Hello I’m Shirley (sign name & fingerspell) CEO of Deaf Australia.  

We really want to make this video because It’s an important announcement for the Deaf community connected to the NDIS Bill.  

Deaf Australia wants to share a few updates with you all to make sure that you’re informed about what is happening and to explain what work Deaf Australia has been doing.  

We want to let you know that we are understaffed at the moment, we do not have a policy officer or communications & media officer. So it is challenging for us to make and share information fast. We will be doing our best to share updates when possible.  

We’re really aware that out there in the Deaf community and more broadly there’s a lot happening on social media, example, Instagram and Facebook. As well as much happening in the news about this NDIS Bill and what’s happened this week. It’s correct, there is a lot happening.  

Deaf Australia wants to give you a bit of background information and then we will describe what might happen into the future.  

Before this bill passed, the there was an opportunity for public consultation connecting to this NDIS Bill. The public consultation involved making submissions, providing feedback, recommendations for changes to the Bill. Deaf Australia believes it was really important to be involved in this public consultation, so we worked hard on making a submission and were relieved to share our piece. The Senate Committee received significant amounts of material as part of this consultation with the public. There were over 3600 submissions that the Senate Committee needed to work through.  

The Senate Committee recently invited Deaf Australia along with other organisations to present at a Public Hearing about the NDIS Bill and I attended this hearing online. I explained my concerns about what the NDIS Bill could mean for Deaf community members and this is available on their website. Unfortunately, my experience through the hearing was not accessible. But I will explain more about that later.  

So after the public consultation material from submissions and hearings was collected then the Bill went through the Parliament process. The Senate passed the Bill with amendments (recommended adjustments) on the 18^th of August. Then the House of Representatives accepted the adjustments on 19^th of August. Now the bill is waiting on the Governor General to give Royal Assent, which will formalise the process to make the bill into law, so the Act has updates.  

Once this has become law, it will begin to impact the overall system of the NDIS. The changes will start from October. Not everything will happen all at once. They will make changes to different areas of operations over time.  

Deaf Australia is very aware that people are feeling uncomfortable and disappointed and worried about the impact. It can be concerning not to know how things might look and how it will impact access and barriers we experience. This can impact our mental health, emotions and stress. We understand and these feelings are valid. We encourage you to contact professional mental health supports to manage this stress.  

We want to let you know that we continue at Deaf Australia working in the background to do systemic advocacy. We’re doing a lot. We’re still involved with the NDIA and advocating alongside other organisations to make sure that the adjustments are managed to watch possible impacts. We advise about gaps and make sure the NDIA understands possible impacts to Deaf community. Our systems advocacy includes advice about New Framework Planning, their Support Needs Assessment tools and explaining different budget areas they may have missed. We are providing them with a lot of consultancy and feedback.  

Deaf Australia is still collaborating with the Departments of Government and Ministers such as our meetings with Minister McAlister’s team which have been positive and we will provide more information soon.  

Deaf Australia would like to acknowledge that our submission on the NDIS Bill is not yet translated in Auslan and we are trying to organise that soon and make it available on our website.  

We plan to make one new page on our website focusing on the NDIS changes where you can follow and learn about updates.  

We like to encourage our community to work together and collaborate with us and and we can move together going forward. The work we do over the next while will be really critical.  

If you are feeling concerned or experiencing barriers then you can contact us to share your concerns and we will give that feedback to NDIS.  

Thank you for watching, we encourage you share this video to let Deaf community know about the NDIS Bill.