Babies are being removed at birth from First Nations mothers living with disabilities, the disability royal commission has heard. Giving evidence in Brisbane, Ms Schwartz said she had witnessed the removal of Indigenous babies first hand. “I would call it a heinous practice,” she said.
Five members of an accused Melbourne crime syndicate have been charged with defrauding the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the Child Care Subsidy of $800,000.
Closing date: December 23, 2020
This review has the potential to reshape the way the justice system deals with sexual offences in Victoria. Anyone with experience and interest in this area, including people whose work involves responding to sexual harm, people working in the justice system, family violence and child protection workers, people who have experienced sexual harm, counsellors, academics, and researchers are invited to share their views.
Far too many people with a disability are denied choices about their accommodation, often leading to neglect and abuse, a royal commission says. It said a shift from large housing complexes to smaller group homes had not eliminated institutional forms of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.
A Sydney healthcare professional has been charged and $5.3 million worth of assets restrained after allegations she used the National Disability Insurance Scheme to siphon money for personal use.
Two people from Western Sydney have been jailed for a combined 9 years and 6 months as the result of a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Fraud Taskforce investigation into $1.5m of fraudulent claims against the NDIS plans of Australians living with a disability.
Materials were seized from the sites in Western Sydney to assist the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Fraud Taskforce in its “Operation Pavo” investigation. In a joint release by the AFP, NDIA, and Services Australia on August 27, the authorities said the case’s current fraud value is estimated to be over $120,000.
Leanne Griffin is denying all allegations from Give a Care, a provider under the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which claims she breached her contract by taking clients when she changed jobs in May.
A carer for disabled Adelaide woman Ann Marie Smith has been charged with manslaughter over the 54-year-old’s death. She is expected to appear in Adelaide Magistrates Court on Thursday or Friday.
Three police officers who assaulted a disability pensioner on his front lawn after they attended his home for a welfare check have been spared jail. Senior constables Brad McLeod, John Edney and Florian Hilgart were found guilty last Friday of a combined six charges over their use of force against the pensioner, John, outside his Preston home on September 19, 2017.
Former Dignity Party MLC and disability advocate Kelly Vincent said the accreditations were “not a magic bullet, but they are a legal requirement”. “We need the State Government to stop pretending that everything to do with the human rights and lives of disabled people is a Federal responsibility just because of the NDIS.
Three special schools in Melbourne will be investigated over a series of allegations of “violence, abuse and serious neglect” of students with disabilities over the past 10 years. Victoria’s Department of Education and Training has launched an investigation into multiple claims of mistreatment of vulnerable children at Marnebek School in Cranbourne East, Jackson School in St Albans and Southern Autistic School in Bentleigh East.
“Vulnerable participants are not routinely identified and assigned ongoing support coordination in their NDIS plan,” the interim report states. It found there was no requirement for care providers to allocate at least two workers to cater for each client and no requirement for carers to have regular supervision.
Gaps exist in the system to protect disabled people under government care, with a dozen issues identified by a South Australian task force examining the case of an Adelaide woman who died in appalling conditions. The group’s interim report was released on Tuesday and found 12 areas that required attention, with most within the Commonwealth’s jurisdiction.
Celebrating his 10th “truly free” day of freedom since he was 16, Indigenous man Daryl Carr, 35, who has a mild intellectual disability, had a single message. “I don’t want to see the mob go through what I went through,” said Mr Carr, a Wiradjuri man who has spent most of his life behind bars. He was released from prison in late May after a NSW Supreme Court judge found that Mr Carr had been cruelly detained on a five-year extended supervision order for 11 years, sometimes for “minor breaches”.