Submission 2832
SUBMISSION TO THE SENATE COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Inquiry into Disability Reform, Foundational Supports, Thriving Kids and the
Safeguarding of Vulnerable Australians
Before Parliament Redesigns Disability Supports, It Must First Answer a Simple
Question:
Who Protects Disabled Australians Before It
Becomes a 000 Emergency?
Submitted by:
LNGBT
Parent, Full-Time Carer and Advocate
Submission 2832
Key Recommendations
Recommendation Required Safeguard
1 Establish an Independent Disability Safety and
Accountability Commission
2 Create a National Disability Safeguarding and Crisis Contact
Line
3 Introduce a statutory duty to prevent foreseeable harm
4 Prohibit automated decisions for high-risk participants
5 Require mandatory consultation before future disability reforms
Executive Summary
This submission does not oppose disability reform.
It opposes repeating known failures.
The central issue before Parliament is not whether disability systems should change. The central issue is whether Australia is attempting to redesign disability supports before implementing and evaluating the safeguards recommended by the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
The Royal Commission was established because Australian governments accepted that people with disability were being harmed by systems intended to support and protect them.
After more than four years of evidence gathering, thousands of submissions, public hearings and investigations, the Commission delivered 222 recommendations intended to prevent future harm.
Yet many recommendations remain partially implemented, under development or not implemented at all.
At the same time, governments are pursuing substantial reforms including: Foundational Supports; Thriving Kids; new functional assessment frameworks; reassessment programs; changes to eligibility pathways; changes to plan management and review processes; expanded Ministerial determination powers; restrictions on funded supports. This raises a fundamental policy question: Why is Australia undertaking another major disability reform before fully implementing, evaluating and learning from the recommendations of the largest disability inquiry in Australian history?
Good public policy follows a logical sequence: Identify systemic failures; Investigate those failures; Implement recommendations; Measure outcomes; Evaluate effectiveness; Identify remaining gaps; Undertake further reform. The current approach risks reversing that process.
The Question Parliament Has Not Answered
Throughout discussions about NDIS sustainability, Foundational Supports and disability reform, one question remains unanswered:
Submission 2832
Who protects disabled Australians before a crisis becomes a 000 emergency?
If a disabled person is deteriorating, unsupported or at serious risk today: Who can intervene? Who has authority to act? Who is accountable? Where can families go? Parents are referred between agencies. Participants are referred between departments. Clinicians are directed into complaints systems. Complaints may take weeks or months. Hospitals often become involved only after deterioration has occurred. Emergency services respond after a crisis exists.
The result is that foreseeable risks are frequently identified long before systems respond.
This is not a safeguarding system. It is a crisis response system.
A civilised society should not require vulnerable people to deteriorate before support becomes available.
Disability Supports Are Often Life-Preserving Supports
For many Australians, disability supports are not discretionary services. They are life-preserving safeguards.
Without adequate support many participants face foreseeable risks including: choking; aspiration; wandering and absconding; drowning; medication mismanagement; untreated medical emergencies; self-injury; behavioural escalation; malnutrition; dehydration; neglect; preventable hospitalisation; institutionalisation; death. These risks are recognised every day by families, clinicians, allied health professionals, disability providers, hospitals and governments.
The debate before Parliament is therefore not simply about funding. It is about safety.
The Reforms Risk Increasing Harm Before Safeguards Exist
The proposed reforms place significant emphasis on sustainability, efficiency, standardisation, funding controls and assessment tools.
These objectives cannot be pursued at the expense of participant safety.
The most vulnerable participants often require: continuous supervision; active overnight support; behavioural intervention; communication support; feeding assistance; medical monitoring; intensive daily living assistance. These supports are frequently characterised as service delivery arrangements. In reality they are risk-management systems designed to prevent foreseeable harm.
Removing or reducing such supports does not simply reduce quality of life. It can increase the likelihood of injury, deterioration, psychiatric crisis, family breakdown, hospitalisation, institutionalisation and death.
Submission 2832
The Failure to Recognise Supervision as a Life-Preserving Support
One of the most serious shortcomings within disability policy is the ongoing minimisation of supervision needs.
Continuous supervision is not babysitting. For many participants it is a medically necessary safeguard.
Some participants: have no awareness of danger; cannot recognise emergencies; cannot communicate distress; engage in high-risk behaviours; abscond without warning; require intervention to safely eat; require intervention to safely access the community. For these individuals, even brief periods without supervision can result in catastrophic consequences.
