An academic says she was distressed to find the agency running the National Disability Insurance Scheme has been selectively misquoting her to make it look like she supports its rollout of independent assessments.
Ros Madden, an honorary senior research fellow at the University of Sydney, has written to National Disability Insurance Agency CEO Martin Hoffman to request the agency immediately stop quoting her as being in support of its approach to the controversial reforms.
In the letter, published on the website of parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS, Dr Madden said she was “concerned about the ongoing selective quoting and misuse of a note of support” she and a colleague gave to the agency after advising it on a paper published in August 2020.
The agency used the note in its submission to the inquiry into independent assessments, which is currently being held by the joint standing committee.
But Dr Madden said the NDIA had left off a critical final sentence from the note, which she said “creates a misrepresentation of our views”.
“[The NDIA] have outlined a framework on which to build a fairer and more consistent disability assessment - to enable the rights of people with disability to participate across society. This diagnosis-neutral framework combines both the need to evaluate capacity and the determining role of the environment in helping or hindering participation," the agency’s submission quotes the pair as saying.
The omitted line states: “The framework recognises that assessment must combine quantifiable information obtained using scientific standards with the expert knowledge of people living with disability and the families and professionals who know them.”
The comments as they appear in the NDIA's submission to the independent assessments inquiry
The full comments, including the omitted line, per Dr Madden's letter
She said she and her colleague supplied the quotes “in good faith”.
“It is surprising and distressing that our trust has resulted in our views being misrepresented,” Dr Madden wrote.
Dr Madden said “it cannot be inferred, because I thought there was merit in the [August] paper, that I supported … anything else that has been done in or since September” and it is “not correct to say that I endorse the tools selected as well as the framework, as is done [in the NDIA’s submission].”
Dr Madden has been contacted for comment.
An NDIA spokesperson said in a statement Mr Hoffman immediately wrote to the parliamentary committee to correct the record when the agency became aware of the discrepancy.
“Mr Hoffman also wrote to Dr Madden regarding the agency’s submission to apologise for the incorrect use of her quote and for any concern caused – with Dr Madden grateful for the agency’s offer of a joint note to the JSC to clarify the issue,” they said.
“The agency appreciates Dr Madden’s ongoing contribution to the [NDIS], including her review of the assessment framework proposed for independent assessments.”
The joint standing committee's inquiry into independent assessments has received more than 200 written submissions, many of which voice concern about the reforms and criticisms of how the government and NDIA have handled their introduction.
Disability advocates have slammed the assessments as a cost-cutting move that will make it harder for people to access the NDIS, leave existing participants worse off and forcing vulnerable people to be assessed by strangers.
The inquiry has heard from people from all parts of Australian life, including disability groups, NDIS providers, legal groups, Aboriginal community organisations, domestic violence prevention groups, health professionals, and a former NDIA chair who has likened the reforms to “robo-planning”.
The government and NDIA say the assessments are a simpler and more equitable way of gauging a person’s capacity and support fairer decisions about access.
Earlier this week, new NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds told the committee the government will lock in “some form” of the assessments, with the shape they will take being “very much the subject of consultation”.
Two weeks ago, she announced a pause on the reforms to give the government the opportunity to review trial feedback, raising hopes among advocates that the policy could be scrapped.
