Advocates have raised the alarm on the NDIS cuts, saying what is missing is real and meaningful engagement with First Nations people living with disability.
Announcing the changes at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said the eligibility requirements to access the NDIS would be tightened and financial support reduced.
The changes, a result of excessive growth, will see almost 160,000 people booted from the program, leaving around 600,000 participants entitled to support by the end of the decade.
The Minister said a "diagnosis gateway" had led to a cohort accessing a scheme that was "never designed for them".
"It is our responsibility to make sure that in the future, these Australians are pointed to the right place," said.
No room for First Peoples
First Peoples Disability Network Australia (FPDN) joins Australia's Disability Representative Organisations in a statement calling for people with disability to lead the design of the NDIS reforms.
The organisation said that whilst the minister wants to return the NDIS to its "original intent", the original intent didn't cater to First Nations people with disability.
It said First Nations communities are "dramatically underserved" by the scheme with Indigenous people only accounting for 63,000 participants and First Nations NDIS providers being less than one per cent.
In remote communities, more than a third of participants aren't accessing NDIS support.
According to FPDN, First Nations people experience disability at a rate 1.9 times that of non-Indigenous peoples.
"The NDIS has always been harder to access for our mob. Harder to navigate. Harder to use," FPDN CEO and Worimi man Damian Griffis said.
"Now we face the prospect of 160,000 people being moved off the scheme through a process that hasn't been designed with us, into services that don't yet exist for us, assessed by a tool that hasn't been validated for us."
The changes will be cemented when legislation is tabled in Parliament in May.
However, the FPDN has requested five commitments from the government prior to the reforms.
It wants:
- Cultural safety and appropriateness to be built into the reforms;
- No First Nations participants to be transitioned off the scheme until culturally safe alternatives are available locally for them;
- Dedicated funding for Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations;
- The establishment of a First Nations Disability Forum, and implementation of all of the Disability Royal Commission recommendations;
- And the creation of a First Nations outcomes framework which would report to Closing the Gap.
Mr Griffis said the organisation had requested meetings with Minister Butler, Minister for Disability and the NDIS Jenny McAllister and Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy.
He said they are "ready to work" with the government but that policy designed in Canberra won't suit mob's needs.
"We are not asking the government to stop reform. We are asking them to get it right," he said.
"First Nations people with disability have waited long enough. We cannot afford to be an afterthought in changes that will define this scheme for a generation."
