Powerd NewsWrap 1st October 2025

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to a Vision Australia radio podcast. Love our podcasts. Why not listen to us live, tune in anywhere, anytime, ask your smart device to play Vision Australia radio or visit va radio.org

Speaker 2 0:21

on the Vision Australia and reading radio networks. This is the Powerd

Sam Rickard 0:25

newsramp. G'day. I'm Sam Rickard. It's the first of October, pinch and punch for the first of the month, and we're reading articles from the Powerd Media website. And of course, joining me as normal is the writer of these articles, Emma Myers, G'day, Emma, hello. All right, so we had a show in the bag for last week, because you're away at a wedding. How did that go?

Emma Myers 0:49

It was really good. Sam. Did the weather? The weather was actually really nice, so and the bride and groom seemed very happy. There were no tears, maybe happy tears, but, yeah, perfect day, perfect wedding,

Sam Rickard 1:07

right? And talking of weather, you did a couple of articles. We'll do. We'll talk about one this week, and we'll talk about the other next week, about the Climate Change report.

Emma Myers 1:18

I'd see what you did there then. Very clever. Yeah. So recently, the federal government announced the national adaption plan for climate change and where we'll be heading towards 5050, and some plans to prevent the more drastic effects of climate change, or all elements of life. And one particular area that I was interested in exploring, what's what's on the cards for people living with a disability,

Sam Rickard 1:52

I mean, because what they're forecasting is an increase in natural disasters. So you call them natural disasters, if they're caused by a human made event, is another question, but we won't necessarily go there. But yes, as we've established in previous episodes, people with a disability quite often fall victim to these inverted commas natural disasters.

Emma Myers 2:15

Yeah, that's right, Sam, they do and or, shall I say, we do, we are part of the disabled community, after all. So as we know, people with disability are more likely to be impacted by climate change to a broader extent because of our comorbidities. So that could be people with skin conditions. It could be people with mobility aids that are sitting on phone for half for the majority of their life. So the Minister for Climate Change Energy, Chris Bowen has released a scenarios, first national climate risk assessment, which is interesting, seeing that people with disability weren't mentioned in that publication, but we were mentioned in the subsequent national adaptation plan. Indeed.

Sam Rickard 3:22

So I mean, apart from that, as I said, I mean, we have a habit of being left behind when things go wrong as well. And if this is going to be more common, then yes, I think that should be mentioned as well. So yes, a case of just watch this space. And now to shake things up a little bit, we have two news readers, Ron sedecki and then Ed Hancock, over to you.

Speaker 2 3:43

Ron, thank you. Sam, many Australians with disability will be eager to find out how the federal government plans to implement Australia's first national climate risk assessment and national adaptation plan after it was announced this morning to combat the growing threat of climate change. Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen says the plans will help Australians live with the consequences of climate change. Australia's first national climate risk assessment and our national adaptation plan are a road map to address the unavoidable impacts of climate change, to build a more resilient country for all our communities, regions and industries. The national adaptation plan outlines the need for disaster preparedness, risk management plans and public emergency responses to be inclusive for people with disability, as stated in Australia's Disability Strategy 2021 to 2031, this includes supporting physical and mental wellbeing of people with disability, 5.5 million Australians live with disability, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, according to the Disability Advocacy Network Australia Dana, a peak advocacy body, people with disability can experience additional health issues which are often. Caused by extreme weather in February 2024 the disability advocacy organization sent a letter to former minister of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill Shorten urging the government to take stronger action to prevent hundreds of people with disability dying in each city every year as heatwaves become hotter and longer, the department of health, disability and aging, will lead the development of the subsequent health national adaptation plan, which will align with the national adaptation plan, providing a National Coordinating framework aiming to support the health and well being of all Australians In a changing climate. In the meantime, Mr. Bowen says every degree of warming prevented now will help future generations avoid the worst aspects of climate change. We're working alongside communities to respond and adapt to the impacts. Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Josh Wilson agrees, adding that taking immediate action will minimize the financial cost felt by the community. The Albanese government has already undertaken considerable adaptation work, but we know there is more to be done to respond and adapt to climate change impacts and to ensure a sustainable future for generations to come.

