News Hub Opinion
Voices of experience on living with disability, inclusion and how the NDIS is transforming lives.
My Take On “Redesigning the NDIS”
This week, Australia’s national representative body of independent disability advocacy organisations, Disability Advocacy Network Australia, released a report calling for “urgent and radical reform of the NDIS”.
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Independent Assessments 2.0? NDIS Review Chair Forecasts Massive Changes – check them out…
Today the NDIS Review Chair gave us a first look at some huge changes that they want to make. In case you missed the speech by Professor Bruce Bonyhady, here is a summary:
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What Would Life Be Like Without the NDIS? & 5 Reasons to Defend It
This week, 10 years ago, our community won the fight for a National Disability Insurance Scheme. Today, the media cycle is dominated by stories about the cost of the scheme, so it’s important that we remind ourselves about what life was like before the NDIS, why the NDIS was introduced and why it needs to succeed into the future.
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Budget 2023 with Minister Shorten & How the NDIS Is Changing… In Plain(ish) English
Is the government putting a cap on the NDIS? Are our plans going to be cut? Will it be more difficult to get onto the NDIS? These are
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NDIS Minister National Press Club Address and what you might have missed (it’s scary!)
At today’s National Press Club Address NDIS Minister Bill Shorten made some important announcements and reminded me why I have such deep respect for this man and gratitude for his commitment to improving the lives of disabled people.
Then it ended with something really scary that freaked me out! Here is a summary of his announcements and my take on what he had to say. You’ll have to read to the end for the scary bit.
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What can we expect from the new chair of the NDIA Kurt Fearnley?
Our friend Dr George Taleporos sat down with the new Chair of the National Disability Insurance Agency, Kurt Fearnley, for his latest episode of Reasonable and Necessary. He finds out why Kurt took on the job, and what we can expect from his leadership of the Agency.
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Explainer: What were the original intentions of the National Disability Insurance Scheme?
One of the things people with disability and families have been asking their federal election candidates to reflect on this year is a promise to bring the NDIS back on track with it’s original intentions. To look at why we all fought so hard for the NDIS in the first place. What were the ideas, intentions and principles behind the idea for an NDIS? Our friends from PIAC have written a new helpful explainer…
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Explainer part 3: New changes to the NDIS Act
Last year thousands of you emailed our Senators urging them not to support certain changes to the NDIS Bill as originally proposed by NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds. And your message got through loud and clear – the changes were changed! The NDIS Bill was voted through parliament recently – thankfully our friends from PIAC have another explainer to help us all make sense of it all…
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Is your organisation returning to face-to-face meetings? You need to read this…
Lockdowns have lifted – and some disability organisations are moving back to face-to-face meetings, and interstate travel. The pandemic is not over. People with disability are still at risk of serious health complications and death – even with some protections from vaccines. And apart from that – we cannot now or ever forget the enormous gains mainstream society has made in online accessibility over the last couple of years. Our friend Dr George Taleporos has some important advice for these organisations based on his recent personal experience.
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Goodbye Mum, I’ll be okay
“Like most parents, my mum wanted to know that I was okay. But unlike most parents, her middle-aged son needs round-the-clock support from others, to stay alive.” Our good friend Dr George Taleporos has an important message for NDIS decision-makers, following the recent death of his Mother. “When we say the NDIS is for 450,000 Australians with disabilities – we are leaving out millions of family members who rely on the scheme to provide them with the assurance that their loved ones are going to be okay when they die.”
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Safety net in danger: High price of changes to NDIS legislation
Jessica*, 23, is working with her occupational therapist, to build the living skills she needs to move out of her parents’ home. She lives with both cerebral palsy and autism, and hoped to apply for NDIS supported independent living.
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Planning for life with COVID – getting some answers on what people with disabilities need to know to stay safe
As Australia opens up despite ongoing COVID community transmission, people with disabilities need to work through some complex questions. One of these questions hits our friend Dr George Taleporos a bit too close to home – so he got some answers to share with all of us in his new series of Reasonable and Necessary.
