27 MARCH 2024
DANA Director of Policy and Advocacy, El Gibbs, was interviewed on RN Breakfast about the call from State and Territory governments to delay the transition to Foundational Supports as recommended in the NDIS Review. DANA has transcribed the interview for accessibility purposes, available below.
The full audio interview is available on the ABC Listen website.
Listen to the audio interview: ‘Distressing: Premiers push to delay NDIS overhaul’
David Lipson:
Now 2024 is a significant year of change for the one in five Australians living with a disability, many who access or wish to access the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The scheme is awaiting a significant overhaul, with dozens of recommendations to be implemented from the NDIS Review that was handed down in December last year. But state premiers are now pushing hard against that agreement, calling for a delay in the timetable for shifting support services for people with disabilities to state education systems. Now many of the country’s leading disability advocates are in Sydney today for a national conference, and El Gibbs is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at DANA. That’s Disability Advocacy Network Australia, and she will be addressing the conference today. Good morning.
El Gibbs:
Good morning.
David Lipson:
You’re surprised by the response from the premiers. What’s your – what do you think about the concerns that they’ve raised?
El Gibbs:
I, look, I am a bit – I think it’s a bit premature. For them to be raising these concerns. The reform has a five year timeframe to get right in terms of both the NDIS review recommendations and the Disability Royal Commission recommendations, and all the governments sat down in December last year around National Cabinet and signed an agreement that they’ve worked together on these reforms with us, with disabled people, and our organizations. So yeah, I was a little bit surprised to read that early this morning. And to see that, you know, the Premier’s concerned about things that haven’t actually been decided yet.
David Lipson:
What do you make of, you know, how does it make people with disabilities feel I guess when you read these stories that there’s this argument about who’s going to pay for these crucial services?
El Gibbs:
Yeah, so I’m not sure whether you overhearing my reaction to the article earlier this morning, David, but I was you know, it is pretty distressing to be honest. I mean, I’m, like many other disabled people I contribute along with all other Australians, but there are lots of mainstream services that remain inaccessible to me, you know, including those delivered by the states and territories. So to public transport, our education system, health systems, lots of them that people with disability can’t actually access. And lots of us, you know, don’t actually access the NDIS in fact, 88% of people with disability don’t get the support from the NDIS. And what has happened though, since the you know, in the 10 years since the NDIS came into being is that any other services outside the scheme actually disappeared. I’m in New South Wales and New South Wales government at the time, even sold off the homecare service that provided small amounts of you know, cleaning and shopping for people that were able to then stay out of hospital and live independently. So I know you’re talking about the education system, but the NDIS review recommended what they call foundational supports, which are, you know, access to mainstream services, and some targeted support across you know, services for people with disabilities. So things like home care, it’s cleaning and shopping to help people, making sure people can afford allied health services, that kind of thing. We don’t know what the timeline and timeline is for having the so called foundational set of services provided. Is it reasonable to be calling for a delay at this early stage? Look, we’ve had 10 years of delay. We did a huge bunch of work for the NDIS review. Last year, we commissioned a paper from Associate Professor Sue Olney, who’s like Australia’s expert on these areas, and it found that you know, outside the scheme, particularly for people with disability who rely on income support, or who are on a low income, people are doing it incredibly tough. They have nothing, they can’t access the services that other Australians use, and they don’t have the specialized services that we you know, we’re hoping to have in, you know, a country like ours, so the time to act is now and the National Cabinet agreement that that was made last year, I think, underlined kind of the urgency for so many of us, we talk about cost of living crises, but the cost of living for people with disability who can’t access mainstream services. So if you can’t access public transport, for example, you have to catch a taxi and if you rely on the Disability Support Pension, then that’s incredibly expensive. So if we talk about things like cost of living, you’ve got to remember that for people with disability, it’s an extraordinary costs at the moment.
David Lipson:
Yes. Do you acknowledge in the same terms as the government, the budget pressures of the NDIS when you see statistics, such as almost one in 10, children, aged five to seven are now on the NDIS.
