ALEXANDER, Matilda, Chief Executive Officer, Queensland Advocacy Incorporated

PHILLIPS, Emma, Principal Solicitor, Queensland Advocacy Incorporated

WIGGANS, Sophie, Systems Advocate, Queensland Advocacy Incorporated

[12:14]

CHAIR: Thank you for your submission to the inquiry. Do you have any comments about the capacity in which you appear?

Emma Phillips : I would add that I am also the deputy CEO.

CHAIR: Thank you. I now invite you to make some opening comments.

Emma Phillips : Thank you for the opportunity to take part in this public hearing. We would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land, upon which we meet, of the Turrbal and Yuggera peoples. We would like to acknowledge the experiences of First Nations Australians with disability and the intersectional disadvantage they experience. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.

Queensland Advocacy Incorporated is an independent community based advocacy organisation and community legal centre that advocates for vulnerable people with disability. Our mission is to promote, protect and defend the fundamental needs and rights of the most vulnerable people with disability in Queensland. The majority of our management committee comprises persons with disability, whose wisdom and lived experience is our foundation and guide.

QAI has an exemplary track record over 30 years of advocating for systemic change through campaigns directed to attitudinal law and policy reform, including advocating for the initiation of the NDIS. We have provided for over a decade services to people with disability through our Human Rights Legal Service, our Mental Health Legal Service, our Justice Support Program, our National Disability Insurance Scheme Appeals Support Program and our Decisions Support Pilot Program, also linked to the NDIS, but most recently through our Disability Royal Commission Advocacy Program, our Education Advocacy Service and our Social Work Service. QIA's NDIS appeals and decisions support pilot programs provide advocacy and support to individuals and families to engage with and access the NDIS. Our work with our clients underpins our understanding of the challenges, needs and concerns of people with disability and informs our campaigns at state and federal levels for changes in attitudes, laws and policies.

The NDIS has fundamentally changed the lives of Australians living with disability. Many people are now accessing essential disability support services for the first time. The introduction of an individualised model of disability service provision resulted from hard-fought advocacy on the inadequacies of the previous model, many of which were highlighted in the 2009 Shut out report.

Matilda Alexander : Despite assertions that independent assessments will address many of the scheme's inequities, like the financial burden of assessments, mandatory independent assessments will perversely create further inequities and will erode the person-centred ethos upon which the scheme is founded. Independent assessments will reduce a person's choice and control, deny essential review and appeal rights and limit a person's right to receive reasonable and necessary funded supports, all of which lie at the heart of the scheme.

Australia has committed to upholding the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which says people with a disability have a right to be involved in decision-making that affects them. This convention recognises the importance of persons with disabilities having autonomy and independence, including the freedom to make their own choices. Independent assessments as proposed undermine this commitment in two important ways: firstly, through the lack of meaningful consultation with people with disability regarding independent assessments, including a failure to listen to their voices of protest; and, secondly, the proposed changes to the assessment process and planning of budgets to introduce mandatory independent assessments reduces the autonomy and active participation of people in vital life-changing decision-making.

We are all experts in and of our own lives, and each life is unique and complex. For too long, the expertise of people with disabilities, in understanding their own unique and complex lives and needs, has been downplayed and the proposed changes will reinstitute a silencing of this expertise. Given the purpose of the NDIS Act is to enable people with disability to exercise choice and control in the pursuit of their goals and the planning and delivery of their supports, we see this proposed change as the antithesis of that goal.

The NDIA initially said they were introducing these changes to overcome financial costs associated with functional capacity assessments and to address inconsistencies in decision-making. Mandatory independent assessments are not a fair solution to these issues. Participants will still have to spend money on assessments to prove the permanency of their impairment, and any inconsistency created will come at the expense of individualised support packages. A better way to ensure consistency in administrative decision-making is through improved training, policy and accountability. Improving consistency at the expense of quality decision-making is not fair for people with a disability. Independent assessments will simply not produce an accurate reflection of a person with disability's functional capacity and associated support needs. This is an incorrect assumption that the disability sector continues to be virtually unanimous in refuting. I will now hand over to Sophie to describe our specific concerns with the proposal.

