Means testing the NDIS

is not the answer to trying to rein in the exploding cost.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme was not intended to be means tested. It was intended to provide assistance to people who face extra costs because of their disabilities. Those costs can be high, very high. I have known parents working two or even three jobs in an attempt to cover the extra costs. There are too many families where the relationships break down because of the financial stress, where siblings go without in order to provide the essentials. How do you means test all this fairly?

The problem with the NDIS is entirely different. Put simply there are far too many who are receiving funding who should not be receiving any. There are also far too many who are receiving funding for things the NDIS was never intended to cover. Add these things to the number of people who "run NDIS services" and you have costs which have blown out far in excess of what they should have been allowed to do.

The "he's on the spectrum" disability (and boys far outnumber the girls) has added immensely to the cost of the scheme. I know people will argue with me but I am personally aware of individuals who are getting funding so they can play sport. This has included transport there and back, the clothing and footwear, the membership fees and more. Yes, sport is important and participating in it has benefits but it is not what the NDIS was intended to cover.

Funding for holidays has occasionally been mentioned. I know there are people who say, "Oh that doesn't really happen." It does happen. I personally know one family who went on holiday at taxpayer expense. They had a week in another state and visits to a marine park and an entertainment park were included. The NDIS was never intended to cover this sort of thing. It was not intended to cover "sex workers" or visits to the pub either. Yes, it happens.

Those who run the NDIS also see it as an endless stream of money flowing in their direction too. If you need a gardener to mow your tiny lawn then NDIS will organise it. They will charge you at least twice the rate you could get it done for if you organised it yourself and they will charge you for the full hour even if it takes just fifteen minutes. No, you cannot organise it yourself. This is part of your "package" and this is how it has to be done. No, you do not have to believe me but this is actually what happens to my friend J... The neighbour puts her bins out for her and often has to pick up after the gardener has gone. The charge is more than twice the rate usually charged but the person mowing the lawn will not be seeing anything more than a basic wage.

Another NDIS recipient needs help getting ready for work in the mornings. He works from home as an accountant. Recently he had the embarrassment of having to attend a meeting by zoom still in his pajama top and without shaving . The NDIS worker had not turned up. Nobody else was available. His neighbour had rushed in and helped him to the bathroom and made him a hot drink before heading off to work himself.  The service was not provided that day but he still had to pay for it because it was "the package you pay for".  How do I know? I was at the same meeting. T... is doing his best to work and be independent and the NDIS should be working for him but it comes at the cost of constant stress.

The entire NDIS needs to be reviewed. We need to review who is being funded. We need to know why they are being funded, whether they are getting the services they need and how much they are being charged. 

The Minister's reaction to these concerns has been to suggest that the NDIS needs to be means tested. His party blocked an inquiry into the NDIS, told us it had been done, brought in yet another scheme to support children with autism and seems to think the job has been done. No, it has not. Things need to change.  

     

Forty-three babies have been taken

from their parents so far this year. This is according to a report in this morning's paper. 

There were the usual words about how dreadful this is - and it is - but it is interesting to note who the focus was on. It was on how dreadful this is for the parents, not the child.

I often think the children are given less consideration than the parents in these cases. All too often they are passed backwards and forwards as if they are objects and have the right to be possessed. 

Some time ago I remember talking to a grandparent who had to leave another event early. It was time to pick up two children from school. His wife was home minding two other children. They come from two different families.

His words shocked the little group I was in. They went something like, "These are the designer kids. I don't know why they bothered. Our daughter didn't want children. We take their kids to everything."

At the time I thought he was exaggerating but, talking to his wife later, I discovered that they are effectively bringing up their grandchildren. It has not been done by choice. Perhaps it started when the two children at school were born. They are twins and they arrived despite birth control measures. Their mother could not cope. The other two children are their son's children and their daughter-in-law is a professional person who has also gone back to work. 

Yes, the children have been in and out of "day care" as well but there is still a heavy load for the grandparents. They do it out of love for their grandchildren and the belief they can give better care than the children would get with strangers. This is almost certainly true and I am glad the children have their grandparents but I wonder about their relationship with their parents. 

"Oh we have "quality time" together," I remember a mother telling me as she picked up her child from a neighbour.  Her genuine belief was that a short time devoted entirely to the child each evening was sufficient. It was as good as parenting for extended periods.

I remember all too well the stress the Whirlwind's father felt when he was trying to be both parents to his daughter. He desperately wanted to be there for her. When she had to board at school they talked every night. It did not matter where he was in the world or what time it was where he was she knew that her father would call her. They spent time together at weekends doing simple things like cleaning the house, gardening, going for a bike ride together, visiting the library. He worried that he was not being "hands on" enough. It was not perfect. Nothing ever is but he was doing the best he could. His own poor state of health now has in part to be due to the loss of the person who meant more to him than anyone else. 

