Concerns about the NDIS

Whenever it comes to attempting to improve the quality of lives or to make things better for people with disabilities either the following happens.  Labor governments spend money they do not have and Conservatives governments start slashing.  It really makes you wonder why such approaches are taken when the solution really needs to be to change attitudes, deliver necessary infrastructure to accommodate disability and or provide better housing and employment.

Over the past months, the news seems to suggest that the current government wants to use a razor in order to slash spending to improve the nation's finances.  Well it is important to balance the books and to have continued surpluses but it is also necessary to look after those people seriously and desperately in need.  Instead of coming down on people who are on disability pensions why not spend the money or allow for money to make employing people a reality.  There are adults out there who are trying to make for change but we are simply ignored because we either are not heard or very little attention is provided to us to allow for opportunities to happen.

Since 1998 when I was diagnosed as having Asperger Syndrome, I have tried my best to raise awareness of Asperger Syndrome and Autism.  I have set up adult social groups and met with people to try and make employing persons on the Autism Spectrum a reality. Instead I have either watched this fizzle away or ideas just crumble away with myself being worn down in the process.  This is the reason why I now have to start pulling back as I am finding governments and businesses are just not listening.  Furthermore, I said slack service in many departments and wonder to myself whether persons with attention to detail and a focus on perfection should be involved in such organisations.  How many times for instance have you had to suffer slack service simply because the persons employed within it just either don't care about their work or have a couldn't be bothered attitude?

Is having a disability just simply overlooked?

In Australia it seems to me that you just have to remain strong and put up with a growing attitude that things are never going to change.  You also have no choice but to put up with substandard service in terms of infrastructure and hostile attitudes that struggle to relate to those with challenges.  

Is having mental health a lonely sentence?

If you also have mental health challenges you find you are in solitary confinement as people just don't seem to know how to assist when you need others to listen and understand.  In my travels, I have heard of people coming to Australia and leaving again as they find the isolation just too overwhelming.  There simply is not the services and awareness needed to make things better.  Can this change or is it something that forever will remain a negative stigma lacking the necessary support which it requires?

I am only one person but I call on politicians to have a heart and think about people with disabilities and realise that we have a voice to.  We may have struggles and challenges in our lives but we cannot continue to simply be ignored.  It is about time that money is set aside to ensure that the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) is implemented with strict auditing and regulation so that money goes to people in need and not more admin people who really are after money and nothing else.  It's time to wake up and start listening so that the lives of people with disabilities reaches the same level as every other person who is able to function in society!