Sophie Wiggans : The one-size-fits-all, or even the 400-size-fits-all, approach implied in the use of the single standardised assessment process is highly inappropriate for assessing disability, the very nature of which is complex and requires a much more nuanced approach. The cultural safety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability has not been adequately considered. QAI's president, Byron Albury, recently spoke out about this and said: 'People are going to say, "We're not doing this, and we don't understand it, so we will keep doing what we've been doing because that's how we support family. We don't need an algorithm to tell us how to look after our aunty or uncle."' Assessment processes that withhold reports from participants and cannot be appealed are not transparent and lack essential checks and balances on government decision-making. Subjecting people with disability to unnecessary assessments is dehumanising and in violation of a person's dignity and can be particularly traumatic for people with psychosocial disability.

The tokenistic consultation processes to date have done little to quell concern within the disability sector that these reforms are just about reducing the costs of the scheme. Much fear and anxiety have been created both by the nature of the proposed reforms and the manner with which they have been introduced. This was evident at a recent forum entitled 'NDIS Reforms - Pause, Reset, Co-design', which was hosted by a coalition of seven organisations representing a broad range of stakeholders across the disability sector in Queensland, including QAI. The online forum had over 250 registrations and collated direct feedback from the sector regarding the proposed changes, including independent assessments. We have brought with us a copy of the summary report to provide to the committee. I would now like to share with the committee, if I may, two of the case studies that came from the forum.

Case study No. 1: a young girl in a wheelchair assessed as having no mobility concerns by an independent assessor. A nine-year-old girl, who sometimes uses a wheelchair, was described as not having mobility concerns in a report prepared for the National Disability Insurance Scheme trial of independent assessments. Mary said that her daughter, Sara, who lives with physical and intellectual disabilities, took part in a January trial assessment. The family then waited 16 weeks for a copy of the report. 'It said that she doesn't have any mobility issues,' Mary said, 'and this is a child with brittle bones and who uses a wheelchair. I'm not quite sure how they arrived at that conclusion.' The five-page participant interaction notes included a question: Does the participant have any mobility concerns? The listed response was no. The answer was baffling to Mary, given the previous question noted that Sara uses a manual wheelchair while other reports generated from the assessment also referred to Sara's mobility issues. Mary said that she was only aware of the inaccuracy because she had specifically requested to see the report. She was worried it could have affected her daughter's funding if the assessment were not on a trial. 'I would imagine that, if I'm asking for a new wheelchair for Sara because she grows out of the current one,' said Mary, 'they're going to look at the independent assessment, and it says she doesn't have any mobility issues.'

Case study No. 2: John, a man with a vision impairment who believes his independent assessment did not consider his full range of support needs and functional capacities in different environments. John was asked to make a cup of tea in his house, an environment that is well set-up to meet his practical needs. However, this did not reflect his ability to do this task and the challenges involved in other different and unfamiliar community environments. Additionally, John was asked to turn on the computer as part of assessing his communication needs. However, this task in itself does not reflect the complexities around John's need for specialised equipment such as a braille display, special software, colour-coding devices and a particular computer in order to communicate effectively in both the home and the broader community. This is a participant quote: 'Why aren't independent assessments reviewable? How can we be certain assessors will understand our story even when assessors who know us well don't always understand what is happening?' The identities of both of those participants have been changed.

Matilda Alexander : The service core of the NDIS is about improving the lives of Australians with disability. This must remain at the forefront of policy reforms in this area. Introducing independent assessments in their current form will likely cause considerable harm and must be stopped. Instead, the expertise and perspectives of people with disability must be valued as central to considering changes to the NDIS. In this respect, it's commendable to see that your agenda today includes listening to the voices of people with lived experience—COVID permitting.

CHAIR: It could have to be another time, I'm afraid.

