NDIS and Autism
Kirsty: Hey Colin.
Colin: Hey Kirsty. How you going?
Kirsty: I'm good. How are you?
Colin: I'm very well as well.
Kirsty: What's going on?
Colin: Not a great deal. Just got dragged into the office here to record this.
Kirsty: Well, why, what are we doing? Why are we recording?
Colin: We are recording an intro to a program that we've actually recorded. How about that?
Kirsty: Well, that I recorded and that I would prefer to re-record, but that you refuse to re-record because, well, listen. I, something deeply uncomfortable happens to my voice when I am in here by myself. It gets, I don't even know how to describe it. It gets like higher, but also softer at the same time, and it's just, it is uncomfortable listening.
So, Feel free to skip it, guys. Everyone.
Colin: I've never noticed it. You're too critical.
Kirsty: All right, well, but why are we, why are we doing this extra intro? What's been happening?
Colin: Bill Shorten. That's why
Kirsty: Bill Billy? The Honorable Bill Shorten, NDIS Minister. So we should do some background. So in this episode, I make some, you know, semi-bold predictions about what I think is going to happen out of Bill Shorten's review of the NDIS.
And I've basically said that I think autism is being set up as a bit of a scapegoat to, you know, be ousted from NDIS effectively to reduce the so-called budget blowout or the unsustainability of the NDIS. But since then, Bill came out and he did his State of the Union and what did he say?
Colin: That's not true. Basically.
Kirsty: Yep. Well, in the Q&A, he was specifically asked, are you going to consider reigning in eligibility? And he said, No. So, you know, I felt better. I felt better after Bill's speech. It was good. I thought,
Colin: I think he did make it a clearer what their aim is.
Kirsty: Yeah. And he also, what did he speak about that we were shocked that he mentioned?
Because - you are looking confused - because we've never, we've not really heard it mentioned in the media. What did he say?
Colin: I can't remember what it's called.
Kirsty: The multiplier effect.
Colin: The multiplier effect, yeah.
Kirsty: Yeah. Which I talk about in this episode. Which we almost never hear mentioned and it's so critical about the NDIS and he, he mentioned it.
Thank you, Bill. So I felt more comfortable and, and more like, ah, maybe I'm wrong in my prediction. But then Mr. Albanese came out with the budget and he said that we've got to reign it in. We've got to reduce the growth of the NDIS from what it currently is, which is just under 14%. He wants to reduce that to an 8% growth.
And it is a needs-based system. And how do you restrict growth? Almost halve the growth without denying access.
Colin: That's a good question. I'm glad it's they that have to answer it.
Kirsty: Well. Yeah. So now I'm back to being concerned. I'm back to being concerned about, you know, are they going to make it harder for disabled Australians and autistic Australians in particular to access the NDIS? So I, I semi stand by my prediction. We'll see. I hope to be wrong.
Colin: And like we've said before, this is a discussion that we want to create and start and continue, not just on this topic, but all sorts of things. And we want your involvement. So yeah, if you want to. Give us an idea what you are thinking or, or clarify something, or suggest something. Hey, get in touch with us.
Kirsty: Absolutely. Yes, we would love that. So have a listen or feel free to tune out. We've basically summarized the episode, so don't feel like you've got to listen to the rest of it, because it's uncomfortable. Alternatively, keep listening.
Colin: Keep listening, keep listening.
Kirsty: Hello and welcome back to Enabled the podcast where we talk about normalize and celebrate disability and mental health. And today we're talking about what's going on in the news with disability. Bit of a disclaimer though, before we start at the time that we're recording this episode, we haven't actually launched the podcast yet, and we don't actually even have a date.
But it also kind of means that this episode is not actually all that timely. Here's why that's okay for this particular episode. What we're actually talking about today is a pattern that we've noticed here at Enabled about the way autism in particular is being discussed in the news. So it's a regular thing.
It's not necessarily time specific and I don't know, keep an eye out for it and see if you notice the pattern too after, after you listen and look. Whereas I'm normally pretty keen for disability to be in the news and to be generating a conversation. Yeah, this time, not so much. But before we get to news for the nation, bit of news of my own, some sad news, which is that Colin isn't here today.
He's off in Melbourne, living his best life, and I am all by myself in the recording studio. Ah, and I'll be honest, not my favorite. It's it's kind of reminded me of, remember when you got your driver's license for the first time and it was just you in the car on the road, totally unsupervised and feeling... wildly unsafe. Yeah. Kind of the vibe that I've got going on here today. Anyway, we'll see how we go. We'll get through it together. Oh, and hey, here's an idea. If you are part of the disability community and you'd like to have a go at co-hosting an episode of this podcast with me or with Colin hit us up.
Get in touch. We would love to make that happen. That'd be pretty cool actually. Alright, enough of that. Let's get into it. Let's get started. So we're talking about. Two news articles that inspired this episode. Front page, articles of The Weekend Australian National Newspaper. Pretty, pretty massive news stories.
The first one, the first article appeared in The Weekend Australian on the last weekend in February. And here's the headline, NDIS Rules Fuel Rise in Autism kids in case you miss the article, it's pretty well summed up in the first paragraph, so I'll read that to you. It says children are being diagnosed with more severe autism than their characteristics warrant to give them a greater chance of securing a place on the NDIS, experts warn, boosting participant numbers and putting further pressure on the $34 billion a year schemes, financial sustainability. So you know, bit to talk about there. But then the following weekend, again, front page of The Weekend Australian basically the same article guys, some paragraphs. More or less word for word. This time the headline reads $5,000 for NDIS Autism Slot Diagnostic Services, promise Funding for Life. So the main gist of both of the articles, neither of which I'll be honest, I particularly appreciated was that there are more autistic children receiving funding and assistance from the NDIS than there should be, apparently.
Along with this idea that the NDIS is. Crazy expensive and unsustainable. So look, I'm going to make this as quick and dirty as I can because I could talk forever about this. I have so many problems with a lot of what was said, and I think these articles and articles like this are actually incredibly unhelpful, and I even want to say kind of misleading.
But here are the main things I've limited myself to two main points that I just want to put out there as Food for thought. And you can draw your own conclusions and let me know what you think. But here we go. The first thing is, This linking between autism and the apparent unsustainability of the NDIS.
So if you do a bit of a deep dive into news stories, you'll see that it's always autism that's mentioned in connection with the apparent huge costs of the NDIS, not any other disability of which there are many. It's always autism. And look, I'll link to an article in the show notes written by journalist Brianna Blackett.
Where she talks about this as well, so it's not just us noticing this, it, it is a thing. It's happening. There is a real push to link autism with the "unsustainability" of the NDIS. Why is that? I mean, We've gotta ask ourselves that, right? When the, there's this real sort of clear pattern of the way that something is talked about.
Why is it being talked about that way? Why is it constantly being linked with how much the NDIS costs and this real concern over, whether that scheme is sustainable. Let me, let me throw my theory out there, see where it lands. Bill Shorten the current minister for the NDIS, he's commissioned a review into the NDIS to look at how much it's costing.
Our theory is autism is being deliberately linked to the unsustainability of the NDIS so they can, they can basically scapegoat autism as the reason behind why the NDIS is costing so much more apparently than we initially thought it would. And it's also going to put autism as this easy fix solution that effectively, when Bill Shorten's review is finalized in October, so watch this space, see what happens. I think the recommendation is going to be, not in these words, they're going to make it sound much more palatable but effectively what they're going to say is, let's get rid of as many autistic people from the NDIS as possible.
Here's what I want to say to that. The way to make the National Disability Insurance scheme sustainable. Is not to make it inaccessible to disabled Australians. And look, the articles do try to make it a little bit more palatable. They try to sugarcoat it by saying, here's what needs to happen. The states and territories need to take on the responsibility of providing the support and the assistance and services to autistic children and people generally that apparently NDIS just couldn't possibly afford to provide.
All right, so let's troubleshoot that for a second and look, full disclosure, maybe this is a lack of understanding on my part of systems of government and budgets and all that sort of thing, but I, I do not understand how handballing this issue to the states and territories actually saves. The country money overall.
So I understand that that states and territories are funded through different taxes than the federal government, like stamp duty and land tax and that sort of thing, but they also receive more than half of their funding from the federal government. So it's not as though making this a state and territory issue, will eliminate the cost to the federal government. They'll still have to contribute a substantial portion of it. And surely surely, the cost of the nation remains the same overall, right? I mean, it might even increase because agencies will need to be established and all of that sort of bureaucratic administrative costs, is a huge part of how much things like this, of the overall expense of things like this.
The NDIA, the National Disability Insurance Agency, which oversees the NDIS, it's already established. Why do we want to sort of double up on those kinds of costs? I, I guess I just don't see how it's a win to do that.
