NDIS anxiety about benefits being booted captured in Knight cartoon

This past week you would have heard the acronym “NDIS” being tossed around in the news or popping up in conversation around the dinner table. NDIS stands for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It was introduced by our first female PM Julia Gillard’s Labor government in an act of Parliament in 2013. It was designed to help those with severe disabilities and their families cope with managing their needs and making their lives better and more sustainable.

It was to help disabled Australians lead more independent lives and improve not just their quality of life, but also that of their carers, who were usually family members.

Since that time, the scheme has grown considerably in its cost to the federal budget* and the number of Australians on its books. It is now expected to cost the Australian taxpayer around $50 billion this financial year and heading towards $70 billion by 2030, rapidly growing around 24 per cent per annum over the least few years. It’s more expensive than Medicare and is even about to shade our defence budget!

Let me do a quick imitation of an AI overview: The NDIS is a good idea but geez, it’s blowing out big time in cost and size. There you go.

So this week, the Minister responsible for the scheme, Mark Butler, had the unenviable* job of introducing reforms (cuts) as the federal budget approaches in May. Australia is facing many serious financial issues at the moment. US President Donald Trump’s war on Iran has up-ended the world’s fuel supply, affecting everything in this country and increasing prices which, is making our other little problem, inflation*, worse.

With diesel costing over three bucks a litre, that makes trucking a packet of Tim Tams from where they were made to your local supermarket heaps more expensive. Sniffing this, the Reserve Bank Governor, Michelle Bullock will hit us with another interest rate rise to stop us spending. No, I don’t know why either, but that’s what the financial experts say has to be done!

The reforms are designed to return the NDIS back to its core business, being people with severe disabilities. The rise in assistance for children with neurodivergence* (including autism) and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) has been exponential*, and while these conditions are serious for families that have to deal with them, the government says the NDIS was not designed to include them.

The Health Minister wants to move these people onto state-based schemes. Enforcing stricter eligibility has people with all forms of disability worried that they are being pushed out into uncertain territory. There is also the area of fraud*. Whenever the government introduces programs with lots of funding, the scammers come out of the woodwork. The NDIS is no exception and a crackdown is expected. The government’s plan is to restrict growth in the NDIS to around 5-6 per cent annually, to remove 160,000 people from its support and to have it costing around $55 billion by 2030.

Staggered by these huge numbers, I knew I had to draw a cartoon for the newspaper but I needed to sum up this complex matter as simply as possible.

The undeniable fact was that the government needed to move people out of the scheme to reduce costs and to do so they would have to redesign it.

I imagined wheelchair-bound Australians at the foot of a staircase as the entrance to the NDIS, an easy to understand visual metaphor* for a barrier to entry. That led me to an advanced electric wheelchair with all sorts of functions that can lower, tilt and raise people with disabilities.

I sketched Minister Butler, sleeves rolled up, working on it and adding a new function, an ejection seat. My sketch showed someone being harshly “removed” from the NDIS as he activates the ejection mode. The minister seemed pleased with this new design. Of course this is an exaggeration, which political cartoons often use, but it draws attention to the anxiety NDIS recipients feel as the government goes about finding savings with the scheme.

POLL

GLOSSARY

federal budget: the Australian Government’s plan for collecting and spending money that’s mainly collected through taxes and is used to pay for federal government services and responsibilities, such as welfare and the defence force

unenviable: a duty, choice or situation that is unpleasant or difficult

inflation: the economic situation when prices are rising over time and money loses value

neurodivergence: having or relating to a type of brain that is often considered unusual, for example that of someone with ADHD or autism

exponential: growing or increasing very rapidly

fraud: crime of cheating somebody in order to get money or goods illegally

metaphor: a comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated

EXTRA READING

Fearless kids run toward the future

What scrolling does to your brain

How war fuels federal budget fires

QUICK QUIZ

What does NDIS stand for?

How much is the scheme expected to cost the Australian taxpayer this financial year?

How many people does the government plan to remove from the NDIS register?

NDIS was not designed nor budgeted to help with what type of health challenge, for which the demand for support has exploded in recent years?

Who is the Reserve Bank Governor?

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

1. What would you tell Mark Butler?

What advice would you give Health Minister Mark Butler to help him make sure that people with disabilities get the care and support that they need, thinking about the issues that he faces?

Time: allow at least 10 minutes on this activity

Curriculum Links: English, Civics and Citizenship

2. Extension

Do you think that Mark has achieved his aim of summing up a complex matter as simply as possible? Write Mark a review of his cartoon based on this question.

Time: allow at least 15 minutes on this activity

Curriculum Links: English

VCOP ACTIVITY

1. Values, identities and actions

Study today’s Mark Knight cartoon and answer the following questions about the work:

What values does this cartoon invite us to think about?

Who is this cartoon speaking about? And who is this work trying to speak to?

What actions might the viewpoint in the cartoon encourage?

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity

Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension

How can cartoonists like Mark Knight encourage or change people’s opinions on a controversial subject or topic?

Do you think his work needs approval before going to print? Explain your answer.

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity

Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking