Dependency risk if NDIS politicised
A SCHEME meant to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities is being treated like an austerity- driven welfare system, sentencing children to a life of dependency, a Townsville client of the NDIS says.
Daniel Flynn was one of about 30 people to attend a Make It Work forum on the National Disability Insurance Scheme in Townsville yesterday.
Asked what he would say to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Mr Flynn said he would tell him to “stop the political nonsense”.
“These are people’s lives. If you want the scheme to work, either in terms of outcomes or on the fiscal side, then you need to treat it seriously,” Mr Flynn said.
“If you continue treat it as an austerity- driven welfare system, which is how the current government is treating it, we are going to end up in another 15 years in a giant mess where we don’t have good outcomes and we face all the same cost pressures of overexpenditure as the previous system.”
Mr Flynn said the scheme’s “bureaucratic” three- tier transport funding scheme was not working.
He said there were horren- dous delays of two to three years for wheelchairs and mobility aids, which was no better or worse than the previous state- based system.
Early childhood intervention was critical, Mr Flynn said.
“Many people who otherwise could have lived a more normal and ordinary life may be forced into a situation where they become dependent on services for the rest of their life, when that situation was preventable,” Mr Flynn said.
If services were not funded on need, more expense would be incurred through more time spent in hospital, through poorer physical and mental health and less opportunity for social and economic inclusion, Mr Flynn said.
“If you invest in someone early in their life, you increase the opportunity for paid employment, you increase the opportunity that person will end up feeling a valued member of society. With that comes better physical health, better mental health, less time spent in hospital, they have superannuation and they pay taxes.”
Make It Work campaign director Kirsten Deane said issues identified in the forums being held around Australia would be raised with the Government later this year.