News
Disability advocacy organisations nationwide have banded together to demand the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) accept recommendations which seek to improve assessment processes within the Scheme.
Up until recently, the NDIS has used the social model of disability as a way of designing and providing services to participants. The social model of disability is the term for what the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations claims is based on the view that, “people are disabled by barriers in society.”
Now, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) is modifying the ways in which the Scheme gathers information about the support people with disability need, moving to a whole person approach.
Considering this, 13 disability representative organisations have compiled a detailed list of recommendations to aid the Albanese Government in transitioning the NDIS to a new human right-based needs assessment model.
The rights-based model of disability, according to the Disability Advocacy Resource Unit, uses a framework that recognises people with disabilities as having the same rights as everyone else.
In a statement on People with Disability Australia’s website, the combined disability advocacy organisations recommended considerations for a three-part needs assessment process and recommendations for implementation.
Our recommendations are grounded in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), recent analysis from the Independent Review of the NDIS (2023), and other relevant evidence
People with Disability Australia
It also acknowledged the part Women with Disability Australia (WWDA) played in the development of the position statement, of which the organisation called on the Government to account for fluctuating and episodic disability and recognise intersectionality within disability.
Women with Disabilities Australia CEO, Sophie Cusworth, an advocate for the rights-based model of disability, urged NDIS Ministers Jenny McAllister and Mark Butler to engage meaningfully with people with disability to uphold the transformative, rights-based goals of the Scheme.
This shared focus presents an opportunity for the Government to take holistic action to address the needs of women with disability - particularly those with chronic health conditions whose needs are often not met by either the NDIS or the health system
Sophie Cusworth
This isn’t the first time calls for the adoption of the rights-based model have been made. At the recent DSC Conference, Associate Commissioner for NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Natalie Wade, said it is committed to delivering a human rights regulation model.
“We are firmly committed, and we really want to make sure that the approach to regulation advances the rights of people with disability.”