Albanese Government's Fraud Fusion Taskforce & the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission at work in 2023

 

“The banning orders against these entities send a strong message to any provider trying to take advantage of the NDIS and Australian taxpayers.

For too long, rogue providers have been able to make use of a lack of communication and coordination between government agencies. Australians relying on the NDIS are some of our most vulnerable, and any organisation taking advantage of their safety net must be stopped.” [Minister for the NDIS and Government Services Bill Shorten, media release, 22 January 2023]

NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, NDIS Provider Register – Part 2 – Section 73zs National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013, last updated 21 January 2023, excerpt:

Banning Orders

The effect of a banning order is that the individual or organisation that is the subject of the order is prohibited from providing NDIS supports and services, or their provision of NDIS supports or services is restricted. For example, a banning order may be made against an individual on the ground that he or she is believed not to be suitable to provide supports or services to people with disability. The basis for that belief might be the fact that the individual has been charged with a criminal offence. In such a case, the NDIS Commission needs to ensure that the making of the order would not prejudice, in any way, criminal proceedings relating to the charge and that it would not be inconsistent with the presumption of the individual’s innocence. Consequently, the order would initially be for a period long enough for the proceedings to be concluded. At the conclusion of the proceedings, the length of the banning order would be revisited, having regard to the outcome of the proceedings and other relevant factors. The result could range from making the order permanent to revoking it.

The following corporations and individuals have been named in the aforementioned document between 4 January and 18 January 2023:

Rafael Ukken, Harris Park NSW – prohibited from providing disability supports and services, directly or indirectly, to NDIS-funded participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme, for a period of two (2) years, effective from 5:00 pm on 24 January 2023.

Millennium Disability Care Pty Ltd, Williams Landing Vic – permanently prohibited from providing NDIS supports and services to people with disability, effective from 5:00 pm on 13 January 2022.

A.C.N. 615 641 079 Pty Ltd trading as Australian Home and Community Care; SIL Finder, Kurunjang Vic – permanently prohibited from providing NDIS supports and services to people with disability, effective from 5:00 pm on 19 January 2022.

Sarah Michael Leen Manyok Thiak, Kurunjang Vic – prohibited from being involved in the provision of NDIS supports and services to people with disability for a period of five (5) years, effective from 5.00 pm on 19 January 2023.

David Anyoun Manyok Thiak, Williams Landing, Vic – prohibited from being involved in the provision of NDIS supports and services to people with disability for a period of 10 years, effective from 5.00 pm on 19 January 2023.

Ambrose Mareng, Melton, Vic – prohibited from being involved in the provision of NDIS supports and services to people with disability for a period of five (5) years, effective from 5.00 pm on 19 January 2023.

Aman Manyok Thiak, Melton West, Vic – prohibited from being involved in the provision of NDIS supports and services to people with disability for a period of five (5) years, effective from 5.00 pm on 19 January 2023.

Deng Manyok Thiak, Braybrook, Vic – prohibited from being involved in the provision of NDIS supports and services to people with disability for a period of five (5) years, effective from 5.00 pm on 19 January 2023.

Ramesh Saini, North West Rocks, NSW – prohibited from being involved in the provision of supports or services to people with disability, for a period of two (2) years, effective from 5:00pm on 11 January 2023.

Further details can be found at:

https://www.ndiscommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-01/Provider%20Register%20Part%202%20-%2021%20January%202023.pdf

This file covers the period March 2019 to January 2023 and lists NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission bans currently in force [pp. 2-32], bans no longer in force [pp. 33-36], compliance notices currently in force [pp. 37-41], notices complied with/completed [pp. 42-51], suspension of registrations no longer in force [pp. 53-61], revocations of registration of registered NDIS providers [pp. 62-70], infringement notices [pp. 71-73] and refusals to re-register previously registered NDIS providers [pp. 74-77].

Perhaps Australian Liberal Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, along with NSW Nationals Deputy Premier & Minister for Regional New South Wales, John Barilaro, might like to ask those 6,903 Northern NSW residents with a serious disability how they feel about their relegation to second-class citizenship in the middle of a global pandemic?

