Families of people with autism and intellectual disabilities are facing financial crisis after allegedly losing National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funding.
In 2021, the NDIS funding received a mixed response from Australians and the insurance industry following the release of the Federal Budget 2021/2022, with disability advocates expecting inevitable cost-cutting measures. Now, it seems their predictions have come true.
Single parent Karen McKenzie, for example, claimed that she received a letter from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) in August 2021, indicating that it cut its funding by more than half for her 22-year-old son Jarrod, who has autism and severe intellectual disabilities and needs carers' help.
According to ABC, the letter stated that the NDIA allegedly cut the single mother's funding because it was “not satisfied the following criteria are met – value for money.”
“We weren't given any reason other than ‘it's not value for money,’ which I think is quite appalling when Jarrod has such high needs,” McKenzie said, as reported by ABC. “Mentally, I'm not coping. The whole thing has been so stressful; I've lost a lot of sleep, and I'm just worried about what the future holds.”
In a previous report, think tank Per Capita warned that every $1 billion that the NDIS is underfunded could result in a loss of approximately 10,200 jobs, around $2.25 billion decrease in total economic activity, approximately 0.14% drop in GDP, and a 0.22% reduction in the services economy.
Samantha Connor, president of People With Disability Australia, said the organisation received an influx of messages from people whose NDIS funding was reduced.
“It seems to be the diagnostic groups like autism, intellectual disability, and people with psychosocial disability who have been affected,” she said, as reported by ABC.
“We run a group with 56,000 people in it and, from our group numbers, it's probably at least half [that have had their funding cut],” she continued. “We know there was a plan to bring in a razor gang sometime last year, and that was implemented between April and August, but this seems to have continued.”
However, NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds argued that the scheme was fully funded, denying claims that there had been cuts.
“In the December budget update, the Morrison government increased NDIS funding by $26 billion to $142 billion over four years,” Reynolds said, as reported by ABC. “Labour designed the NDIS as an insurance model, where individual participant plans may go up or down at different times based on independent decision-making.
“In fact, the average payments per participant [have] grown from $52,000 to $54,400 over the year to September.”
