In contrast to the general rancour in politics this week, the release of the Productivity Commission’s draft report on a National Disability Insurance Scheme was welcomed by just about everybody. Even the Opposition Organ joined the chorus, which encompassed both major parties.
I won’t claim to have gotten my head around the ins and outs of the issue; there will be flaws – and perhaps serious ones – with the PC’s specific model proposed in the draft. One potential minefield is, of course, the question of just who should be covered. The broad principles, however, do indeed seem like a no-brainer, and the expenditure of an additional $6.3 billion annually on one of society’s most disadvantaged groups a very good use of money.
But the chorus of approval got me wondering. Even these days, $6.3 billion a year is a lot of money. There’s roughly ten million households in Australia, so the extra expense comes to around $630 per household annually. That’s $12 per week. And, ultimately, the households of Australia will pick up the bill.
So why is it that we can so easily we afford $12 per week to help the disabled – so easily, that there doesn’t seem to be any inclination for anyone in politics to quibble – and yet the costs of reducing greenhouse emissions are going to be so utterly intolerable that there will be a “people’s revolt”?
Please consider this a general thread on the Commission’s report. Are the various stakeholder groups pleased? For those of you living with a disability, or caring for someone who does, how does the Commission’s recommendations sound to you?
I am physically disabled. I write ABC’s new disability portal Ramp Up I have degrees in political science with special interests in public policy. Given this background, I think the NDIS is terrible, a failure and a waste of everyone’s time.
Many advocates have pointed out that it is not the Productivity Commission’s job to examine the political consequences of the policy. I disagree, but let’s say that they are right. This places a greater onus on the stakeholders who have a vested interest in the NDIS to sell the political advantages of the policy. Given the Australian political climate at this time, it will be a very tough, and I believe impossible, policy to sell.
The ball is in the NDIS’ so-called ‘army of supporters’ to lobby Federal Parliament. Upon reading the entire report for the second time yesterday I am more convinced than ever that the NDIS is a ham fisted attempt to rebadge an old model of funding under a new guise. If only the commission and the evangelical lobbyists who support this public policy disaster provided a satisfactory alternative vision to the NDIS, instead of shoving it down my throat and expecting me to be grateful. These lobbyists preach choice, but do not deliver it once again.
Robert, I have to admit I winced at the tone of your compare and contrast with the Carbon tax. Virtually everyone will be “the disabled” at some point in their lives, yet the way you describe the scheme smacks of the old charity model, the bane of any disabled person’s existence and something the DIS will hopefully circumvent. Unintentionally you have framed this post as a competition between completely separate policies and that is a disservice to both issues but particularly to a group of people that have suffered 40 years of political neglect.
The reason why it will be so costly is that the costs of care post de-institutionalization have been largely transferred to private citizens. It costs a lot of money to reverse those 40 years of neglect. When people say the state of current disability services is “poor” what they mean is shamefully, tragically, frequently abusively and sometimes fatally inadequate.
There can’t be more than one or two degrees separation between any individual citizen and a person whose life circumstance speaks loudly to the inadequacies of the current situation. I suggest that is one of the reasons why this is so uncontroversial, the other being that in recent years and especially with the rise of the internet, people with disabilities have become politically active in a way that was simply impossible before.
I particularly welcome the proposal for individual control and direction of funding because as things stand you take what your given even if that is wholly inadequate to your needs. My youngest son is a 14 year old with autism who is incontinent by day and night, but so oversubscribed are behavioural intervention services that we cannot access the team from ADHC.
Every time there is an increase in funding it seems to go towards providing more case managers who cannot refer you on to therapy services because those services simply don’t exist. Yes, the expansion of middle management is even a problem in disability services. Organisations that refuse to provide us with services for which they are funded because my son is deemed too challenging spend a lot of time putting in for further government tenders, expanding their own little empire while providing an inadequate service to the existing client base. Nobody wants to provide services at the messy end. Self-directed funding would go a long way to curtailing this behaviour.
Excuse the slightly ranty tone. This is a good thing, a very good thing and it should be welcomed for its own sake.
Todd: an interesting comment. I have worked extensively with people with disabilities as an RN/carer and also engaged with the politics of disability. I’m wondering whether you know anything about the policy development process for the NDIS? Were people with disability involved in policy development and what were the consultative processes with disability representative organizations? At this point I’m guessing little involvement of people with disability and token ‘consultation’ but you may know more.
