPORT them?
The NDIS, at initial conception, was a good first step in helping remove the stigma relating to disabilities, and to help people with disabilities be properly supported by their communities the way our social systems are supposed to work - by making the NDIS cover less, harder to access, and more difficult to use, you continue a cycle of hopelessness and exhaustion perpetuated by the existence of human difference.
The NDIS should have more regulation on providers, NOT on the people who need support.
Submission 1495
I’m autistic. If I didn’t have support workers or my therapy budget or communication tools, I would not be able to hold down full time employment. But if I paid for all of these things with my own salary (which is below 80k a year), I would never be able to have a family, I wouldn’t have a savings account (thus increasing my risk of homelessness, losing my job, and then creating far further reliance on government support), and my disability would have disadvantaged my ability to participate in the community, taking away chances to volunteer and thrive.
One of my friends is in a wheelchair. She already cannot access certain buildings, events, or drive. If she did not have a support worker with an accessible car, she would never be able to go to private events. She already sometimes gets left behind on train stations, gets told a place is accessible when it isn’t (we have gone to restaurants and couldn’t sit anywhere because the tables were too close together, or the accessible bathroom was not actually accessible), and got stuck in a building’s staircase during a fire drill because nobody had prepared a fire plan for wheelchair users.
Another one has Epilepsy. She cannot drive. She has been accused of faking her seizures, and needs a constant buddy to ensure that when she seizes, she does not injure herself. She constantly tells me about how she feels guilty for how much time her mum and her sister give up to stay with her - the NDIS has allowed them all to live more of their own lives.
If you take away these supports (and, further, easy access to these supports), I can guarantee you will take away people’s ability to perform full time or part time work. You take away their ability to live, and be loved. This will affect disabled people negatively, as well as their carers and family. It is already exhausting being disabled. Why make it harder for disabled people to use the system that is supposed to protect and help them?
Enshrining into law actual PROTECTIONS and support for disabled people is our goal, not the removal of a system that continues the cycle of belief that disabled people are not worth supporting.
The point of society is to be greater than the sum of our parts. To love and support each other, so everyone gets the chance to live fulfilling and rewarding lives.
Disabled people - the Deaf, the immunocompromised, the neurodivergent, the elderly, the vision impaired (if you wear glasses to see, that’s a disability, babes!), the blind, the millions of beautiful variations of human existence - should not have to pay extra for the right to do so.
The proposed changes to the NDIS will harm peoples’ ability to access and use the NDIS – it will not stop the systemic manipulation of the system by those determined to manipulate or abuse the system.
Submission 1495
If a small group of people want to do something to cause harm, we do not punish those who aren’t doing harm – or, for those who do insurance fraud (merge in front of people and slam on the breaks; falsify damage reports for unowned items, launder money or commit other crimes), do we then just say that insurance in itself is the problem? That people should not have access to it to help themselves?
No. If there is a problem with the NDIS being used for fraud, the issue is those perpetuating fraud – not those who need access to the NDIS.
And, further – I would rather deal with a lower barrier of entry for Disabled people, even if it means a tiny percentage of the participants are ““false”” participants, than make it harder to access.
Disabled people will be cut out. But those falsifying data to access the program will not.
Additionally, this seems to disproportionally target participants rather than providers.
I want my taxes to help my friends, my neighbours, and my enemies. I don’t want a million-dollar missile when the cost is our country - for our country is composed of the abled and the disabled and the neurotypical and the neurodivergent, the poor and the rich and the middle class, and supporting all of our people should be our first priority.