Thread by @EveryAustralian

Kevin Stone from @VALID_Inc is about to deliver a blistering statement on the #NDIS - tune in or follow the thread here 👇 #HandsOffOurNDIS

https://twitter.com/EveryAustralian/status/1405382755286876160

I’m Kevin Stone. I’m the CEO of @VALID_Inc and the Chair of @inclusionoz. Late last year, VALID stopped working with the NDIA on anything to do with their Independent Assessments. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

We had come to the conclusion that they do not have the best interests of people with disabilities or their families at heart. Nothing they have said or published since persuades me that we got it wrong. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They dress it up in all sorts of clever ways, but the bottom line is that they are bent on dismantling the Scheme that we fought for. In many ways, what we’re fighting is the tide of a dark history, coming back to haunt people with disabilities and their families. #NDIS

More than ten years ago now, we rallied in support of the NDIS. We were fighting for a disability support system that would live up to the vision of the #UNCRPD. A system that would create equality of opportunity for all Australians with disabilities. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

Unlike a lot of people working at the NDIA now, people with a disability and their families remember how it was before, during the 1990’s and into the new century, when we had the Commonwealth State Territory Disability Agreement. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

It was a cruel and inefficient system with federal and state governments arguing and buck-passing as people with disabilities languished on waiting lists all over the country. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

While politicians passed the buck, many people with disabilities remained hidden away in institutions and many died without ever receiving proper support. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

When the campaign for the NDIS succeeded, it gave us hope that we had left those dark times behind. The NDIS was meant to put Australia on the right side of history – to close institutions and institutional mindsets forever. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

The NDIS was designed as insurance for all Australians if and when they need it. It is has been a wonderful thing to see so many lives transformed for the better by the #NDIS. #HandsOffOurNDIS

It’s had its problems, which we have all been willing to work with them to fix, but we have come to the conclusion they are not really trying to fix it. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They are trying to take us back to the bad old days, of buck-passing, or rationing, and of putting people with a disability back into their bureaucratic ‘cost-cutting’ boxes. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

Right now, big decisions about our NDIS are being made by powerful people who do not understand the impact of the changes they are making. Dirty deals are being done to satisfy vested interest groups. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

Massive money is being wasted on consultancy firms with no transparency or accountability. Powerful privatised service empires are being built on the backs of disempowered people. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

Bankers, businesspeople, and insurance actuaries are devising new ways to clump, cluster and classify Australians with disabilities for the convenience of government. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

It is prejudice disguised in new and ugly forms. And we must not stand by and let it happen. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

These so-called Independent Assessments are not independent at all. The NDIA have chosen who will do the assessments and they are paying per assessment. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

The more assessments they do, and the faster they do them, the more they get paid. That’s not independence. That’s a scam. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

When we stop viewing people as individuals and turn them into so-called ‘personas’, when we put people into boxes – as the NDIA is trying to do – those of us with a sense of history know where it leads. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

In five, ten, fifteen years from now, the bureaucratic boxes they are building will become the new and more insidious institutions of the future. Less visible than the asylums of the past, but just as shameful. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

Like many people with disabilities and families across the country right now, I have lost all confidence in where the NDIA is taking us. They have made it clear that they trust no-one. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

The NDIA does not trust participants and their families to speak to their own needs. They assume people with disabilities are ignorant and greedy, so they demand assessments to prove every last thing – then they ignore those same reports. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They say doctors and allied health professionals can’t be trusted because of so-called sympathy bias. They do not trust service providers who they say are overquoting. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They do not even trust their own planners and delegates to make the decisions that they are employed for. According to the NDIA and the Minister for the NDIS, no one can be trusted and everyone is a liar. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

But it is the NDIA who has manipulated and hidden the truth. They have misquoted academics. They have set up sham trials for a process that they have already decided will happen. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They have refused to allow public scrutiny or independent evaluation on the secret black box they call the Personalised Budget Tool. This black box contains the decision-making algorithms that will make or break lives. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They will not tell us what else they will use the data for although we know they are making plans for it. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They hold round table meetings and phoney consultations with our advocacy peaks but have no intention of genuinely listening. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They say compulsory tick-a-box assessments administered by a stranger will make the scheme fairer. They say the changes will be good for us. When we disagree, they say that we have misunderstood them. They think we just don’t get it. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

But we know exactly what they’re doing. We’ve been here before. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

This is the government that brought us Robodebt for Centrelink, who have bungled the COVID vaccine rollout and put people with disabilities’ lives at risk, and who now want us to accept Roboplans. We will not. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

Government ministers and NDIA executives have become obsessed with automation at the expense of everything and everyone. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

NDIS Independent Assessments will put people with disabilities back onto the conveyer belt to congregation, because it will be all that their funding will afford them. Don’t be deceived. This is by design. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

Recently, we have heard dangerous comments from the Prime Minister, the Minister for the NDIS, and the NDIA itself, insinuating that some participants might be too expensive. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

And suggesting that people with disabilities themselves are sending the Scheme broke. It is dog whistling, just like former NDIS Minister Stuart Robert’s howling on the sex therapy issue. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

It is contemptible stuff. They are trying to turn Australians against the very spirit of the NDIS that the whole nation showed its support for - an NDIS that gives people respect and dignity and choice and control and human rights. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

We need to understand that compulsory assessments are just one part of their big bad plan. They are going to ignore your goals. Planning will be non-existent. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They want to stop the states and territories from being part of the decision-making. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They want to control your choices by redefining reasonable and necessary. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

They want to strip away self-management, dial back Support Coordination, and fund more congregate housing. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

The NDIA is at risk of turning people with a disability and families, who have been the Scheme’s greatest supporter and most important ally, into a desperate and angry enemy. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

There are very few people working at the NDIA, or in government now, who remember the campaigns and rallies of the past, so let me remind you. We will not stand by and watch this happen. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

We will not be bullied or bought off. People with disabilities and their families will come together across the country and we will fight you. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

So, once again, I say to the new Minister for the #NDIS, Linda Reynolds:

📌 Stop the Independent Assessments debacle before it causes further damage. All the problems they tell you it will fix are only going to be made worse, so cut your losses while you still can. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

📌 Cancel the Independent Assessment contracts and put those hundreds of millions of dollars back into the Scheme so it can do the job it is intended to do. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

📌 Release the data – the raw numbers – on what is happening with the NDIA’s budget and commission independent research to understand the problems. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

📌 Sit down with disability representative organisations, work with us to objectively identify the problems and test the solutions, and co-design the improvements that are needed. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

📌 Sack the NDIA CEO, ditch the consultants, and sack the rest of the content-free executives, who know everything about banking and insurance but nothing about the lives of people with disabilities and their families. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

📌 And while you’re at it, replace the NDIA board. They have betrayed our trust and lost our confidence. #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

And to our many friends and supporters, I say to you, this is your NDIS – this is our NDIS – and we can’t be, and won’t be beaten. - @VALID_Inc @inclusionoz #NDIS #HandsOffOurNDIS

Want to take action right now? Our powerful community can keep the pressure on #NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds – she can put a stop to dangerous independent assessments!
Email her to let her know it is time for the government to keep their #HandsOffOurNDIS! everyaustraliancounts.com.au/hands-off/