submission Archives - Queensland Advocacy Incorporated

QAI Submission Regarding Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

QAI made a submission in November 2019 to the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs regarding the Effective Approaches to Prevention, Diagnosis and Support for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).

QAI’s Recommendations:

It is critical that NDIS applicants have advice and support from people who are familiar with the conditions and its effects, nurse educators and the like, who can explain the kinds of therapies and supports that are most appropriate and useful.
The NDIA has authority to ensure health authorities train and appoint more nurse educators in the field to be available for Participants with FASD.
NDIA Planners are not likely to be familiar with FASD or its impacts, so it is important that the NDIA issues information and advice to Planners that the person with FASD and or their supporters have the expertise and knowledge about their support needs and the Planning meeting outcomes should reflect this. At the very least, it is important for people to have mentor support during the meeting.
It is important to focus on the person’s support needs, even though the client’s support needs may not arise directly out of their FASD.
NDIA Planners and LAC’s should utilise the Complex Needs Pathways for Applicants with FASD who require financial support to obtain assessments and reports.
If an applicant needs supports to develop self-regulation or to decrease behaviours which others find challenging, evidence such as reports from speech pathologists, therapists etc should articulate the triggers or risks.
It is essential that people are accompanied by someone who not only understands the support needs of people with FASD, but also understands the NDIS planning process.
Mentors may be the best support: a person who can read moods, and be a ‘calendar’ to ensure that the person sticks to plans and appointments, and who drives attendance.
LAC’s and/or Planners should link Participants who have FASD to nurse educators and other professionals to assist them.
The NDIA should abolish Typical Support Plans as incongruent to the diversity of support needs.
It is essential that if not NDIS–eligible, people with FASD are able to secure block-funded non-clinical supports from mainstream agencies that are funded to provide them.

You can read the full submission here.

Mistake of Fact Submission

QAI made a submission to the Queensland Law Reform Commission Inquiry into the Mistake of Fact defence.

Initial Recommendations

Retain mistake of fact defence, because some people with intellectual impairment can misinterpret, for example, body language, or verbal cues if CALD, but:

A proper evidentiary basis must exist before the court directs a jury on this defence e.g. where the woman has shown little or no outward manifestation of any lack of consent (as opposed to where there is evidence of accused’s use of force/violence, and resistance by complainant).
Provide clearer guidance in the legislation for what constitutes a “reasonable” basis for an accused to believe in consent
Provide guidance for jury directions that explain the above.

You can read the full submission here.

Criminal Code (Child Sexual Offences Reform) Submission

QAI made a submission in regards to the Criminal Code (Child Sexual Offences Reform) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill.

Here is an excerpt from the submission of our recommendations:

Recommendations

QAI supports the measures in the Bill.
The State Government must do more to ensure that people with intellectual disability who have committed very minor sexual offences get better support in the community rather than detention.
Take steps to improve the supports, particularly behaviour supports, available to people with intellectual disability who have been convicted of child sexual offences.

You can read the full submission here.

NDIS Planning Submission

QAI made a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme on NDIS Planning.

Here is an excerpt from the submission of our recommendations:

QAI Recommendations

LAC’s and Planners must have intensive training to understand the social and other impact of disability and what makes people with disability vulnerable. The NDIA must undertake intensive training for Planners and Plan reviewers to ensure that the Scheme is implemented as it was envisioned and not as a cost savings exercise. This training must also encompass respectful engagement with Participants and plan nominees to overcome the fear and distrust that is being experienced as a result of bullying by Planners.
The NDIA should hire people with lived experience of disability and or people with experience from the disability advocacy sector.
Invest in appropriate Pre-Planning (with independence from direct service provision organisations) so that there are fewer Plan Reviews and Appeals, and to enable LAC’s to return to their intended functions of linking and connecting people with generic and specialist services. Foster smaller and consultative community-based services that engage local staff particularly with pre-planning activities.
The NDIA must randomly audit Plans developed by NDIA Planners to determine consistency of content and supports.
Participants should be asked to submit a self-assessment about what they need in order to attain their goals and should be incorporated into the planning process. Planners must have skills in ‘active listening ‘rather than self-promotion of their own experiences or purported expertise.
Planners must focus on inclusive approaches to supports while respecting the wants and wishes of Participants.
Informal Supports must not be factored into Planning as a cost-savings exercise.
The NDIA should provide funding for translation services for CALD Participants in planning and to engage with support coordination services.
Abolish SIL from Plans.
Supports that Participants and nominees discuss and agree to at planning meetings must be included in the Plan.
Draft Plans should be sent to Participants and Nominees for agreement and or negotiation.
Abolish Typical Support Packages (TSPs) to reduce internal reviews, AAT appeals and Participant dissatisfaction.
Ensure that there are no service/support gaps and provide early intervention to Participants and Nominees to ensure that supports are not withheld even if funds are expended before end of Plans.
Plans must not be reduced unless Participants disclose they no longer require specific funds or support types.
The NDIA must cease the manipulation of reviews under Section 100 by either refusing the review request or instead attempting to thwart the process by deception and inserting the review under Section 48.
The NDIA must ensure equitable access to all forms including review request forms and not restrict word limitations by the use of PDF or other means.
The NDIA must ensure that reviews are free from conflict of interest and breaches of confidentiality by warranting that no staff members involved in the original decisions are involved. Strict penalties for breaches must apply.
Whitelist formal advocacy organisations to reduce red tape and better enable Advocates to assist Participants and Applicants.
NDIA should provide a readily available means to track progress of reviews for Advocates and Participants.
Mandate an enforceable maximum time frame within which the NDIA must respond to reviews.
Improved decision-making by the NDIA in the first instance to reduce review and AAT applications.
Improved liaison between the internal review team and the Early Response Team (ERT).
NDIA staff members provide advice to Participants at critical moments such as denial of review applications, how to best utilise current Plans and gather evidence to improve their next approaches.
NDIA staff give greater attention and consideration to the issues impacting Participants, Nominees and supporters in regional and remote areas particularly with issues and costs associated with transport, thin markets and alternatives to traditional service provision.