Matilda Alexander : When you do reschedule, I'm sure you will still be listening to those voices. We urge that you give ultimate value to the expertise contained in those statements. This is why we say co-design with people with disability must be key to legislative and policy reform that will enhance the efficacy of the scheme and ensure its sustainability into the future. Thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you. We try to listen to participants wherever we go; it's an ongoing part of the function of the committee. But, unfortunately, we will have to postpone or reschedule this afternoon.

I'll just ask a couple of questions because a lot of what you said has been said by others as well, and I'm not going to just go over ground that has already been gone over. But one question I have is: is your objection to independent assessments one of principle or one that relates to the nature of what has being proposed for these particular independent assessments? That is, do you object to independent assessments per se, or is the objection from your perspective because what has been proposed by the NDIA is totally inadequate and inappropriate?

Matilda Alexander : Yes, it's a good question. I would say it's a little bit of both. An independent assessment has disadvantages, say, if we're talking about people from a psychosocial background with disabilities. They might have spent years developing a rapport and getting an in-depth understanding with a practitioner who knows them well. An independent assessment can never equate to those years worth of therapeutic relationship. So there are some foundational issues with an independent assessment. There are also specific issues with the form that has been proposed. There is the lack of transparency, the lack of review, the provision of decision-making and even the lack of any preliminary indication of what a decision may be to allow a participant procedural fairness to reply to a consideration not to provide a level of support. So there are some specific concerns based on the model proposed, and there are also some general concerns based on independent assessments.

CHAIR: In the end this committee can write a report and make recommendations, but it's a matter for the government as to what they ultimately decide. What others have suggested to us is that if independent assessments were to occur, then there are a set of minimum requirements that need to be in place. I can read to you the suggestions that have been made today by the Hopkins Centre at Griffith University, the Queensland Law Society and the Refugee Health Network. They include things like: the independent assessments would need to be valid and legal; they'd need to be transparent, so people could see exactly what was being assessed and how it was being assessed; they'd need to be explicable for the purposes, including the purposes of a review by the AAT, and that every step be reviewable. In addition to that it was suggested that the minimum requirements be that any additional reports which were about a participant from a health professional or allied health professional be part of the independent assessment process and be multidisciplinary. I think, just before you, the Refugee Health Network suggested that they needed to ensure that appropriate language services be provided for people for whom English is not a first language. There may be other minimum requirements, but to cut it short my question is: do you concur with that list of minimum requirements? Are there any other minimum requirements which you would add if independent assessments were to occur?

Sophie Wiggans : I would add to that that they would need to be modelled and trialled from the results from the second independent assessment pilot that's currently happening. That would need to be rigorously reviewed and evaluated in a very transparent and public way, and people with disability would still need to be involved in the design of the new proposed independent assessments. Some of those safeguards that you've mentioned certainly seem reasonable. I would potentially add that there would need to be safeguards around ensuring that the assessor has the requisite skills and expertise in a person's disability as well. We've seen and heard examples of the independent assessment trial of, for example, a person with autism being assessed by a physiotherapist. That won't work. There needs to be safeguards to in place to ensure that in an assessment process a person's disability is going to be understood. That's very fundamental.

CHAIR: This seems to go to the crux of the issue, because as I understand it—and I might be wrong, but the NDIA will read this transcript and can point out to me I'm wrong—what they're proposing is a use one of about five or six different assessment tools, such as WHODAS or Vineland, which then forms the independent assessment. That seems to suggest you don't need to have expertise in the particular disability that the participant for whom you're doing the assessment has. I could be trained, for example, as a non-health professional to be able to administer the tool. I presume—again, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm fairly confident of what the answer will be—that that approach is that anybody that has some sort of health skill, as you said, it might be a speech pathologist, an OT or whatever, could assess anybody regardless of the particular disability they had. You would say that's inadequate.

Sophie Wiggans : That's right.

Matilda Alexander : Absolutely. I think using the term 'minimum safeguards' is a bit of a misnomer, because these minimum standards would not make things safe. They wouldn't provide an equitable access to the NDIS.

