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Transmission on 4zzz, amplifying the trans and gender diverse community of Meanjin, Brisbane and beyond. Hello? Hello, you're listening to Transmission on 4 Triple Z. You know where we centre the voices, storeys and struggles of our trans and gender diverse communities. And today. Today's episode takes us on a dive into one of the biggest policy shakeups facing disabled people in this country. The proposed reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the ndis. And these changes aren't abstract. They will shape who gets support and who gets left out and who gets to decide. And with the Federal Health Minister set to gain extraordinary new powers over NDIS access, the stakes for transparency and community oversight have never been higher. We are going to chat. I've had a couple of interviews over the weekend with the CEO of Queensland Advisory for Inclusions, qai, Matilda Alexander, who breaks down the reforms in plain language and explains exactly who will feel the impact. And then also we'll hear from Annabelle Oxley, a trans woman NDIS participant and advocate whose lived experience cuts through the politics and shows what these changes look like on the ground for LGBTQ disabled people. So, if you want to have your say. Submissions to the Senate Inquiry are open until close of business today, June 1st. So if you are listening to this live on air, today is the day to submit. And for podcast listeners, you can stay in the loop by following closely to some official government platforms and active community networks. Just to ensure that you are staying supported and remain informed, I'm going to recommend that you cheque out QAI's website qai.org au or tuning into 4zzzz's Only Human, which is 4zzz's disabled LED radio broadcast highlighting disability and social justice issues. You can tune into them on the 102.1 FM frequency every Sunday from 12, or you can listen back on demand via the 4Z website, 4000z.org au but before we get into those interviews, before we get into that chat, we've obviously got the Week in Community News. So let's have a listen this Week

in community news, June 1, in national news, Author Launches yous Are Loved Letter Campaign for Trans Community Australian children's author Scott Smith Stewart has launched a nationwide letter writing campaign to show love and solidarity for trans people amid rising hostility. Through his website youwarlovedhere.org he's inviting allies to send heartfelt messages to help, quote, drown out the constant noise and vilification faced by the community. Stewart says he hopes even a single letter can help remind someone that their identity is real, valuable and deserving of warmth and acceptance. The campaign builds on Stewart's long standing advocacy through his popular picture books including My Shadow is Pink and its sequels, which challenged gender stereotypes and celebrate self expression. He's previously faced backlash including being targeted on US television, but says his work has always been about helping kids feel safe to be themselves. Supporters are already sharing letters filled with encouragement, identity, pride and reminders that trans people are deeply loved. 10,000 Australians oppose proposed sex discrimination act changes More than 10,000 people have signed a petition warning that the proposed changes to Australia's Sex Changes Discrimination act pose a serious threat to LGBTQ communities. The petition, launched by Equity Australia, raises alarm over recommendations from the Australian Law Reform Commission that could expand religious exemptions and allow faith based schools greater freedom to discriminate against staff and students. Advocates say the changes would roll back long standing protections and put queer trans people at a great risk of exclusion. Community groups argue that the proposals come at a time when LGBTQ Australians are already facing rising hostility and political pressure. They're urging federal government to reject any reforms that weaken anti discrimination laws and to instead strengthen protections for students and workers. The petition continues to grow as campaigners call for the rights based approach that ensures all Australians can learn and work without fear of discrimination. In international news, the UK government confirms Trans inclusive conversion therapy ban the UK government has confirmed it will introduce a fully trans inclusive ban on conversion therapy as outlined in the King's Speech. The new Draught Conversion Practises bill aims to outlaw attempts to change or suppress a person's sexual orientation or gender identity while still allowing legitimate healthcare and support conversations. The bill will now move into a scrutiny phase where experts and community groups can help shape the final wording. LGBTQ groups have welcomed the announcement but remain wary after years of delays since the ban was first promised in 2018. They say harmful practises are still occurring and stress the need for strong, clear protections. The move signals a renewed commitment from the government to safeguard LGBTQ people from coercive and damaging interventions, with many watching closely to ensure the legislation is delivered in full. Homophobic and transphobic suspensions rise sharply in English schools New data shows a sharp rise in suspensions for homophobic and transphobic behaviour in schools across England in the last academic year. Schools recorded more than 7,000 suspensions for anti LGBTQ incidents, a significant increase that education advocates say reflects growing hostility faced by queer and trans students. The figures include verbal abuse, targeted bullying and discriminatory conduct, prompting renewed calls for stronger inclusion policies and staff training. LGBTQ organisations warned that the rise in suspensions is a symptom of a wider cultural background backlash, with young people increasingly exposed to anti trans and anti queer rhetoric online and in politics. They argue that schools need clearer guidance, better resources and a stronger commitment to student safety. Campaigners say data should serve as a wake up call. Without proactive support, LGBTQ students will continue to face environments that undermine their well being and ability to learn. Elliot Page to front New Queer led Wildlife Documentary Actor and advocate Elliot Page is set to host a new wildlife documentary that blends nature storytelling with queer perspectives. The project, titled Page of the Wild, will follow Page as he explores ecosystems across North America while spotlighting LGBTQ scientists, rangers and conservationists whose work often goes unseen. Producers say the series aims to challenge traditional nature doc narratives by showing that queer people have always been a part of environmental stewardship. The documentary is being developed by Blue Ant Studios with filming already underway. Page says the project reflects his lifelong love of nature and his belief that representation should be beyond urban or political spaces. The series is expected to premiere next year and has already generated excitement among fans who welcome a fresh, inclusive approach to environmental storytelling. My name is Hazel and that's all in this week's community News.

