22 August 2012
As featured in the Australian today:
"THERE are great expectations in the disability community about the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It will be cause for celebration because disability policy and support will be recognised in a way that has not occurred in Australia to date.
It will be cause for celebrating the success of the individuals and organisations that never let go of the concept through many decades. It will also be cause for celebration because, we hope, our politicians have shown the courage to recognise a good idea and work together for its implementation.
As an individual who is blind, I will be one of the first to express joy on behalf of all people whose needs and aspirations will be met in this significant reform.
The source of the extra funds to create an effective and workable scheme has yet to be determined. The Productivity Commission has recommended that the source of those funds, $7 billion a year, should be the Australian Consolidated Fund. A decision on this will give absolute confidence to all of us that the NDIS is a real reform.
Equally as important are decisions on eligibility, assessment tools, safeguards and standards, control and choice. This is complex work and formidable experts have been assembled, working within the Council of Australian Governments framework.
Theirs is an unenviable task. There are listening and consultation processes established. There are welcome signs that the NDIS has become "a build as you go scheme", which should ensure it will be workable and effective.
Blindness and vision loss are greatly feared but not always understood. While the needs of people who are "legally" blind will, of course, be assessed for eligibility, it is not yet certain that people who are losing their vision will fit into the scheme. This issue of visual acuity and its capacity to profoundly affect functionality calls for deep consideration about eligibility criteria. People affected by blindness and low vision require intense interventions at certain periods of their lives so they can function and be independent. These are pathways to education, employment, recreation, travel, social and economic inclusion.
My friend and colleague, Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes, is one of the experts charged with examining eligibility and assessment. He is also a blind person, like me. But it is not fair to expect Graeme, as great an advocate as he is, to bear total responsibility for visual acuity eligibility.
People such as us are perhaps regarded as special or elite within the disability sector because we are entitled to the disability support pension specifically for the blind. With my colleagues on the board of Vision Australia, I am making a case for Australians who are affected by vision loss to be included in the NDIS, .
Thousands of people who have loss of vision already make valuable contributions to our society. It is important that they continue to get the supports they need to receive an education, obtain a job and enjoy an independent life.
This means access to early intervention services (before degenerative conditions lead to legal blindness) to reduce future need for intensive support. This means that assessment tools should take into account wide-ranging needs of individuals including aspirations and independence. It means that these tools should cover the compounding nature of multiple disabilities and their interaction when determining support needs. It means that clinical and functional aspects of vision loss should be set at a level that captures the true impact of vision loss on an individual.
After all, the genesis of the NDIS is built on choice and need, and the access to supports when they are needed.
The rights and the needs of a person born blind should not be considered to be of a higher order than the rights and needs of someone losing their sight and wanting to maintain all the functions of independence. This will be another cause for celebration when eligibility criteria are defined."
Ron McCallum