Su, sorry if I offended you. I suppose when making the comparison I was merely trying to make the point that this will be expensive, but nobody seems to be terribly worried about the cost bankrupting battling working families or whatever the current phraseology is – because, quite frankly, it won’t.
Todd, have you got a link that explains what you would want from an alternative model?
As someone who is still receiving the full Disability pension,and still wondering out loudly often,why it is some people forfeit their right to not assume anything of quality about what comes from government as justification…there is something very crappy about the reason for this new found concern about the disabled.I mean,I want the legitimate right to not accept medical status of anyone with a Medical degree.I want the status of rejecting all allopathic processes inventions,modalities completely,unless they are completely acceptable from a naturopathic and complementary medicine side,rather than Dickhead National Health Medical Health and Research Council.The rejection,by court procedure of a number of Federal and State jurisdictional enforcement Bodies.If Palliative Medicine cannot accept Vitamin B17 then the officiating standard setters should end up in court and lose everything.The facts are astounding as a result of medical intervention at some part of ones’ life the end result often is permanent incapacity,as disease continues afresh in another form.People in wheelchairs should have legislative supporters who do their own research and cut out the meddling medicinal compound patented medical witch doctors.All these concerns about the disabled is just reasserting a lack of choice and recycling power to the ALP Medical Professors who dreamed up MediCare Bank years ago,and come back to Australia from their political appointments to jam their history in our further injuries.
I’m not offended Robert, just mildly irritated at what I thought was an attempt to instrumentalize support for this scheme in the service of the Carbon Tax, a move which may not help the latter and could definitely damage the former, but I accept that was not your intent.
If people have not already gone over there, Todd’s linked blog has a very thoughtful response to the draft report but in that post the main argument seems to be that it is unlikely to make the jump into enacted policy, because of the cost.
Yes AKN there were many consultations done, Including the Commissioners visiting many towns in every State and Territory. Superficially this sounds impressive, but not when you consider that 90% of the NDIS National Committee (the main interest group driving this) are attached to service providers. There are just three parents/caregivers and ONE person with a disability on the committee with no allegiance to these service providers. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors behind the scenes and few have the opportunity, power or inclination to even notice or speak out on such a bias.
Consequently you will find that I am in the severe minority with my opinion on the NDIS. The disability sector is so starved for reform that they seem to latch on to anything that changes current conditions. Even if its worse than what they are getting now. Reform is desperately needed, just not this ill-conceived mess.
Neither the NDIS Committee nor the Productivity Commission had even developed suggested criteria for funding cut offs, or how perspective organisations should manage the funds. Aside from generous economic forecasting and a little research based on the experiences of other nations, the committee had no tangible evidence supporting the scheme prior to the release of Monday’s report. The Committee adopted all of the Committees recommendations without this evidence. What is the government of the day to do? Trust that it works? Particularly when the PC’s report effectively suggests for the Government to write a blank cheque to cover such a poor excuse of a policy.
The NDIS Committee has skipped the entire policy cycle, and in doing so they are being grossly negligent. They are giving away the opportunity of a lifetime. Reports like this only happen once in a generation. The NDIS was sold to the public before the groundwork was done, leaving the Productivity Commissioners (who are not experts in the field) to pick up the pieces, which they failed to do successfully..
A NDIS leads the disability sector on the road to nowhere and this frustrates, angers and saddens me.
Robert, I’m working on an article for Ramp Up now and a submission to the PC with an alternative model that would cost significantly less, streamline services and provide more efficient service delivery. Will happily provide a link to it upon completion.
Sounds interesting Todd.
I work near the “messy end”, as someone put it, and have not the faintest idea what this new policy ‘innovation’ means……though it might help if I get around to reading it.
Thanks Todd. Only one independent person with a disability on the committee absolutely confounds the principle of presence and participation. My own initial response was of the order ‘thank heavens someone’s actually doing something’ which goes to the current and prior state of neglect more than to the new scheme.
I also take on board Su’s comment above that no matter what happens it always appears to lead to employing more case managers whose role is to deny those in need access to services that they are meant to provide.
Todd Winter I look forward to reading your report on Ramp Up. Please provide [fictitious] examples as your abstract first comment didn’t clearly state what you don’t like about NDIS. The 18 months spent caring for a physically disabled person was a real eye-opener, I couldn’t imagine doing it for a lifetime.
the NDIS is a ham fisted attempt to rebadge an old model of funding under a new guise – Todd @1
There certainly is a lot of rebadging, but there is nothing ham-fisted about it so far. This is the only practical way that the Commonwelath can ensure that the chronically disorganised and chronically underfunded State disability services will get organised and funded. The reference to the PC, rather than using COAG directly, was actually a pretty shrewd move.