 

The Guardian, 27 September 2021:

The disability royal commission says governments should not lift lockdowns until all people with disability have had the “opportunity to be fully vaccinated” – even if states and territories hit the 70% fully vaccinated threshold.

In a scathing draft report handed down on Monday morning, the royal commission found the federal department of health’s approach to vaccinating people with disabilities had been “seriously deficient”.

People with disability living in shared accommodation, or “group homes”, were included in phase 1a of the vaccine rollout but then quietly “deprioritised” in favour of aged care residents.

The commission is now concerned people with disabilities will remain unprotected as states such as New South Wales and Victoria look to ease restrictions when 70% of the adult population is fully vaccinated next month.

“In our view, it would be grossly unfair, indeed unconscionable, if any people with disability who have not been given the opportunity to be fully vaccinated by the time the 70% threshold is reached are denied the freedoms available to people who have been fully vaccinated,” the report said.

“The unfairness is magnified once it is accepted – as it must be – that increased freedoms for the fully vaccinated increase the risk of contracting Covid-19 for people who are not fully vaccinated.

“It is one thing for people who choose not to be vaccinated to be denied these freedoms; it is quite another for people who have been denied the opportunity to be fully vaccinated also to be denied those freedoms.”

The report said the federal government should “use its best endeavours” to ensure no state or territory “significantly eases restrictions” when the 70% threshold is met unless all people with disability “have and appreciate that they have the opportunity to be fully vaccinated”.

The commission singled out national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) participants, people living in residential disability accommodation and people with intellectual disability as key groups. It said all active disability support workers should also be fully vaccinated before lockdowns are lifted…..

Among all NDIS participants, not just those in group homes, 39.9% had been fully vaccinated at 15 September……

As at 30 June 2021 in Northern NSW, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) had 6,903 active participants (ranging from children to older adults) with diagnosed disabilities which included; Acquired Brain Injury, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Developmental Delay, Global Developmental Delay, Hearing Impairment, Intellectual Disability, Multiple Sclerosis, as well as other Neurological, Physical, Sensory & Speech disabilities.

Perhaps Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP Scott Morrison and NSW Deputy Premier, Nationals MP & Minister for Regional New South Wales, John Barilaro, might like to ask those 6,903 Northern NSW residents how they feel about their relegation to second-class citizenship in the middle of a global pandemic?

State and territory disability ministers have shot down Morrison Government's controversial reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme

ABC News, 9 July 2021:

State and territory disability ministers have shot down controversial reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), in what advocates say is a huge win for the disability community.

For months, disability advocates have been warning against the changes, which would have forced all NDIS participants and people wanting to access the scheme to undergo independent assessments.

The federal government announced its plan to introduce the functional assessments in August last year, and the NDIS has trialled the program.

But after a meeting between disability ministers today, NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds confirmed the federal government would not push ahead with the proposal.

"I can absolutely confirm that we agreed with the Independent Advisory Council's recommendation that the independent assessments in their current form will not proceed," she told the ABC.

"So are independent assessments as we currently understand them dead? Yes, they are."

Do you know more about this story? Email Specialist.Team@abc.net.au.

The move has been welcomed by disability advocates, who had argued the independent assessments plan was not fair.

"We are glad that the state and territory disability ministers have listened to the thousands of people with disability and their families who have contacted them this week to ask them to say no to the NDIS independent assessments," said El Gibbs, from campaign group Every Australian Counts.

"We have worked together for months to raise our voices and say that these changes were wrong."

'Back to the drawing board' for NDIS assessments

The independent assessments program would have involved an allied health professional, unknown to the person with disability, either meeting with the prospective participant face-to-face or holding a teleconference assessment.

That assessment would have determined someone's eligibility for an NDIS funding plan.

Currently, a person's usual doctors, specialists and allied health professionals provide reports to determine if someone is eligible for an NDIS plan.

The federal government had always maintained that independent assessments were an original part of the NDIS and would make it fair and equitable for everyone.

But many in the disability community said it was a box-ticking exercise designed to cut costs.

Opposition to independent assessments grew steadily last year within the sector, and in February more than 20 organisations, led by Every Australian Counts, called on the government to abandon the plan.