I want to shake people who believe that children can be passed backwards and forwards as parents appear to be "coping". This is not how you bring up children. Yes, we are short of foster parents but this is one of the reasons we are short of them. Who wants to take on the responsibility for a child for a few weeks or months or even a year only to have them taken away? All too often they are taken away and then, when things "don't work out", they are taken away again...and again...and again. Who is really thinking about the children?

The grandparents above are trying to avoid that. They are trying to make sure the children in their care are really being cared for and I can only admire them for it. The real question though  has to be, "Is anyone really thinking about the children?" 

"The medicalisation of the normal

range of neurodiversity" is how one of the government's own members of parliament has described the "blow out" in funding "needs" of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. That member is a doctor. 

If her statement is correct in saying that around forty percent of those receiving funding are people who are being labelled as "autistic" then we have a problem. Has the number of children with autism really grown so much? Are we "better at diagnosing it" or are too many children being diagnosed as "autistic"?

My third and final year in teacher training college was where I had my first encounter with the idea of someone being "autistic". I was supposedly studying "special education". Looking back all I was getting was the briefest overview of an incredibly complex area of education. I had already managed to learn far more by working one day of each weekend in a residential nursery school for profoundly deaf children. It was on the same campus as a school for visually impaired children. I had to learn to read Braille "just in case". I was also helping with the Girl Guide company at a school for children with severe physical disabilities. Those experiences and my own personal experience of disability taught me far more than the lectures at college did.  All that aside though "autism" was something I knew almost nothing about. 

One of our lecturers was very keen to explore the area. She was regarded as something of a pioneer in the area. Yes, these children were challenging. Their behaviour patterns were very challenging. They had severe communication impairments. Could they learn? Some of them seemed able to learn but they did learn "differently". Yes, any reasonable person would find them "disabled".

There were very few of these children. There was a unit with just eleven of them. Those of us doing the "special ed" course all spent some time there. I found it very challenging. It was an area I was asked to consider "specialising" in but not one which attracted me to the point of wanting to work there. Other types of communication issues interested me far more. All the same I saw, and still see, these children as having very severe disabilities.

I do not see children who have difficulty in sitting still as "autistic" but it seems this is now regarded as "mild" autism or "being on the spectrum".  "Fidgety" children have always been a challenge but they are undoubtedly more of a challenge in a modern classroom where there is so much more to distract them. Are they disabled though? Are they so disabled they need to be labelled as such and provided with a package by the NDIS?

A good friend has a granddaughter who had multiple medical problems at birth. Some of those problems have been overcome with surgery and medication. There are still some ongoing problems but the child herself is working hard to overcome them and reach the point where she can go to school. She receives no NDIS funding. She is not considered eligible even though she will be home-schooled for the first two years. The reason? Apparently it is because her problems are regarded as "temporary" and "not ongoing".  That her mother cannot go to work right now is not considered an issue but, to me, this is what NDIS funding should be about.

The Senate has just voted against an inquiry into fraud in the NDIS. I am not surprised. They say there is something being done about it. Perhaps there is but I am hearing too many stories about what can only be described as "medicalisation of the normal". They are children, often boys, who are restless and fidgety. They are having difficulty learning in the modern classroom. It simply does not suit them. They are not "engaged". They have been fed so much slick "entertainment" by screen - even the sort supposedly there to educate them - they cannot adjust to what is now required of them. These things do not make them "disabled". It makes the system unfit for their needs. It is the system which needs to change.  

 

I do not know if Ben Roberts-Smith is

guilty or innocent, innocent or guilty. His arrest yesterday for the "alleged crime of war murder" however disturbs me for reasons not related to his possible guilt or innocence. It was far too public for that.

This man has already been in court and attempted to prove his innocence. He took a television station to court because of the comments they made about his potential guilt. He claimed the comments were defamatory. His appeal was lost on the grounds it was heard in a civil court where the standard of proof is based on "more likely than not" rather than "beyond all reasonable doubt".  Much of the evidence presented was not made public and some of it came from people who claim they were "obeying orders" given by him.  They were people with a lot to lose if he was found to have been defamed. All this is far from the way in which other murder trials are conducted and to try and do this as a defamation issue in a civil court was quite extraordinary.

But there is something even more disturbing about this. If the news reports are correct then the Federal Attorney-General was the one who gave permission for his arrest. Why? Perhaps the question will be answered in other ways in due course but it does not merely suggest the government is involved in the process it tells us that they are involved. Why they are involved is something we are not being told but politics might be playing a part in all this.

There is a report due into the way the authorities failed to pick up the actions of the two terrorists involved in the November attack at Bondi. It has even been suggested it was not "anti-Semitic" - hard to believe when it was a Jewish event and the attackers were Muslim. 

Then there are the two female senators in federal parliament who just happen to be Muslim. One of them was born in Afghanistan. There are genuine questions over her right to be in the Senate at all. Senators cannot hold dual nationality and she almost certainly has not properly renounced her Afghan citizenship. She claims it is not possible because of the situation in Afghanistan. My own view is that if it is not possible then she has no right to a seat in the Senate. Other Senators who have found themselves in a similar position have had to resign and then seek a means of return. One had to do it when the law changed in another country after his election. This particular Senator has not had to do that, indeed refuses to do it. She was elected as a member of the Labor party and then left the party. They are not happy with that but she has a large Muslim following and they want, at very least, the preferences which will flow from those voting for her next time around. Keeping her as happy as possible is very important.

The other female Muslim senator comes from Pakistan. She has recently been demanding our government funds "gender equality training" not here but in Pakistan. Keeping her on side is also important. She is a member of the Greens and they have a massive and very successful media presence. Their views on the BR-S case have already shown a desire to lock him up and throw away the key. None of this helps. 

There are also current problems with the efforts to get gun ownership reduced again. The urgency of the Howard era reforms has been allowed to slide. The present government does not want this investigated too closely. They may need those votes.

The present government has a massive majority but it is built on a very sandy base. They had just 34.6% of first preference votes. Our electoral system then gave them 62.7% of the seats. They want to keep those seats and add to them if possible. Their agenda depends on it. A much stronger opposition would make it very hard to do. The opposition has something to answer for here as well. 

Tell me then that the very public arrest of BenR-S is not politically motivated. It could have been quietly done at his home - and it could have been done months or even years ago. He may be guilty or innocent but he should not be used as a political tool. 

Perhaps we need to talk about Fletcher Jones

or rather, the demise of Fletcher Jones.

Let me explain for those of you in Upover. Fletcher Jones was once a clothing store here in Downunder. I would not normally even consider writing about any clothing store. Those of you who know me that I am not someone to wear "good" clothes. I do not "dress up" to go out. I go to the library, the shops, the post office, to the doctor and the dentist wearing the same style of jeans I have worn for years. The jeans have actually not dated. People ask where I found some with the oh-so-useful pockets. 

But, Fletcher Jones? There is a story here, perhaps not a big story but still an important story. 

David Fletcher Jones was the son of a Cornish tin miner. He had a severe stammer as a child and it was one of the things which led him to leave school at the age of twelve. For a while it seemed he had overcome his stammer but it returned when he suffered shell shock while serving in WWI. (He was reportedly buried alive for some hours.)  His thoughts of being a missionary in China were halted by the stammer. What else could he do?

On his return however he took up the unlikely occupation of door-to-door salesman, then bought a clothing shop in his home town and built up a business from there. He worked on the basis of cash only and insisted people be fitted for the trousers they were buying. He also insisted on quality. WWII brought a contract for the services and his workmen's trousers were also highly regarded. All this was enough to build the factory in his home town.

It is there where the story starts to get really interesting. He insisted the factory had to have a garden, a proper garden for the staff to spend time in. They could eat their lunch there or just sit. It became a tourist attraction. I was taken to visit it as a child and it was definitely an attraction with the pool and the well kept gardens. Yes, it must have cost something but this was a workforce that he cared about.

And it went from there to something even more extraordinary. He gradually turned it into a "co-operative". At first the staff had a one third interest but he gradually turned it over so they had a two thirds interest in the company. It worked. 

By the mid-50s they were doing well enough to branch out into women's clothing. It was clothing which lasted. My paternal grandfather, a tailor, actually approved of the factory made clothing from that company. It met his very high standards for "off the rack" when he was considering the need to retire. (He was in his 80s by then.) 

My mother bought a skirt from Fletcher Jones. It was the sort of classic garment which does not go out of style. Hemlines did not bother her too much and she wore it for over thirty years. On entering teacher training college (where we were not permitted to wear trousers!) my parents bought me a "kilt skirt". It could be let out if I put on weight. (I did not. That came much later.) I finally discarded it when I moved here - almost half a century later. Their clothing lasted.  

