Submission 2775
Submission to the Committee: National Disability Insurance
Scheme Amendment Bill
Submitted by: Kevyn Morris
Location: Wodonga, Victoria
Age: 65
- About Me and My Background My name is Kevyn Morris. I am a proud Yuggera man originally from Southeast Queensland, and I now live in Albury Wodonga on the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri and Dhudhuroa peoples. I am nearly 65 years old. I worked hard for decades as an Australian timber furniture maker and an artist before I was diagnosed with a cognitive impairment in 2015. Today, I live with several chronic conditions, and three of them are degenerative.
Because of my experiences, I have dedicated a lot of my time to volunteering and helping others in the community. I have served as a Board Director for People with Disability Australia (PWDA), and I am a member of the National Older Persons Reference Group for the Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN). I also spent six years working with the Dementia Australia Advisory Committee and have spent a lifetime contributing to various other groups and organisations.
The NDIS has been an absolute blessing for my wife and me. With the support of a worker, it has allowed me to get out and do activities that I had not been able to do for a long time. It also makes it possible for me to do all my volunteering for community organisations on my computer. Without this support, I would be pretty much confined to the house.
- Why These Changes Must Be Scrapped I could write pages on each and every proposed change, but I will confine my submission to these critical points:
No Unchecked Ministerial Power
I want to see the bill changed by deleting the minister’s ability to make rules that rewrite parts of the main NDIS Act without needing a vote in Parliament. No one person should have the right to make rules that will affect thousands of people with no discussion, and no ability for us to challenge those blanket decisions.
Submission 2775
Foundational Supports
The bill introduces a massive loophole by looking at whether supports might be available ‘elsewhere’ outside the NDIS. This is just a get out of jail card for the government. It completely ignores reality. It does not take into consideration whether a participant can even afford those outside services, or the massive financial and physical strain of travel to get to them.
Discrimination Against Multiple Conditions
One of the changes I really, really hate is the idea of only taking one primary condition into consideration. This is pure discrimination by the minister against people who live with multiple chronic, degenerative, disabling conditions. You cannot neatly separate these conditions when they all impact your body and mind at the same time.
Ignoring a Person’s Environment
You cannot look at a person without looking at their environment. Where a person lives, who they live with, their financial situation, and the lack of local services in regional areas like Wodonga all change what kind of support they need. Cutting people off from tailored support because of a rigid formula is blind to how people actually live.
Computers Cannot Judge Human Capability
Using a computer program to decide what we are capable of is wrong on so many levels. Many of us worked for decades, only to reach the senior years of our lives disabled. These changes do absolutely nothing to benefit the people who rely on the scheme, and ordinary participants are being penalised for the actions of large providers and a very small percentage of people who did the wrong thing.
- What These Changes Mean for My Life If these changes go through, this is exactly what it means for me, pure and simple:
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I will spend the significant majority of my days pretty much confined to our home.
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I will be completely unable to participate in community events locally in Wodonga.
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I will not even be able to consider travelling to any event that is more than an hour away because the system refuses to look at my actual environment and travel costs.
Submission 2775
- My Request to the Committee I want the Committee to end these changes and simply make them fair for the government and the participants.
The minister himself said the reason for changing the rules was not because of the participants. Therefore, I would like the Committee to force Minister Butler to rethink all these changes.
Thank you for your consideration.