It seems to me. More like a hospital pass and creative accounting. And look, I think it, it probably bears mentioning that by all accounts, the states and territories weren't doing a particularly good job of supporting disabled Australians, which is why we needed the NDIS in the first place. Here's the other thing that I want to talk about.
This is the last, my last big point, but I don't feel like we can discuss this without first talking about Dylan Alcott, which one of my favorite things to do, actually, by the way. I'm sure you know who he is, but if not, he is a wheelchair, tennis world champion, wheelchair basketball world champion, Paralympian Australian of the year in 2022.
He also has a podcast about disability called ListenABLE. And look, I'm not ashamed to admit. It's better than ours. It's, it's fantastic actually. It's really great if you're not already listening to it. Can I recommend that you do? I am a big, big fan. We'll link to it in the show notes. But he also, in his abundance spare time runs an organization called Get Skilled Access, and they released their own plan, a disability-led plan to improve the NDIS.
It's worth a read. So it talks about something that. I'd actually never heard discussed about the NDIS before, and that's something called the multiplier effect. So in Dylan Alcott's plan to improve the NDIS, they refer to an independent review that was commissioned into the NDIS to evaluate the cost and sustainability and basically to fact check what the government was saying in terms of this-
this big blowout of cost, the $90 billion or whatever it is that the NDIS is supposedly going to cost us in 10 years. And let me, let me read you a couple of points from their executive summary of what they found. So here's what they say, they say, we estimate that firstly, the NDIS employees, over 270,000 people, over 20 different occupations and contributes to the employment of tens of thousands more workers indirectly.
Secondly, the economic impact of this scheme is likely very large, even compared to other types of government. Spending. A conservative estimate of the multiplier effect of the NDIS would be in the range of 2.25, and that's what this means. Ready? Here's a third point. Such a multiplier effect would mean that the economic contribution of the and areas in 2020 to 2021 is around $52.4 billion.
So in a nutshell, according to this independent review, its benefit to the economy actually outweighs significantly outweighs the cost to the taxpayer. So it's not, not a drain on the economy, it's an investment in the economy. Why is that not being discussed? I mean, Dylan Alcott is talking about this. Hey, Dylan, why not these newspaper articles?
And I, I will let you know just before we wrap up. We asked that question, we got a little political here at Enabled. We formally reached out to the Honorable Bill Shorten for comment as well as to the shadow minister for the NDIS, and we asked them, first of all, whether there is a political agenda to make the NDIS inaccessible to disabled Australians, specifically autistic Australians.
Secondly exactly how this would save money overall. And thirdly, Why no one's talking about this multiplier effect and how the benefits of the NDIS actually outweigh the cost. They did not get back to us. I will let you know if they do, but here's the takeaway, and if you remember nothing else from this episode, remember this: everyone benefits from the NDIS.
Is the NDIS expensive? Yes. Is it going to get more expensive? Yeah. You know, it probably will, but is it worth it? Yes, for all of us. And can we please, please stop making out autism and autistic kids, especially to be the bad guys because that helps no one. And can I just say, you know, even if it does significantly increase the cost of the NDIS, which we already know we benefit from anyway.
The flow and effect of changing the trajectory of a child's life. I mean, these supports and services that the NDIS gives to autistic children. It means that they can stay in school. It means that they can be a child who has a friend instead of being completely isolated. It means their parents can be gainfully employed and remain in the workplace instead of being at home with their child who is constantly suspended from school or expelled from school, or who is in, such enormous distress and anxiety every day that they can't bear to walk through the school gates, and it allows that child to live the ordinary kind of life that able-bodied Australians and children just totally take for granted. And if you change the trajectory of a child's life that has just enormous flow and effects for society as a whole.
Not to mention, don't we have a moral of responsibility to look after these kids and not to just handball them, to make them somebody else's responsibility? I think we do, and I, I think Australia as a whole wants to, I think we want to be taking care of autistic children. It's just that politicians want to be able to have.
A quick win in the paper where they can say, Ooh, we've saved, I don't know, $10 billion or whatever it is they estimate that they'll save by making the NDIS inaccessible to disabled kids, do we really want that? No. So there you go. Look, have a look at the notes. I will link to the articles. I will link to the independent review to Dylan Alcott's report.
You can read them all for yourself. Make your own conclusions. And hey, if you feel like contacting the ministers as well and asking the question about are we, are you planning on making the NDIS inaccessible to disabled Australians? Do it. Ask the question because that's how change is made. And maybe mention our podcast.
They might get back to us. So there it is. Thanks for listening. Colin will be back soon, I promise. And we'll see you next time. On Enabled.