Reporting today confirms that Labor's NDIS cuts will be disastrous for disabled kids and autistic people, with almost 145,000 autistic people to lose their supports.
The internal documents reported by the Guardian also show that two-thirds of the 241,000 people who will no longer be eligible for the NDIS in 5 years will be children.
These supports are often used for speech therapy, to build social skills, strengthen independence and help kids attend school. Alternatives do not currently exist for kids, and the government has failed to explain what programs are planned for teenagers with autism.
Ahead of the public hearings for the inquiry into the NDIS cuts recommencing on 30th July, the Greens say Labor should withdraw a bill already doing so much harm.
Acting Australian Greens Leader Mehreen Faruqi said:
"Autistic people and children with disabilities will be hurt the most by Labor's cruel NDIS cuts, the biggest cut to a government program this century.
"The parents of 154,000 children will today be wondering what comes next for their child - when Labor takes away the support that lets them go to school, build social skills, and to play.
"These kids are being deprived of essential supports because Labor is too cowardly to tax gas exports, to stop sending billions to the USA for AUKUS submarines that we'll never get, or to stop the $30 billion a year in tax handouts to wealthy property investors.
"We're already hearing from disabled people and their loved ones who are being cut from the services they relied on. The threat of these cuts is already drying up funding and doing harm to thousands of people.
"Labor's cuts to the NDIS are one of the cruelest acts perpetrated on a community by an Australian government. The Greens will continue to fight to see this cruel attack on disabled people scrapped."
Australian Greens Disability spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John said:
"This is an appalling and dangerously irresponsible Bill that sees Labor forcing 145,000 autistic people off the NDIS because they are too cowardly to tax the superprofits of corporations.
"The government has no explanation for what will happen to autistic people, and kids with other disabilities who lose their supports, because there is no plan. They are booting hundreds of thousands of people off the NDIS when there is no alternative.
"Labor decided to balance the budget by removing disabled people's critical supports because they were too cowardly to tax gas exports, or scrap the tax perks for property investors instead of grandfathering them in the last budget.
"Thankfully, the momentum behind these cuts is crumbling, and public opposition is growing as people realise they will leave hundreds of thousands of disabled people and their families without carers, equipment and supports they rely on every day.
"The Greens will fight alongside the disability community to stop these cuts. Labor and Liberals should listen to the powerful testimony of disabled people and shelve this bill."
