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One of the Ministers with the portfolio of overseeing NIDS and disability supports, has shared the Government’s thinking in placing NDIS closer to Health:
“Too often people are diverted from one system to another…we need health, disability and aged care to be connected and seamless to support the social model embodied in the NDIS.”
Those were the words of Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, one of the Ministers sharing the NDIS portfolio, Jenny McAllister.
The disability community has been given insight into the reasoning behind the Federal government’s decision to merge the National Disability Insurance Scheme with the Department of Health.
In what was Ms McAllister's first keynote as one of the new Ministers of the NDIS, a portfolio shared with Mark Butler, she addressed the disability community at the annual DSC Conference in Melbourne.
Run by Team DSC, an organisation made up of passionate people with lived experience of disability actively working within the NDIS, the conference boasts the biggest gathering of sector leaders.
In her opening comments, the Minister touched on why the NDIS has been aligned with health and aged care, taking care to double down on the government’s stance on the social model of disability.
The scheme must be designed, overseen, and implemented in partnership with people who have a lived experience of disability
Minister McAllister
The social model of disability, that she alludes to, is a way of viewing people with disabilities. It’s a model that the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations claims that, “people are disabled by barriers in society.”
However, many advocates are now basing their work around the rights-based model of disability which, according to the Disability Advocacy Resource Unit, uses a framework that recognises people with disabilities as having the same rights as everyone else, including the right to participate fully in society.
In a statement made at the DSC Conference by Associate Commissioner for NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Natalie Wade said it is committed to delivering a human rights regulation model.
We are firmly committed and we really want to make sure that the approach to regulation advances the rights of people with disability
Natalie Wade
Meanwhile, CEO of Women with Disabilities Australia Sophie Cusworth, an advocate for the rights-based model of disability, is urging Ministers McAllister and Butler to engage meaningfully with people with disability to uphold the transformative, rights-based goals of the Scheme.
“This shared focus presents an opportunity for the Government to take holistic action to address the needs of women with disability - particularly those with chronic health conditions whose needs are often not met by either the NDIS or the health system.”
Ms Cusworth went on to state her hopes for improvements to fractured systems which often leave people with disability out of the equation.
A focus on disability, health and the NDIS will allow the Government to better address the current fragmentation between disability and chronic health supports, which disproportionately impacts our community
Sophie Cusworth
As for Ms McAllister, she pledged her commitment to directly involving the disability sector and NDIS participants in policy making and the decisions impacting the community.
“Government cannot make good decisions without good information…We do best when we make decisions together,” she said
Further reading:
- ‘Who looks after me?’ More than 40% of disability carers have disability themselves – and they need more support
- Where are Foundational Supports?
- Original Design to Delayed Reality of Foundational Supports
- Results of the media request on foundational supports
- In search of clarity on the new supports outside the NDIS
- Explainer: What are Foundational Supports?
- Disability Supports Beyond the NDIS
- The government wants to contain NDIS growth. But ineligible people with disability also need support