Public hearings are underway this week to highlight the impacts of the government’s new National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) bill to tighten eligibility and save costs.
Over the past two days, the Senate inquiry heard that if the bill passes in its current form, it risks entrenching gender inequities in the NDIS and further excluding women and girls.
We have long known the NDIS has a gender problem.
Women and girls only make up 38% of the scheme. Men outnumber women in every age category (except for 55 and over) and dominate nearly every disability type within the scheme.
From the age of 15, access requests from men are also approved at a higher rate than access requests for women.
Women are more likely than men to have medically unexplained or chronic conditions, such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, which causes chronic pain.
These “pay to prove” dynamics also disproportionately affect those with fewer financial resources. Women with disability are more likely than men with disability to live on lower incomes. They also have higher expenses and lower earning capacity due to greater caring responsibilities.
Tightening access to the scheme in this way – without first addressing costly and difficult-to-access treatment pathways – risks excluding these women and girls from key supports.
The bill gives the minister power to make cuts to entire categories of supports in the future, without introducing legislation or consultation.
The 50% across-the-board cuts will shift these responsibilities back onto informal carers – largely women.
There are more than twice as many female primary carers as male primary carers. Of those providing primary care to children with disability, the overwhelming majority (84.7%) are women.
Cuts to social and community participation funding are also likely to increase social isolation and reduce natural safeguards of community connection for people with disability.
Women with disability are disproportionately likely to experience violence, so cutting them off from vital community participation supports poses an unacceptable risk.
Source: Tightening NDIS eligibility will disproportionately affect women – in more ways than you’d expect