One of the architects of the NDIS had also criticised the independent assessments model…...

The Morrison Government has found yet another way to turn the National Disability Insurance Scheme into a punitive horror story for participants

 

The National Disability Insurance Scheme, to be administered by the National Disability Insurance Agency, was introduced by the Gillard Labor Government on 1 July 2013 and, was originally allocated a funding stream of $19.3 billion over 7 years (inclusive of $7.1 billion in existing disability insurance funding) as well as the 0.5% increase in the Medicare Levy scheduled for 2014-15 onwards.

The federal and state governments share the total cost of the NDIS, with the federal government only being responsible for around half of the total cost once all the states and territories had joined the scheme. The final state joined in June 2018.

On 19 October 2017 the Australian Government Productivity Commission had stated: At full scheme, about 475 000 people with disability will receive individualised supports, at an estimated cost of $22 billion in the first year of full operation.

There has been no additional increase in the Medicare levy to fund NDIS, as shortly before the 2018–19 Budget, the Turnbull Coalition Government announced that it could ‘fully fund’ the NDIS without any increase.

That same year the Budget Papers revealed an est. $4.6 billion underspend on the NDIS – funds which then Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison credited against the national budget deficit.

In 2019-20 Budget Papers revealed another underspend of est. 3 billion and, again this underspend was used to reduce the national budget deficit.

By April 2021 the National Disability Insurance Scheme itself reported that more than 430,000 people across Australia benefiting from the NDIS and it appears that the federal government now expects that number to rise to 500,000 participants by 2023-24 - an increase of 45,000 people more than likely predominately individuals 65 years of age and older who are already falling within the remit of aged care funding. 

In the 2020-21 Budget Papers the Morrison Government allocated an additional $798.8 million over four years from 2020-21 towards what appears to be a restructuring of NDIS.

Presumably so that the following can be fully implemented…...

The Guardian, 15 May 2021.

The agency that runs the national disability insurance scheme is seeking to increase the number of people that “exit” the scheme and reduce overall spending on funding packages through a “targeted review of existing participant plans”, internal documents show.

Leaked documents last month revealed the agency had set up a Sustainability Action Taskforce (SAT) with the aim of slowing spending on participant plans and growth in participant numbers.

The National Disability Insurance Agency has refused to discuss the actions of the taskforce, which Labor and the Greens have dubbed a “razor gang”. But new documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws provide further insight into its aims.

The previously reported internal talking points, labelled “strictly not for external distribution”, stated the taskforce’s three aims were to “slow net growth in participant numbers”, “slow growth in spend per participant”, and “strengthen operational discipline”.

The new documents, however, reveal the attempt to slow the growth in participant numbers will come, in part, from a focus on an “increase [in] participant exits”.

Further, slowing spending on participants’ funding packages will be achieved in part by a “targeted review of existing participant plans”, the documents state.

Other objectives include a focus on “tighter planning principles”, “tighter policies on specific reasonable and necessary supports”, “tighter price controls”, and an “increased enforcement of assurance policies”.

The unit’s aims relate to internal decisions made by the agency’s planners and are separate to a wider overhaul scheme through the controversial introduction of independent assessments, or a rewriting of the NDIS Act that determines in law what can be funded and who can receive support.

It comes as the government faces a backlash from the disability community over its warning the scheme is increasingly unsustainable.

The goal of the so-called Sustainability Action Taskforce is to stop disabled people getting on and kicking off people who are already on Jordon Steele-John

Tuesday’s budget papers showed spending on the scheme would hit $28.1bn next financial year, up from a projected $25.4bn forecast for 2021-22 in last year’s October budget.

Costs are tipped to hit $33.3bn in 2024-25, an increase from predictions in a 2017 Productivity Commission report that estimated the figure would reach $30.6bn by then.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, and the NDIS minister, Linda Reynolds, have used these forecasts to claim a need for “hard discussions” about the sustainability of the current funding model.

Labor’s NDIS spokesman, Bill Shorten, said the new documents were “proof positive the Morrison government has no plan for Australians with disability except slash, slash, slash”.

“It is utterly unconscionable that vulnerable people are trying in good faith to get on the NDIS completely unaware there is a secret plan not to let them in,” he said…..

