Australian governments can find billions to spend on weaponry that maims but not on the NDIS, which is facing budget saving measures that will have malign consequences.
One has to applaud the commitment of Australian governments to funding disability spending. The bipartisan investment in weapon parts for Israel has made its small contribution to the cause of disabling the residents of Gaza over the years. According to the United Nations, in 2025 at least 42,000 people there had life changing injuries – and at least one in four of these was a child. By the Israeli government’s own figures, 83 per cent of the casualties of the “war” are civilians.
To be fair, Israel is not the only one to receive Australian largesse. The other great Middle Eastern weapons client of the Land Down Under (at whose request, we are told, the government joined in on the Israeli–US war on Iran), the United Arab Emirates, is arming Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces – the part of the military that turned on the government and is now fighting them for control of the country. This client is credibly accused of genocide in the long-running Sudanese civil war, in which more than 300 children have been killed or injured in the last six months.
AUKUS, with its budget-swallowing spend for non-existent submarines, is not likely to be nearly as effective at disabling people directly. Still, it is likely to make a significant contribution to spreading impairment and shortening life expectancy in the community(ies) that gets the privilege of hosting the United States’ radioactive waste.
When it comes to ensuring that people who already experience disability have a meaningful quality of life, however, the government is not nearly as forthcoming. Fresh from rejecting over 90 per cent of the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission, the federal government is keen on taking new steps to reduce its support to the most vulnerable in society.
We are told there is no money for what was, in 2013, billed as a life-changing scheme to help Australians with disabilities. Now, the biggest changes to the NDIS in a generation (which even the government’s own human rights report noted were a retrograde measure for participants’ rights) are being rushed through with a minimum of pesky consultation. Despite over 4,000 submissions against the new draft, the already drafted interim report recommends passage of the NDIS (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill which will, among other things:
- change the fundamental test for access to the NDIS from what a particular disabled person needs to what the government is prepared to spend on a particular disability
- outsource responsibility to support people with designated disabilities to “foundational supports” to be provided by the States (but which do not yet exist and which are not in prospect)
- return from individual funding to block funding of disability supports
- make access to the NDIS conditional on first accessing what the Minister deems “appropriate treatment” (which, the legislation helpfully clarifies, need not actually be available to the individual concerned)
- allow the Minister to unilaterally reduce funding for supports (already found to be both reasonable and necessary) by up to 99 per cent
- automate decision-making so that the joys of Robodebt, previously experienced by millions of poor people – leading to documented suicides – can be inflicted on disabled people instead
- give the Minister power to unilaterally amend legislation passed by an Act of Parliament (a clause known as a “Henry VIII provision” for the authoritarian feudal monarch who enjoyed employing it).
In a piece of hard-fought political negotiation, the Greens secured a reprieve on the Bill’s passage until August. The Government is, however, already working on the assumption that the deal is done – with new cost-cutting measures put in place from 1 July and at least one NDIS program already closing.
Even for those of us who are blind, it is not hard to see what the consequences of such budget saving measures will be. Evidence from disability support groups already suggests that plan reductions have led to a significant rise in suicides and “social admissions” (people with disabilities being dumped on hospitals because residential accommodation is no longer available). Given that health care and other social providers are already stretched, this malign neglect of those most in need of society’s support is not going to do any favours for the majority of Australians who do not regard themselves as disabled.
In the meantime, those who have disabilities are to be pushed ever further to the margins of a society that preaches “social cohesion” to all even as the divisions between the haves and have nots widen at a dizzying pace. In light of these consequences for all of us, is it too much to ask that a government that is so keen on disability spending redirect it a little?
Justin Glyn
Justin Glyn is a Blind Catholic priest, a civil and canon lawyer who is General Counsel to the Australian Province of the Jesuits (though writing in his personal capacity). He has a Ph.D in international and administrative law.