Yay. Elliot Page. He is just a busy guy. He's also going to be cast, I believe is cast as Achilles in the Odyssey, which has caused some stir for, I don't know, straight angry CIS men being like, he's supposed to be all masculine. I'm like, you know anything about Achilles? He was a bottom. I'm sorry to tell you this, but he was a little Twinkie bottom and Elliot is a good casting, I think. Maybe not because of that correlation, but I just feel like Elliot's got the right, the right vibe for for Achilles. Anywho, learn more about Greek mythology. We're about to jump into an interview I had with the CEO of qai, which is the Queensland. Oh my gosh, blanking. How terrible. The Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion. That's what I'm trying to say. The CEO Matilda Alexander, and we chat a little bit about what the heck is going on with the NDIS and how this will affect trans people with disability. So let's have a listen. Let's jump straight in. I'm here with Matilda Alexander from QAI to talk about the changes happening to the ndis. Matilda, are you able to explain. These changes are.

So there's understandably a lot of confusion out there. There's been so many changes, so many potential changes happening to the NDIS over the last year that there's a lot of confusion. So what I'm going to be talking about today is some changes that have been put in a bill to Parliament. They're not actually law yet. A lot of people are opposed to these changes, so we might be lucky in getting some amendments or getting some, at least some delays or some stopping of some of the worst bits of this bill. The, I guess the overall message is while it's business as usual for the ndis, these changes are on the horizon. The Federal Health Minister Butler has said that these changes are coming. These changes are aiming to cut 240,000 people from the NDIS over the next four years and also to reduce the amount of money that's spent on plans for the people who remain on the scheme. So what is of great concern is that this will reduce life saving supports for people who rely on the NDIS for their ordinary, reasonable lives.

And what does that look like for trans and gender diverse people?

So there's a. Some of these changes will essentially politicise the NDIS and make decisions about funding less in the hands of allied health and participants and more in the hands of politicians. We know that that's never gone well for trans people. The examples of the Queensland health minister interfering in the decisions for trans kids shows that decisions around supports and health need to be made based on individual circumstances, not politics. One of the changes that the bill proposes is, is to give the federal health minister the power to make a declaration that a group of people will have a percentage of parts of their plan cut. So this might be a decision that kids with autism should have 80% of their social and community supports cut, or people over the age of 55 should have 50% of their capacity building cuts. Now, we don't know what these are. They're just hypotheticals that I'm saying because this changes the power. It gives the health minister the power to make decisions like that. We don't know what, how he will use that power. We don't know how subsequent health ministers might use that power. So even if you have faith in this health minister using it equitably and fairly, who's to say, you know, one nation takes power and uses it to cut plans for migrants, or a minister who's part of A, you know, Christian group using it to cut trans people's health care. So trans people's disability support. Sorry. So I think this shifting of power from individual participants and their doctors and allied health supports towards politicians is something that is a big warning flag for trans and gender diverse people who are relying on the NDIS for day to day care and supports.

For people who are looking to apply for the ndis, how does this affect them?

This bill says that there will be a new test for what's considered permanent disability. So in order to show, to get the ndis, you have to show you have to have a permanent disability and that it reduces, that your functional capacity is reduced by that disability. So the test of permanence will change. You have to show that you've exhausted all of the other options for treatment before your disability is considered permanent. This is regardless of the fact that those other options might be too expensive or not available in, in the geographic location where you live. So it's going to affect people living in regional, remote areas. It's going to affect people without as much money to exhaust all the local treatments.

For those who have kids or families maybe with disability, how do you think this will impact those families?

So for families, again, it's a really ableist tests. They're going to say what would a reasonable parent or, you know, what they consider an ordinary parent be able to provide for their kids? And that's not going to be covered by the ndis. So for a parent with disability themselves, they'll be held to an able standard of parenting in determining what a reasonable amount of care is for that kid. Yeah, there's, there are so many bad things about this legislation it's hard to even describe all of them in a short interview.

Yeah, there are another question I had was they seem to be really focusing on fraud and fraud prevention. How is that going to impact communities? People who work for the NDIs, they

are focused on fraud and fraud prevention and maybe to try and justify their cuts. This. But let's be clear, this cut is going to affect a broad range of people. This is not about, you know, cleaning up fraudulent practises. This is about cutting supports to all kinds of people, regardless of whether they're affected by fraud. There's not the, there's no evidence of wide scale fraud that would justify the amount of cuts in this, in this bill.

