Transcript:

Hi everyone!

Every year, the National Centre for Disability Advocacy asks advocacy organisations and their employees about their work. The 2025 survey has revealed that more people need advocacy every year, which is impacting health and well-being of advocates. The sector is challenged by things like lack of funding, complex NDIS rules, housing shortages and unfair outcomes for people from First Nations and culturally and linguistically diverse community.

While the sector is becoming more skilled and professional, it still needs better funding, support for workers and stronger collaboration to ensure it can continue to provide the advocacy that people need when they need it most. The report will be shared on the National Centre for Disability Advocacy website on the 27th of March, so you can read it in full at that time.

The Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme has just released its annual report. It’s a quite a technical report, but there are eight key recommendations. You can read the full report on the Australian Parliament website, but we want to highlight some of the recommendations that relate to new framework planning.

The committee says that the new ICAN tool, which will be used to assess people’s needs, must be tested with a wide range of people, including disability types and diverse communities, to make sure it’s fair and accurate.

The committee also recommends that under new framework planning, participants should see a draft of their plan before it is finalised. That way, they can understand how decisions are made, be able to suggest changes and importantly, the committee makes it clear that appeal rights must be protected with the administrative review tribunal still being able to change decisions.

These recommendations align with the joint statement we released recently alongside Disability Representative Organisations, and I spoke about that in last week’s video. If you missed it, you can read it on our website at dana.org.au.

We’ll continue to advocate that people with disability are central to refining new framework planning, and that our human rights must be upheld and protected in this process.

And finally, our board and leadership team came together last week to begin the process of developing our strategic plan for the next three years. It was wonderful to come together in person to talk about DANA’s future direction, and we look forward to sharing more with you and seeking your feedback as we develop the plan further.

So that’s all for this week. Thank you for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again next week.