You can read the full submission here.

Inquiry into Adequacy of Newstart Submission

QAI made a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs on the Inquiry into the Adequacy of Newstart.

Here is an excerpt from the submission of our recommendations:

Key Recommendations

Many Australians, including many Australians with disability, have inadequate financial means to support an acceptable standard of living. This has significant ill effects on their physical and mental health, ability to engage in socially, in education and work, and for some, their ability to raise and nurture children. This is an important issue that requires redress.
Budget standards, such as those developed by the Social Policy Research Centre of the University of New South Wales, should be used to inform the minimum levels of income support payments.
An individual approach should be taken to determining housing support for people with disability, to support independent living in the community.
Urgent measures are required to address unemployment and under-employment of people with disability. The Government should implement measures to assist people living in poverty, to ensure poverty ceases to be a barrier to entry to the workforce.
All workers, including workers with disability, should be paid at a rate equal or greater to the minimum award wage for the particular industry in which the worker is engaged. The supported wage system, and specialist disability employment enterprises, must be abolished.
The current Disability Employment Services (DES) model should be replaced by appropriate, individually-tailored, continuing support for people with disability within the workplace.
No one should be penalised for fluctuations in their income. The interface between income support and payment of wages must be transparent and easily understood to ensure that there are no financial disincentives for working, whether actual or perceived.
The government should maintain the distinction between pensions and allowances. Persons with disability should not be transitioned to Newstart Allowance as a budget-saving measure. The rates of pensions and allowances should be increased in accordance with current research and international best practice.
Students with disability must be provided with improved inclusive educational supports.
Independent expert evidence should inform decision-making around income support payments.

You can read the full submission here.

Inquiry into Supported Independent Living Submission

QAI made a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme on the Inquiry into Supported Independent Living.

Here is an excerpt from the submission of our recommendations:

Recommendations

Provide clear, transparent and honest information about SILS. Clarify the restrictions that SILS imposes on ‘choice and control’. Explain that SILS pressures participants to share accommodation and support. Explain that SILS hinders planning and review.
Prohibit SILs payments from going to providers who own or manage a Participant’s housing. SILs is a key part of a de facto permit system for group homes, where the dwellings and their operators become the focus instead of people with disability.
Organisations that currently deliver both housing and supported services will need to separate their services.
Housing organisations that accept a transfer of stock from state and territory governments, and/or develop additional housing, will need to co-ordinate their housing with support services delivered by other organisations.
People with disability and their networks, housing organisations and disability support organisations need information about what separating housing and support means in practice, and about good practice in coordinating service delivery when housing and disability services are provided by different organisations.
Participants and/or families may participate and control the first plan, but regardless of their conflicts of interests, service providers tend to arrange subsequent plans and reviews and inflate quotes. This is problematic and must be addressed so that Participants control all of their Plans all of the time.
Although, SIL typically relates to participant’s in Supported Accommodation Services, i the NDIA cannot instruct NDIS participants to move into group homes as this is against the underlining principles of the NDIS Act 2013 as outlined in Sections 3 and 4 that also refers to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

KEY MESSAGE: The solution to the above-mentioned is to abolish Supported Independent Living (SIL) from Plans. Replace it with individualised NDIS Plans for everyone including people who wish to share accommodation and support.

You can read the full submission here.

Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill Submission

QAI made a submission to the Queensland Government on the Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019.

Here is an excerpt from the submission of our key recommendations:

Key recommendations

Detention of children awaiting trial must be done in a way that is consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,1 and with the ‘Beijing Rules’,2 and the Bill should ensure that the detention of children is:

- a measure of last resort, and
- for the shortest time.

Where detention does occur, children must be segregated and kept in age-appropriate, non-prison like environments.

