Possibility of reform without education and consultation?

Can reform happen without an education process?

In short that is what the current federal government is hoping to achieve with the National Disability Insurance Scheme or NDIS. Despite what is popularly believed, the NDIS is more than a change in the way support needs for people living with disability and their families is funded.

True! Currently from July 2014, the NDIS will be gradually rolled out across Australia, and will cover all Australians living with a significant permanent (life-long) disability by July 1019. It is hoped that the introduction of the NDIS, will end the current unjust way funding is distributed.

It is also hoped the there will be greater access to services and the type of services people living with significant disabilities and their families can access regardless of where they live in Australian.  The NDIS has been promoted as ‘giving greater choice’ to people living with disabilities and their families. However, it is also predicted that the NDIS will provide a more competitive environment in the disability sector, creating a ‘market place’ environment. We know with competition there is also the threat of monopolization of the market place, as is the case with the two supermarket giants in this country. 

Monopolization in a particular corner of any given market, may in fact lead to a reduction of choice and this is something disability advocates need to be on guard about, as it threatens the core value or choice on which the National Disability Insurance Scheme was founded.

This is because the NDIS is not a funding reform. It is far more ranging in its scope than a change in the funding agreements between the federal and state governments, that see the federal government through an increase in the Medicare levy, fund disability care for the first time.

This is the first important myth for us to comprehend as we look towards the introduction of the NDIS.  This reform in not about funding!  While there will be an increase in funding available to those who need it and an increase in the number of people ‘eligible’ for direct support services, therapies and equipment needs, this is not the core of the NDIS. Yet in terms of the public education and information released I have seen so far, much of it has been around funding, changes to eligibility, changes to the way people are asses when applying, facts & figures around numbers and amount and debate of its costings and whether the Australian economy can afford it or afford not to induce it.

If the NDIS is not a funding reform, what is it? Essentially, as I understand it the NDIS is about social reform.

It is a major shift in the way we value people with a disability in this country. By acknowaging that people living with disabilities, their families and full-time carers live in poverty while they struggle to paid for medical expenses, early intervention therapies that can increase the quality of life the children or loved one who becomes disable can enjoy. It is about people with a disability and their families joining the social fabric for what makes Australia a great place to live.

The NDIS reform needs to remain a fundamentally a reform on how we view people with disability in this country.  The NDIS is about equality for all people living with a disability, their families and those who care for them. Until those standards are reached nationwide the work of NDIS campaigners with not be completed.

Funding reform and moving people to be funded under the National Disability Insurance Scheme and giving them dignity of choice for the first time is only half the battle.  Dignity of choice and direction over their own lives can only be achieved if ‘real’ choice is available and all activities available to other Australians are accessible to those living with disabilities and those who care for them. In essence the NDIS promises to provide real choices for real people!

This reform for the first time recognises the rights of those living with disabilities have the right to a choice in lifestyles that is consistent with every other Australian. This is the message that I think has been lost as we discuss and debate the economic value in the change for funding arrangements for the lifetime support needs of someone living with a disability.

In real terms the NDIS is looking at things like access to the education sector via providing specialized education support; access to a range of different therapies support not just what is popular of cheapest, we want to see an end to standard service and a choice in the market to open up; A choice is mobility aids and communication devices that increase the person’s ability to access and communicate in the community; physical, social and psychological access to the community in which a person living with a disability is a key player in the ability to deliver the NDIS reforms; access to employment and accommodation choices, being able to eat as a family at a restaurants and access holiday accommodations and destinations without needing to worry about access issues.

It is the change is the way we as society view access issues that pose and major threat to the NDIS reform process, where no longer worried about the legal access requirements for new buildings. Our biggest hurls in terms of access, is changing the attitudes of everyday Australians towards people living with disabilities and their families.   

While the tokenism attitude still occurs (like disable access toilets being used as storerooms, ramps with incorrect gradients, signs without brail or voice information, abstance  for captions for chimera goes, token ‘disabled’ employees and a inaccessible public transport system for people with disability) the type of social  inclusion that the NDIS reform aims to embody is still unattainable. I don’t think Australians comprehends the type of sweeping reforms that should  result  due to the NDIS, nor do I think we have the combine attitude to accept all people with disabilities as equal members of society.

