Subject: Fwd: DRCO Forum 1 July [SEC=OFFICIAL]
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2022 16:14:28 +1000
From: Bob Buckley (A4 Convenor) <convenor@a4.org.au>
To: <XXX@ndis.gov.au>

Hi XXX

I notice that the Actions from the last DRCO Forum says you would contact "the Autism Alliance and any other interested organisations about the NDIA business system and Participant Portal". I am an interested party who raised stuff relating to this issue in the meeting. I have heard nothing more. Has anything happened?

Subject: your "value for money" claim on ABC's QandA
Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2022 14:09:40 +1000
To: senator.ruston@aph.gov.au
CC:Bill Shorten <bill.shorten.mp@aph.gov.au>, Minister.Reynolds@dss.gov.au, Hughes, Hollie (Senator) <Senator.Hughes@aph.gov.au>

Dear Minister Ruston,

I doubt I have ever seen a NDIS Plan review that omitted some explicit claim that some essential support was "not value for money". Your claim on #QandA was incorrect. Either you know this is happening all the time, or you should know.

Subject: labour shortages an opportunity to improve disability employment
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2022 07:08:24 +1100
To: senator.ruston@aph.gov.au, Minister.Reynolds@dss.gov.au
CC:Bill Shorten <bill.shorten.mp@aph.gov.au>, Hughes, Hollie (Senator) <Senator.Hughes@aph.gov.au>, Senator Jordon Steele-John <senator.steele-john@aph.gov.au>

Dear Minister

reports of major labour shortages provide an immediate opportunity for business and government to act to improve disability employment in Australia.

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Subject:RE: Escalating risks for people with disability from Omicron and access to RAT and PCR tests [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]
Date:Wed, 5 Jan 2022 21:52:49 +0000
From:Lowe, Jamie <Jamie.Lowe@ndis.gov.au>
To: ...
CC:...

Dear Bob

Thank you for drawing this to my attention. We endeavour to align all our messaging to Health messaging to avoid confusion and will immediately review our website and social media content to ensure that the information we provide is up-to-date and aligned to Health messaging.

Regards
Jamie Lowe

The report at https://www.abc.net.au/radio/adelaide/programs/worldtoday/debate-over-controversial-treatment-for-autism/13532176 is one-sided. It fails to speak to qualified or registered clinicians in Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is well known that any early intervention approach for autism does not suit all autistic children, but getting views from clinicians on one side of the debate is biased. 

Minister Reynolds has the NDIA and disability representatives working on rebuilding trust. The NDIA and some parts of the disability sector seem to think this is just about recent conduct.

For the autism sector, there are deeper issues from the outset.

Here is a letter from  A4 to the Minister briefly describing some of the history and issues.

The NDIA did not respond to a number of A4's concerns. Issues of particular concern were:

• "misinformation and untruths" from the NDIA's CEO to NDIS participants about the assessment tools that were planned for functional assessment of autistic NDIS participants for the so-called Independent Assessments, and
• inexpert and misguided advice from the NDIA's Independent Advisory Council (IAC) about early intervention for autistic children.

The NDIA did not respond to A4 about its concerns.