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Australia should invest in the NDIS to help the economy after COVID
Emma Dawson, head of independent think tank Per Capita has had a good look at the numbers behind the NDIS – and the Federal Government’s cost-blowout scare campaign. While people with disability and families are all aware of how valuable the NDIS is when it’s working well, Emma also found that for every dollar invested in the NDIS, $2.25 is returned to the Australian economy. The NDIS is a good investment. Here’s why…
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NDIS was transformational for Australians living with disability
Of all the disappointments from the last decade of Australian political dysfunction, the National Disability Insurance Scheme is not one of them.
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Explainer part 2: What are the proposed changes to the NDIS Act?
On 28 October 2021, the Government introduced the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Participant Service Guarantee and Other Measures) Bill 2021 to the House of Representatives. If passed, this Bill will make changes to the NDIS Act. Our friend Chadwick is a Senior Solicitor from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and he has very helpfully written a follow-up NDIS Act explainer to try and make it easier for people to understand.
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Left behind – disabled people and the COVID vaccine
A new report from the Disability Royal Commission into the COVID vaccine rollout is just the latest in a long list of documented failures by governments to address the needs and rights of disabled people. In the race to “open up”, governments must prioritise the needs of disabled people and do a much better job of engaging with the expertise of disabled people and the sector’s organisations, says El Gibbs, an award-winning writer and disability rights advocate.
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Explainer: What are the proposed changes to the NDIS Act?
What are the good, concerning, and missed opportunities in the draft NDIS Act and Rules? Our friend Chadwick is a Senior Solicitor from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and he has very helpfully written another NDIS Act explainer to try and make it easy for people to understand.
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Support for decision making and the NDIS
The NDIA have just given everyone an extra two weeks to tell them what they think about support for decision making in the NDIS. We asked our friend Catherine McAlpine from Inclusion Australia to tell us what people with intellectual disability and their families think needs to change, and what Inclusion Australia is already working on.
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Vulnerable Australians forgotten in race to reopen
In January 2021 the Commonwealth government released its COVID-19 vaccine rollout strategy. The plan prioritised those most likely to be exposed to COVID-19, and importantly those most likely to become ill and die from the disease – a sensible approach, similar to many jurisdictions around the world.
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Open letter: Regarding the reality of booking a COVID vaccination for children with disability and medical conditions
This month, young people with disability joined the list of people who are allowed to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Being eligible is one thing – but how easy is it to actually make happen? Just as we have heard from so many people with disability and families in our community – Heike and her son Bodhi found out just how difficult it can be – the hard way. This is Heike’s open letter to the government.
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Explainer: What changes to look out for in the NDIS Amendment Bill
What are the top 5 big issues we can expect to see in the new NDIS legislation? We’ve all heard plenty about compulsory assessments – but what other changes to the NDIS are going to be hiding in there? Our friend Chadwick – who is a Senior Solicitor from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre – has very helpfully written an explainer to try and make it as easy as possible for people who are not experts in law to understand.
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Are the proposed Independent Assessment tools capable of informing funding decisions in NDIS participant plans?
What’s wrong with NDIS independent assessments? We asked our friend Muriel Cummins from Occupational Therapy Australia’s NDIS Taskforce to help explain why the selected assessment tools are not fit-for-purpose, and why they should not be used to determine plan funding.
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I quit my job with the NDIS in protest against independent assessments
“We are not being listened to and I have had enough.” Carl Thompson has just quit his job as an NDIS Local Area Coordinator out of anger and frustration with the National Disability Insurance Agency.
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Proposed changes to NDIS intervention for autistic children
The NDIA’s latest consultation paper on autistic kids is about more than early intervention like the title suggests. It proposes rigid and fixed funding blocks for children’s NDIS plans, well below averages in Nick Avery’s region. Nick wants you to know why this consultation is so alarming – and encourages you to provide feedback.
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