BENDIGO advocates fear a cost-cutting focus in the National Disability Insurance Scheme will deeply affect the lives of people living with a disability.
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It comes even as they welcome a government promise to scrap a looming controversial change.
Social Services Minister Lisa Reynolds agreed on Friday not to make change the law to institute independent assessments to determine eligibility for the scheme.
Disability advocates, as well as several states and territories, were strongly opposed to the introduction of independent assessments.
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Bendigo resident and NDIS participant Liz Wright said it was a huge sense of relief for herself and other members of the disabled community to hear independent assessments had been scrapped.
But Ms Wright said most people didn't believe the battle was over.
She said Ms Reynolds had implied other cost-cutting measures would come into play by using language around sustainability.
But Ms Wright said any money put into the disability sector was an investment.
"When people are invested in, and participate, they give back tenfold to the community," Ms Wright said.
"If people can work, and pay taxes, rather than be excluded, then that's a healthier community."
Ms Wright said the National Disability Insurance Agency should trust people with a disability to know their own situation.
She said the conversation had turned around people with a disability trying to get more money, but the system's governance was not set up in a financially efficient way.
The mother of one Bendigo woman participating in the NDIS said she was cynical about the change.
In March Kim Fairbairn Baker said she believed her daughter Jayde's wellbeing would be hit hard if the independent assessments were introduced as planned.
She feared the assessments would not adequately represent her daughter's needs, threatening her ability to have an identity independent of her family.
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Ms Fairbairn Baker said if the government was honestly listening to participants and families' feedback, they would have abandoned the independent assessment scheme all together.
She said her major concern with independent assessments was that they were non-reviewable.
Ms Fairbairn Baker said the push for independent assessments was driven by an economic rationale, which would threaten her daughter's rights.
She said she would need independent assessments to be abandoned, to be comfortable Jayde was secure as a participant in the NDIS.
Under the independent assessment model NDIS participants would have been forced to undertake a three hour assessment, designed to determine their capability and their budget under the scheme. The change was due to be introduced by the end of 2021.
With AAP.
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