Corruption in politics has to stop and on the Labor side at the federal level Bill Shorten is at the heart of it and the Labor Party needs to take action fast otherwise in a year or two the federal Labor Party will be embroiled in corruption scandals the same as the Liberal and Nationals are now.
The honeypot of vast pools of government money inevitably attracts flies, from the two-bob rorters to billion-dollar corporates.
What they have in common is adding the expense of a profit margin needing to be skimmed between the taxpayer, the actual care provider and the client.
We’ve seen this movie before with every government service that has been privatised/outsourced/flogged off to the for-profit sector, from tertiary education to aged care to employment services to child care.
Should we be surprised? We saw the same exploitation in Child Minding, Privatised Education, The outsourcing of Employment services you name it when the LNP privatised public services they invited the vultures in.
Australia’s most senior criminal intelligence official says organised criminals involved in drug trafficking, violence and money laundering are exploiting systemic weaknesses in the National Disability Insurance Scheme to rort it on an unprecedented scale.
The LNP delivering yet another FAILURE. A Herd of White Elephants,
The nation-building vision was for a big battery to be added to the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. It was to be completed in four years (that is, by last year) at a cost of $2 billion without any taxpayer subsidy, bring down electricity prices, generate renewable energy and incur minimal environmental impact on Kosciuszko National Park. Inspiring stuff. But not one of these grand claims has turned out to be true. Worse, Australian taxpayers and NSW electricity consumers will be up for billions of dollars in subsidies and increased electricity costs, all while Kosciuszko is trashed. Let’s have a quick recap.
This Government wants desperately to fund its history of financial mismanagement. So it turns to Welfare to pay. The negative consequences of LNP policies always seem to trickle up the positive down.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 was brought about to: ‘… support a better life for hundreds of thousands of Australians with a significant and permanent disability and their families and carers.’
It was not designed to pressure participants into fear-fuelled spending over claims that unspent funding results in irretrievable losses of funding that cannot be reallocated later according to changing needs.
It was not designed to inappropriately benefit the provider at the expense of the participant.
It was not designed for nefarious opportunists to help themselves at the expense of individuals already distrusting of the “kindness of strangers”.
These are but a handful of ways in which the NDIS continues to embed structural stigma into its delivery of services at large and in which the Coalition continues to ignore the humans floundering in the messes that ill-considered public policy maintains.
On this, I believe the Greens have it right — the Federal Government needs to #FixOurNDIS and fix it now.
The new Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme has stood behind a plan to introduce independent assessments for people with disabilities by the end of the year, but conceded in budget estimates hearing the original plan needed more work. National Disability Insurance Scheme Minister Linda Reynolds told senate estimates on Friday afternoon it became clear when she took on the portfolio there was “significant concern” about the independent assessment process and the way it was being communicated.
A secret marketing strategy to convince Australians to support a controversial overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) says the federal government must be “seen” to have listened to concerns of disability groups, who will be targeted with an extensive campaign. A leaked communications and engagement strategy from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which administers the $26 billion scheme, reveals an aim to announce a legislation date in late August. It also aims to combat any backlash from the disability community through what Labor calls an “expensive multi-media spin campaign”.
Mr Robodebt is simply too secretive to be trusted and has a history that warrants the deep concern
Once the government releases the final draft of the legislation, it will be easier to make a judgment on what it has in mind, but Mr Robert’s approach to developing the new legislation so far seems too secretive and confrontational.
A coalition of more than 20 disability organisations released a statement yesterday setting out significant concerns over the federal government’s plans to introduce independent assessments to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
This was the state of play and it certainly hasn’t improved and it’s worse for the Mentally ill. Are there are no experienced mental health practitioners in the NDIA? Doesn’t anyone understand that “Transition” to Independent Living doesn’t mean the consumer needs less care but more? As elderly parent/Carers, we have saved the government hundreds of thousands of o dollars. When the caring framework needs a change NDIA put up barriers with no visible gates or even a desire to assist. (ODT)
When money isn’t the solution and politics is guaranteed to fail the community’s most vulnerable by increasing the risk of their stress and isolation. (ODT)
“The average NDIS package value is nearly three times the average level of funding clients currently receive through the Mental Health Community Support Services program,” Martin Foley, Victoria’s Minister for Housing, Disability, and Ageing, said in a statement.”
But for Mr Gibbard, that essential service is changing with the transition to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Ms Stringer’s visits will end by December.
She works for the not-for-profit social and health agency EACH, and her support work is funded through Victoria’s Mental Health Community Support Service (MHCSS).
As the NDIS rolls out in areas of Victoria, the MHCSS is being wrapped up.
Right now, there are more than 900 full and part-time workers in Victoria doing mental health outreach paid for by the MHCSS.
By July next year — when the NDIS fully rolls out across the state — there will be none.
“It’s a shame because we’re going to be losing a lot of workers who are really skilled in mental health,” Ms Stringer says.
via 
olddogthoughts 
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