Any reform that assumes supervision can be standardised, capped or replaced by assumptions about informal care creates foreseeable risks of serious harm.
Families Cannot Continue Absorbing Government Responsibility
The reforms increasingly assume families can absorb greater levels of unpaid care. This assumption is unsustainable.
Many carers already provide: overnight monitoring; behavioural intervention; continence support; feeding assistance; medication administration; transport; communication support; crisis management; continuous supervision. Many carers experience chronic exhaustion, sleep deprivation, psychological distress, financial hardship, physical injury and burnout.
A disability system that relies on exhausted families to compensate for inadequate formal supports is not sustainable. It is dangerous.
Disabled Australians Should Not Need to Become Lawyers to Stay Safe
A further concern is the extraordinary complexity of existing pathways.
When disabled Australians face escalating risk, families are frequently directed through: NDIA processes; complaints systems; Tribunal proceedings; hospital emergency departments; advocacy services; local Members of Parliament; federal Members of Parliament; provider complaints mechanisms. This is not accessibility. It is bureaucracy.
People with disability should not require legal expertise, political advocacy skills or prolonged Tribunal proceedings simply to obtain urgent protection.
Emergency departments are not disability safeguarding systems. Tribunals are not disability safeguarding systems. Ministerial offices are not disability safeguarding systems. Complaint processes are not disability safeguarding systems.
Submission 2832
Australia requires a dedicated independent disability safeguarding mechanism that can intervene before foreseeable harm becomes catastrophe.
Recommendation 1: Establish an Independent Disability Safety and
Accountability Commission
Parliament should establish an independent statutory Disability Safety and Accountability Commission.
The Commission should have powers to: investigate systemic failures; investigate preventable harm; investigate unsafe support reductions; monitor harmful funding trends; receive complaints; compel production of documents; conduct public inquiries; investigate disability-related deaths and serious incidents; publish independent reports; make recommendations to Parliament. Independent oversight is not optional where government decisions directly affect safety and survival. It is a fundamental human rights safeguard.
Recommendation 2: Create a National Disability Safeguarding and Crisis
Contact Line
Australia requires a nationally accessible safeguarding service available before a crisis becomes a 000 emergency.
The service should: be accessible to participants, carers and clinicians; provide rapid escalation pathways; operate nationally; support people with communication impairments; accept referrals from advocates and health professionals; triage urgent safeguarding concerns. Every Australian should know exactly where to call when disability-related risks are escalating. Currently there is no clear answer.
Recommendation 3: Introduce a Statutory Duty to Prevent Foreseeable
Harm
The NDIS Act should impose a positive legal duty requiring decision-makers to identify, document and prevent foreseeable risks before reducing, delaying, refusing or restricting supports.
This duty should require consideration of: choking; aspiration; self-injury; behavioural escalation; absconding; untreated medical deterioration; caregiver collapse; neglect; institutionalisation; death. Participant safety must take precedence over administrative convenience.
Submission 2832
Recommendation 4: Prohibit Automated Decisions for High-Risk Participants
No participant with substantial supervision needs, neurological impairment, behavioural complexity, cognitive impairment, communication disability or significant medical vulnerability should have essential supports determined through automated systems or standardised scoring frameworks.
Human lives cannot be reduced to algorithms. Clinical evidence must remain paramount.
Recommendation 5: Mandatory Consultation Before Future Disability
Reforms
No future NDIS Rule, support exclusion, assessment framework, funding restriction or legislative amendment should proceed without meaningful consultation with disabled Australians, parents and carers, advocates, clinicians and disability organisations.
The people most affected by reform must have a genuine voice in its design.
Conclusion
The question before Parliament is not whether disability reform should occur. The question is whether reform should proceed before adequate safeguards exist.
The Royal Commission identified widespread failures. Families continue to report those failures. Clinicians continue to warn of those failures. Disabled Australians continue to experience those failures.
If Parliament proceeds with major reforms without independent safeguarding mechanisms, robust oversight, enforceable duties to prevent foreseeable harm and meaningful consultation, the resulting consequences will not be unforeseen. They will be foreseeable.
The protection of vulnerable Australians must come before administrative efficiency. Before eligibility changes. Before assessment redesign. Before funding restrictions. Before any further reform.
Parliament must first answer a simple question: Who protects disabled Australians before it becomes a 000 emergency?
At present, there is no adequate answer. That must change before these reforms proceed.
Submitted respectfully, urgently, and with profound concern,