1. Australia’s national disability insurance scheme: are we there yet?

2. My name is Dougie Herd

3. The other Portobello, 1984

4. Okay then … if I can’t be Steve McQueen
Disability rights activist
Systemic advocacy NGO CEO – -- Scotland and NSW
State Government Advisory Council CEO
Project Manager with National Disability Services
Senior Manager with NDIA
NDIS Support Coordinator
61 year old male
Citizen of Australia (and the UK)
Home owner (actually … hugely in debt to a bank)
Adult learner
Art lover
Victim of identity theft
Movie tragic
Still paralysed
Dougie Herd and a NSW train

5. New Zealand, sir? It might be this way …

6. I Support Australia’s NDIS
Always have done.
Always will.
But it can be better.

7. The old way of doing things
The current disability support system is underfunded, unfair, fragmented, and inefficient, and gives people with a disability little choice and no certainty of access to appropriate supports. The stresses on the system are growing, with rising costs for all governments.
Productivity Commission Report
10 April 2011

8. The big idea
There should be a new national scheme - the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) - that provides insurance cover for all Australians in the event of significant disability. Funding of the scheme should be a core function of government (just like Medicare).
Productivity Commission Report
10 April 2011

9. “If you don’t shift that paradigm in the next five minutes your name goes in my book …”

10. It’s not just about more money
A rights-based framework
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Australia’s National Disability Strategy
NDIS Act 2013
Participant at the centre
475,000 personal budgets
Choice & control
Reasonable and necessary supports
Social inclusion

11. Is change really as good as a rest?
a $22 Billion reform,
creating almost half a million new individual customers / clients / participants,
involving the reconfiguration of many, many different departments, agencies and programs across every government in Australia,
and requiring the total re-organisation of the disability support industry,
including doubling and wholly transforming the work force,
To be achieved in 6 years from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2019.

12. Zero to 475,000 (………fast)

13. Providers? NDIA Quarterly Report to 31 December 2017.
12,328 registered providers
UP 17% since the previous quarterly report
42% of registered providers are sole traders
But … only 51% of all the providers were active in the period
The top 25% of active providers account for 85% to 90% of the dollar value of payments made by the NDIA
The figures don’t include non-registered providers.
NDIA Quarterly Report to 31 December 2017.

14. Change is hard

15. And change takes time…
Like a glacier, you may have to look closely to see any movement.

16. 25 June 1348 Bubonic Plaague And your point is what Douglas?
By 1 November ,000 out of London’s 70,000 residents died.
Within 10 years up to half of England’s population was dead.
And your point is what Douglas?

17. King Edward III of England
Because a great part of the people, and especially of workmen and servants, late died of the pestilence, many seeing the necessity of masters, and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they may receive excessive wages, and some rather willing to beg in idleness, than by labor to get their living; we, ... have upon deliberation and treaty with the prelates and the nobles, and learned men assisting us, of their mutual counsel ordained:
That every man and woman of our realm of England, of what condition he be, free or bond, able in body, and within the age of threescore years,… be required to serve…;
Ordinance of labourers: 18th June 1349

18. Ed Roberts &
“We’ve tried cripples before and it just didn’t work”
Dean of Studies,
University of California, Berkeley
1962
Ed and his fellow students with disability established the world’s first centre for independent living in 1971.
Access and inclusion
The right to participation
Self-directed supports for participation
Nothing about us without us
Respect
Dignity
Autonomy
Citizenship

19. History begs the question
How do we make change real?
By which I mean …
How do you make change real?
What’s my personal responsibility to bring about lasting change?
How do we work together to make change work well

20. Enough!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you