Australians who have a 65th birthday prior to either disablement or before this is registered, become ineligible for the NDIS.
This of course is blatant age discrimination, but the Government has legislated an exemption for age discrimination when it comes to the NDIS. The idea probably is that the pension and health care card system will take care of it. However, this leaves many people to be bundled into aged care facilities or into the hospital system when they don’t get necessary NDIS support in the home. Once in the aged care system of course, people who have homes are pretty quickly either forced to sell them, or be stripped of health care and pension benefits needed to pay for the aged care facility.
Minister Bill Shorten is aware of the problem, but the continued inaction has led to a class action being taken by older disabled people.
Image: Image: Shutterstock Nils Versemann
Produced By: Roderick Chambers
Featured In Story: Peter Freckleton
First aired on The Wire, Tuesday 27 September 2022