PWDA presented evidence at Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee on proposed changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme
PWDA Acting CEO Megan Spindler-Smith appeared before the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee Tuesday 24 February giving evidence on proposed changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
PWDA supports stronger safeguards to prevent violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.
We support tougher penalties for providers who wilfully cause harm. We support measures that curb predatory marketing and strengthen integrity across the Scheme.
But safeguards must not come at the cost of our rights.
NDIS reform must protect people from harm. It must also protect our right to make decisions, take risks and live ordinary lives in the community.
Rights, not overprotection
PWDA told the Committee that expanded enforcement powers must be matched with clear protections for participants, including:
- External merits review of key decisions
- Explicit recognition of dignity of risk and supported decision making in the Act
- Proportionate compliance requirements
- Statutory co-design with people with disability and our representative organisations
These are not principles for guidance notes. They must be embedded in legislation.
Megan told the Committee:
Dignity of risk and supported decision making go hand in hand. They cannot be unlinked.
Dignity of risk is not about recklessness. It is about the right to live an ordinary life. It is about being able to attend events, travel, try new activities and make personal choices, just like anyone else.
Supported decision making ensures a person understands the potential consequences of a decision and chooses for themselves. It prevents substitute decision making being imposed where it is not needed.
Supported decision making needs to be a key aspect underpinning all things that the commission and the NDIA ensure.
PWDA Acting CEO, Megan Spindler-Smith
Without clear legislative direction, there is a real risk that providers will become overly risk averse to avoid penalties.
That would not make people safer. It would shrink our worlds.
It should not be a situation where the decision is you don't get to go and do those things because we're going to keep you safe and that means potentially locking you in your house and not giving you an opportunity to experience all of life.
Safety cannot mean isolation. Protection cannot mean control.
People with disability do not want to be overprotected. We want to be supported.
High intensity supports must not push people back into institutions
Megan raised serious concerns about the impact of regulatory settings on people who require high intensity supports.
High intensity supports can include catheterisation, bowel care, PEG feeding, airway management and oxygen support. While these supports are medically complex, they are a part of everyday life for many NDIS participants.
Without risk-enabled guidance and proportionate compliance requirements, providers may withdraw from delivering these supports, particularly in thin markets and regional areas.
Megan shared this with the Committee, warning:
Many people who fit under the high intensity supports requirements have had to move into medicalised spaces because they can no longer gain access to those supports within their homes
That means hospitals. That means institutional settings. It means reversing the progress and independence people with disability have fought so hard to attain.
The NDIS was designed with the goal of supporting people to live in the community, not to push us back into segregated or medicalised environments.
If reform is not carefully calibrated:
You will only have choices to go to either a large provider or no provider or a hospital system.
Even those who do not require high intensity supports, the principle is the same. Reform must not reduce choice.
It must not narrow options. It must not make community life harder to access.
Proportionate compliance protects choice and control
PWDA supports strong oversight. Bad actors must be held to account.
However, compliance must be proportionate to provider size, context and capability. Small, regional, First Nations and community-controlled providers often operate with limited administrative capacity.
If compliance becomes too burdensome or costly, they may leave the market.
That would reduce choice and deepen thin markets.
Penalties may be justified. But, as Megan told the Committee, they must be accompanied by safeguards that keep participant choice and control at the centre.
Co-design is essential to rebuild trust
Rebuilding trust in the NDIS requires more than consultation. It requires co-design.
People with disability and our representative organisations must be embedded in the design, implementation and oversight of reform. Co-design should be a statutory duty, not an optional process.
NDIS reform must be grounded in human rights, self-determination and the lived experience of our community.
Dignity of risk and supported decision making are not optional extras. They are fundamental to a rights-based Scheme that supports ordinary lives.
Want to learn more? Read PWDA's submission or watch the full recording:
Watch the full recording on YouTube:
