Travel agents are openly marketing holidays – including visits to Disneyland in Japan and helicopter plus mini-golf tours in the Barossa Valley – to people on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, in what registered providers say is a major rort of the taxpayer-funded program.

A Senate estimates committee was told this week the NDIS was funding trips of $10,000 and $20,000, as part of damning testimony from the scheme’s integrity chief that the $44 billion system was rife with fraud.

Travel offerings to disabled using NDIS funds are common online. One recent Instagram post spruiked a nine-day Japan trip with stops in Tokyo, Kyoto, Mount Fuji and Disneyland tagged with #ndisservices #NDIS.

Others offer European cruises, camel trips to Oman and remote Whitsunday island stays. Brochures tout trips where it is claimed the NDIS will pay the bulk and sometimes all the costs of the travel or event.

Speaking of travel and rorts.

Does the Gospel according to Saint Aquascoot have anything to say about this?

WA Ombudsman Chris Field to resign after Corruption and Crime Commission issues 'serious misconduct' finding

Quote:


This was also on the front page of yesterday's The West Australian with a 2 page story inside.

And I'll bet this guy is just the 'tip of the iceberg' when it comes to these rorts.

Carl D wrote on Oct 10^th, 2024 at 2:59pm:



hi carl

helicopter tours of the whitsundays put your pensioner bus discount to shame

I do agree that rorts are going on with the NDIS.

Rorts are happening everywhere.

And, yes - something should be done about the rorts.

Then perhaps there might be more money available for things like the care package I've been waiting for since April for my 94 nearly 95 year old aunt.

If/when the package is approved then I may be able to get important things done like getting ramps for our front and back doors so I will no longer need to use the current (and dangerous) method of lifting my aunt's 4 wheel stroller over the doorstep (while she holds the handles and steps over the doorstep) every time we leave and return to the house.

But, I strongly suspect (as do a few other people in the same situation) the delay in approving Aged Care Packages doesn't have so much to do with lack of money but more to do with the government hoping the elderly will "drop off the perch" before the packages are approved.

It's the same as the government apparently couldn't care less about the ongoing disgrace of Covid deaths in aged care (894 so far this year and 7020 siince the start of the pandemic).

And I'll bet there's a chapter in the Gospel according to Saint Aquascoot about that (with a preface saying something like "I approve of this").

aquascoot wrote on Oct 10^th, 2024 at 4:55pm:


Let's see.

I worked and paid tax from February 5th, 1974 until June 29th, 2019. And, during all of those years I was under the impression that when I reached the age of 65 I would be able to access the Age Pension. As did everyone who worked and paid tax during those years.

I then spent 5 years living on my superannuation to look after my elderly aunt and to also deal with my own medical issues - prostate cancer and thyroid surgery.

Now that my superannuation is almost exhausted I have applied for the age pension (and it's been approved) which I am legally entitled to, even though I had to wait 2 more years (67 instead of 65 thanks to the government increasing the pension eligibility age) than I had expected to during all the years I worked and paid tax.

So, please enlighten me as to how you consider this to be "sucking on the government titty". I'm all ears.

If you really want to go on about "sucking on the government titty" perhaps you should look no further than WA's former Premier, Mark "Sneakers" McGowan who retired from politics last year claiming he was "exhausted" and is now claiming a $275,000 a year taxpayer funded pension on top of working 4 (or is it 5 now?) part time private sector jobs.

And there's many, many more pollies just like him.

Where's your outrage about that?

I would not normally do this, but perhaps it would be nice for those being so critical of those on the NDIS to have to experience the suffering that some of these people go through.

As we've seen with the folk in Florida, it's all "socialism bad!" until they need government assistance after a natural disaster, then it's "you're not giving me enough!".

Perhaps before you judge you should have to walk a mile in their shoes/prosthetic/wheelchair/bedridden.

Grappler Truth Teller Feller wrote on Oct 12^th, 2024 at 7:12am:




Feel better?

R U Ok?

Grappler Truth Teller Feller wrote on Oct 13^th, 2024 at 12:33am:


Sarcasm?