I believe it is called neoliberalist marketisation, it shifts us from being citizens of a democracy/country with responsibilities and rights to seeing that everything should be run like a business, which shifts us to being consumers in a marketplace, and if we only 'spend' our social and cultural capital in the right way we would be able to "purchase/buy" what we need.
We are no longer
human beings but "customers" in the market place, recently it has changed to "clients".
Capitalism is the tiger that eats itself.
I have been writing some Ministerial complaints and review/appeals for the NDIS, and I can tell you that making profit and human rights don't exactly go well together.
For some of the service providers they have hired people with no experience or qualifications with people with disabilities. In one case one of my "clients" was told by the "planner" that she had never met a person with a disability before meeting her daughter in order to assess her constant 24/7 hour needs. (There needs to be someone awake when she sleeps because of certain complications with her disabilities).
On one occasion the "planner" spoke sharply to a young man with Autism, and the young man with Autism started to rock in his chair (something he does for a lot of each day) and his parents were told if he didn't stop being 'aggressive' that the planner would ring the police.
One of my clients has a non verbal adult child who has no real I.Q being assessed at being 1.5 years old. She took in documentation from the best specialist in the country, and the "planner" said she didn't need to read it as she had two A4 pages (back and front) boxes to tick or not tick. So documentation that took thousands of dollars to accumulate was not read, considered or used in the assessment process. The Mother was asked 'How do you spell that disability again?'
Within the (lower socio economic' group I am working I am yet to meet someone who has been assessed by someone with some actual qualifications or experience with people with disabilities. My sample size is small though.
One "service provider" told me that they just take 30% of all clients as pure profit and then go from there, which I don't understand how they think that they are doing that - because it is not meant to be that way, so he is perhaps lying to me?
With one client I went to over 27 different professionals to find someone to take on her case. (She has little money).
One woman was told her respite care was no longer available and she would have to cut back on another service to get it, and once I came to negotiate on her behalf, that respite care funding suddenly "found". There had been a "filing error" so if you don't have a law degree, someone who can speak like they have a law degree or access to high level submission writing skills or advocacy you are pretty much screwed.
I can't do it anymore it is just way too stressful and none of the people have the money to pay.
I did one case because the parents have such good documentation that it could be a test case against the service providers that are fleecing these people with disabilities. If they can get a legal person to do it
pro bono it could well be the test case in the courts.
I have seen some totally appalling stuff go down, and I can't talk about it. But it is most alarming indeed.
Privatisation of public services is really not the answer.
'Just looking after myself is difficult': NDIS poster boy has application rejected
Man with intellectual disability jailed because NDIS couldn't provide carer, released on bail
NDIS FAILS: Adam Bowes - Tonightly With Tom Ballard
(couldn't adequately prove he had no legs!) 2.20seconds worth a watch!
I have rung people high up in disabilities across Australia to try and get assistance for several people - they are all spending all their nights and weekends writing appeals/reviews for their clients. I thought a few phone calls to the right people in the right places and we can have this fixed. I got really worried after those phone calls. 6-7 months and 80,000 words later ah screw! It's a disaster! So now it's a waiting game, and I fully expect it will fail despite being as clear as the above guy on YouTube who literally has no legs to stand on - but he is one of the lucky ones he doesn't have a serious intellectual impairment, or no IQ or an IQ under 70. He doesn't have a serious and ongoing condition like bipolar or schizophrenia. Holy f*ck! How those poor families and carers are struggling in the face of overwhelming incompetency and a lack of (any?) training I will never know. I am totally and completely over it! I was only going to do one case for free but then I met several other people, anyway I have burnt myself out a bit doing it. And they can't pay they don't have enough money.
If you are not well connected and affluent and with access to legal advice and/or someone who is a hard negotiator with Canberra level lobbying skills (or grew up there) then you are seriously screwed over by "market forces" because no one is a citizen of a country anymore, we are not Australians, we are consumers in a marketplace, and the profit made by private service providers is what really matters. Economic growth is all that matters now. As long as there is a chart with an arrow going upwards, that is all that seems to matter.
And anyone on the Spectrum - people with Autism are in really big trouble. Google NDIS to restrict access for people with Autism or some variation therefore of and prepare to weep. They took down the list of professionals that they would accept Autism diagnoses from the NDIS in order to not make it so easy for people to get NDIS, and there is so much going on in this one disability alone I just can't even type it out. It's too depressing.
It's actually even worse in Education but that is a post for another time.
