I’m just glad we’ve got good ol Angus the water specialist on the job federally. He’ll fix thingz
Cept we don’t need Angus, we’ve got a state Labor mob trying to save their own farking fat ars.es.
Just because they lost seats, does that mean they lose their moral compass abandon their principles, their policies and cave ! Fark.
The QLD labor government was the last bastion of resistance against this farking coal mine.
Does this mean that if I vote for labor they are going to cave on key issues that effect the whole world?
I don’t think they’ve resisted too much, just sat on the fence and threw the occasional peanut to opposers.
They never showed much of a moral compass on it
Adani wins: Australian environment loses
3 Likes
Its a doomy kind of of millenium
Weak as ■■■■ and morally Bankrupt QLD Labor are
4 Likes
Qld Labor caves.
Albanese screws the pooch picking a dubious internal battle with an opponent with a much stronger base than Albanese himself has.
All the while, not a single piece of opposition has come from the party who should really, really have figured out how to do it by now.
No wonder people are giving up on them in droves. They’ve let down and negatively affected a lot of people with their incompetence over the past few years, and the first thing they do is go back to infighting and making over their figureheads.
Pathetic. Fix it.
3 Likes
If (and I legit mean if) this is a fight to distance Labor from (some) unions, it’s really dumb. You annoy the union supporters and reinforce to the Labor haters that Labor = Unions. No-win scenario.
2 Likes
So nice to see the National Disgrace Intolerance Agency have a big loss:
National disability insurance scheme
Australians with life-threatening swallowing condition win NDIS battle
Exclusive: Disability insurance agency ruled wrong to deny funding to man with dysphagia as a result of cerebral palsy
Fri 14 Jun 2019 04.00 AESTLast modified on Fri 14 Jun 2019 09.18 AEST
Tanisha Flemming, left, and her brother Harley. Flemming was denied funding as the NDIA and states argued over who should fund swallowing supports. Photograph: Council for Intellectual Disability
Thousands of Australians living with a life-threatening swallowing condition could now get NDIS funding after the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) lost a high-stakes case at the administrative appeals tribunal.
Experts and advocates have described the decision as a “watershed”, arguing the agency would now be forced to fund swallowing supports, which are vital for people living with dysphagia. That would end a long-running battle in which the NDIA claimed the supports should be offered by the states.
But the ruling may also have broader implications for people with disabilities, and for the agency’s finances, as it threatens to overhaul what is considered state and NDIS responsibilities, experts said.
“This judgement has the potential to drastically change what the NDIS funds,” said Sara Gingold of Disability Services Consulting. “It will impact the way the scheme interacts with all other areas of government, from education to health to justice and everything in between.”
While it is unclear exactly how many people might be impacted by the decision, there are about 100,000 people who have dysphagia throughout Australia. People would need to be aware of the ruling in order to make use of it in dealings with the NDIA, advocates argued.
In a rebuke to the NDIA, the AAT deputy president, Brian Rayment, ruled the agency was wrong to deny funding to a 34-year-old man who had dysphagia as a result of cerebral palsy.
The plan would have costed $40 a day but the agency argued thickening fluids his dietician had requested – which helped the man swallow safely and “gave him independence and confidence” – were health-related, not a disability support.
The tribunal has previously accepted the agency’s interpretation of the law – that it did not need to fund supports considered the responsibility of another government service provider.
“Whether or not the other government agency actually provided that support was considered largely irrelevant,” Gingold told Guardian Australia. “But in this watershed judgment, [the deputy president] … said that in the past the tribunal and the NDIA have both misinterpreted that section of the legislation.”
A win for advocates
Darren O’Donovan, an administrative law expert at La Trobe University, said the decision was a “powerful vindication of those advocates fought such a long battle to correct agency policy in this area”.
“Swallowing and dietary support is an integral part of people’s social and family lives,” he told Guardian Australia. “It is not just preventing a person from choking (or other medical events), it enables the person to step out confidently into the world.”
Piers Gooding, a disability law expert at Melbourne University, said the issue had not been “examined in the Federal Court so this decision sets an important precedent”.
He noted about 34,000 people had cerebral palsy in Australia. While the prevalence of dysphagia among them varied, it was substantial.
Gingold put the number of people impacted by the decision “in the thousands”.
The NDIA could appeal the decision to the federal court but that risked setting a more significant precedent.
A NDIA spokeswoman said: “The Agency is considering the recent decision in [the applicant] and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).”
Late last year, Guardian Australia reported the case of Tanisha Flemming, who had been denied funding as the NDIA and states argued over who should pay for the supports.
In January, the federal government said it would fund some supports for people with dysphagia as an interim measure, following a campaign by the Council for Intellectual Disability.
