Submission 953
Submission on the NDIS Amendment Bill
Name:
I am a: Disabled person Family member / supporter
Advocate
Introduction / my connection to this issue
I am writing to you as a disabled person, family member and advocate. I can see the damage this change will do to my local community at all levels and urge you reject this bill and protect the NDIS. I am submitting this because I am afraid of the deaths that will come from a reduced NDIS. As a disabled person the NDIS has improved my quality of life immensely, it has granted me access to mobility aids I cannot otherwise afford and access to reliable treatment to prevent a worsening of my condition. I see a physio and OT fortnightly to support my physical and mental health. I only access services through small, independent businesses, meaning my funding directly contributes to the employment of Australian families.
With reduced funding my capacity to study and work will be reduced and members of my community will lose their jobs.
My overall position on this Bill
I do not support it I have serious concerns
Explain why (in your own words):
I am concerned that the economic impacts have not been adequately thought through. Every year I have a budget of $20K for accessing supports. These supports allow me to employ: a plan manager, an OT, a physiotherapist, and an orthotics maker. Without funding supports I cannot afford to access any of these services. Without the NDIS none of these people would have jobs. These industries will experience mass layoffs to accommodate the decrease in clients. These workers will end up on job seeker.
When carers are no longer paid for by the NDIS, it will be predominantly women who will take on caring roles and be forced to quit their jobs. This will negatively impact the tax that these women pay now, and their overall superannuation contributions. These women will rely on carers payments and then a government aged care pension due to an inability to work. For many people this will cause lifelong financial instability.
For me and other disabled people able to work and study, a lack of support means losing our jobs and relying on the DSP. Many of us are able to work with the necessary accommodations, but without those accommodations we cannot pay our fair share of tax.
For disabled people in an abusive household, reducing access to carers means they will experience higher rates of abuse and domestic violence. Not being able to work means they will be financially dependant on an abusive partner. If their partner is their carer they may be left for days unclean, unfed, and in unsafe conditions.
Submission 953
The plan will also increase disabled people’s reliance on the emergency room and hospital system. The hospital system is overcrowded, underfunded and understaffed. We do not have enough beds for all patients and without adequate at home supports disabled people will stay stuck in the hospital even when they no longer require hospital care.
For rural and remote Indigenous communities, the new requirements to be contactable and eligibility requirements will impact them disproportionately. Rural and remote Indigenous communities often do not have reliable access to phone service, WIFI or efficient postal services. People may lose funding not because they stopped needing it but due to systemic barriers to entry. Indigenous communities also have worse access to basic healthcare. Under a stricter eligibility requirement, an Indigenous person in a remote location may have their request denied not because they aren’t disabled but because they are physically unable to access supports in urban areas. The cost of accessing urban healthcare is much higher for remote communities that require planes to leave Country. It is not reasonable to expect disabled Indigenous people to spend their life savings trying to access specialist care when they have an incurable disability. Indigenous communities deserve adequate, culturally appropriate healthcare. Indigenous people are more likely to become disabled due to their lack of access to care. They must be centred in all plans for the NDIS.
I am also deeply concerned about automated decision making deciding my plan. I have cerebral palsy, a condition with five levels of severity and four subtypes of symptomatic presentation. Some of my peers need AAC devices and funding to access Auslan as their main form of communication. Some of my peers use walking sticks, wheelchairs or powerchairs. Some of my peers require feeding tubes and formula to eat. The variety of needs in just one group is to vast for a computer to understand. A real person needs to talk to us and see directly what our day-to-day life looks like. A child has different needs to an adult at uni, who has different needs to a new parent. We are not a monolith who can fit neatly into a box. I have PTSD caused by my adverse medical experiences as a child with cerebral palsy, for me to be able to attend physiotherapy as an adult, I required a year and a half of trauma processing therapy. That is not something a computer would be able to include in a plan.
For every $1 that goes into the NDIS, $2.25 of value is put into the economy. The NDIS cuts will not reduce the cost of caring for disabled people, it will simply move the cost. The cost will go to job seeker, and carers allowance, DSP, the hospital system, domestic violence shelters, and individuals/families who will have to go into debt to afford care.
My lived / professional experience
(Stories, examples, or observations)
Getting on the NDIS was the most degrading experience of my life. I had a stroke at birth and will have brain damage for the rest of my life. I am disabled. My first application was denied despite the fact that I have received some form of funding since I was 18 months old. There is no person on the NDIS who endured the agonising experience of proving their disability without a shadow of a doubt to steal money from the government.
The real fraud comes from providers who mark up NDIS clients’ costs. On medicare, if I want to see a psychologist, it would cost me $168.97, with a medicare rebate of $98.97. To see that same
Submission 953
psychologist on my NDIS plan would cost me $270 an hour. Nearly $100 mark up because I am disabled. The psychologist has the same training, same working hours, same ability to help me regardless of the route I choose, but because I am an NDIS participant I am charged $100 extra.
This bill fails to meaningfully engage with the Disabled community. It does not take our lived reality or humanity into account. It decides that we are a budgeting problem that needs to be fixed rather than a vulnerable community that is worthy of support because we are human. People are going to kill themselves because the government is publicly declaring that the world will be better off without them in it.
What needs to change or be protected
We need to protect the children on the NDIS. Through early interventions, children are able to build their functional capacity. This improves their quality of life immensely and reduces the supports they need as they age.
We need to protect Indigenous communities, as the survivors of genocide they are disproportionately disabled. We need to create early interventions that improve health outcomes at all level.
We need to protect women and mothers who disproportionately give up their lives to care for disabled family members. Without professional carers to ease their burden, families collapse.
We need to protect the NDIS funding and expand the criteria to allow more disabled people to receive care. Why can anyone be on DSP but not on the NDIS, if they are too disabled to work surely they require additional care.
Disability is the only minority group you can join at any time, and I pray when you become disabled because of old age that there is adequate government support waiting for you.
Final statement
I ask the committee to consider my lived experience and economic concerns when they consider this bill. I ask them to reject a smaller NDIS funding and to protect the most vulnerable members of our society. I ask them to remember the Australian and Anzac spirit. Australia is a country that believes everyone deserves a fair go. We believe in courage and mateship and standing up for the little guy. I ask us to honour those values and reject the shrinking budget, reduced access to plan changes and harsher limits on communication with the NDIS.