Disability advocates flag concerns for planned NDIS overhaul
Concerns are growing after Health Minister Mark Butler’s announcement of changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), including reductions to financial support and standardised assessments for everyone on the scheme.
In an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Butler said a “diagnosis gateway” had “funnelled people onto the scheme that was never designed for them”.
But disability advocates are feeling hesitant about the planned restructure of the scheme, as President of People with Disability Australia Jeramy Hope said “there’s a lot of unknown at the moment.”
Emma Bennison, Disability Advocacy Network Australia CEO, has called for a robust tool to ensure functional assessments don’t leave parts of the community behind.
“It’s naive to suggest anything other than that … this is going to disproportionately impact people with psychosocial disability and people with autism,” she said.
“We need to make sure it’s designed for the broadest possible range of people, across the broadest possible range of cohorts and alongside people with disability.”
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