Advocacy for Inclusion (AFI) has made a submission regarding the recently released draft list of NDIS supports. This list essentially states what NDIS participants can and cannot spend their funding on. It is our view that this list, and the approach currently taken by the Government, is damaging and cannot proceed.
Through this submission we argue that this list, not to mention the inadequate and inaccessible consultation period, attempts to remove many supports that people with disability use in the NDIS. In short, it proposes a complete re-orientation of disability supports and stands in direct contradiction to the Scheme’s original intention. These are arguably the biggest and most impactful changes proposed since the introduction of the Scheme and they require appropriate consideration.
Removing ‘standard’ items and pushing people towards more specialised support is outdated and arcane. It also risks surrounding people with supports that are unnecessarily complicated, medicalised, stigmatising and institutional in character. It is a blunt instrument, likely to be applied with reckless force.
Removing reasonable and necessary, not to mention essential, items such as menstrual products, batteries and generators does not mean that the need for them disappears. In this submission, we urge the Government to abandon such flawed simplistic lists and instead work closely with people with disability to develop a more flexible, person-centred approach to defining reasonable and necessary supports.