The Bill should increase the Queensland minimum to 14 years. The minimum age of criminal responsibility for juveniles in Queensland is currently 10 years. The international standard is 12 years and in some countries, 15 years.

Detention centres should be inspected by an independent body, wither pursuant to Australia’s OPCAT obligations, or by Queensland establishing a new inspecting body.

Queensland must work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community representatives to develop a systemic response to the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Queensland prisons.

You can read the full submission here.

Opening Doors to Renting Reform Consultation Submission by QAI

Recommendations

Lessors must provide a statutorily mandated reason to end a tenancy.
Prohibit the use of ‘end of fixed term’ notices to leave except for statutorily mandated reasons.
Prohibit false, misleading or deceptive representations by lessors or agents.
Stipulate pre-contractual disclosure of;
– plans to sell
– asbestos
Limit bond maximum to four weeks’ rent.
Limit rent increases to no more than one per year.
Pets less unwelcome in rental properties.
No additional bond should be required or permitted, should the tenant keep a pet.
Extend the jurisdiction of the Housing Appeals and Review Unit (HARU) to include community housing tenants.
Social and affordable housing providers should be required to give their tenants grounds for all evictions.
Extend the administrative appeals process to community housing tenants.
Termination clauses inserted into RTRAA in 2013 that target social and affordable housing tenants are onerous and unnecessary and should be removed.
Remove the provisions that separate the termination provisions for social housing tenants from those in the private rental market and extend responsibilities for social housing tenants. In particular, remove section 290A which unreasonably extends responsibilities to social housing tenants and reverses the onus.
Remove the anti-social behaviour agreements (at s 527D) from the legislation. They are a form of indirect discrimination, in effect, if not in law, against tenants whose behaviour is a result of their disability.
Where a tenant has since rectified arrears in full, a Warrant of Possession issued for rent arrears should be withdrawn.
Remove provisions for immediate eviction and self-eviction in rooming house premises.
A disputed rooming house eviction must be settled by the Tribunal.
Extend the grounds for a tenant to end a tenancy agreement early.
Tenants should be able to end a fixed term agreement with the prescribed notice of two weeks’ if the premises are put on the market or entry is made to show prospective purchasers during a fixed term agreement.
Tenancy agreements should not be able to unreasonably limit the number of people who can occupy premises.
The assumption in tenancy agreements should be that renters are able to keep pets as long as they are not in breach of any law or by-law.

Click here to read the full submission

Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport Submission by QAI

The Guardian online recently reported that in the UK, buses and taxis will lead a self-driving public transport push.1 All very high-tech but not a word on how people will hail, alight or access these buses and taxis. Direct assistance at boarding / alighting will not be possible unless the units are crewed with a customer service operator — which begs the question of making them driverless.

Regrettably, these innovations are streaking ahead of the legal framework that requires their accessibility. Innovation brings wonderful benefits to people with and without disabilities alike, but at times the innovators appear to have no clue about accessibility. If there is no regulatory framework the innovators all too often come up with exclusionary designs, and then at great expense have to retrofit those designs for access.

QAI’s primary concern about the DSAPT (‘the Standards’) is that they do not require transport providers to include people with disability in the planning and design process from the beginning. Part of the reason for this lies in the essentially voluntary participation in and compliance with the Standards. There are few repercussions for transport providers that do not comply.

Click here to read the full submission

Circular chart about the importance of the separation of powers

Protecting Queenslanders: QAI submission is critical of Queensland bill that would give the Premier power to make decisions on monitoring of people with disability convicted of sexual offences

The QAI submission to the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee Inquiry into the Bill 2018 (‘the Bill’) opposes the Bill in general, and is critical of a number of provisions in the Bill proposed by Mr David Janetzki MP, the Member for Toowoomba South. In particular, QAI opposes the provision that would give the Premier power to make decisions on monitoring of people with disability convicted of sexual offences.

QAI told the Committee that the Bill:

.. [p]otentially departs from fundamental legislative principles because it mandates administrative rather than judicial power to review indeterminate supervision, undermining the separation of powers and the necessary checks and balances critical to the effective operation of our Westminster-based political system.

QAI’s Dr Nick Collyer appeared at the Committee’s public hearing, stating in his evidence to the Committee that:

For the vast majority of victims of sexual abuse, it is not about the stranger hiding in the dark alleyway or the paedophile in the playground. Most sexual assaults and rapes are committed by someone the victim knows. Among victims aged 18 to 19, two-thirds had a prior relationship with the offender. Most child sexual abuse is committed by men—90 per cent—and by persons known to the child—70 to 90 per cent—with family members constituting one-third to one-half of the perpetrators against girls and 10 to 20 per cent of the perpetrators against boys. According to one study, one in six Australian women were physically or sexually abused by the age of 15, one in three Australian women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15 and on average one Australian woman is murdered per week by her current or her former partner.

Full Hansard transcript

QAI’s Dr Collyer on Parliament TV

The Committee’s reporting due date is Tuesday, 19 March 2019.