We it comes to people living with disabilities, who they are; what they look like and especially what they are capable of achieving, I think we all fail in our correct assessments.  I am proven wrong everyday by the young people I work with.  They learn and comprehend things I think we not possible.  Traditionally thinking of what people with disabilities particular those with high intellectual process challenges are very limiting. For the NDIS to work our personal concepts of what is possible needs to explode!  I say that as an industry insider.  How much more will the general public struggle with the social reform that is the NDIS.

If you believe the government that the delivery of NDIS reform has began you do your maths and quick realised the focus is solely on the funding reform.   Funding alone can’t produce social change. We have seen it with smoking and drinking, Increase through taxes incurring prices rises do not work alone.  With finical reform needs to be public education to challenge along held misconceptions like it’s ok to drink while pregnant.

So how does the government think it can bring in major reform regarding the rights and choices of people with disabilities without any major advertisement on its reform processes?  Removing someone from the disability support pension and providing them with free taxies to get to work does not address, inequality in the workplace, the historical under employment of people with disabilities, the fact the many work places are physically inaccessible, yet alone the need to address what disability actual is!

Simple basic facts like people with intellectual disabilities can have a basic conversation to enable them to tell you how they want the hair cut.  The majority of them are able to have a conversation way beyond that complexity.  What amazes me is this perception is if a person is non verbal the do not functioning intellectually so there is no point talking to a non-verbal person and thus it becomes its acceptable to treat them as a non human being.

If retail staff, don’t want to talk to me, then how does the government expect me to go to a job interview, let alone be employed with uncontrollable seizures.  I can’t help but question some of the social reforms that are targeted by the NDIS and employment targets and thus the premise on which the National Disabilities Insurance Scheme is costs on is comprised.

Real reform for real people such as the NDIS needs education and disabilities awareness to be addressed.  Anything else denies people living with disabilities true equality.    

Productivity at war with compassion

Productivity is define as the state or quality of being productive and in terms of the Australian Economy that translate in to the ability to work.  This creates a number of social and economic issues as we struggle with things like access for all Australians, social inclusion, unemployment and underemployment. While it is great to see the Australian Liberal Government focus on the economy,  economic stability and job creation it needs  to make sure it doesn’t drop the ball on its social obligation to maintain human dignity and human  rights.

We have already seen the UN Commission of equal human rights question the Federal Governments priority to ensure an equitable future for all Australian.  However since being elected Tony Abott has made is feelings towards those who life circumstance  has not be fair.  The Gina Rinharts of this great economy of ours would have you believe anyone can rise up above the soco-economic environment in which they find themselves and create a multi-million dollar empire ‘if they weren’t afraid of hard work.

Now I do not dispute that Gina Rinhart is one of the most hard working people in Australia any one that manages an empire as large as hers works in creditably hard and long hours what I have difficulty in swallowing is a belief that everyone on welfare is lazy and Australians can is 2013 walk in to any job they chose. The fact that Gina Rinhart is a the top of the business world should mean as a woman she has first hand faced so type of discrimination.

If not she only needs to talk to our current Prime Minister to experience the inner workings of a man’s mind and how women are devalued it the corporate world. Even having experienced discrimination as a woman, Gina Rinhart is still speaking from a position of privilege, she wasn’t born into a working class.  She was raise in a position of privilege which gives her access to privileges’ such private education, tertiary education and I am sure there are making things about the business world she learnt by observing her father.

Social conditioning and the effect it can have on individuals is too often dismissed but the Tony Abbrot’s and the Gina Rinhart’s of this society.  Despite what I think we’d all like to believe, not everyone can become a millionaire. If you believe that try telling that to a parent with a child with Down Syndrome who wants to access any Grammar School in Australia for her 5 year old daughter.

Or a young 17 year-old girl with cerebral palsy who has to not only achieve the academic results to gain entry into university, but prove she can physical cope with the strains of academic life while living away from home.  Oh yeah add into the mix the she’s the first generation of a working class family to gain a tertiary education.

