Thousands of Cases of Abuse, Neglect of Disabled Australians Found in Report

The National Disability Insurance Scheme NDIS logo is seen at its head office in Canberra, Australia, on June 22, 2022. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

Advocates are calling on the federal government to take immediate action on disability care homes after a watchdog report found thousands of reportable incidents in the past four years.

The report (pdf) released on Jan. 16, by the National Disability Insurance Scheme Quality and Safeguards Commission investigated seven NDIS-registered facilities.

It found that since 2019, there had been up to 7,000 incidents and complaints from disabled Australians living in supported accommodations known as “group homes.” Of those, 1,700 incidents involved a serious injury to a resident.

Additionally, 1,700 of the incidents included abuse, and more than 1,200 involved neglect, while there were 960 cases of unlawful physical contact, and 112 of unlawful sexual contact.

The homes are established to provide people living with disabilities the opportunity to live independently in the community with support. Residents often have profound intellectual, physical, or sensory disabilities.

People with Disability Australia President Nicole Lee said the figures were disturbing and said she was worried it was only the tip of the iceberg.

“It’s not a surprise at all … there are issues with reporting pathways for people with a disability to reach out for help to make reports to access police ... this is potentially just the tip of the iceberg,” she said.

“Immediate action and funding to address this needs to be looked at as soon as possible but also done in collaboration with other areas … the women’s sector, the family violence sector as well.”

According to the NDIS, at the end of 2022, there were 29,812 Australians with Supported Independent Living (SIL) support in their NDIS plan and 22,069 participants with Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA).

Minister Wants Findings to Guide Sector Reform

Minister for the NDIS Bill Shorten told Sky News Australia on Jan. 16 that the report revealed a “far too high-risk rate” involving people with disability.

Calling the revelations “unacceptable,” Shorten noted he had called on the Safeguard Commission to provide changes so that people with disability have greater choice and control than in some of the cases cited in the report.

“I believe that having safe home living arrangements are fundamental to the quality of life for every Australian,” Shorten said. “People with a disability have the right to a safe living arrangement, even when it is challenging.”

The minister said the government was looking to initiate three immediate steps to address the Safeguard Commission’s findings.

The first was increasing communication pathways for residents in these homes to understand their rights and to communicate with authorities; the second would be to establish a new code of practice for how the group homes run; while the third is to set better standards of care across the industry.

Private Care Facilities to Be Put Under Spotlight

Shorten also said given the Safeguards Commission’s findings on government-run facilities, it would be prudent to also investigate privately run non-NDIS facilities.

“ I think also this review’s done on not-for-profit providers who are registered under the NDIS so at least we can have a line of sight into their conduct, but there’s also unregistered providers providing accommodation and care support for people who are profoundly disabled. We need to extend some measure of regulation because we don’t have the same ability to look through and see what’s happening in some of those,” Shorten said.

The minister also signalled the government would also look into improving the training and professionalism of the disability care workforce and provide increased support for them.

“There’s a lot of great people working in these facilities, but there are some who the report shows are not doing the right thing. So we need to absolutely improve the training and professionalisation of the workforce,” he said.

Opposition Calls for Immediate Action

Meanwhile, the opposition has called for the federal government to take immediate action.

“I think a very troubling aspect of the report and the statistics were that they’re getting worse, and in fact, the three months to December were the highest number of reportable incidents, which means, sadly under the watch of the new government, this is getting worse, not better,” the Shadow NDIS Minister Michael Sukkar told Sky News on Jan. 17.

“People, particularly those who are vulnerable need to feel safe and secure in their home, whether that’s in group accommodation or independent living–regardless of their circumstances.

“ I would just say to the government–time is of the essence, they can’t be asleep at the wheel, the number of incidents are getting worse and has got worse at an alarming rate since their election.”