Good grief. Our govt’s question for #IndependentAssessment.

"We will ask you to choose someone who knows you and the impact of your disability to complete one part of the independent assessment. You won’t be there when they complete this part of the assessment."

Mandatory.

2/ Who is going to answer these questions about our support needs when we have no family or when they are estranged? Our support workers? Will we have to lay our lives bare to yet another person? How impartial are people who care for us? What about our privacy?

3/ Who knows the insides of all the parts of our lives? Why is this required?

When I did my autism assessment, there was a requirement for my family to fill out a questionnaire. I asked my 6 kids to do it. Hard copy.

On Christmas Day.

4/ I knew when they got to the question ‘Does the person watch a lot of pornography?’ by the look on their faces.

Tell me, women. Who in your life knows all your secrets and what you need to be who you are?

5/ Who knows how many times you’ve been beaten up, or that you might be at risk? Does the person who helps you shower know that you need help shopping? Does the second person know you can’t wash under your own foreskin?

What if the person doesn’t know how much help you need?

6/ If you only have support workers and agency staff in your life, how will their judgment be impartial?

How is your privacy being respected by this process?

7/ There is no requirement for the person offering their views and opinions to have any kind of medical training or qualification, so it’s an unqualified secret opinion, another person’s ideas about what you need. And people with no support structures will be impacted hugely.

8/ Theres another thing, a theme running through the implementation of all these austerity measures. It’s that we are not to be trusted. But - we have a 60% underspend. What evidence IS there that ppl are somehow rorting a system?

9/ The NDIS doesn’t pay you money. How are disabled people somehow lying about their needs? What good is it getting a new wheelchair if you don’t need it? What kind of help do you think people are asking for that they’re not entitled to?

10/ Say no to independent assessments. This is a bad bad idea.