Why Are Submarines More Important Than People’s Lives?

While acknowledging the fact that it is vital for Australia to be able to defend its’ borders, is our country that impoverished that we have to cut funding for vital supports to people with disabilities to pay for a submarine?

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has suggested the Coalition would offer bipartisan support for cuts to the national disability insurance scheme to keep it “sustainable” and pay for the Aukus nuclear submarine acquisition.

No one seems eager to address the fact that under the previous Liberal Government, a blind eye was turned to the fact that Disability Service Providers were able to overcharge Participants for services or services not received at all, not to mention the fact that fraud of the NDIS was allowed to flourish under the Liberal Government’s watch.

The previous Liberal Government was so intent on “blaming” the sustainability problems of the NDIS on the Participants of the scheme, that it seemed to forget to other factors that are contributing to the unsustainability of the scheme.

Despite the fact that under the new Labour Government , a Parliamentary Inquiry has been called into the NDIS, it seems as though NDIS Minister Bill Shorten is waiting for the Inquiry’s report to be handed down before making actual changes to the scheme.

This means that the funding packages of NDIS Participants are still being slashed to save the purse strings of Australian taxpayers. It seems to have forgotten that 270,00 jobs have been created through the scheme and for every $1 dollar spent on the NDIS, there is a $2.25 return to local communities. But of course these numbers fail to feature in many analyses of NDIS costs. Both sides of Parliament have forgotten that people’s lives are at the heart of the NDIS, and the heart and foundations of the scheme are strong.

Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Each federal budget shows that, with many billions of dollars spent to subsidise property owners and fossil fuel companies. In upcoming budgets, there will also be many more billions going to tax cuts for the rich.

Talking about cuts to any part of our essential services doesn’t make sense, given the wider budget context and the huge economic harm they will do. People talking about cuts to services are actually attacking the people that use those services – this time, disabled people.

The last few weeks have seen an intensification of the predicted pre-federal budget attacks on the NDIS, with a wide range of articles and interviews being published, and the conservative social media in full agreement. These pieces are often shared alongside disgusting slurs against disabled people.

That the NDIS is singled out for attacks is in stark contrast to the breathless excitement about spending huge sums of money on a whole bunch of new submarines.

Defence is also prone to budget overruns, and being late on delivering projects. Reuters reported last year that “major Australian defence projects with approved budgets totalling more than A$70 billion ($45 billion) are over budget and cumulatively decades late”. But none of this is usually talked about when new spending, for things such as fancy submarines, is announced.

There are problems with the NDIS, and parts of the scheme that don’t work well for disabled people, but we don’t get to have that important conversation because there is a singular focus on how much disabled people cost.

Prior to the NDIS, these same costs were still there, except disabled people and their families were the only ones who paid them. The NDIS means that having a disability, particularly one that needs a fair bit of support, doesn’t automatically mean you live in poverty, begging charities for the basics. The NDIS is there for everyone, because disability can happen to anyone, and that is why we all contribute.

So let’s get back to the original intention of the NDIS, to give people with disabilities a decent quality of life that is equally enjoyed by other members society, only then can we we worry about the sustainability of the scheme.