Robodebt shadow leaves fears NDIS will be next victim of disabling policy

While assurances have been made that NDIS reforms will not be "Robodebt 2.0", many fear that the revisions will leave them worse off, writes Melissa Marsden.

GOVERNMENT MINISTER for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), Bill Shorten, said in a statement released last Monday that the Government has recommitted to reforms to repair the ‘Robodebt wreckage’.

Robodebts were collected under the Income Compliance Program between July 2015 and November 2019. They were raised using averaged Australian Taxation Office (ATO) income information.

Minister Shorten said:

“Moving on from the unlawful scheme was about improving transparency, accountability and engagement with customers, staff and advocates.”

The Robodebt Royal Commission found a distinct problem with language and conduct that reinforced feelings of stigma and shame associated with receiving government support.

Parliamentary changes to NDIS making life harder for disabled

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

People with disabilities are no strangers to this stigma and the Robodebt scheme is just one example of how the stigma placed on disability has manifested in disabling government policies.

The timing could not be more relevant for the Government, with an election looming and International Human Rights Day, held annually on 10 December, placing the dual rights of people with disabilities squarely in the spotlight.

In 2019, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he believed in “a fair go for those who have a go”.

His firm belief that welfare was not a right went on to plague the Morrison Government’s anti-welfare, pro-economic austerity agenda, systematically alienating people with disabilities as part of a social problem.

Morrison did well to attempt to ensure people with disabilities were not directly implicated in the realm of those who don’t “have a go”, despite the subtext of his words having a clear meaning.

Morrison said:

“It doesn’t matter what level of ability you have... it matters that we all bring our best.”

This kind of language deliberately frames the inequalities and discrimination faced by people with disabilities as an inadequate reason for a lack of social and economic participation.

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Albanese's weaponised words ricochet and cause collateral damage.

It also frames people with disabilities’ economic and social dependence on government support as a choice to be social “bludgers” instead of “builders”.

A new debt management program has now been developed to provide clear, transparent principles and guidelines for debt management practices.

Minister Shorten said:

“We didn’t wait for the Royal Commission report to start making changes, nor have actions been limited to the scope of the recommendations.”

Whilst the reforms appear on the surface to bridge the political gap between austerity and welfare successfully, there are fears the treatment of people with disabilities by government agencies as part of the Robodebt saga is soon to be repeated.

Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John condemned the Bill as “the greatest betrayal of our community ever perpetrated by the Government”.

Senator Steele-John added:

“This Bill is a broken promise from a Labor Government that many in our community trusted. I’ve heard many people in our community feel betrayed.”

In August, Minister Shorten knocked back claims the NDIS reforms were akin to Robodebt 2.0 as “rubbish”.

Minister Shorten said the Government sought to “return the NDIS to its original intent”.

NDIS: Bad help not better than no help at all

The NDIS is pumping feel-good stories through social media channels at a robust rate, but for many, there is a massive gap between these accounts and actual service delivery.

Shorten continued:

“There are too many service providers that are rorting and outcomes of people with disabilities were being ignored.”

Shorten said a “list” had always defined the support people under the scheme were entitled to.

The NDIS was previously guided by a broad definition of ‘reasonable and necessary’ support, including that support is related to the participant’s disability, does not include day-to-day living costs, value for money and takes into consideration support provided by other government services, family, carers, networks and the community.

According to Minister Shorten, whilst guidelines have been ignored in the past, “if you have a particular need and that item is not on the list, a substitution will be permitted”.

The ambiguity of this does little to minimise the fears of people with disabilities that individualised supports will be removed from plans as political and media framing of disability equity as having a dollar value increases.

The implication is that people with disabilities’ right to “choice and control“ that they deserve is inferior to other Australians.

In November, the NDIA distributed emails informing participants that some plans had been ‘automatically extended’ and ‘will have the same funding as your previous plan for your core and capacity-building budgets’.

However, the reinterpretation of the NDIS ‘reasonable and necessary criteria’ has many participants fearing that the revised plans will infringe their rights and leave them worse off.

For Australians who were impacted by the Robodebt saga, Minister Shorten does little to reassure Australians with disabilities that support provided as part of the NDIS will not come back to haunt them.

Melissa Marsden is a freelance journalist and PhD candidate at Curtin University. You can follow Melissa on Twitter @MelMarsden96, on Bluesky @melissamarsdenphd or via Melissa's website, Framing the Narrative.