Disability advocate Carl Thompson was one of hundreds who rallied in defence of the NDIS in Melbourne’s CBD. Here, he explains why.
The non-partisan NDIS advocacy group, Every Australian Counts, was instrumental in building community support to introduce the NDIS over a decade ago. Yesterday, this group again rallied the community to hold a protest and march down the streets of Melbourne to demand politicians “defend our NDIS”.
Why does the NDIS need defending? To quote Every Australian Counts:
Every single day we hear more stories from people who have had their NDIS funding cut – with no reasonable explanation. People with disability are being forced to fight for their essential supports and services, while the NDIS spend millions on intimidating private lawyers to fight the people they are meant to serve.
The focus of the rally and march was to highlight the 400% rise in just over a year of NDIS participants going to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT). The AAT is where people with disability and their supporters can appeal against decisions the NDIS has made (for example, funding cuts).
Going to the AAT is not easy nor something to be taken lightly. The NDIS has made this process more difficult by spending millions of dollars on defence lawyers, while people with disability are either lucky enough to receive some barebones community legal representation in court to fight their claim, or simply have to go it alone.
Why were people with disability marching in protest in the CBD of Melbourne?
The NDIS office is hiding in plain sight in Collins Street and a 10-minute walk to William Street finds you at the AAT office. While hidden from the public, those working in the offices would have certainly heard the loud voices of passionate speakers and spirited chants.
While the walk itself was only 10 minutes, it can take upwards of 10 months to go through the AAT process - described by one speaker at the event as a “journey through hell”.
Another speaker broke down in tears as she spoke of the cuts to her son’s NDIS plan and the emotional and physical toll of the AAT process. Community law firms representing NDIS participants spoke of the imbalance of power, where funding for lawyers to defend NDIS decisions outstripped funding to support participants 10 to 1.
While the event was not aligned with any political party, supportive politicians were invited to speak. The Greens, the Labor Party, and a local independent candidate spoke to their commitments around fixing the NDIS and putting people with disability back in control over their own lives and supports. Though invited, no representatives of the Liberal or National parties or minor parties attended - a fact met with loud booing from the crowd when pointed out.
The universal slogan of the disability rights movement, “nothing about us without us” rang true.
Every Australian Counts is a grassroots disability led movement that makes politicians on all sides take notice. There are over 500,000 NDIS participants in Australia and over 270,000 people employed in the sector. If disability and the NDIS wasn’t yet an election issue, the Every Australian Counts rally and march certainly made it one.
Carl Thompson
Carl Thompson is a power-wheelchair-using NDIS participant and Director of Sort Your Support, a provider of Support Coordination and NDIS troubleshooting. Carl lives in Melbourne with his partner, and his dog - Oscar. In his spare time, Carl makes videos about living with a disability, which you can find on his YouTube channel.