December 2021: What the newspapers are saying....

 

The Daily Telegraph, 15 December 2021, p10:

The CEO of an organisation that managed an East Lismore group home where significant issues arose has apologised on behalf of the service provider.

Life Without Barriers CEO Claire Robbs addressed the Disability Royal Commission on Tuesday.

Ms Robbs addressed issues including those which arose in relation to a particular resident of the group home, referred to by the pseudonym Sophie and another, known as Natalie.

“It deeply saddens me that for the people who have shared their stories with the disability Royal Commission, our organisation has not met this promise,” Ms Robbs said.

“The physical abuse Sophie experienced is unquestionably not in keeping with Sophie’s right to feel safe and respected in her own home.” “I do not condone the violence towards Sophie, and I offer Sophie and her family our sincere apology for the harm caused to her, including for the manner in which our investigations into the matter was undertaken.” She has condemned the misconduct toward another resident, known as Natalie. “For Natalie and her family, the sexual misconduct by a staff member is completely unacceptable, and I acknowledge the pain and trauma that has caused Natalie and her family,” Ms Robbs said.

“Our priority should have been to protect Natalie earlier.

“I offer this apology to both Natalie and her family with a full understanding that our delay in offering a genuine and human response was also unacceptable.” Ms Robbs is continuing to give evidence before the commission in relation to multiple abuse, mistreatment and neglect allegations at homes run by Life Without Barriers.

The organisation’s Director of Policy Reform and Business Development Stephen Doley appeared before the commission on Monday.

Mr Doley was the director of disability and aged care for NSW and the ACT at the time of the incidents in Lismore but was also questioned about the cases of residents in a Melbourne home…..

The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 December 2021, p1:

More than 1.9 million coronavirus case alerts have been issued in the Service NSW app over the past fortnight as end-of-year celebrations drive an upswing in the state's cases.

The alerts, issued between November 29 and December 13, include directions to monitor for symptoms, as well as to test and isolate as contacts of a case.

There have been several instances of all patrons at a hospitality venue being placed in isolation for a week as clusters linked to nightclubs and pubs threaten to push daily cases into the thousands by the end of the year…..

A NSW Health spokesperson said they were unable to confirm how many people were considered close contacts.

Half of Sydney's systemic Catholic schools elected to learn from home this week as families attempt to avoid being deemed a close contact before Christmas.

But hundreds of other families are awaiting their fate after their children were potentially exposed at school…..

Christine Rooke's daughter, who is too young to be vaccinated, caught COVID-19 on the last day of term at her eastern suburbs private school this month.

She tested positive on day six of her quarantine period so will spend the first 20 days of her holidays in isolation.

Ms Rooke says she hopes the rest of her family, all of whom are vaccinated, will avoid catching the virus. If they test positive, the clock on their isolation will be reset and they will be housebound until after Christmas.

"If none of us test positive, we could be out on the 19th. If any of us test positive now, we will miss it," she said.

"It's frustrating because we've been sold this story ... that we are going to live with COVID and life is going to get back to normal, but that isn't really the case."…..

Courier Mail, 13 December 2021, p5:

This week, police will embark on their biggest operation since the Commonwealth Games and the G20 summit – the reopening of Queensland.

Late on Sunday afternoon, stranded Queenslanders and travellers began to fill Tweed Heads, filling side streets, car parks and service stations, poised for the border to open at 1am.

Julie Aubrey and her family parked their caravan at a service station just 9km from the border, setting up camp chairs for the long wait.

Ms Aubrey travelled from Brisbane to Victoria in June to care for her sick mother-in-law. She passed in October, but Mr Aubrey couldn’t return because of hard border closures. “I haven’t seen my kids for six months, so that’s been tough. I just can’t wait to see them,” she said.

The borders have been closed to southern hotspots for the past 141 days, leaving families ripped apart, Queenslanders stranded and the tourism industry reeling.

The border has now been closed three times for a total of 435 days since the pandemic began.

But the long wait and the uncertainty is over.

FIFO dads will see their kids again – some meeting babies for the first time – grandparents will reunite with families, couples will celebrate homecomings and some locals will simply be allowed to go home.

Health authorities, including Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and new chief health officer Dr John Gerrard, have reassured Queenslanders there are no plans to shut the state down again.

Greeting the interstate arrivals at road checkpoints and airports will be officers from a 500-strong contingency, tasked with ensuring border openings today and vaccine mandates on Friday go smoothly.

The state’s top Covid cop, Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski, said it was the biggest police operation since the 2018 Commonwealth Games and the 2014 G20 summit in Brisbane attended by world leaders, including then-US president Barack Obama.