CHAIR: So then what are the further things that you think would be required, assuming for the sake of our discussion, if independent assessments were to occur?

Matilda Alexander : Leaving aside the issue that an independent will never have the same therapeutic relationship, there's a pool—

CHAIR: I understand there's an in-principle objection, but I'm leaving that aside for the moment, because at the end of the day the committee may have to do a number of things. One of them might be that we say, 'If you have independent assessments then this is what we believe is required.'

Matilda Alexander : One of the things might be that you're narrowing the pool a lot by having a panel of independent assessors who can conduct this. If you gave people the autonomy and choice and said: 'You need to get this assessment done. You can go to any practitioner in Queensland—the practitioner of your choice,' we wouldn't be advocating for that to exclude your own practitioner. But I guess that would be a model of independence if it were any practitioner except the person who actually knows you and knows what you need.

Emma Phillips : In terms of the objection I think it goes beyond in principle, simply because by definition with an independent there is a lack of that relationship, particularly for people who present with very complex disability support needs or people who may take some time to build a rapport before what their support needs are can be properly understood. As a really practical barrier, the lack of any existing relationship can mean that it's very, very difficult, even within a generously allocated assessment window, to properly understand.

In terms of expertise—and I know that Sophie raised this during her opening statement—I'd like to add recognising the expertise of people with disability about their own disability and the limitations and strengths that they live with as a safeguard. And there's the expertise that family members have as well. For example, the statement of lived experience is really valuable evidence that can inform that planning process. It's making sure that safeguards include a valuing and the appropriate weighting of a range of information.

CHAIR: Yes.

Emma Phillips : The financial barriers have certainly been really significant, so having some form of payment that can go towards some of that is something that we've always supported as an organisation. It really needs to be seen as part of the conversation.

CHAIR: Dr Martin.

Dr MARTIN: Thank you so much for the contributions from Queensland Advocacy Incorporated. It's certainly important that we have submissions like yours. I have a question on the point about health professionals which was made in relation to whether some health professionals are better placed than others to assess conditions for the various types of disabilities that are listed in the NDIS.

Building on that were your comments about the expertise of family members and individuals who have disability. I think it's very important to discuss strengths and functioning with individuals when doing an assessment. However, in terms of the assessment itself—the clinical assessment, I mean—I would think that there would be no other conditions where individuals actually choose the clinical tools used, or use clinical judgement, to make an assessment for a medical condition. This goes to your point 6, which says that participants must continue to be able to provide the clinical evidence of their choosing that will be considered in relation to their access requests and/or plan budget considerations. What do you mean exactly by 'provide clinical evidence of their choosing'? And what kind of role do you see participants—those with disability and their family members—having in the assessment process when there's a clinician involved in the assessment?

Sophie Wiggans : Thank you for your question. I think that point was more in relation to the need for the participant to retain choice and control over the assessment process in terms of the evidence-collating process, rather than the clinical information per se. There needs to be choice and control over which clinician they choose to engage for that assessment process. We've heard from the sector, unanimously, that there are a lot of concerns around being forced to be assessed by a stranger who doesn't know them or understand their context. But, yes—

Dr MARTIN: Sorry to interrupt, but on that point: when individuals seek help for an assessment, be that for a disability or for any type of illness, often clinicians don't have a long-established rapport with individuals when they're doing assessments. Particularly with specialists, for example, there isn't the longstanding therapeutic relationship, as there would be if it were for therapy or therapeutic-type treatment. I'm just making the point that assessments are different to treatment. So what do you mean by a 'rapport' with the person who does the assessment?

Sophie Wiggans : I'm certainly aware of many examples of participants in the scheme having long-term relationships with therapists who provide therapy but also the assessments for various processes within the NDIS. I take what you're saying is that some people may not know the assessor and have that background, but there are plenty of people who have a treatment team or a support team around them. That team does include trusted allied health professionals who get to know the person over a long period of time, get to know their family, understand their unique personal and environmental factors and know those nuances about the person's situation that come with knowing a person over a period of time. I think that's particularly true of people with complex needs.

