National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)

A disability working group said at least 45,000 people with disabilities will remain in unsatisfactory housing, including nursing homes, living with aging parents and homelessness under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). While the key aim of the NDIS is to provide participants with independent living, most of the people with disabilities will not receive housing support. Housing experts believe 110,000 people need appropriate accommodation, meaning about 40% will miss out on the help they need.
Hundreds of disability workers rallied in Melbourne on December 14 against attempts to privatise the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in Victoria.
Two hundred Public Service Association (PSA) members were joined by people with disabilities, their relatives, friends and other trade unionists in a protest in Newcastle on November 4, as part of a four-hour strike against the privatisation of disability services. The Baird government is using the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme as a cover to sack 13,000 workers in public disability services and gift state assets to private providers.
Hundreds of members of the NSW Public Service Association rallied outside state parliament on November 13 to protest against the government’s privatisation of disability services over the next 12 months. Ageing, Disability and Home Care (ADHC) is part of the NSW Department of Family and Community Services, but the NSW government plans to hand it to the corporate and non-government sector.
The Disability Services Commission (DSC) in Western Australia announced last October that it planned to privatise 60% of its accommodation and early childhood intervention services, relinquish its status as a registered training organisation and dismantle its learning and development arm. At the same time it abolished its Community Development Directorate, dissolved its Post School Options section and made its staff in the Community and Family Living team redundant.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme, now to be known as DisabilityCare, has become a central theme of Australia’s national debate. This is a tribute to the many thousands of people who have campaigned tirelessly for better support for and inclusion of people with disabilities in society.