My Submission (Number 137) to the JSCNDIS In query into the Capability and Culture of the NDIA

In late 2022, the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (JSCNDIS) initiated an Inquiry into the Culture and Capability of the NDIA. This is quite an extraordinary occurrence - the very Parliamentary body overseeing an Agency, instigating an Inquiry into the operations of the Agency itself. The Inquiry Report was tabled on 16 November 2023.

I made a submission to this Inquiry in the form of Submission Number 137, and a Supplementary Statement as an Addendum to Submission 137, listed at Attachment 1. on the Inquiry website.

Given the evidence in my submission, the JSCNDIS provided the NDIA with the opportunity to respond to the evidence presented in my submission. This response is listed at Attachment 2 on the Inquiry website.

The JSCNDIS Inquiry found that the NDIA had been operating unlawfully, by pursuing the fiction of ‘Primary disability’.

2.29: The NDIA's distinction between 'primary disability' and 'secondary disability' has no basis in its governing legislation or the reality of participants' lives. This section will consider the impact that this imposed differentiation, which operates as a form of discrimination, has on participants. As a starting point, it can result in participants being denied supports for impairments that the agency determines are not related to their 'primary disability'.

To note, in my submission I examined in detail against sections of the legislation, the unlawfulness of the fiction of ‘primary disability’ as well as the use of algorithms. Other submitters had also raised the lawfulness of the fiction of ‘primary disability’.

The response of the NDIA CEO was the most silly reaction to my JSCNDIS submission, a submission which was heavily evidenced with FOI material and other evidence. The response effectively saying I didn’t know what I was talking about - an extraordinary naive statement, given I am a global expert in the field having been awarded a US O-Visa (Extraordinary Skills) twenty years ago. And for almost a decade, everything I said would happen to the NDIS has happened. Including - as did others - documenting the unlawfulness of the basis of the NDIS. The JSCNDIS subsequently accepted this and made findings of this unlawfulness.

PDF of my submission is here.

PDF of my supplementary submission is here.

PDF of the NDIA CEO response is here.