Special report expected to shake-up Australian disability service provision.

This article was in the Brisbane Courier Mail today....

Even though this issue is seemingly out of control and people obviously need help now in Australia, instead of the 2014 expected date of implementation for the NDIS.... I can't help but turn my thoughts to those countries that do not have the voices or the means to inform the world of the everyday plights of the disabled.

Yes I am an avid supporter of "Every Australian Counts".....

But I also believe that "Every Disabled Person...where-ever they may be...

counts too!" 

Special report expected to shake-up Australian disability service provision.

Paddy Hintz 

From:The Courier-Mail

July 30, 2011 12:00AM 

WITH two teenage sons with autism and a range of other disorders, and a wife whose spinal condition keeps her bedridden, Mark Styles, 47, carries the burden for his family.

Now the stress is getting to him.

"He has attacks that mimic a heart attack and each time they happen he has to go to hospital just in case," his wife Gayle, 45, said.

"It's been brought on by the stress. He just needs a break.

"But that isn't possible. We can't qualify for respite care because we have an 18-year-old son. But that 18-year-old son has autism."

The Styles said they had applied almost 20 times for funding through Disability Services Queensland and each time they're told they qualified but no money was available.

"Only one in 33 people in Queensland who applies and who is eligible for funding gets it," disability services advocate Fiona Anderson said.

Saturday night the biggest shake-up in the history of Australian disability service provision is expected to be recommended by the Productivity Commission.

Aimed at fixing the wrongs of care provision which has been "underfunded, unfair, fragmented, and inefficient", the report into disability care and support will recommend the establishment of a $12.5 billion-a-year National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The scheme, mooted in a draft report released earlier this year, and a parallel National Injury Insurance Scheme are expected to cost the Federal Government $6.3 billion a year.

The commission says this could be funded by cuts in spending and tax increases.

A new statutory body, the National Disability Insurance Agency, would supervise the schemes.

The changes are likened in scale to the introduction of Medicare but disability services advocates are concerned the Federal Government, committed to returning the Budget to surplus in 2012-13, will baulk at the cost.

Endeavour Foundation chairman David Barbagallo says he hopes the Productivity Commission does not understate the urgency for a disability scheme tomorrow night.

"The current system is locked in a death spiral," Mr Barbagallo said.

"Sadly, there are lots of instances where people are faced with the alternative of abandoning their family members to the state as it's the only way they can get help."