May Policy and Advocacy Update

Sector meeting with Minister for the NDIS, Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds 

Photo of all the peak disability organisations’ representatives and 
Minister Reynolds at a meeting. They are standing and smiling.

On Friday, 30 April, Amaze CEO Fiona Sharkie attended a meeting with NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds. Fiona attended the meeting on behalf of the Australian Autism Alliance with a delegation of other peak bodies and advocates.

At the meeting, the group discussed how the Minister, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) and people with disability can work together to reset the relationship.

Together, the group also presented Senator Reynolds with a formal ‘Terms of Engagement’ between the NDIA and people with disability, their families and community organisations.

You can read the Joint Media Release and Terms of Engagement here. 

Federal Parliament public hearing on the NDIA’s proposal to introduce mandatory assessments  

Left to right: Paul Micallef (Alliance co-chair), Senator Carol Brown
(Deputy Chair of Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Deputy Chair of Select Committee on Autism),
Ebony McKenna (provided personal statement to the Joint Standing Committee),
and Fiona Sharkie (Alliance co-chair and Amaze CEO). Everyone is smiling at the camera.  

On 23 April, Amaze and the Australian Autism Alliance, represented by co-chairs Fiona Sharkie and Paul Micallef presented evidence to the Melbourne hearings of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS for the inquiry into Mandatory Assessments.

They joined other witnesses in outlining serious concerns about the proposed introduction of regular and mandatory functional assessments for all NDIS participants.

Amaze CEO Fiona Sharkie emphasised that the proposed changes are untested, unproven and unfair.

“How can our collective conscience (government, NDIA, the sector) decide to put 500,000 vulnerable people through a system when we just don’t know if their needs will be adequately provided for.”

Amaze’s community speaking out against mandatory assessments

Throughout March and April, we have worked closely with our wonderful community to ensure members of the Federal Government know that the proposed assessments are problematic for autistic people.

We want to thank our community for their incredible work in reaching out to their MPs. Your work has had real impact and contributed to the decision of the Minister to pause the rollout of assessments for now.

You can read more about the temporary pausing of assessment rollout here. 

Proposed changes to NDIS funding for autistic children

Among the big changes planned for the NDIS, the NDIA is proposing that new funding rules be introduced for autistic children aged 0-12 years. Amaze is currently preparing a submission outlining our many concerns about this. Our submission is based on this consultation paper. 

We want to ensure our community is aware of the plans and able to have their voices heard. We’ve hosted some online forums and are running a survey to understand the impact the proposed changes would have.

The survey is targeted at families with children aged 0-12 years in the NDIS. It collects basic information about the capacity building aspect of your child’s NDIS plan.

The survey link is available below and will close at 1pm Tuesday 11 May:
https://app.surveyhero.com/s/e073b92