Large group of cheerful seniors looking at the camera. Some of them have psychical impairment.

The pressure is mounting on the government to change laws to allow people 65 and older to access the NDIS following a national campaign, ‘Disability Does Not Discriminate’ launched by Spinal Life Australia earlier this year.

However, Spinal Life Australia CEO, Mark Townend told F2L that the response from letters sent to MPs in key electorates refers to the Productivity Commission recommendation to the design of the NDIS, which he described as a “cookie cutter” response.

According to Townend, MPs are elected to support their constituents not the Productivity Commission. “MPs should be making a conscious decision that benefits the people they represent based on information they have and generally it is a stonewall approach they are giving us.

“This campaign affects a lot of voters, not just the person sitting in a wheelchair. In March when we expect the election will happen the heat will be on. We are getting support from people who will make this an election issue particularly in marginal seats and we won’t be wasting money, or effort, on safe Coalition seats but on seats that will change the government.”

Already over 20,000 people have responded to a petition to change the NDIS with each response going to the elected member, via their postcode.

He said television and radio presenter Kerri-Anne Kennerley is working on a legal approach to launch a class action and “we will work with her with the same aim to change the NDIS and look after people like any humane country should. We are not going away because this is a serious issue that has voter value.” Quite a few NFPs are also on board “but it takes someone to drive it.” 

Physical Disability Council NSW (PDCN) CEO Serena Ovens is also supporting the Disability Does Not Discriminate campaign. “For our organisation it is about getting the story out there with a media drive focusing on the inequity of people over 65 with significant disability not able to access the NDIS,” the told F2L.

She said concerns have been raised this could result in opening the scheme up to millions of people which “will just not happen”. According to Ovens not everyone over 65 has an age-related disability. “The NDIS only funds those with a significant level of disability and most age-related disability is not at such a level. It’s not a huge cohort we are asking to bring into the NDIS, and it never will be.”

Ovens said if nothing changes, and it comes to the worse-case scenario, there must be some parity in the aged care sector which may follow findings from the Aged Care Royal Commission.

“Aged care packages for people 65 and over, do not cover for example, large home modifications or purchasing expensive technology equipment and a significant proportion of funding goes to provider fees, even with partial self-management.

“When the NDIS was put in place there was talk about a national injury insurance scheme, that would have protected people over 65 who had an accident that was not covered by a general insurance policy. But that did not go anywhere.”

However, while a number of organisations have endorsed the campaign with over 20,000 petitions to date, she said “signing a petition is fine but you have to get actively involved to make change happen”.