The trouble is when we’re making statements about changes government policies is the general were making board and sweeping statements about a minority group and while that statement may be true for the ‘norm’ of the population, very few people might belong to that norm, especially when we’re talking about very small minority groups, like refugees.

The liberal government has stragtically played into the hands of the general population fears of terriots and feelings of righteousness and false gaining advantage with its turning back the boats policies.  If I had witiness the murder of my entire family and fled across the border in fear for my own life,  I can assure you I didn’t wait for me passport and visa to arrive in the mail.      

Any broad sweep ting statement about an soci-economic group will feed into things like misconceptions people have about that percentage of the population whether or not the government is basing its statements on statistical data or not.  Such as the statement claimed to be made by the Prime Minister in the Australian today, one in twenty working aged people in Australia receive a welfare payment.  The wording of the articles who have you believe these productive people are receiving entitlements when other taxpayers their age have to work.

The author as does the Prime Minister assumes the majority of this particular population ‘doesn’t want to work’ and productivity or the ability to be productive means you are employable.   I am by nature a very productive person and high achiever, but what boss is going to employ someone with uncontrollable seizures that will need to off even other week.  I can’t guardutee all my seizures will occur on my days off even if I only working 20 hours a week.

That my friends is the trouble when we make statements about norms even when support by statistics.  This government either governs with a social agenda or stimulates economic growth. I think the government is pretty clear when it make statements like the NDIS being ‘a cause’ rather than addressing a human rights issue (A ‘cause’ they gave bipartisan support to while in opposition – because it was the decent thing for a country like Australia to do!”) it’s very clear how it views their  social responsibilities .

Reform solely based on productivity and economic stability or growth puts at risk many socially disadvantage Australians, who despite hard work and remaining productive, through life hard knocks rather than poor choices need a helping hand.  Unfortunately it looking like the federal government has little room in its budget for heart and compassion even when basic human rights are at risk.

Dreaming of Possibilities

Deb's Rave!

The hopes and dreams that the National Disability Insurance Scheme will bring for people living with disabilities and those who provide unpaid care, seems to balance on a uneven seesaw. What I am beginning to see emerge is that different agreements that have between different states and territories, and the Federal Government, sees a different approach to disability care, being adopted around the country.  A reality I find disheartening, when the principle underlying the NDIS campaign was a universal approach to supporting people living with disability and greater access to choice regardless of whether people live in Hobart Tassimia or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.  

So the anticipated mistrust of governments ability to deliver a disability support system that people living with disability and their families, unpaid careers and those who seek to support them on a daily basis were well-grounded. 

What was known from the outset, under the recommendation of the productivity report, was there was to be a nation wide shake-up to the eligibility criteria . With the promised the more people with disabilities and their primary careers would be eligible for support and the state-by-state regulations on supported career and accommodation would cease with individuals and families to be offered greater choice and flexibility in the way the receive that support.  That was the very essences of the National Disability Insurance Scheme campaign, a principle that disability advocates will not be negotiating.

The scheme must deliver a universal approach to supporting those living with disabilities and those who career for them.  In the push towards early intervention, fostering independence, the needs of families and those who care for them seems forgotten.  Loss in the former labor governments push towards priorities such as employment.    

While I cheer on reform that is founded on social inclusion, real employment opportunities and equality, these much not be at the expense of providing esscentual respite care and providing support to the family unit the live with  24 hours needs of a love one.  Everyone has a breaking point and everyone needs a brake and end to residential respite does not provide that break.

No one wants separation in any form but the reality is that unpaid career like every other Australian, has a right to annual leave.  The absence of being paid does not remove need.  We can debate all we like about what people with liabilities need, what the like, how to define choice, how do we create choice, how do people with disabilities make informed choices after a lifetime with out choosing basic things like the color of their toothbrush, what they want for lunch and what the will wear on any given day.  

As we face the road to a fully operational National Disability Insurance Scheme that delivers full equality to people living with disability and their significant others the challenges to ensure everyone has the same degree of choice regardless of type of disability, lifestyle and postcode are enormous!

The principles of the National Disability Insurance Scheme are not as secured as various governments have assured us.  We as the voice of those who can not speak must not be silence or rest. The right to choice must be secured for every Australia. Every Australian has the humane right to have their rights meet.