El Gibbs:
Look, I think it’s really important for people to understand that for kids who are in the NDIS, particularly as they come into school, yes, there’s lots of kids who are getting support from the NDIS but lots of them are from really low income families. And it’s the only way that they can afford essential Allied Health like speech therapy, like physio, and the packages they get are quite small, are my concerns are around you know, the large amounts of profiteering and you know, unregulated providers that are in the market. So, the organization that I work for, we represent disability advocacy organizations across the country, and advocates tell me all the time, how worried they are about people who don’t have families, people with significant and complex disability, who are being exploited by unscrupulous providers all the time. So at the moment, we’ve got 1000s of people, for example, who are in what’s called supported independent living that is unregulated people who have large packages, but no one knows where they are. And so I think when we talk about costs of the NDIS, we have to remember that what we need is to regulate providers and make sure that there are market controls on what people can charge and what is happening. But we also need to make sure that there are services outside the scheme, because if the NDIS you know, is a bit – we’ve used lifeboat in the Oasis and goodness knows how many other metaphors, but it is the only way that you can get the support that you need. Of course, people are going to try to get in there. So what we have to make sure is that disabled people are seen as equal citizens alongside everybody else, and that we can get our needs met by all levels of government, and that we have access to mainstream services.
David Lipson:
I mean, when you talk about the States, I guess, or at least services being removed in the States when the NDIS first came in, does that does it follow that the states need to sort of pick up more slack here? Do you think that it’s fair for the federal government to be placing more more burden if you’d like more, more funding burden that is on the on the states?
El Gibbs:
Always good to be called a burden, but it’s –
David Lipson:
Apologies. I meant the funding really fine.
El Gibbs:
Yeah. But I think it’s really important that we think about the national cabinet agreement was so important last year, where states and territories and the federal government committed 5050 to contributing to new services to meet the needs of people with disability, because right now people with disability are either going without so staying in their homes, you know, really doing it tough or spending all of their money on the basic public services that other people get, you know, as part of being a citizen. So the way that we roll this out and the way we develop it has to be done with people with disability with the states and territories in which with the federal government, but we you know, we can’t keep saying to disabled people that you belong over there in the other place, you’re not an equal citizen, and you don’t get to have you know, the same kind of access to the community. As everybody else does. The time for change is now.
David Lipson:
The Royal commission’s findings were handed down six months ago and the nation’s disability ministers say they won’t formally respond until after the Commission’s proposed March 31 deadline. What does the delayed response there say to Australians who access the scheme?
El Gibbs:
Indeed, well, you know, not just people who access the NDIS people with disability talked about, you know, the worst things that had ever happened to them over four and a half years to the Royal Commission talked about violence, abuse being exploited and neglected. And then the response from the Commonwealth was that they would delay their response till mid June, but also the states and territories have said in that that they would not they would respond when basically they decided to, and we and our organizations are incredibly worried that that kind of you know, unending timeline means that lots of the recommendations to the Royal Commission about safeguarding in particular that our state responsibilities won’t get done. So for example, the Royal Commission recommended that every state and territory set up a one stop shop, if you like, for complaints of abuse against people with disability outside the NDIS. So the scheme heard, I mean, the Royal Commission heard for example, that lots of people with disability get abused in public and there’s very little places that they can go to for help or support. And same with schools and same with hospitals and other healthcare. settings. So we need this kind of complaint system to actually be able to stop the violence and abuse that’s happening against people with disabilities. So I want to see the state’s come to the party in terms of a timeline, and we’re calling for them to do that and to respond by mid June.
David Lipson:
El Gibbs, thank you. And once again, apologies for the use of that word. I know that language is very, very important in this space, and that applies to me as well.
El Gibbs:
Thanks, David. Appreciate it.
David Lipson:
El Gibbs is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Disability Advocacy Network Australia. She will be addressing the DSC annual NDIS conference today.