My main concern is that the PC has focused on the very seriously disabled, and their carers. There’s little in the proposed scheme for those needing less intensive or more temporary help, but who without that help will struggle. The question of just who qualifies for what seems underdone in the Report to me.
Robert,
If you proposed that the miners and the power generators should pay half (say) of the cost of the disability scheme, you might find similar resistance to that seen over carbon pricing.
I’ll look forward to reading the article also Todd. If I’m not mistaken, though, isn’t Bill Shorten on board, from a policy point of view?
Though I take the point about service providers, another more pertinent comparison you could make, Robert, is—why is there consensus on funding an NDIS, but no consensus on funding the outcomes of the fair pay case before Fair Work Australia for workers on the social and community services award, ie. the carers and providers who’ll be so directly affected also by a new framework for disability services funding?
I’ll believe it when it happens.
My clams are not fictitious, they are based on fact and experience. I have several specific issues with the PC report.
The criteria for eligibility is ill-conceived with many disabilities not clearly defined within the framework (vision, hearing). Are mental illnesses covered? What about behavioural impairments (eg autism)?
Dividing the NDIS into two different streams (those impairments developed from birth and those that are acquired through injury) adds needless bureaucracy and cost, which are unnecessary.
So too is the role of the State Governments and the parts they play in the proposed scheme. It would save a lot of money, energy, resources and time if the PC used their report to recommend that the Federal Government nationalise all disability services.
Yes Bill Shorten appears to be on board with his rhetoric. I’d like to read his position. budget time comes around to though. As pointed out by Robert in his initial post, there will be a lot of economic pressure when everybody actually understands the full 800 page report and reads the fine print. Of course no politician, (especially a potential PM) wants to be seen as denying people with disabilities services and money. All politicians support the abstract notion of providing support for the disability sector, actions are much different.
This comes from 27 years of waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for something real to be achieved.
That’s what I need to see.
64 in two months – gross physical disability since six weeks of age. As someone else said, I’ll believe there is some sort of coverage when it happens!
As for the rest, trying to live in the community is hard and increases suffering. And I don’t want so-called “carers” around me. It’s my life; however, in the end I wouldn’t like to be left in the kind (?) hands of any of the current politicians, (except Mr. Rudd), he’s great.
Also, as I was always saying to my parents many years ago – “I’m a good charity case, I’m very grateful.” They used to look at each other and say she’s not my daughter. I don’t know what else to say; always have struggled against the wall of public indifference, that hasn’t changed.
I’d be happy if the government spent a fraction of those billions just ensuring that the bloody anti-discrimination laws have some teeth at a grass roots level.
Needs-based care and support, hmmm, now where have I heard that before… The general thrust of what I’ve read so far makes me fear the NDIS may actually make it easier to bypass my real need to be no more and no less than a true citizen.
I suspect that we ‘the disabled’ are almost completely excluded from policy formation and implementation processes. I’m convinced of this if, as for me, disability is ‘invisible’ or ‘episodic.’
I anticipate a marked growth in round holes, all the better to remind me that I’m a square peg.
I used to start my lectures on the the psychology of disability with Su’s phrase “You will all become disabled…” But that was long ago and my original disability is now becoming enhanced, in retirement, by advanced age. Now, although I did learn a lot about disability issues from serving on various governmental advisory councils and service delivery committees, I find the prospect of plowing through 800 pages of the PC’s report far too daunting.
One major problem, as I see it, is that everyone concerned has a different axe to grind and no matter who constituted that committee, and subsequent implementation committees, there will be gaps everywhere.
However, the NDIS will be a start, but must surely it will take quite some refining before the many inequities are reduced or eliminated.
Thanks for your comments Todd Winther.
I think its emminently possible for a National Disability System to be federally funded but I wonder whether Canberra can dispense services adequately over such a large geographic area. I suppose Canberra would be as effective in Kunnunurra as Perth is
Something needs to be done, theres crisis in the system and patients are suffering and being penalised in the system and discriminated against in the common work place ( counter practices, duty of care etc. ) miss guided, miss understood and know empathy, and nothing to concretely to guide sufferers of ill health… Please explain in simplicity. Mary…