Dr MARTIN: I appreciate what you're saying, and certainly that is very useful for treatment. But I would argue that if there is a longstanding therapeutic relationship that it could actually bias the assessment results when one does an assessment. In fact in research studies where people are selected to provide assessments, they're often ruled out if they have a longstanding therapeutic relationship because of the potential bias involved. I'm wondering whether that argument about longstanding therapeutic relationships and the role that someone with a longstanding therapeutic relationship has when they're providing assessments plays out when it could bias the assessment, as it does in research.

Matilda Alexander : I think that if that's the issue, there are better ways to deal with it. If medical practitioners are providing reports that are biased, it would be a matter of their professional obligations if they feel they cannot do an unbiased report. That should be dealt with in more appropriate ways rather than by depriving people with disabilities of a trusted professional, particularly in a complex situation which changes from day to day. I think an assessment would ultimately be better in those situations where the person has had a more longitudinal relationship.

Dr MARTIN: I would say that person that provides that therapy and has that longitudinal relationship probably has very valid information to contribute to the assessment process. But I think the question is: are they the best person—are they best placed—to provide an independent assessment? I guess my question to you is on the independence of the assessment and the impact of longstanding therapeutic relationships in that process.

Matilda Alexander : I guess it depends on what problem we're trying to solve. If we think there's a problem of medical professionals not providing an unbiased report, that doesn't seem to be the basis, as we understand it, for instituting independent assessments.

Dr MARTIN: Bias can be quite complicated, and you need awareness to be able to identify bias. Certainly, the complexity of bias in research papers is why research studies look at the independence of the researcher when they're conducting an intervention study looking at pre and post intervention. So I wonder about the role of the longstanding relationship in the independent assessments. I think you're right in saying that a longstanding therapeutic relationship is incredibly useful, but are these practitioners best placed to be conducting independent assessments?

Emma Phillips : I'll respond to that briefly and then I think my colleague might have something to add. I think it's really important to keep focused on what we're trying to assess in this context. We have a National Disability Insurance Scheme that is looking at individualised supports and services for people with disability. The permanency requirement of the scheme means that, while treatment is potentially a consideration, really what we're looking at is providing valid evidence of the types of supports and services someone needs to be able to achieve their goals, which for most people are really about living an ordinary life. In that regard, I think that's where we get back to the in-principle and practical objection to the nature of independent assessments to begin with. I think we can delineate between independent assessments and the role of assessments by medical practitioners and allied health professionals in the context of the NDIS, and in other contexts as well. Sophie, do you have something you want to add?

Sophie Wiggans : My additional thoughts are on the issue of bias. I know that there's a big concern within the disability community about the potential bias of the independent assessments and the extent to which they will actually be independent, given that they'll be contracted by the agency and will have certain organisational objectives and goals to meet in performing certain assessments and producing certain outcomes. That needs to be acknowledged as well.

Matilda Alexander : You were talking about research and about assessment tools, and I wonder whether that research has been calibrated based on the white male norm and whether or not it would be said that an Aboriginal person's assessment is best done by a neutral person that they've never met before—somebody from a particular cultural background going to see a person they've never met before. It might be said that, for a woman talking about PTSD because of sexual abuse or institutional abuse, it's better to do that with someone she's never met before. I feel like sometimes that research hasn't been done on the complexities of the situations and the individual people that we're talking about. Ultimately, there are very few people who are accessing the NDIS with a simple case. That research, perhaps, doesn't take into account the barriers faced by all of the complex groups that I've just mentioned and others.

Dr MARTIN: I think you raise a very good point about Indigenous Australians, and I think you highlight the need for people who work in the disability space to be culturally informed and culturally sensitive when they're providing services. I think that's a very important point when working with Australian Indigenous or First Nations people. So that's a really valid point. That's been highlighted in other committees that are highlighting issues with health professionals and the training needed for health professionals in this space. I have no further questions. Thank you very much.