Read the full article here.

How the Morrison Government subverted and perverted an independent review of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)

 

The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 April 2021:

Secret documents have cast doubt on the independence of a wide-ranging review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme that recommended the most radical overhaul of the $25 billion program since it was established.

Emails and draft copies of the 2019 report, written by former senior public servant David Tune, show National Disability Insurance Agency officials inserted an entire chapter into the review of the scheme’s legislation, and made substantial changes to almost every part of the document.

The review was used by the Morrison government to introduce independent assessments for NDIS participants, where health professionals employed by one of eight providers paid by the government will review users’ eligibility for the scheme. Disability advocates have labelled the measure a cost-cutting measure to reduce the number of people in the program.

More than 900 pages of documents, released under freedom of information laws, show emails from NDIA officials and Department of Social Services staff prioritising the NDIA board’s topics, “talking points” and inserting a multitude of changes to the draft versions of Mr Tune’s report.

One email, from an NDIA official, apologised that the changes to the document were “hideous – almost unreadable”.

The tracked changes appear to show the entire chapter devoted to introducing independent assessments – which was initially recommended by the Productivity Commission in 2011 – was also inserted by a public servant…..

The government is pushing ahead with the plan despite the fact a parliamentary inquiry is still examining the policy…..

The parliamentary inquiry is expected to hold hearings this month where a wide array of critics will probably give evidence…..

Read the full article here.

The altered December 2019 David Tune Review Of The National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013: Removing Red Tape And Implementing The NDIS Participant Service Guarantee can be found at:

https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/01_2020/ndis-act-review-final-accessibility-and-prepared-publishing1.pdf

The last Australian Parliament Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme’s General issues around the implementation and performance of the NDIS report of December 2020 stated:

2.49 However, the majority of submitters to the inquiry opposed the introduction of mandatory independent assessments as part of access and planning processes.

In particular, submitters were concerned that assessments:

 will add complexity, stress and trauma for people with disability;

 will be of little utility in terms of understanding a person's disability and support needs; and

 have been rolled out without proper consultation with the disability sector.

2.50 These concerns were reflected in a statement by the Australian Autism Alliance, and in an address by the National Manager, Government and Stakeholder Relations for OTA, to the 2020 OTA online conference.

2.51 Some submitters asserted that the rollout of mandatory independent assessments should be paused to allow time for deeper consultation with the sector and a more thorough investigation of the issues associated with the assessment framework. Other submitters went further, asserting that the scheme should be discarded entirely. For example, the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council (VMIAC) stated:

The NDIA's proposed Independent Assessment process is conceptually flawed, unfit for purpose and needs to be scrapped and redesigned. It needs full collaboration and consultation with disabled people, their families, supporters and the disability sector, to ensure that confidence and safety in how the NDIS operates is restored….

2.59 As well as raising concerns about the potential for independent assessments to create stress and trauma for people with disability, submitters expressed doubt that independent assessments will be a reliable, accurate measure of a person's functional capacity. Consequently, submitters expressed concern that using the results of an assessment for access and planning decisions will lead to adverse outcomes for people with disability….

2.69 The First Peoples Disability Network (FPDN) raised concern that the independent assessments model, including the time allocated to an assessment, will not allow assessors to build trust in communities or gain sufficient knowledge of the circumstances of the person being assessed. This is of particular concern to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, noting the importance of trust and relationship-building to positive care and support outcomes. The FPDN also expressed concern that the assessments will not provide equitable access for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In this respect, the FPDN noted that:

 there may be no access to the technology required to conduct the assessment or communicate with the NDIA—particularly in remote areas;

 without an established relationship of trust, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with disability are more likely to disengage from the assessments process, or to choose not to pursue access at the outset; and

 while the NDIA has advised that a person undergoing an independent assessment may have a support person present, this is not realistic for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with disability.

How one journalist sees behind the scenes reshaping of the independent report.....

While the political will for Robodebt has almost always come from the Government, the "technical" solution -- unlawful income averaging without proper evidence, onus pushed on to customers -- could only have come from the department itself. This was internal tinkering.