“We could see up to 60,000 vehicles (crossing into Queensland) per day,” he said.

“The pandemic response has been by far the largest and most sustained major operation in QPS history but the anticipated numbers (of ­people) we will have to deal with when the border reopens will be significant.” Business and tourism leaders, along with long-suffering border residents, say the reopening has been a long time coming and there can be no more crippling closures.

“There’s enormous relief that the state government has held its nerve and stuck with the road map despite the emergence of the Omicron variant,” Queensland Tourism Industry Council CEO Daniel Gschwind said.

“It should help rebuild shattered consumer confidence about travelling anywhere across borders.

“We have to learn to live with the virus and accept that it will spread in Queensland, but we can manage it.” Mr Gschwind said holiday bookings and inquiries had surged since the border reopening announcement.

He said the decision to reopen four days earlier than scheduled, after Queensland’s double dose vaccination hit 80 per cent last week, had reinforced confidence…..

Manning River Times, 10 December 2021, p3:

Health systems coping "at the moment" Local health systems, not just in the Mid Coast, but in other regional and rural areas around NSW, seem to be coping well at the moment, thanks to high vaccination rates in most areas. But it still wouldn't take much to tip the situation to a serious level, health workers say.

"The problem is things might seem to be going alright but then they can go pear shaped very, very fast," Dr Holliday said.

"I guess with small hospitals, and the Manning (Base Hospital) is really under funded, what will happen is that people will do their very best, but we don't have the capacity."

Paramedics and nursing staff in rural and regional areas keep saying there is a chronic staff shortage, and that the capacity of a hospital to deal with an increase in COVID cases will not come down to a lack of beds, but a lack of staff.

Tim McEwan, an Australian Paramedics Association delegate and working paramedic from Yamba, near Coffs Harbour, says that staff are "dead on their feet"

"It's been relentless. Not necessarily COVID related, just generally speaking," Mr McEwen said,

"What we're finding now is that both NSW Ambulance and the hospitals are struggling to staff their units.

"Even NSW ambulance can be two or three cars short each shift, and they just can't find paramedics to fill them. The casuals don't seem to be putting their hand up as much; certainly the full time staff are not putting their hands up for overtime.

"If the hospitals can't staff their wards, then the flow on is that the ED can't get their patients out of there onto the wards," Tim says…..

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

Is Scott Morrison's response to the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces genuine? Or is it just busy work to hold the line until after the next federal election?

 “The Australian Government has agreed to (in full, in-principle, or in-part) or noted all 55 recommendations in the Report.” [Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, media release, 8 April 2021]

“are either agreed wholly in part or in principle, or noted where they are directed to governments or organisations other than the Australian government” [Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, quoted in Sky News online, 8 April 2021]

So after ignoring the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces Final Report for over 12 months, what do Morrison’s weasel words in the quotes above indicate?

Scott Morrison & Co say they are proceeding to:

* order a survey every four years to provide data on sexual harassment;

* provide educational resources for young people of working age on workplace rights and sexual harassment;

* educate and train staff at the Fair Work Ombudsman, Fair Work Commission, Safe Work Australia, WHS regulators and workers’ compensation bodies concerning sexual harassment;

* lead a new collaboration by government, unions, employers and employer associations called Respect@Work aka the Workplace Sexual Harassment Council; and

* the Workplace Sexual Harassment Council is charged with:

a. providing high-level advice on development of guidelines and resources to ensure that all services providing information, advice and support in relation to sexual harassment can provide accurate information, make appropriate cross-referrals, and collect consistent data

b. after three years, considering the need for a centralised, accessible service to provide information and advice in relation to workplace sexual harassment;

* develop a Respect@Work website to provide the general public, employers and workers with free information; and

* Advise all state governments that they should ensure that relevant bodies responsible for developing training, programs and resources for judges, magistrates and tribunal members make available education on sexual harassment. 

Somehow in this 7-item list I don't see any immediate, hands-on, practical actions by the Morrison Government that will see the rates of sexual harassment, sexual assault, physical assault and/or murder by a partner or former partner, of women and girls in any state or territory decrease in the next few years.

I sincerely hope I am wrong.

 

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.

Iluka NSW Population 1,746: in March 2021 a small village with a big heart reminded the Morrison Government that women have a right to R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

 

Clarence Valley Independent, 24 March 2021:

Around 60 women and eight men joined together in Iluka on Monday of last week in the Clarence Valley march4justice protest march, organised by Berri Brown (Iluka) and Robin Thomas (Woombah) to say, “Enough is Enough”.

