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Parliamentary changes to NDIS making life harder for disabled

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NDIS Minister Bill Shorten recently announced the list of changes to the scheme (Screenshots via YouTube)

The NDIS has undergone fundamental changes, but these changes have been poorly communicated to participants and the general public. Siobhan Simper explains.

THE DISABILITY COMMUNITY is in mourning. On 3 October, the Getting the NDIS Back on Track Bill came into effect, irrevocably changing our disability system upon which hundreds of thousands of disabled Australians depend.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), created by the Gillard Government in 2013, was meant to represent a new way of doing things. As Prime Minister, Julia Gillard spoke about her desire to bring “security and dignity” to those living with disability.

Often likened to a plane being constructed midair, the NDIS was far from perfect. However, it's beyond doubt that the NDIS has had a positive impact on the lives of many disabled Australians.

This makes it even more shocking that, after 11 years of service, the NDIS is being scaled back to the point of being dismantled, that metaphorical plane stripped back to nothing but spare parts.

In contrast to the simple, pugilistic talking points of NDIS Minister Bill Shortenrorts and frauds, stop the waste, economic sustainability – the changes evoked by the NDIS Bill are complex and myriad. They threaten to slash the number of participants in the scheme, dramatically reduce plan budgets, restrict the nature of supports participants can utilise, eliminate the independent support participants receive to navigate the scheme, raise debts against participants, remove the right to independent review and even enforce group homes for high needs participants.

Let's start with access. The NDIS Bill grants the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA, which administers the Scheme) an unusual power: the right to distinguish between “classes” of disabled people. In effect, this gives them the right to discriminate between individuals with disability, for instance, to treat someone with a psychosocial disability (disability arising from complex mental illness) differently from someone with, say, a neurological condition.

Budget forecasts 27,000 fewer participants would join the scheme over the four years, with Shorten indicating the bulk of those will be individuals with a psychosocial disability who may be better supported outside the NDIS. Autism has also been named by Shorten as a target for entry to the scheme, bolstered by research conducted by an NDIA actuary which conflates correlation – of autism diagnosis rates and the existence of the NDIS – with causation.

What about those already on the NDIS? Currently, any participant may undergo a process known as eligibility reassessment, during which they may be removed from the scheme if they are determined to no longer meet eligibility requirements. Moving forward, certain “cohorts” will now be required to undergo eligibility reassessments, but who this will affect is uncertain.

Individualised plan budgets, based on each participant’s needs, therapist recommendations and disability, are gone. Instead, participants will now meet with an NDIA employee – qualifications to be determined – for a needs assessment, using a tool apparently so refined it can determine the disability needs of every single disabled individual in Australia. It also doesn't exist yet.

Much like Senator Linda Reynolds' canned independent assessments, this assessment will place participants in a category with a set level of funding. Although the funding itself is not reviewable, a participant may request a new needs assessment if they feel they have been misrepresented. The actual right to appeal is unclear.

The lack of a clear right to review brings the NDIA's recent failings into sharper focus. Usually, the NDIA is bound to a certain timeframe for its decisions, such as 21 days for plan reviews. Wait times have blown out to months or even years, leaving participants to go without supports, sometimes tragically leading to their death. Currently, there are nearly 50,000 participants awaiting the result of a plan review. If the right to appeal ceases to exist, then so do these reviews.

This punitive approach carries through to debt collection. The NDIA can now raise debts against participants they accuse of fraudulent spending. It seems this right was exercised early by the agency. In April of this year, adjunct professor Hannah Friebel, 27, died by suicide after the NDIA hounded her for a nearly $28,000 debt. Despite being warned of her fragile mental health and distress at the weekly phone calls from the NDIA, they insisted on pursuing her for what they claimed was fraudulent spending, only retracting her debt after her death.

Paternalism is woven throughout the Bill. Instead of participants having the discretion to choose supports suited to their individual needs and circumstances, there is now a Byzantine definition of “NDIS support” accompanied by a list of approved and proscribed supports.

Participants will be forced to use NDIS-registered providers, offering an illusion of safety and financial security. In reality, it was a registered provider who was involved in the death of Anne Marie Smith; it was a registered provider who allowed six adults to physically assault an autistic child whilst reaping millions in government money. Mainstream businesses, such as cleaning, laundry, meal preparation and gardening, offer disabled people value for money, efficiency in service and most importantly, dignity.

Independent support coordinators, who help participants utilise the scheme, will be replaced by NDIA-contracted navigators. Not only will this remove any semblance of independent advice, but it will also take job opportunities from existing support coordinators, many of whom are disabled NDIS participants themselves.

More concerning is the approach to high support needs individuals. Disability services were rightly deinstitutionalised decades ago, yet the Government is proposing forcing all high-needs participants into a 1:3 arrangement (staff:participant). In practice, this means group homes — and another era of abuse and neglect.

These are dark times for the disability community. It is a dark time for every Australian — the NDIS generates $2.25 for every $1 spent. These changes could be described as penny-wise and pound-foolish, or just plain mean. Participants who remain in the scheme will have to make do with less while spending more on approved disability-specific services. They may be forced into group homes, or lose all the independence the original NDIS granted them.

The social contract Julia Gillard made with the disability community is broken and as both major parties voted for the new Bill, it is unlikely to be restored.

Siobhan Simper is a disabled psychology graduate living on Wadawurrung land. You can read more from her at chronicallysiobhan.wordpress.com.

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