— Rick Morton (@SquigglyRick) April 9, 2021

The draft legislation with tracked comments from NDIS staff also suggests the public position that they do NOT need legislation to introduce independent assessments is... not true. In fact, they seem desperate to get it in the leg'n. "Does this provide strong enough cover?" pic.twitter.com/fk8PZlKruP

— Rick Morton (@SquigglyRick) April 9, 2021

Morrison & Co continue to turn the National Disability Insurance Scheme into a hollow husk of its former self

The Saturday Paper, 3 April 2021:

The minister formerly in charge of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Stuart Robert.
CREDIT: AAP / MICK TSIKAS

Last Saturday, shortly after lunchtime, it all exploded. The WhatsApp group – set up between state and territory disability ministers and the then Commonwealth minister, Stuart Robert – had been seething with anger for a while. Then suddenly it was too much.

“I may actually self-combust with incendiary rage before this thing is over,” the ACT minister for Disability, Emma Davidson, messaged her colleagues.

It had been more than 24 hours since a leaked proposal for changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme was reported in Nine newspapers. But state and territory ministers, who share half the oversight of the $25 billion scheme, had still not been given a copy of the legislation. None of them had seen even a briefing note.

At no point since has the federal government – or Stuart Robert, who was moved from the NDIS portfolio earlier this week in a cabinet reshuffle – made the document available to the states and territories.

The Saturday Paper has spoken with several members of the WhatsApp group and the Disability Reform Council, both of which include Robert.

“He thinks it is okay to have state ministers begging to see a copy of the draft legislation,” one minister for Disability says.

“Robert says he is up to draft 80 on this and no one outside of the federal government has seen it. Not state ministers and certainly not people with disability.”

“Stuart Robert is taking all of the King Henry VIII powers,” one legal source said. “You cannot get a more pure power grab. That is a God power.”

After Davidson’s message, New South Wales Liberal minister Gareth Ward offered her a thumbs-up. Within moments, he phoned to express his support.

In the Northern Territory and Western Australia, ministers called for Robert to release the official draft. Until that happens, state and territory ministers are working from a leaked document that outlines an alarming future for the NDIS, including a “God power” for the federal minister to remake the scheme at will.

Robert offered no reply to his fellow ministers at the weekend. It was only after Scott Morrison’s Monday cabinet reshuffle – which saw Robert transferred to the Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business portfolio – that the Queensland MP popped back up in the chat.

Robert told the other ministers he was removing himself from the group and adding in the new minister for the NDIS, Linda Reynolds.

Reynolds, who remains on paid medical leave following revelations about her handling of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation, politely said hello to the ministers with whom she soon would be working.

Sensing an opportunity, they again requested the draft NDIS legislation. Reynolds did not reply, and has not been in the chat since.

The Saturday Paper has obtained a leaked copy of the proposed changes to the NDIS Act, dated December 2020.

The documents signal plans for a broad, sweeping and potentially irrevocable consolidation of power within the scheme to a single person: the federal NDIS minister.

In its 323 pages, bureaucrats have taken the current NDIS Act and tracked changes throughout. They have added entirely new sections to the legislation and deleted key clauses that have underpinned the very nature of the scheme.

Central to the seismic shift is a new ability of the Commonwealth minister to make so-called “rules” at any time, which the chief executive of the National Disability Insurance Agency must follow when interpreting the legislation…...

The Commonwealth minister would be given unilateral power to rule on general supports that will be provided under the scheme, and to dictate the criteria for “determining the total amount of funding allocated for the purposes of a plan”.

This change will strip the states or territories of the veto power they now hold.

But this is not the only significant proposal. The draft legislation includes an expanded debt recovery power, which would allow the NDIA to claw back money from participants who breach the new rules, sparking concern about its similarity to the controversial robo-debt scheme.

In effect, the agency could raise a debt on an individual if they spent their NDIS funding on “ordinary living expenses” or on a service or support the Commonwealth minister decides should have been funded by a state or territory government. These decisions could be entirely arbitrary.

Moreover, as one sector source pointed out, the government is “building a capability to surveil” NDIS participants in order to watch what they spend and where, in close to real time. Using technology solutions such as blockchain – already trialled in the scheme – the government wants to see what people are spending and will launch a new NDIS app in coming months to consolidate these features.

