I am a disabled person who is living without adequate support. I have been diagnosed for conditions that have no cure and no approved treatment plan, which greatly impact my quality of life, and yet I have been advised that I do not qualify for the NDIS. Many are living like me.
Already this system is inadequate, and the proposed changes and cuts to funding will leave participants with less support than is necessary for them to live, and to maintain any quality of life.
For the people who do qualify, the support they receive is often still inadequate, just enough to get by on - cutting this funding would kill thousands. Social and community participation support is something that thousands rely on for basic needs - including a dear friend of mine. If these cuts go ahead, he will lose support (potentially entirely) for basic tasks like cleaning and upkeep, outings to the pharmacy and doctors. Things that everyone deserves, and needs, to be able to do to live without unnecessary suffering.
These cuts will kill thousands. Those who manage to survive will be subject to tortures such as choosing between having strangers touch their bodies when they do not wish them to, or going without bathing for dangerous periods of time. They will be completely vulnerable to the abuse of strangers - something which I have heard many many accounts of when NDIS participants are forced to accept registered supports workers only, instead of being able to build up a team of people that they trust. This will have a greater impact on people with higher support needs and those who are multiply marginalised and already more vulnerable to abuse.
I am friends online with many participants in this scheme, and many of them would not survive without the support they receive. Lots of these people also rely on NDIS because they do not have anyone else to care for them. They are without the support of family or friends who would be able to look after them in the absence
- Of support workers and adequate funding.
Without adequate funding, these people will suffer and many will die.
I have heard accounts from disabled people I know that prior to receiving NDIS funding they were stuck in hospitals, too disabled to survive at home on their own and without support to do so. They did not need to be in hospital, taking up beds, putting more strain on an already strained system - they just needed an adequate NDIS plan, so they could go home and live a full life guaranteed by reasonable and necessary funding for their disabilities. Cuts and changes to funding for supports will leave many NDIS participants unable to live at home, and they will be forced back into hospitals to survive. This strain on hospitals will affect everyone, and is entirely avoidable. This is also no way to live - disabled people deserve better, they deserve a full and happy life.
The proposed changes to participant engagement rules, such as the threat of being
deemed “non-contactable”, are discriminatory.
Some disabled people can’t communicate without adequate support, or can’t do so on the time frames that would be required. Every disabled person’s disabilities are complex and individual, and they need complex and individual care. The proposed steps towards automation take away the required nuance in reviews and responses - only people will be able to understand and appropriately respond to every individuals situation, and to determine the funding that they require.
Everyone who lives to an old age will experience disability. Many experience it even before old age. It is a part of the human experience that cannot be denied or ignored. Disabled people have been subject to discrimination for far too long - help to put an end to it. Everybody deserves dignity, and the right to whatever level of support they require to live a full and happy life.
I implore you to stop the cuts to the NDIS and
- stop mandatory registration.
I am strongly against all of the changes proposed in this Bill, and am greatly concerned by the death and suffering that would follow should they go ahead.