Berri Brown, shared her reason for protesting, saying that, “Domestic violence is about emotional, financial and verbal abuse. I want things to change so that my little girl will be able to go about her day in the knowledge that whatever she decides to do in her future she will never have to be silenced or not be believed if this was to happen to her”.

Guest speaker Prue Leggoe OAM of Maclean said, “Of the 60 women present only one woman put up her hand to say she had never experienced sexual harassment or abuse. One of the men attending said he was there to stand for his two daughters who had experienced sexual abuse. This is a devastating statistic”.

Prue added that is seemed that nothing had changed since she had experienced sexual harassment when a Member of the Victorian Parliament 40 years ago. “It seems to have gotten worse in Parliaments, where power is used to manipulate and frighten an abused person, and workplaces continue to be unsafe for many women and men.” She said…...

A perspective on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's inability to comprehend that all women have a right to equality and respect

 

ABC News, 16 March 2021:

The early signs of an earthquake can often be easy to miss.

Above the ground, the initial tremors can seem innocuous. But deep below, the tectonic shifting of plates can set in motion a series of events that rip apart the earth and bring down all that stands above it.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison could be forgiven for missing the early signs of the quake that would destabilise his government and upend the nation's political landscape.

When those early tremors started, Morrison was riding high. The nation was bouncing back from an economic recession and the man who'd won an unlikely victory years earlier appeared on track for re-election.

His focus was solely on a successful vaccine rollout, which he hoped would bolster the public's confidence in his government.

Weeks later, he'd find himself inside the House of Representatives, all but praising the nation for not shooting the protesters that had gathered outside.

"This is a vibrant liberal democracy," he offered.

"Not far from here, such marches, even now, are being met with bullets, but not here in this country."

Scott Morrison is a man under pressure.

He has two Cabinet ministers, representing a quarter of the government's national security committee, on medical leave.

His government is facing allegations of a toxic culture towards women, particularly young female staffers.

Morrison played an unlikely role in the catalyst that would shake the foundations of the nation's Parliament.

He beamed as he stood alongside Grace Tame as she held her Australian of the Year trophy — an all-but-typical sight for a Prime Minister each January.

It was this sight that gave former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins the confidence to come forward only weeks later, and make public an allegation that she had been raped in a ministerial office, mere metres from the Prime Minister's office within Parliament House.

As she stepped forward into the light, so too came other women across the nation, each unearthing a growing list of allegations that ranged from bullying to sexual assault.

It derailed the government's planned focus on vaccines and forced the Coalition onto the back foot. The days of solely focussing on the pandemic are ending and with that comes greater scrutiny of the government on multiple fronts.

The Prime Minister knows all too well the power of marketing and imagery.

He projects the image of a daggy dad, the Sharks-loving, cap-wearing suburban everyman who builds chicken coops for his daughters.

So you only had to see the shirt he was wearing — the national netball team's — when he got his first COVID-19 vaccine to realise how aware he was about the reputational damage being inflicted on his government because of its culture towards women.

That culture has been a scourge on Parliament House long before Scott Morrison became Prime Minister.

But as the leader of the government it's his task to handle.

He's faced blowback for saying he had to talk to his wife to realise he had to respond to Brittany Higgins's allegations as if they were coming from his own daughters.

He's also faced criticism for referring to Ms Higgins as "Brittany", rather than Ms Higgins.

The same way he referred to Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer Alison McMillan, a professor, as "chief nurse Alison", while Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly gets a "Professor Kelly".

Though each are small, the Prime Minister is facing questions about if they add up to something bigger.

"Not so much a tin ear as a wall of concrete," Labor leader Anthony Albanese offered in Parliament yesterday……

Former chief medical officer Brendan Murphy or the former NSW fire chief Shane Fitzsimmons were heavy favourites to be named Australian of the Year.

If either man had been awarded the honour, they'd have easily joined the ranks of the distinguished Australians to hold the position.

And if Murphy or Fitzimmons had been named Australian of the Year, it's unlikely the nation would still be talking about them more than a month later.

It's very possible it would've meant the Prime Minister would still be riding high, talking about the vaccine and an economy in recovery.

Grace Tame changed all that.

She has advanced a reckoning that has long hung over the nation's Parliament and its treatment of women.

It's grown into a story beyond Parliament House and forced the nation to confront how women in all walks of life are treated in Australia.

There is no quick fix that Morrison could announce to solve this problem.

To change a culture takes time.

But for the tens of thousands who rallied around the nation, they were looking for signs the nation's leaders were listening.

What they heard was a Prime Minister who said they should be thankful they weren't shot.