A new section of the act, 46C, would hand the Commonwealth minister the extraordinary power to ban any kind of support and to force states and territories to potentially fund others.

“A participant who receives an NDIS amount, or a person who receives an NDIS amount on behalf of a participant, must not spend the money to acquire goods or services prescribed by the National Disability Insurance Scheme rules for the purposes of this subsection as goods or services acquired as part of ordinary living expenses,” the documents read.

These banned “goods or services” – note, the scheme’s common language of “supports” is not used here – may be things the minister decides ought to be funded by “other general systems of service delivery or support services, whether or not they are currently being so funded or provided”.

The states and territories are concerned this will shift responsibility back to them – as, prior to the introduction of the NDIS, they were the major providers of disability services.

This particular clause, 46C, appears designed in response to a number of Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) findings made against the NDIA…...

Legal experts who spoke with The Saturday Paper were astonished at the breadth of this section in the proposed changes.

“He [Stuart Robert] is taking all of the King Henry VIII powers,” one legal source said. “You cannot get a more pure power grab. That is a God power.”

In law, Henry VIII clauses are often described as subordinate pieces of a primary legislation – in this case NDIS rules under the NDIS Act – that subvert or amend the legislation itself, typically through executive power.

This consolidation of power continues throughout the document.

Proposed changes to section 27 of the act would give the Commonwealth minister unfettered ability to decide, for example, whether people are mentally ill to the degree required for NDIS support. It could allow the minister to deny early intervention funding if they believed the evidence about its “benefit” in the future was unclear.

Most strikingly among the draft changes, though, is the removal of the entirety of section 34, which currently declares that participants will be given “reasonable and necessary” support funding “to pursue [their] goals, objectives and aspirations”.

Contrary to other media reports, there has been no suggestion from the Commonwealth that this is a mistake in the drafting or that it will be unwound.

On March 26, Stuart Robert tweeted, “We are introducing reforms to the NDIS because we believe access to the scheme and a participant’s plan should not be determined by your postcode or how much someone can pay for a report.

“This does not extend to removing the term ‘reasonable and necessary’ from NDIS legislation.”

Robert’s wording is deliberate. The term will likely remain in the legislation but not as a descriptor for what participants should receive in terms of support. Now, the term “reasonable and necessary” will describe a participant budget. The difference is subtle, but the latter places more emphasis on the financial metrics of the NDIS and, according to legal sources, would allow rationing of support without an avenue for legal challenge.

Where the draft discusses what is currently written as “reasonable and necessary supports” for individuals with disability, the reference is struck through and replaced only with “funding for supports”.

No less alarming to disability advocates, but more discreet, is a slew of language changes throughout the new document.

Under this proposal, for example, people with disabilities will no longer be entitled to “reviews” of their own funded support package but will instead be submitted to a “reassessment”. This language is changed throughout, and the word “request” has been changed to “requirement” for assessment information. Privately, NDIA staff and Stuart Robert’s office believe they do not need legislative force to introduce controversial independent assessments (IAs) – by government contractors who will examine disabled people to determine their functional needs, breaking the often years-long relationship between people and their treating health professionals – but these are included in draft proposals.

“A requirement … may specify that the assessment or examination is to be conducted by a person included in a class of persons made known to the prospective participant,” the draft clause says.

Public Interest Advocacy Centre senior solicitor Chadwick Wong, who leads the organisation’s project to institute a fairer NDIS, says the combined effect of independent assessments and the leaked legislative changes create new “transparency, accountability and governance issues”.

“The government’s cost-cutting overhaul of the NDIS includes a number of disturbing changes that will erode the ‘choice and control’ promised by the scheme to people with disability,” Wong says.

“The removal of the word ‘co-design’, as seen in documents leaked to the media … also points to a concerning step away from meaningful engagement with the disability sector.

“We urge the government to stop the implementation of these changes immediately, and to properly consult with the community so that improvements to the NDIS may be co-designed with people with disability.”

Taking all of the proposed and planned changes together, the impact on people with a disability is significant. Here’s how independent assessments will work with the government’s desired legislative overhaul.

