Hello, you don’t know me, I am a Bolshy Diva.

We believe in disability rights movement, social justice, activism and advocacy. The disability sector was a sector of state-based funding models and service delivery models across all states and territories. The advent of this N D I S was a federally endorsed scheme that the Labor and Liberal government all agreed to.

This report is going to detail where the N D I S is at and where it will go. It’s going to give you a picture of society and disability and how the N D I S has inevitably failed the people it was designed for. This report is going to look to other parts of the world to see how they manage disability. This report is going to identify gaps in service delivery, co design and co delivery. This report is going to leave with a lot of case studies they have deidentified because of anonymity in privacy. This report is going to give you a holistic behavioural science view of the sector and it is going to make you think, should we be giving the minister power like reality TV, e.g. Big Brother, to control how people live, work and function.

This report is going to identify ways in which people can be supported to live their life their way. This report will finally have a personal ending from the person who calls himself a Boshy Diva and you will find out who he is and what his life is going to be like should these changes go through.

Thank you for reading this. Sorry I can’t be there in person, but I’ve decided that to be there in person would be too traumatic for me. So, I am writing this. I hope people will listen and repeal this new bill, because its bad policy that is a legal and ethical nightmare that takes control away from the person.

I have a profound disability, and I have family with disability. I live and work with a disability and some of you in the government have even met me. I’ve worked in advocacy, social justice, behavioural science, independent living, systemic advocacy and individual advocacy. No section or level of government or the community should be immune from acts of abuse, neglect and exploitation. What I mean is, we need better ways of training staff, promoting healthy-best practice models, promoting what an inclusive society looks like, and pointing out at risk groups. We need better ways of working with police and legal services to bring people to justice, so that cases like Ann Marie Smith, don’t happen again. The federal government commissioned an NDIS review which consulted many stakeholders and participants and looked to a pathway of managing costs with getting foundational supports up and running, but under this review anyone could access these foundational supports, they were limited to disability type. They acknowledged that disability was complex, that the NDIS could not be the only lifeboat in the ocean, that cohorts needed tailored, individualised support. Instead, what we have is Thriving Kids and other programs to be rolled out. If this ‘Thriving Kids’ legislation gets passed, there’s nothing wrong with foundational supports as an idea, but I think they need to be a part of the same ecosystem for everyone to utilise if they feel they need to use them.

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They are elements to any disability that would need psychosocial support. There are definitely elements to some people with CP, that because of their brain damage, they have autistic-like tendencies. There are people with communication disability who struggle with socialisation. There are definitely with comorbidities of mental health conditions and developmental delay. I would like to know that there are definitely some good elements to ‘Thriving Kids’, but you would need thriving young adults, thriving teenagers, thriving 50+ year olds.

What I’m saying is you can’t assume every person with a developmental delay is going to hit the same expected milestones and then what do they do, go back to the NDIS to be reviewed again?

As a person who worked in disability for 15 years, I’m calling for an immediate rethink of this Bill and all associated elements, including, ‘Thriving Kids’.

I think any foundational supports need to be co-designed and co-developed with community they are made for. The states and territories all acknowledge they cannot provide the same sort of the support that the NDIS is currently providing, so where are these people going to go, will they be supported at all, or will they turn to drugs, crime and alcohol. The world is not designed for neurodiverse people. It’s fast-paced, its’s everchanging and there are more and more social, cultural and societal demands placed on people.

I’m going to talk more broadly about my support needs, my community access needs and what I do for work, study and community access. I am a behavioural scientist, and I work in the field of complex communication, individual support, advocacy and social justice. I believe in the social model of disability, I believe people should have access to the personalised funding that they need and equipment they need and also I believe they should have access to home modifications vehicle modifications and respite, as this for many people is essential. I also have worked on the Behind Closed Doors project which was the first inquiry of its kind. It looked into violence, abuse and exploitation of disabled people. It also told some horrific stories of sexual abuse, restrictive practice and exploitation. it also went through trauma and disability suicide, which I would like to say doesn’t happen in this day and age, but we know disability abuse, neglect and violence has increased under the N D I S.We now know the bad behaviour hasn’t been dealt with, we also know that the providers are sometimes the biggest perpetrators. Abuse, neglect and exploitation will not be stopped by algorithms, and cutting people off the NDIS will likely cause more abuse and harm and even suicide or infanticide.

Co design, co delivery and the development of resources, agency functions and progress is important.

I know many people who have fallen out of bed or chairs or been burnt in the shower. I know of someone that I am going to call ‘person A’ who had a complex disability, complex autism, psychosocial disability and developmental delay. He had almost every mental disorder you could have in the book. I was lucky enough to mentor him and this person tragically lost his life. He went from group home to group home. This is why I believe as a disability advocate,

• human rights campaigner and a proponent for individualized support, that no one should be put in a group home, facility or SDA. As a nation we need to do better to strive for better work to include, not to isolate. We need to help the most vulnerable people who need compassion.

I hope you learn from this and I hope you learn that people matter, society matters, the support matters. I hope you learn that inclusion matters. I hope when I talk about the Toronto Summer Institute and what I learned from it, you don’t think that it’s nonsense, because the Toronto Summer Institute told me about trauma Informed approaches, it taught me about advocacy, taught me about listening, taught me about working together and planning for someone’s future. It taught me about building a society that was inclusive of all people. I met people there from all over Canada. There was this one person, I’m going to call him ‘person K’.

Person K didn’t get the support he needed to have the therapy. He was in the same wheelchair since he was two and I bring this story to attention to say Canada hasn’t got it right, but Australia has the opportunity to get it right.

There are a lot of people in Pigeon Park Canada sitting in wheelchairs, who don’t have care or food. When I left after being in Toronto, there was a humanity, a willingness to fight for their rights, and find ways to look outside the box to include them and support them to live in the best way possibly got them.

To conclude this submission, I’m going to tell you that my name is and I am an almost 40 year old person living with profound disability. I’m also Boshy Diva that I am very proud to be associated with a movement that wants to disrupt the disability sector in a positive way for good. To the people who have read this, I want you to repeal this appalling, inhumane Bill that is going to infringe on the rights and lives of people with disability and their families. To quote Jordon Steele- he believes the NDIS should live up to its stated promise to the disabled community and should be totally redesigned from the ground up. This submission is also going to every government minister and senator. Thank you for your patien