Speaker 3 6:18

Many in the disability community have been sharing their thoughts online after ndS Minister Jenny McAllister announced the new needs assessment tool this week. The tool is called the instrument for classification and assessment of support needs I can which is being marketed by the Albanese government as something which could make it easier for people with disability and their families to navigate the NDIS, according to Minister macalica's office, the NDIS review released its final report back in July with the recommendations for a clearer process to assess Disability Support needs and build plan budgets, the needs assessment tool is said to be applied by the NDIS agency assessors, alongside questionnaires assessing participants, personal and environmental circumstances. According to the press release, the NDIS Minister McAllister believes the ICANN assessment tool is vital to implementing recommendations. It can take a long time and cost a lot of money for people to source supporting evidence to have a planning meeting. There is a better way. However, not everyone in the disability community is on board with the decision. Various users took to Facebook to claim that many indis employees don't understand disability and question the qualifications of the people who will be in charge of using the tool they need to be a degree of holding the professionals a glorified admin officer has no place in determining disability funding which can impact lives significantly. Absolutely flawed system. Most qualified health professionals provide intricate and accurate details on these reports, providing the knowledge insight and expertise pertaining to the disability accurately. Another claimed the University of Melbourne and the center of disability studies say that they are working with the NDIA to use and modify the I Can tool to ensure it is fit for purpose. University of Melbourne, Professor of mental health system reform, Jason Thompson believes the collaboration could demonstrate how research can translate into practical, real world solutions. The University of Melbourne is proud to partner with the Center for Disability Studies so we can both help with the NDIA development as an asset process that is grounded in evidence and lived experience and will uphold values of validity, fairness and transparency. However, disability advocacy group, Every Australian Counts has started a parliamentary petition calling for the NDIS to allow participants to maintain control over their own professional reports and assessment submissions. The NDIA no longer has to consider the evidence you provide, like your own written account and reports from your occupational therapist, psychologist or GP. Instead, decisions will be based on internal assessments that might not reflect your real world needs. The group posted on most social media. Powerd media reached out to NDIS Minister mcallister's office for comment, where a spokesman responded, saying that the government will be taking the time to work with a disability to. Community to get this right. The process engages people with disability directly. The new support needs assessment tool will allow people with a disability to have direct conversations with the NDIA about their needs. There are face to face interviews that can either be done remotely or in person. The new needs assessment tool is set to be introduced from the middle of 2026 now back to Emma and Sam.

Sam Rickard 10:31

Thank you and Nanette. All right, so this is an article that covers a whole lot of different angles, really, and a whole lot of different CERN. So this is a new assessment tool used by the NDIA

Emma Myers 10:42

Well, it's had a bit of a mixed reaction to its announcement, really, because it's a tool that could be used to help make it easier for people with Disability to navigate their needs in the NDIS. However, many people have taken to sharing their thoughts online, saying that there are risks associated with this tool in that their needs won't be met as accurately. Well.

Sam Rickard 11:19

Yeah, it is a real mixed bag. I mean, on one level, as someone who's tried to deal with the system in the past, any help that we can get actually finding services and finding what we need would be extremely handy, because the current portal is it is a very gray looking place, very hard to navigate. But on the other level, I always find government, when government tries to automate things, something tends to go a little skew if and the it takes them a while to work that out. Hello, robodebt. Let's put it that way. Look, I

Emma Myers 11:54

contacted McCall. It's a dolphins for comment. They got back to me, and the spokesperson said the service might be automated. It'll be face to face interviews that can be done in person or online. But the key issue that's standing out for me is this new needs assessment tool is going to be run by an NDIS agency official who may not understand disability in the way that they need to to adequately assess people's needs, and the tool is essentially going to make professional evidence given by experts who know their clients best, obsolete.

Sam Rickard 12:45

I don't think they could ever, ever do that. I mean, it's, I'm sure that officialdom and government are utterly confused by now, because we've said, on one level, yes, we would like a social model to this thing. And now we're sort of saying, Yeah, but please don't discount medical evidence. I think what it comes down to is they need to be as adaptive as we are,

Emma Myers 13:08

and as you will hear shortly, you'll be able to hear from people in the disability community why this is such an issue as well as and why the advocacy group of its engineering counts, is fighting back against the decision to allow party estimates to keep control over their own reports.

Sam Rickard 13:35

That is a wrap for this week. So thank you again, Emma for your illuminating articles and your illuminating opinions, and we'll be back next week with more. Bye, bye.

Speaker 3 13:47

You can find these articles and more by going to Powerd, spelt P, O, W, E, R, D, dot media, along with the podcast of this show, the Powerd news rap was brought to you by disability media Australia. This show was produced by Sam Rickard in the Adelaide studios of Vision Australia radio