The eight-year-long experience of people turning up to a planning meeting, expressing their goals and ambitions to live life in the community and having each of those goals funded through a “reasonable and necessary” support to achieve them are over.

Instead, a person’s first experience of the NDIS will be a functional assessment carried out by a team of strangers for a few hours. This assessment will automatically generate a “draft budget” based on software that splits them into categories. These categories will be informed by the functional need score, their age and, according to the agency itself in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry, “the impact of their environment, such as the informal supports available to the participant and other contextual factors such as locality or circumstance”.

Rather than building a support package from scratch, participants will arrive at their first planning meeting with a generic draft budget and then have limited opportunity to argue for individual changes.

Advocates are calling it “robo-planning”. If the NDIS was the greatest policy achievement in a generation, these changes represent the greatest disfiguring of its original intention. They lay the groundwork for an NDIS that is less generous, less fair and less accessible – all under the caprice of a single minister. And he just left the chat.

Morrison government is facing growing backlash from the disability community over a plan to introduce “independent assessments” to the national disability insurance scheme by the middle of this year

These are the private assessors that the Morrison Government announced it has contracted eight companies to do ‘independent' assessments on people who are current participants or applying to enter into the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Having supplied little more than business names for these independent assessors, this is the scant information I have collected since reading The Guardian news article of 7 March 2021.

1. Outlook Matters Psychology, Innovative Rehab, Pain NT - business names for Victorian for profit company Outlook Matters Pty Ltd offering Therapeutic Supports and Early Intervention Supports for Early Childhood (deafness & mental health).

2. Konekt Limited – a company listed on the stock exchange has 9 for profit subsidiaries. Provides organisational health and risk management solutions. Its 4 directors have backgrounds in banking, accounting, marketing, financial services, health insurance and one was formerly a senior executive in Rupert Murdoch’s infamous London-based News International PLC and currently chairs a data centre company, NEXTDC Limited.

3. Rehab Management (Aust) Pty Ltd – occupational rehabilitation and corporate health services provider. One of 5 for profit subsidiaries belonging to Arriba Group Pty Ltd. It has offices in all states and territories

4. Access Care Network Australia Pty Ltd – registered as a charity this WA company provides advice, support and referral to enable people to remain living in their own homes.

5. IPAR Rehabilitation – for profit provider of injury prevention, occupational rehabilitation and return to work services in Australia, with offices in every state and territory.

6. Advanced Personnel Management (APM) – member of the multinational APM Group, acts as a for profit employment agency for people with illness, injury or disability.

7. HealthStrong Pty Ltd - a for profit residential aged care and home care provider owned by Australia’s second largest health insurance company Medicare Private Limited.

8. Allied Care Group – a subsidiary of Zenitas Healthcare Ltd, a for profit home care provider listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (formerly known as Zenitas Healthcare Limited, BGD Corporation Ltd, Boulder Steel Ltd, Boulder Group Nl, Boulder Gold N.L).

This panel will be in place for three years, with the option for the National Disability Agency (NDIA) to extend it for two more years.

BACKGROUND

The Guardian, 7 March 2021:

The Morrison government is facing growing backlash from the disability community over a plan to introduce “independent assessments” to the national disability insurance scheme by the middle of the year.

Under the current process, applicants submit evidence from experts, including their specialists, and these reports are evaluated by the National Disability Insurance Agency.

From mid-2021 they will undergo an “independent assessment” by an allied health professional employed by one of eight contracted providers paid by the government.

The changes have sparked widespread backlash, including from a coalition of 25 disability advocacy groups which this week called for the plan to be scrapped.

They said their clients had expressed “acute fears regarding the risks to their health, wellbeing and access to reasonable and necessary supports”.

Labor, the Greens, and the Liberal MP Russell Broadbent have also suggested the change is a cost-cutting exercise, a claim strongly denied by the government.

The government argues that people with disabilities and their families are now forced to spend money collecting reports from experts. This has meant outcomes have been inconsistent and too often based on where a person lives or their access to health professionals.

