WATERLOO: Being born as a congenital amputee has taught 30 year-old Deborah Roach to be persistent. The local resident has competed in cycling at a national level and was placed first in the disabled division at the International Pole-dancing Championships. But, as a disabled Australian, Deborah also lives with the current support system, and the frustration that it brings. “I’m born without an arm. Doctors say ‘good luck’,” she said.
It is stories like these that have led to the recent billion-dollar commitment to a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The NDIS plans to introduce lifetime budgets for 400 thousand disabled Australians, doing away with the current quota-based support system.
In fact, on hearing it called a support system, Deborah asks: “What support? Everyone knows that to get anything is a fight. You have to plead your case.”
And Deborah is not alone with her frustrations. Disabled Australians, according to a report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2011, have the poorest quality of life anywhere in the developed world. “It’s not too uncommon for individuals to be allocated no more than two showers per week under the current system,” said Daniel Kyriacou of Every Australian Counts, the campaign body pushing for a NDIS.
“Those families suffer their crises behind their front door … It’s why murder suicide is not an uncommon thing to occur in families caring for people with a disability, because there are no other options or ways out,” Mr Kyriacou said.
But the introduction of the NDIS is set to amend these current flaws and restructure the way Australia deals with disabilities. “The NDIS is about meeting people’s needs,” said Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek. “It’s about putting the person with the disability and their supporters or carers into the centre.”
However, whilst the NDIS is set to be trialed in the coming year, its future is still uncertain. The success of the scheme relies heavily on funding agreements between the states and the federal government – something that remains a long way off.
“There is still a huge number of questions and uncertainty for families of people with disabilities … There is not a single deal with a single state,” said Mr Kyriacou. There is also no budget plan for the eight billion dollars per year that the scheme will require by 2018.
But trialing the system and ensuring that the most effective scheme is created, is the immediate goal for Ms Plibersek and NDIS campaigners. “You can’t underestimate what a large and complex design task it is … The disability groups agree that it’s important to have a staged roll-out,” Ms Plibersek said.
And for the Health Minister, the success of the NDIS is about more than good politics. “We have a moral obligation to look after one another in a country like Australia,” Ms Plibersek said.
