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Who do they think they’re kidding? 9 July 2021

Media release
Who do they think they’re kidding?

Today, the Federal Minister for the NDIS, Linda Reynolds, will be asking State and Territory disability ministers to agree to wholesale changes to the NDIS Act. The changes would allow the NDIA to proceed with the introduction of so-called Independent Assessments.

This, despite the fact that the NDIA’s own Independent Advisory Council has called for the immediate abandonment of the compulsory assessment process, and the results of the most recent pilot of Independent Assessments expose it as an epic failure.

Minister Reynolds wants us to trust that an upgraded version of Independent Assessments will make everything right: a new version that hasn’t been designed or tested yet. The government wants to legislate compulsory assessments now and get the details right later.

Who do they think they’re kidding?

The NDIA has lost the trust of the people that it was designed to serve. The Federal Government and the NDIA have been repeatedly caught out manipulating the truth to push an agenda that is not in the best interests of people with disabilities or their families. We do not trust a word they say.

We call on State and Territory Ministers to oppose the Federal Government’s attempt to push through changes that will see the end of goals-focused individualised planning, dictate the choices people have about the supports they can buy, introduce debt recovery, and mandate untested and potentially dangerous robo-planning.

As Ministers from across Australia meet today to discuss the Federal Government’s plans to change the NDIS Act, VALID calls on them to demand that the NDIA:

• Immediately stop the rollout of compulsory assessments and cancel the contracts
• Release the data – the raw numbers on what is happening with the NDIA’s budget and commission independent research to understand the problems
• Meet with Disability Representative Organisations to objectively analyse NDIS problems and test a range of alternative solutions.

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