People with disability are facing financial hardship and going days without food during the COVID-19 pandemic, new research reveals. A survey from People with Disability Australia (PWDA) found that nine in 10 people with disability have experienced increased expenses due to the ongoing pandemic.
NDIS Minister Stuart Robert is planning to introduce the proposed powers to federal parliament within the next two weeks. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission would be able to draw on sources outside the scheme to determine a ban, including a worker’s history at aged or child care centres. People with Disability Australia spokeswoman El Gibbs said the new powers would be the first step towards improving safeguards in the NDIS.
The main message of this report is that urgent action is needed to attend to the many inequities that people with disability and their families and carers face on a daily basis. Without movement on these issues, any future widespread emergencies will again produce substantial destabilisation for these households, with similarly detrimental impacts. This report sets out the key findings of the survey, devised by Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA), that captures the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people and their families and identifies unmet needs for resources and information as well as identifying areas requiring responses and future research priorities.
In 2018–19, about 230,000 people used disability support services funded under the National Disability Agreement (NDA). Of these, 68% used the Australian Government’s open employment services. During the year, about 29,200 NDA service users transitioned to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, many of whom (65%) had an intellectual or learning primary disability.
Australians with disability represent some of the most excluded of all Australians in relation to the impacts of coronavirus. At the same time, many people with disability are particularly at risk from COVID-19, because of barriers that exist to inclusion, and the need for ongoing support. This report sets out the findings from a survey that asked 200 people with disability about their experiences over the last two months.
Lead researcher Professor Simon Darcy said this was because people with disability felt they had no choice but to start their own business in order to work, setting their own flexible hours and working conditions was attractive, and it was an opportunity to give back to their community in some way.
Mary Sayers, CYDA’s chief executive, said that ‘‘all responses to a crisis such as COVID-19 must be designed to avoid creating further educational and social disconnection and inequality’’.
The Mission Australia Youth Survey has taken a disability lens to its data for the first time Young people with disability are more likely to report poor mental health and are twice as likely to have been bullied in the past year than young people without disability, according to data analysis from Mission Australia.
This inaugural flagship report for the Intermediaries Sector exposes challenges within the operating and policy environment and features the results from the inaugural Intermediary Sector Survey which 461 intermediary service providers responded to. The administrative burden of NDIS systems and processes frustrate providers, with 61% of respondents strongly disagreeing or disagreeing that systems and process in the NDIS are working well, however, despite this, the sector is responding and meeting Participant demand.
Some urgent changes are needed to help Australians with disabilities live independently at home, a report by a bipartisan parliamentary committee says.
Having easier access to National Insurance Disability Scheme data has been spruiked as an easy fix to improve the system. UNSW associate professor Gemma Carey says the scheme would benefit if academics had freer access to data.
Police are investigating a massive NDIS-related financial fraud that used a forged letter purported to be from former assistant minister and Australian Senator Sarah Henderson to convince Korean investors to part with $395 million.
The head of People with Disability Australia, Jeff Smith, was pleased by the staffing boost and welcomed Hoffman’s appointment but also called on the NDIA to keep looking for opportunities to employ people with disabilities.
“I see the heartbroken families of people who try and try to get funding but can’t, robbing them to be independent, contributing members of society. Fix it.”
Would it hurt to stay in debt and spend the money on services that society needs? Yes, because that is SOCIALISM!