Budget leaves people with disability paying the price for cuts to supports
People with Disability Australia (PWDA) says the Federal Budget cuts the supports people with disability rely on to live ordinary lives, without delivering the equivalent alternatives people are being told will replace them.
This Budget focuses on sweeping National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) changes with direct cuts to participant payments of $37.8 billion over four years, including an unclear reset to social and community participation and capacity building supports. While participants are set to lose access to the Scheme and supports, the Inclusive Communities Fund looks to focus on increasing access for NDIS participants only.
PWDA Acting CEO Megan Spindler-Smith said people with disability understand the need for reform, but the Government has made a political choice to cut supports before building the systems people would be expected to rely on instead. This budget is relying on 60% of its savings coming from people with disability, when we are only 25% of the population.
"Budgets are about choices. This Budget chooses to directly cut the supports people with disability rely on to get out of bed, go to work, care for their children and participate in community life. You cannot build an inclusive community with budget savings that damage people with disabilities' basic rights," Mx Spindler-Smith said.
"We absolutely know that the NDIS needs to work well and be sustainable into the future. But you do not achieve that by stripping support away and failing to deliver adequate safeguards, replacement supports or measures that address the administrative inefficiencies within the NDIA and Quality and Safeguards Commission. Without a serious reset the NDIA and Commission are not set up to deliver these changes in a way that limits the harm to our community. We see no evidence of that reset.
"The Government has stated social and community participation supports will be reset. It's heartless to cut supports we need to leave the house, work and study at a time when the cost of living has dramatically increased and alternatives are simply not there."
PWDA said this Budget has failed to provide adequate investment or certainty around Foundational Supports, despite the Government proposing to move increasing numbers of people outside the NDIS system.
While funding has continued for Information, Linkages and Capacity Building-style programs and Thriving Kids, PWDA said the scale of investment announced falls well short of what would be required to support the growing number of people expected to lose access to the NDIS or experience reduced funding.
PWDA said emerging agreements between states and territories also risked creating a postcode lottery where access to supports varies depending on where a person lives.
"States and territories are already publicly warning they do not have the funding or capacity to replace what is being cut from the NDIS.
"We need clear safeguards in place to stop us falling through these chasms. People with disability are at real risk of becoming political footballs between governments while essential supports disappear in the middle.
"You cannot responsibly remove support first and work out the alternative later. That is how people fall through gaps, end up and stay in crisis and lose trust in the system entirely.
"The Government has announced cuts first and promised supports later. That is not a safe or credible reform pathway for people with disability," Mx Spindler-Smith said.
PWDA welcomed additional funding of $15.9 million, over four years for Disability Representative Organisations which is aimed at supporting engagement in the upcoming reform process. Meaningful participation by people with disability cannot happen without proper resourcing.
"Governments cannot pursue large-scale disability reform that requires the deep expertise of people with disability who navigate these systems every day without genuine investment in our participation," Mx Spindler-Smith said.
"People with disability are experts in our own lives. Genuine co-design requires transparency, independent safeguard and a willingness to change course where reforms risk causing harm.
"We welcome investment that helps people with disability participate safely, accessibly and meaningfully in designing systems and reforms that directly affect our lives. However, funding engagement does not mean people with disability support these reforms or believe community concerns have been resolved.
"We are concerned the $1.7 billion "partial offset" that aims to improve the quality of our supports, is focused on fraud, digital systems and registration instead of people and what we need to simply live our lives."
PWDA President Jeramy Hope said the Budget also failed to meaningfully address the growing poverty experienced by many people with disability during the cost-of-living crisis.
"People with disability outside the NDIS seem to be absent in this Budget, including people relying on income support payments that remain well below what people need to live with dignity," Mr Hope said.
Mr Hope said PWDA remained deeply concerned about the future of independent appeal rights, the lack of clarity around proposed assessment tools and the need for reforms to be genuinely co-designed with people with disability from the beginning.
"No one should lose access to essential disability supports before equivalent alternatives are fully operational, accessible and properly funded," he said.
"The Government itself has admitted the 'devil will be in the detail' of these reforms. States and territories signing agreements in principle does not guarantee people will have access to the supports they need to leave the house, work, study and live full lives."
"People with disability deserve dignity, certainty and the right to have a genuine say in decisions that shape our lives."
"It is devastating that the most coordinated and focused government action since the Disability Royal Commission has been to cut the supports that are proven to reduce the abuse, neglect and exploitation our community has and continues to be subjected to. We will continue advocating for a more meaningful response that actually moves the dial on our full inclusion," Mr Hope said.
More than 14,000 people have now signed PWDA's Reasonable. Necessary. Ordinary. campaign petition calling on the Government to stop cuts that will harm people with disability and ensure no one loses support without equivalent alternatives in place.
PWDA said people with disability would continue fighting for the supports, rights and reforms needed to live ordinary, safe, dignified and fully inclusive lives.
