Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John is calling for employment outcomes for people with disability to be a clear priority at the Albanese government’s upcoming jobs and skills summit.
VIDEO: Millions of Australians living with a disability have no access to public transport. Wheelchair taxis are an essential service, but in regional Australia they can be difficult to find.
With the right help, parents with intellectual disability can and do learn what it takes to be a good parent. But their efforts to keep their family together can be undermined by disjointed services and the separation of parenting responsibility from disability needs.
Should newly built homes have to be accessible for frail elderly people or people with a disability? Aged and disability advocates certainly think so, and they’re urging a meeting of housing ministers on Friday to push for agreement on national accessible building standards.
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said despite warnings, some organisations still failed to provide adequate support for people with a disability. “Poorly performing DES providers were given every opportunity to put measures in place to improve and were aware of the formal review process,” she said.
More than 15,000 Australians living with disability will be directed to better performing job providers following a major review. About six per cent of the Disability Employment Services program will be discontinued, affecting 52 of 104 providers nationwide due to underachievement. Eight will be closed altogether.
Requests to modify her home, based on assessments by allied health professionals, had been rejected by the agency, which had argued they were not value for money and may not substantially reduce the risk of injury.
When a new quarterly report is bestowed upon the NDIS observant and faithful, it provokes a complex set of emotions. The truth is that quarterly reports, like most things in this world, have their pros and their cons.
The SDA provider experience report shows there are more than 1,000 vacancies in new, purpose-built homes. The report shows that the vacancies are not due to a lack of demand, but because of issues with the NDIA’s role as ‘market steward’. That includes slow, inaccurate decisions by the NDIA on housing and providing a lack of accurate demand data for example.
The most worrying reports include NDIS participants being threatened with violence, extorted or threatened with being involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric facility if they do not agree to hand over their budget entitlement.
Infantilization is often a form of ableism. This behavior is offensive because it underestimates a person’s cognitive abilities and implies that people with disabilities are invisible, don’t matter, or don’t have anything meaningful to communicate.
Child protection statistics are a sober reminder of the vulnerability these families face if they fall between the cracks of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and mainstream support services. Parenting should be treated as an activity of daily living for people with disability and then supported – rather than ignored – to ensure the best outcomes for parents and children.
“Participants get to learn about teamwork, communication, problem solving and what it’s like to be a professional in the workforce,” Ms Petrusma said.
Then there are the criminals who prefer more of a hands-off approach, using accomplices such as doctors, pharmacists and accountants to exploit loopholes by variously billing for “clients” who don’t exist, padding invoices and charging for services that are never delivered, relying on poor auditing within the NDIS to go undetected.
He told Nine Newspapers that as much as 20 per cent of the $30bn annual cost of the NDIS was potentially being misused, costing vulnerable Australians their access to critical funds.