The current maximum baseline disability support pension is $900.80 a fortnight. Under the pension income test, a single person on the DSP loses 50¢ in every dollar they earn over $190 a fortnight, which advocates say can act as a disincentive to work an extra day or two.
After promising to put disabled people at the centre of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), Labor did not choose those who are open about their disability to chair the NDIS Senate committee, set up in July. Instead, it appointed Labor Senator Libby Cocker as chair and Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes as deputy chair, despite Western Australian Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John’s offer to chair it.
w crackdown on providers taking advantage of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has been predicted to catch many fraudsters after a Queensland woman was jailed and another charged over alleged fraud offences.
Sometimes it meant “14 days without a shower”, Colin said. “I‘ve got no support, I’ve got nothing. I’ve got no way of cooking food, there is no fridge … [The] bathroom I can’t use,” he said.
Australia’s first university chancellor who identifies as having a disability says things have improved since the days when his law studies revolved around whatever resources he could obtain in Braille or reel-to-reel audio tape. “I had a smaller range of material,” said lawyer and disability advocate Graeme Innes, who was born blind. “My challenge was that I had to know that material better than other students who could research more broadly than I could.”
On any night there’s an estimated 116,000 homeless people in Australia and the majority of them have a disability. “Having nowhere to go after hospitalisation … that’s one of the difficulties I faced,” she said. “You just feel nothing, you’ve got nowhere to go, you don’t really have the ability or the finance to feel anything, so it’s nothingness.
Ten years since the introduction of the NDIS, and it’s time to look hard at the rollout of the Scheme and what’s missing. One key area is any services or supports for disabled people outside individualised plans.
How are the NDIA and the sector performing when it comes to employing disabled leaders? Only 5.7% of NDIA Senior Executive Services positions are held by people who identify as disabled. This equates to 4 out of 71 senior positions. Yet the NDIA’s Corporate Plan 2021-25 reveals that it aims to employ disabled people in 11% of its senior executive positions.
Disability is often relegated to “second-class” status in student activism. More effort, listening and discernment is needed from other activists to build a genuinely inclusive student movement.
Barriers to employment will be a key focus of the Jobs and Skills summit and Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth has said she wants to ‘close the gap’ on employment outcomes for Australian’s living with a disability.
Do people with disabilities need to continue learning more about ableism, discrimination, persistent inaccessibility, and social and economic injustice? Or, is it better for their overall outlook and mental health to focus on good news — about successful disabled people’s achievements, opportunities offered by new technologies and innovations, and empowering ways to think about disability itself?
Students with disabilities have been the worst affected by the upheaval caused by this year’s severe staff shortages in Victorian schools, according to principals, education experts and the students themselves.
“I hear revolting stories where, you know, people overhear their managers saying, ‘oh, we have to interview these people because they’ve come through the RecruitAbility framework, but we’re certainly not going to have them on our team’… it’s prejudice. Straight up. Unfortunately, Ryan said, even companies working in the disability sector are getting this wrong, operating without a person with disability at the helm or within the leadership team — including the NDIS.
The minister’s move is being lauded by many in the disability community. Writer and advocate El Gibbs tweeted that people with disability had long been campaigning for changes to the DES system.
Around 4.5 million Australians live with disability but less than 13% of them are covered by the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Getting into the scheme is one thing. But many NDIS participants find using their funding is yet another.