I won my 11 month fight with the NDIS

Yesterday I won my 11 month battle with the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme). It was only a small win, but highlights the lack of empathy and bloody-mindedness of those charged with administering the scheme.

This was an incredible waste of government time and money, when one considers that the cost that NDIS was trying to save was about $100 a week.

NDIS pay 70% of the cost of meal preparation and delivery for frozen meals, and the client pays 30% for the actual food in the package, so they are only paying for the preparation and delivery, and not for the food.

It started in August 2021, when my NDIS plan was approved with all supports that had been recommended by my GP and psychiatrist. I suffer form PTSD and schizophrenia, caused by my past work as a prison officer, and aggravated in 2019 when I was taken hostage at Townsville prison while teaching as an external contractor.

All went well for six months, until I received a letter from NDIS saying that they had reversed approval for my offsite meal preparation and delivery (Lite N Easy), and I was required to immediately pay back all money NDIS had paid for this over the previous six months.

I was later to find out this was part of a Robodebt-style scheme that had been implemented by a certain Jason Ryman, aimed at clawing back $700 million dollars that had already been paid to NDIS recipients.

Mr Ryman had been seconded to the NDIS by the then Minister for the NDIS, Linda Reynolds, because of what she saw as his tremendous success in designing and implementing the Robodebt scheme for Centrelink. We all now know how Robodebt ended.

After multiple unsuccessful attempts to resolve this situation, including being rudely dismissed by Linda Reynold’s office, I finally contacted Bill Shorten’s office. Mr Shorten, at that time, was Shadow Minister for the NDIS, and proved extremely helpful.

At first, NDIS claimed that off-site meal preparation wasn’t value for money. When it was pointed out that Minister Reynolds had publicly stated that vale for money wasn’t a consideration in providing NDIS services, NDIS changed their view.

The second excuse was that the service was duplicated in another section of my NDIS plan. When I asked what section of the plan the service was duplicated in, NDIS were unable to say. It turns out it wasn’t duplicated.

I then received a letter signed by Minister Reynolds stating words to the effect that I should learn to prepare meals for myself, rather than rely on NDIS funding. I provided detailed reports from an occupational therapist, my GP and my psychologist saying this was beyond my capacity because of the debilitating effect of my disability.

NDIS rejected all these reports and stuck to their guns. They weren’t going to give in, and seemed intent on dragging the situation out until I hopefully just gave up.

Finally, they accepted the reports, but now claimed that offsite meal preparation and delivery was only made available to NDIS recipients during COVID, and because COVID was over, it was no longer available.

I knew this to be a lie, so asked to speak to the manager. I was told the manager was working from home because of COVID. When I pointed out that the person I was speaking to had just claimed COVID was over, he told me he was terminating the call because I was being abusive.

Finally accepting that COVID wasn’t over, NDIS then stated that they would provide a nutritionist and a dietitian to design my meals, and pay somebody for two hours a day to come to my house and prepare the meals. They were sticking to their guns of not backing down and providing Lite N Easy, even though the alternative they suggested would cost approximately 30 times more.

Accepting that this was not a viable idea, NDIS then demanded that I buy the groceries myself, and they would pay somebody to prepare them offsite. Just so long as it wasn’t Lite N Easy.

They stated specifically that groceries must be bought from Coles or Woolworths, but couldn’t explain the reasoning behind this, or what section of the legislation applied to their demands.

Finally, I took the matter to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), and last week it was listed for a conference in March of 2023.

On Thursday of last week, the NDIS must have seen how ludicrous this would all look at the AAT, and rang me to try to convince me to drop the case, or they may have to revise my entire plan. I explained that I was recording the call, and intended to take it to the media, just as I had taken my Centrelink matter to the media.

The ploy obviously worked. Yesterday, I received an email from the NDIS stating that my offsite meal preparation and delivery had been approved, and they would backpay for all meals I had paid for myself over the past 11 months.

One should not have to go through these processes to get what one is entitled to, and the fact that it was over such a small amount defies all logic.

It is a mindset in NDIS, just as in Centrelink, that they should never back down. The tactic was clearly to dig in and drag the matter out, hoping to wear the client down so they would just give in.

Minister Shorten needs to look at the toxic culture in the NDIS, just as his office promised would happen when he was in opposition.

And he needs to rid the organisation of Jason Ryman, who has developed this scheme of clawing back money and denying supports to clients.

Craig Hill is a Brisbane-based Social Justice Campaigner, Writer, Teacher and Business Consultant. He has campaigned for social justice in Australia, promoted human rights in China and worked with the homeless in Honolulu. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Education and a degree in Management.