This week the NDIS minister, Stuart Robert, released data showing plans were worth more on average in more affluent electorates in Adelaide, compared with less wealthy areas.

The government says the assessments – which will be free of charge and last about three hours on average – will create an easier, “streamlined” process.

Yet some people who have already taken part in an independent assessment have been highly critical of the plan.

Aaron Carpenter, a 41-year-old who lives with autism and agreed to take part in the pilot program, told the Guardian the experience had been “dehumanising”.

When he applied for the scheme, Carpenter’s own clinical psychologist wrote a report outlining the functional impact of his disability.

He questioned why his independent assessment was instead conducted by a physiotherapist.

Carpenter said he was asked many “yes or no” questions with “no context” and was at one point asked to complete a “task”, which was to make a cup of tea.

The NDIA has told participants the assessments include questions “about your life and what matters to you, and ask to see how you approach some everyday tasks”, and will also include some “standardised assessment tools”.

Carpenter said: “There’s a level of trauma that comes with disability and it’s through being made to be like a dancing monkey.

“We almost have to tell our story every single time we see somebody. To do that with a complete stranger, over the course of an hour or two, cannot capture us at all.”

After the assessment was finished, Carpenter applied to the NDIA for a copy of the independent assessor’s report.

He was dismayed when he saw a section titled “self-harm” was listed as “not-applicable”.

“When I have a bit of a sensory meltdown, it’s not nice,” he said. “I will punch things, I’ll punch myself, I’ll pull my clothing off.

“Probably my biggest impairment is being able to manage sensory input to the point where I don’t have meltdowns.”

Nicole Rogerson’s 25-year-old son, Jack, also lives with autism and took part in the pilot.

Rogerson, the chief executive of Autism Awareness Australia, told Guardian Australia she had “open mind” and understood why the agency had proposed the changes.

But she was so dissatisfied by the process she cut her son’s assessment short.

“It’s just sort of, sit down, the laptop comes out, out comes a manual of questions, and the testing begins,” she said.

“Some of the questions were about his capability in certain areas. And he’d be sitting there saying, ‘Oh, yeah, I can do a lot.’ It was, ‘Do you do all your own cooking?’ and he’d be like, ‘Oh, yeah, I can cook.’ There’s a big difference between whether you can cook something and, ‘Can you live independently?’

“He was answering incorrectly, not meaning to. And she’s noting all this down. My concern was, how good are these assessors? Do they know about autism, and/or intellectual disability? Are these answers going to be considered ‘the answers’?”

Rogerson said her son had been asked to take the garbage out during the assessment and eventually she could see him “starting to feel really low about himself”.

She was worried about how the assessments might impact the mental health of some participants.

“She’s asking him, ‘How does your disability affect your job? And he’s saying, ‘Oh, no, I’ve got a job. I’m fine.’

“And he’s looking at me like, why is this woman asking him to rate his own disability, of which he doesn’t really like talking about or think he has one.”...

Critics have compared the independent assessments to Abbott government reforms introduced for the disability support pension, which helped drive a large reduction in successful claims.

Jordon Steele-John, a Greens senator who lives with cerebral palsy, claimed the government was using the assessments as “a tool to reduce the number of people on NDIS”.

“That is their objective,” he told the Guardian. “They may dress it up in whatever bureaucratic language they want, but they want to knock people off the scheme.”

Labor’s NDIS spokesman, Bill Shorten, told a rally last month the government’s independent assessments plan was “nothing less than a complete all-out assault to undermine the NDIS”.

A spokesperson for Robert said the changes were based on the Productivity Commission’s original design for the scheme and on recommendations from the 2019 Tune review into the NDIS Act.

He rejected suggestions there had been no consultation, adding that over the past three months there had been “additional consultation to support the rollout of independent assessments”.

“These reforms, in addition to the already significant improvements to wait times, deliver on this roadmap and will set up the NDIS for the future – an NDIS that works for everyone,” he said.

All new applicants will need to undergo a mandatory independent assessment under the government’s plan, while the scheme’s existing 440,400 participants will be subjected to an assessment when their plan comes up for review.

The government is expected to release draft legislation shortly, before a bill is introduced to parliament that will allow the changes to come into effect by mid-2021.