Senator CAROL BROWN: Thank you for your evidence today. I just wonder: are you aware of any evidence that sympathy bias is driving up NDIS costs?

Sophie Wiggans : No, I'm not aware of that. I've heard it being referred to by the minister in public discussions about the scheme, but I haven't come across any evidence of that being an issue with this particular scheme. That's one of the things that I was thinking of saying as well: if there are concerns around sympathy bias, are they actually in relation to the NDIS? I think we need to also consider if research is relevant. Is it coming from people's experiences of the current scheme? That's what we need to be looking at.

Senator CAROL BROWN: I have heard sympathy bias being spoken about, but I've never seen any evidence presented that it is an issue driving up the NDIS costs. So thank you for that response. I'm very interested in the comments you made earlier about concern around conflicts of interest, particularly to do with the panels that, after making tenders, have received contracts to do particular work. Do you have specific concerns about the companies that have contracts from the NDIA to do independent assessments?

Matilda Alexander : No, not specific concerns relating to a particular provider. It's just a general concern that who's paying them will determine or influence what they're recommending. That's the concern that we're getting from our clients—from people with disability.

Sophie Wiggans : We are learning, as well, from similar kinds of processes. For example, with the disability support pension and the process to go through independent job capacity assessments, there have been concerns around assessments and the outcomes they produce, and whether or not they're actually in line with the person's needs or with the provider's own needs or obligations.

Senator CAROL BROWN: We've spoken about—and you've mentioned both in your responses to questions here today and in your opening statements—the fact that independent assessments as they're currently proposed are not reviewable. This concern has been raised on many occasions. Given the fact that at the end of this independent assessment there is a budget attached, what changes would you like to see the government make in appeals of independent assessments?

Matilda Alexander : I would like to see as much transparency as possible. I gave the example before of releasing preliminary decisions before they are finalised and allowing procedural fairness on those preliminary decisions. These are the basic principles of administrative law: putting all your cards on the table in order to arrive at the best decision. I would allow for formalised merits review processes and dutiful review processes where appropriate, and providing people with adequate funding and support to navigate those processes. We do some of that work in our office, and it can be very daunting for our clients. I also note the review mechanisms outlined earlier around transparency, reviewability, allowing extraneous materials, and multidisciplinary translation for English as a second language, bearing in mind that many people in Far North Queensland speak English as a second language but don't have translating services available in the way that, say, the Northern Territory has the Aboriginal translating service. All of those things that make up a package of procedural fairness, I think, would need to be built into a review system.

Sophie Wiggans : Adding to that, I'd highlight the importance of participants receiving all the information. The proposal is to provide only a summary and for a participant to have to go through an extended process to obtain a copy of the report. That's unacceptable. The participant should have access to all information about them that's held by the agency without having to go through any extra processes. Appeal rights and the ability to seek a review should also extend to decisions made about whether or not to grant a person an exemption from independent assessment. There should be full rights to appeal across all decisions.

Senator CAROL BROWN: If the proposed model goes forward without the independent assessments part being appellable, do you think that will increase the levels of reviews that are requested, and subsequent appeals, once you get to the planning stage?

Sophie Wiggans : Yes. There will be a certain cohort of people that won't even get to that stage because of the lack of review and appeal rights. They may be denied access. Already, the advocacy sector and funding for appeal support are straining to meet current demands. Potentially, we will see an increase in reviews of plan allocations and overall plan budget amounts.

Matilda Alexander : We want to target the reviews where they're going to be the most relevant. If people are dovetailing reviews of the processes before and after the independent assessment, rather than being able to bring a review on what they are trying to review, it's going to be more complicated and legalistic with less transparency, and it will affect the quality of government decision-making.

Senator CAROL BROWN: Do you think that people working in the sector and participants, particularly, are fully aware of what the independent assessment process is going to be like? There seems to be quite a lot of information out there that is contradictory to information from the NDIA indicating how the independent assessments will actually work. So I'm concerned that the information that participants or their families have is either not correct or not the full story of how the government is proposing the independent assessments will work.

Matilda Alexander : I've seen the disability sector work very hard at making sure that the participants have accurate information, and I think that their protests and concerns, as they've been expressed to us, are valid and are based on accurate information.

Sophie Wiggans : The forum that I mentioned in our opening statement was a recent example of where direct feedback was obtained from participants and people with lived experience, following a brief overview, again, of what the proposed reforms are. I'm aware that there have been multiple community forums or engagement processes where information that is accurate has been shared—

Matilda Alexander : By universities—so, not by anyone with any stake in the business—doing the overview in that forum.

Senator CAROL BROWN: Do you believe the statement by the NDIA that, under independent assessments, everyone will have access to a high quality assessment that will inform more consistent and fair NDIS decisions, or do you believe there's an easier way to ensure more consistent and fair NDIS decisions before going down the independent assessment pathway?

Matilda Alexander : They may well be more consistent, with the limitation of the 400 personas—it may lead to consistency—but certainly not fair. We think there is a better way to achieve consistency, through good-quality government decision-making processes that have been tried and tested in other areas of administrative law: policy, guidance, training, rules—these kinds of things. That's what we need to invest in, in order to ensure consistency.

Senator CAROL BROWN: So is it your suggestion that the government go back to the drawing board and have a look at further consultation and a genuine co-design process?

Sophie Wiggans : Absolutely. I would say that is what we would be recommending. In terms of your previous question about accuracy: the idea that independent assessments will lead to more accurate decision-making is fundamentally flawed, and people's experiences from the independent assessment trial and their experiences generally have shown that to not be the case. I think there's a lot of room to improve consistency in decision-making, from the NDIA's point of view, without changing how people obtain the information that they need. The NDIA could be a lot clearer on what information they need to make their decisions, and there could be greater training and processes in place for the NDIA to be more consistent with the information that they receive and the information that they want to receive from people. So there's definitely room to improve consistency in decision-making from their point of view, and I think that should be looked at. But my understanding is that the use of these mandatory independent assessments, particularly in their current form, will not lead to more accurate decision-making and that consistency will come at the cost of the personalised and individualised support packages which were the intent behind the scheme in the first place.

Matilda Alexander : It seems like independent assessments are an umbrella—they are meant to solve a range of different problems. If we look at what those issues may be: if the issue is sympathy bias, let's look at the best way to solve that; if the issue is consistency, let's look at the best way to solve that; and if the issue is inequity, financial access to the scheme for people without financial resources, let's look at the best way to solve that. Independent assessments in their current form are not going to solve the problems; they're going to, in fact, create more problems.

Emma Phillips : Indeed. Some of the problems we've been advocating about for a number of years now are only going to be compounded by the introduction of independent assessments, the lack of transparency in the planning process and the lack of genuine consultation with the person who is the subject of the decision-making. We are stepping further away from where we want to be, but this is not a new problem that has been introduced by independent assessments; problems with the approach to administrative decision-making have been plaguing the scheme.

Senator CAROL BROWN: Are you at all concerned about the discussion around where goals are in the proposed model, after the independent assessment has been made?

Sophie Wiggans : Yes, very much so. The removal of a person's goals from those discussions is of big concern to the disability community. In keeping with the approach that was meant to be borne by the NDIS and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it's taken a human rights focus and approach to people with disability, acknowledging them as the experts of their own lives and making their own decisions, and giving them autonomy over that process. The removal of a person's goals from decision-making will lead to generic packages that are more akin to the aged-care model as opposed to what the NDIS was meant to be about—that is, funding individualised packages and care for people so they can socially and economically participate in the community and live the life they deserve to live.

Senator CAROL BROWN: Thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you very much for your submission to this inquiry, and thank you for coming along and discussing it with us today. We appreciate it very much.

I thank everybody who has contributed to today's hearing. If there are additional materials that people wish to submit to the secretariat, can they please do that by mid-July. Additional hearings of the committee will be advertised on the website. We regret we have to shorten this hearing today, but that is the world we live in at the present time.

Committee adjourned at 13:02