But it seems all good things come to an end. We were run over by the big American chain store idea. We now have places like BigW, KMart, Target and the like. They sell cheap clothing imported from Asia. People buy it believing they have a bargain. It is often bright and "in fashion". It is "throw away". Mountains of it get thrown away. Recycling is at a minimum. Much of it is polyester. It has contributed to the demise of the wool industry. It is not clothing which is intended to last.

So Fletcher Jones, a company which served us and those employed there so well is going to be gone. I don't consider it progress.  

Child psychiatrist Jillian Spencer

could lose her medical licence for the offence of questioning gender based treatment for all children who, it is claimed, need it or want it without first reviewing their mental health carefully and thoroughly.

I would have thought that what she is advocating would be sound medical practice. Investigate the problem. Is what appears to be the problem really the problem? Is it perhaps a different problem? Is there another problem? What treatment is available? Is it the best possible treatment? What are the potential side effects? Can they be avoided?

I could go on asking questions but I won't. I am not a doctor. I am not a doctor but I am in the business of asking questions. My job involves asking questions all the time. I need to know what it is you think you want to know. Yes, complicated.

We do not ask enough questions. We assume we know things when we really know very little. Yes, I am as guilty as everyone else when it comes to that. I fail to ask questions I should ask, that I would have asked if I had sat there and thought a problem through. I should be more careful than I am at times.

When I started teacher training I thought we might be taught about the importance of questions. We were taught nothing at all. The art of asking questions was not even mentioned. Apparently it still is not mentioned. I managed to learn something about the art from my parents, particularly the Senior Cat. He knew how to ask questions, all sorts of questions. I once, just once, taught a group of doctors about this. They said it was useful. I hope it was because I hear doctors asking questions and realise they need to know more about the art. It isn't their fault. They simply don't get taught. They do not get answers because they are asking the wrong questions or asking the question in a way that is not understood. They use language others do not understand. It can be frustrating and confusing. It can lead to outcomes which are not the desired outcomes. It can also mean that questions sometimes do not get asked. 

But Jillian Spencer is asking questions. They are uncomfortable questions. They are questions we may not always be able to answer. They may go against what the current policies and practices say is "right" but that does not mean it is wrong to ask those questions. It is all the more reason to ask them. It is all the more reason to ask even more questions. It is not questions which do harm. It is the answers... and not listening to those  answers. 

 

  

"No, you should not be driving"

is what I want to say to someone I know.

J...phoned me yesterday. This happens occasionally. It usually happens when she is worried about something.

I reminded her to turn her clocks back an hour and then waited.

"I had to go up to the hospital," she told me. She has a range of medical conditions so this was not unusual in itself. "I had a medical for my driver's licence."  

That is not unusual either. She is some years older than I am and she is classed as "disabled". Her licence to drive means she can go out alone. I know it has been a lifeline for her even though someone else now takes her to do her shopping.

"They said I had to do a driving test." 

I responded to that with a neutral comment but I was thinking, "This is the person who did the medical test thinking they do not want to tell you it is time to give up your licence."

J... has had three quite serious accidents in the last three years. Nobody has been injured, one collision related to a bus stop, another to a car parked across the street and the third to a stationary car. She has also been pulled over by the police for straddling a line ("I couldn't see it properly") and failed to renew her licence and her registration on separate occasions. I have personally observed her back into a tree and remove the bark from it. She was getting "lost" coming to a group even when I gave her a very simple map to follow. She no longer comes to the group.

On the last occasion she was without her car for several weeks. It had to be towed. It could have been driven but she was not prepared to take it to the other side of the city and get a taxi back. It was "too expensive" and her insurance would pay for towing. In reality I think she knew she could not safely drive that long distance on a particularly busy route. 

She should not be driving. I know she should not be driving. I may not be able to drive myself but I can observe others who do. I also know I am not the only person who believes she should not be driving. It is quite likely her own doctor believes this but does not want to say it. It is likely that doctor sent her off to the hospital with some sort of excuse and the hospital is passing it on to an unfortunate driving tester. 

The driving tester may even give in and allow her to drive "only in day light" and within a small radius of her home. I do not think that is the answer. It is other road users who need to be considered. 

This is what does not happen of course. I can understand it. Take away someone's licence to drive and you take away all sorts of other things as well. I think of it often as I head out into extreme weather and think how nice it would be to "just hop in the car and go". If you have had a licence then the lack of one can mean major changes to the way you live. I do not want to wish that on her but I also think other road users need to be considered. 

I wonder whether the tester will have the courage to say, "No" or whether I will get another call down the track telling me, "I had a bit of an accident today." The problem is that it likely will not be an accident and someone else may get hurt.