NDIS Resurrects Robodebt?

By Barbara Karpinski

Minister for NDIS, Bill Shorten, and the Senate Review Committee are proposing changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Amendment Bill 2024.

NDIS is planning debt collection action for non-compliance by NDIS participants. With the cautionary tale of Robodebt, I was glad I got my glasses script updated, so I could read the fine print. The proposed changes give NDIS new powers to make you see a doctor they choose and the real banger – “pursue you for debts if you spend money on unapproved items”.

Shorten is planning to ban sex work services and sex therapy for NDIS participants, but if punishment fantasies are your kink, you are in luck. 

Say, for instance, you choose to see a doctor of your choice or hire a sex worker. Not only would you have to pay the money back, but you could end up with debt collectors chasing you around, and if you are into BDSM, this could be fun. But if you were only looking for a sensual massage in your wheelchair, and this is not your idea of a safe, sane, and consensual, then you might need counseling to recover from the stress of the debt. But that could also be problematic due to being placed in a disability box that allows less flexibility under the new proposals.  

Sex Is A Human Right

Thomas Banks, who has disabilities that impact his communications, says the changes to the sex work access provisions will impact the community.

“As a person with a physical disability who relies on support workers to live my life, the changes to the NDIS act will mean I won’t have the same support as I do now. It will mean all the good providers will close down because they won’t be able to stay afloat because with registration comes expensive and complex processes. These changes will leave many people with disabilities abandoned and isolated from society.”

“Like many others in the disability community, I was shocked when NDIS Minister Bill Shorten announced there would no longer be access to sex work under the new NDIS legislation. Being able to access sex is a human right and when society perceives people with disabilities as unsexy, we need to be able to pay sex workers to meet our sexual needs in the same way we pay support workers to support us with our daily needs. I love paying a sex worker because all my needs are fulfilled in a safe environment. Because going to sex-on-premises or to gay clubs to hook up isn’t practical for so many people with disabilities because we are often seen as unsexy,” adds Thomas. 

Changes To Policy Are Punitive

The justification for the amendments is based on projected future budget blowouts and economic rationalism. But rather than tighter controls on dodgy providers wanting to make a quick buck by exploiting loopholes, the changes appear to be punitive for non-compliance.

The logic is to reduce the budget blowout and to protect disabled people from exploiters setting up scam NDIS opportunities on the public purse. Preventing advantage at the expense of vulnerable people is vital, but the current proposed legislation puts the lion’s share of responsibility on the people living with disability themselves. 

The spending on sexuality services is a very small part of the overall NDIS budget, and the axing of this option cannot be justified as a cost-cutting measure. The motivation is about moral control over the bodies and lives of disabled people – a breach of human rights. 

The religious right of Labor may have a hard time understanding the lived experience testimonials of sexual healing via sex work. The government seems hell-bent on bumping people off NDIS into the nowhere land of “foundational” supports. 

Robodebt

Royal Commissions have many examples of the human tragedies and abuse of power that happen if the human rights of disabled people are deprived. Myself and ten thousand others gave evidence to the Disability Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation which published its findings in September 2023 and its 200 recommendations are currently under consideration by parliament. 

The Royal Commission into the Robodebt scheme was established on August 18, 2022, to examine the implementation of the scheme. It was found that the income averaging was illegal, debt figures were inaccurate, and Robodebt stress resulted in suicide. Robodebt worked by averaging income by a computer program calculation, with no human oversight.

Catherine Holmes, released her report on July 7, 2023, stating: “Services Australia should ensure that its processes and policies in relation to the identification of potential vulnerabilities extend to the identification of circumstances affecting a recipient’s capacity to engage with any form of compliance activity”.

As a 78 er with lived experience of disability, I gave evidence to the DRC and am appalled and devastated at the fact only 13 recommendations out of 172 are being listened to. I re-traumatised myself like 10,000 others for nothing for the future generations

The debt change is one of the many amendments Shorten wishes to push through by the end of winter, despite opposition from the Greens and Coalition. NDIS Robodebt has the potential to begin where Centrelink Robodebt left off. People living with disability getting penalised for spending their money on non-approved services.  

Lived Experiences Ignored

People Living with Disability, an advocacy agency that ‘champions’ and ‘celebrates’ the disabled, were asked for lived experience feedback and the consensus is some amendments will have a destructive effect on the lives of people living with disability. I was on a GLBTIQ advisory committee in 2018, and people like myself, Tom Banks and many First Nations people helped create the vision of co-design, choice, and self-empowerment that is the NDIS today. 

Peer advocacy organisation People Living with Disability stated in June: “Our organisations are deeply disappointed that the Senate Committee did not listen to the evidence and expertise of people with disability, our families, supporters, and organisations, who made extensive and detailed submissions about the flaws in the proposed legislation.”

Disability rights advocates claim to have given evidence to Parliament but this lived experience has been ignored. “We have engaged with the Committee over three hearings and provided substantial evidence and lived experience. People with disability feel a loss of trust in the Parliamentary process that promises to listen to us, as we contemplate significant reform to the services and supports provided through the scheme.

“The NDIS Amendment Bill needs significant amendment to make sure that people with disability don’t lose lifesaving disability support. We do not believe the Amendment Bill adequately reflects the recommendations of the NDIS Review.

“We want the NDIS, and the promised reforms in the Review, to deliver for people with disability.” Read the full statement here. 

Checks And Balances Needed

Shorten seems in a hurry to get the amendments passed by springtime. PWD recommends that people with disability be protected from “Debt actions and plan suspensions”. If this passes, then there needs to be checks and balances added as well. If people with disability push back and exercise a choice they consider best for them; they risk being refused access to NDIS. Under one of the proposed new changes, NDIS can cancel your NDIS plan if you don’t comply within 90 days for “revocation of your participant status”. If disabilities affect your memory and you don’t respond to an official email, you risk cancellation. 

In the parliamentary review process, it is clear that outcomes do not reflect the lived experience provided in the submissions. Furthermore, repeated calls from First Nations people with disability to amend the legislation to appropriately represent them and their right to participation in cultural life, to enable a culturally responsive scheme, have been ignored. 

Ten organisations, including People with Disability Australia (PWDA), Women with Disabilities Australia (WWDA) and Touching Base, have signed this joint statement to strongly condemn recent comments made by Bill Shorten regarding the exclusion of sex work and sexuality services from the NDIS.

“We also believe the legislation must be amended to ensure that co-design is a driver and central to NDIA reforms, to make sure changes are developed with our community. People with disability, our families, supporters, and organisations are the experts on disability support, and that must be reflected in further amendments,” says PWD.

“People with disability are often denied full autonomy over their own bodies and are subjected to beliefs that they are either asexual or hypersexual. Our right to make informed choices about our bodies, sexual and reproductive health, and intimate relationships must be upheld. Many people with disability require specific support to enjoy sexual expression and fulfilling their sexual needs safely,” PLWA states.

“Our organisations are deeply disappointed that the Senate Committee did not listen to the evidence and expertise of people with disability, our families, supporters, and organisations, who made extensive and detailed submissions about the flaws in the proposed legislation. We urge all Senators to adopt the changes proposed by our organisations in their considerations of the NDIS legislation next week. 

“Our organisations cannot support the passing of this NDIS Bill without further amendment.”

In summary, these proposed changes passed without revision, will be a backward step for people living with disability in Australia. Julia Gillard’s tears of joy back in 2013, will be replaced by tears of fear, as the vision of disability human rights is replaced by botched bureaucracy and red tape. 

Barbara Karpinski is a filmmaker and one of the original Mardi Gras ‘78ers.