“This ruling should effectively make the interim funding agreement on swallowing therapies permanent,” said Justine O’Neill, the CID chief executive. “It is a positive development for many other NDIS participants who need ongoing health related therapies to be funded by the NDIS to enable them to maintain social interaction, quality of life and independence.”
O’Donovan said the judgment underlined the need for “federal and state politicians to commit to clearer rules and improved governance for the scheme”.
========
Myself and others have been campaigning for years to see this ruling happen. Very happy with this.
The NDIS have never recognised that some “medical” conditions are directly related to disability and therefore have refused funding. They couldn’t (refused) to see that without the disability the so called medical problem wouldnt exist.
They’ve deliberately ignored their own legislation and as it says in the article have misinterpreted the law.
I’ve had to defeat them using their own legislation against them which at times they’ve conveniently ignored. Farkers.
So, a big fark you to them.
7 Likes
And it’s possible that none of this would have needed to go to a tribunal if funding applications were reviewed by people with appropriate medical or disability expertise.
5 Likes
Not really, in fact, my experience is the opposite. Most employees are aspirational types who don’t want to fight their employer but actually like them. They only want to get on with the task and get paid and hopefully move up in life and are embarrassed by the chest beating and table thumping antics of antiquated representatives like Setka. They don’t see it as an ‘us v them’ battle at all. There absolutely is a role for union representation, particularly in construction but the tactics of the 1980’s don’t endear themselves to 21st century construction industry workers.
2 Likes
It’s called having an understanding of reality and your surroundings. There are lunatics and irrational people around, these are the people committing these crimes, they are not your average bloke. This “tell men not to rape”, business is stupidity. Where does society teach or tell men to rape? It’s against the law because society does not approve. It wouldn’t matter what you say to the minority who commit such abhorrent acts because they are not rational. They don’t care about right and wrong, or the pain they cause their victims. They often are mentally incapable of doing as such.
As a woman, this unfortunately means I very occasionally have to be careful of where I go, with who and the environment I’m in. Yes, it shouldn’t be this way, but it is, so I don’t catch the train to Dandenong or Franga by myself at 1230 am. I really dislike when people tarnish all men due to the actions of a small percentage of sick scumbags.
9 Likes
I would argue that Labor has been a good opposition over the past 6 years, with a united party with good policy and focus. Yep I know Bill was not popular, but he was a good strong leader, and yep he lost the election. Still hurts and farked if I really understand, but we lost so move on or move out. And Dingus, the primary vote for Labor held OK, so people are not giving them up in droves.
I have never really been an Albo fan. I did vote for him in the ballot vs Bill, but it was a factional thing then for me. He effort on Setka is very dumb, as it forced Andrews and McManus to follow, when stepping back and not feeding the flames would have achieved more.
Make no mistake Labor is now in a bad place. It is open warfare in Victoria in the Left, and CFMEU are joining with SDA and the Right to take control of the Party machine. They are enemies of Andrews and it is not going to end nicely. The only good thing is that the Victorian Government will continue to kick goals, there is the next Federal Election before the next State Election, and by then Adani will not be a political issue, except it will be killing the reef and farking our environment.
I could go into the whole story on Setka, and how leaks to the press by his enemies have been planned and methodical but if Setka had not been such a nong it would had no energy. Setka’s Mates will track it down now and their will be repercussions.
It will be fixed, but not in the short term.
Possible is not the word. “Certainty” is what I’m thinking. The NDIA was / is staffed by ex teachers and Centrelink staff, outsourced insurance specialists, lawyers / legal people making medical decisions, & pen pushers who over ride medical professional decisions just because they can.
1 Like
Exactly.
It stinks.
Those people have a role in such an organisation, but it sure as ■■■■ isn’t in deciding who “deserves” coverage or if they are “really disabled”.
Good post. I think the hope is that respect is ingrained and lust, animality, gender resentment etc are understood and reckoned with by boys and young men, hence the broad sweep, whether that’s a vain hope or not. Sadly most discourse in this country is increasingly defined by a lack of both sophistication and straight talk, our leaders are dunces and shysters and nearly everything is lip service.
As far as being a bloke and how to treat the subject, it’s tricky but it’s better to shut your mouth and listen is the rule for me. I’ve run afoul of my own partner for suggesting that because things are as they are women just shouldn’t walk home alone late. It comes from the right place but it’s an awful thing to assume I have the right to say. As if women don’t know themselves and what modern life is. I got set straight on that account and, all too infrequent, tried to walk in her shoes. I’d actually better suggest that nobody should walk home alone late at night. I’m amazed I haven’t ended up with a knife in my guts. I’m pretty annoying.
2 Likes
Define strong?
In the sense that he kept the pack of rabid factional dogs under a short leash
1 Like
By flipping whichever way the wind was blowing.