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Post by Denis-NFA on Dec 4, 2012 5:31:39 GMT 7
I have an appointment today to meet with a local, Cairns, organisation that is part of the National Disability Advocacy Program funded by Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Queensland Government Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services. www.fahcsia.gov.au/our-responsibilities/disability-and-carers/program-services/for-people-with-disability/national-disability-advocacy-programI will report back maybe tomorrow as to what they can and cannot do. I would appreciate if someone can confirm or correct my understanding of the following timelines for me please, and point out any other events that I should consider.... 01/01/2011 introduction of New restrictive Disability Impairment Tables; 01/01/2012 introduction of New draconian Interpretation of Residency; 01/07/2012 introduction of New JCA requirements for Unlimited Portability; and 01/01/2013 introduction of New Limitation of Time Allowed Overseas.
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Post by Banjo on Dec 4, 2012 8:08:17 GMT 7
Could be interesting, good luck.
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Post by Denis-NFA on Dec 4, 2012 14:46:57 GMT 7
Basically if you can string 3 or 4 words together forget it.
Bottom line was "go and talk to welfare rights".....
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Post by Denis-NFA on Dec 5, 2012 8:46:00 GMT 7
Sending through an article from today's Australian which is a bit long but well worth a read.
Bottom line....there are 800,000 people on the DSP but 500,000 will not be helped by the NDIS.
My take on it all.... No wonder that they want us back in Australia because we create Government employment!
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Post by Denis-NFA on Dec 5, 2012 8:46:25 GMT 7
Painful flaws in disability plan by: Paul Kelly, Editor-at-Large From: The Australian December 05, 2012 12:00AM
AS Julia Gillard escalates her rhetoric over Labor's commitment to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the task of devising a model that is properly funded, politically viable and satisfies current expectations grows more daunting.
Labor's approach to this scheme is driven by the quest for short-term political advantage. It has fanned expectations that cannot be realised, seeks to use the scheme as a wedge against the Coalition and the states and, with the budget facing a long-run revenue problem, has failed to offer even the most elementary explanation of the funding model or financial consequences. This reform is justified and necessary. At issue is Labor's ability to devise a complex reform whose politics are far trickier than acknowledged.
On Monday a female disability advocate protested at Gillard's speech. It is just the start. Her complaint was about the unfairness of Gillard's scheme and eligibility criteria. Indeed, it is probable Gillard's 2013 election campaign will become the site of more such protests by the disabled. Labor's propaganda about the NDIS has disguised a mass of difficulties.
The great tension in the NDIS is between the imperative for a fiscally sustained scheme with tight eligibility and the welfare and political pressures for wider eligibility invoking the fairness ethic. Gillard will present the NDIS as the next great Labor reform. But there are hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities who will be ineligible for her scheme.
For a start, people above the present pension age of 65 are ineligible at the scheme's start. This will provoke Grey Power hostility, with National Seniors chief executive Michael O'Neill saying: "For thousands of Australians who aren't aware of the age restriction, it will come as a cruel blow." Motor Neurone Disease Association spokesman Rod Harris said last year: "NDIS is effectively putting out a sign saying 'No old people.' "
In Australia today there are more than 800,000 people on the Disability Support Pension. A majority of these, about 500,000, will not be NDIS eligible. Given the expectation Labor has created, the risk of a backlash is real. In fact, the age and eligibility restrictions are vital for a scheme that must be fiscally acceptable and limited to significant disability - otherwise public support will disappear. History, however, highlights the risk of "eligibility creep" in such schemes.
In her NDIS bill second reading speech last week and in her speech on Monday, Gillard presented the issue in moral terms yet backed the Productivity Commission's limited 410,000 estimate for eligibility.
This definition refers to the "reasonable and necessary specialist disability support needs of people with a significant and enduring disability". Much of the funding will flow to carers entering the labour market and the size of the disability support sector will double.
The Australian Government Actuary, asked to report on the NDIS by the commonwealth Treasury, identified a number of risks. It said the debate "has undoubtedly raised expectations in the disability community". Such expectations may be "unreasonably high". NDIS costs would depend on "robust assessment systems" and there was "potential for significant cost overruns". You cannot miss the warning bells.
The government actuary estimated the total gross cost in the completion 2018-19 year at $22 billion and the net full cost to the national government at $10.6bn in the same year.
The Centre for Independent Studies, in its recent NDIS analysis by Andrew Baker, concluded: "The NDIS will be a monster of a government program, the new leviathan of the Australian welfare state."
Gillard is correct to stick by the Productivity Commission framework given the cost estimates (they keep rising), the existing budget strains (even before the NDIS), the slowing economy (making funding of new programs more difficult), Fair Work Australia's decision this year boosting rates for community workers (lifting the NDIS costs), the policy to begin lifting the pension age from 2017 (further lifting NDIS costs), the certain political pressures for wider eligibility and the pivotal economic justification for the scheme - eligibility with an eye to getting more disabled people into the workforce.
With Gillard determined to make the NDIS a political issue, Tony Abbott this week sent his strongest message on bipartisanship. "I am Dr Yes," he declared of the NDIS. Abbott is playing catch-up. Have no doubt to whom Abbott is pitching - it is the Liberal premiers who face a major share of the NDIS cost and limited ability to fund Labor's scheme from their budgets. "There may be some who accuse me and the Coalition I lead of negativity," Abbott said. "Well, there is no negativity in the Coalition towards the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We think the NDIS is an idea whose time has well and truly come."
Abbott, in office, is ready to implement Labor's reform. It is hardly a surprise given, as health minister, his staunch support for Medicare. Abbott knows any reluctance by the Liberal premiers will be mobilised by Gillard and thrown at him. Yet the burdens Gillard is imposing on the states do demand wider fiscal and tax reform. It won't happen. Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey cannot conceal his alarm at the NDIS fiscal inheritance.
Meanwhile Gillard treats the NDIS as a permanent political killing for Labor. Her contempt for sceptics is unrestrained. On Monday she went on the rampage, saying: "As the 12th biggest economy in the world. We will fund it. As a nation with a big and generous heart. We will fund it. As a government that gets the big things done. We will fund it."
As for anybody who said Labor had raised "unmeetable expectations", such people trading in "negative, bitter words" will be proved, according to Gillard, to be "policy weaklings". In short, if you doubt Gillard's willpower on this, you're a mug and a weakling.
The crunch comes in next year's May budget. To dispatch such weaklings, Gillard needs to do two things: fund the initial NDIS scheme across four years of forward estimates and unveil a broad strategy beyond the forward estimates when the big dollars come into play. That won't be easy if unemployment is rising, the economy is slowing and the surplus has disappeared. But such trifles will surely fade before Gillard's willpower.
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Post by pete on Dec 7, 2012 16:07:25 GMT 7
Noticed address how did you go .
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Post by pete on Dec 7, 2012 16:10:28 GMT 7
No,Fixed address how did you go .has any body got portability and how if not why how do they nock you back what for do you keep DSP I here some one got nocked back because they could walk to Coles to do there shopping .?
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Post by Denis-NFA on Dec 7, 2012 17:05:16 GMT 7
pete....
i personally have not applied for portability at all.
i have to jump through other hoops before I can front to apply.
the only person i am aware of on this board that has gained unlimited portability is cheetal...check the name and the posting for that name....
if there are other people outside this board that have been granted Unlimited Portability I doubt we will ever know.
The powers that be are not going to tell us and I believe they will do their utmost to not let anyone know.
Having said that its actually quite straight forward how you get Unlimited Portability.
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