What other changes are there to the NDIS that are pretty concerning?

So other proposed changes under this bill include changes to the change of circumstances mechanism. So at the moment, if you're you know, going along through your life and something big happens so your carer passes away or you have to flee your home because of domestic violence, there's a change of circumstances mechanism means that the agency have to make that. The, when I say the agency, I mean the National Disability Insurance Agency. So they have to make a decision in 21 days and give you some more supports if you need it. That criteria is changing. They're going to get 90 days now to make that decision, which if you're instantly homeless is a very long time or instantly without care. And also within that, it's a new test for the change of circumstances. And it has to be an unforeseen change of circumstances. Now, we all know that life throws many things that are unforeseen, but how does the, how does the law define that? So if is a domestic violence situation where you might have known about the violence but you've decided to leave, is that unforeseen? If your carer dies, but they've been terminally ill, is that an unforeseen circumstance? So it's going to create a lot more confusion and a lot more delays in getting urgent assistance sense to people who need it the most.

You're listening to transmission on 4 triple Z and we've been having a chat with Matilda Alexander from QAI about the changes to the ndis and how that will affect trans and queer folk. So we're gonna jump straight back in. You'll see in a transmission on 4ZZZ for people who do not have disability or a disability that impacts them in a way where they need to access the ndis, if you were to suddenly become injured with permanent disability, how does that affect those people?

So it's this, this change is not in the bill, but we have seen it talked about previously, so we imagine it'll be in future laws is a tightening of the kind of eligibility criteria and the process where we've been calling it robo planning, because it's going to be applying a kind of more algorithmic test to whether or not you can even get into the ndis and more of a automated process in that application process. So we are concerned about that. I guess one of the changes in this bill is a move away from a set list of diagnosis towards a functional capacity. So they'll look more at, you know, not whether or not you have neurodiversity, but whether or not you can brush your teeth yourself and whether or not you can shower yourself. So more of functional rather than a diagnosis which isn't Necessarily a bad thing if it's, if it's applied well, it's only a bad thing if this kind of algorithmic robo planning approach doesn't allow you to describe fully your circumstances or to. Yeah, have the full part of you come across. I mean, I guess this is. Comes to. What I think is another one of the real concerns is that rather than the NDIs, the decisions about NDIs, taking into account your whole of person, so being able to take into account you've got good days and bad days, you've got a disability on your legs that interacts with an intellectual impairment or cognitive impairment or mental health, meaning that all up you can't, you have a great functional incapacity, meaning you need the supports. Rather than that whole of person approach, we're getting rid of that whole of person approach and they're going to dissect people down to an arm or a leg. And you have to prove your primary, you have to prove one particular disability and get that registered and look at what are the supports for that disability, rather than being able to look at the sum total of a person's circumstances, even their disability, even their medical circumstances, let alone their geographic and financial circumstances. So we're moving away from what we call the whole a person approach.

It's the opposite of holistic multidisciplinary care.

It is, it is. And it's the opposite of what the courts have described as a common sense approach. So we've had the NDIS for about, you know, 13 years now. Over that time, the courts have looked at the way the scheme's been administered and said, look, we need to take a common sense approach. So one of the famous cases is a case called esim, where a man with a visual impairment and problems with his legs and hips had to. The courts looked at it and said, even though your visual impairment isn't enough to need supports and your legs and hips wouldn't be enough to need support because if, if you didn't have the visual impairment, you'd be able to drive a car and get around. But because of the combat, you can't drive a car because your visual impairment. So you are going to need a mobility device because the combination of these two pairs, which are not enough themselves to qualify for the ndis, these two disabilities equal a qualifying disability. So we'll look at the whole person approach. And the court said that's the commonsense way to look at it. This law undoes that case law, it undoes a lot of the really hard fought for rights that people with disability have been taking to the federal court at great personal cost over the last 13 years.

Breaking people up into little puzzle pieces instead of the whole puzzle, which does not seem like a particularly smart way of doing any kind of healthcare.

And I think that is particularly the case for trans and gender diverse people, where there is often, because of the amount of neurodiversity in the community and there's the amount of, I guess, trauma leading to mental health complications. There is, you know, often more than one disability at play here.

Where do you see the biggest structural barriers that these changes are still not addressing?

I mean, the fact that we're planning to cut this many people means that this many people, 240,000 people, are going to be left without supports. The fact that the people remaining are going to have their plans cut by a percentage means that even the people with supports will have less supports. We still don't have any kind of response from the state about whether or not they're going to be able to pick up those supports to the same extent. I doubt that is the case. So this means that there will be people in our community, people in our families and ourselves, that will be left without care and support, that will be put at risk of violence and abuse. We will see an increase in institutionalisation. We moved away from institutionalisation of people with disabilities in the 1970s and this is bringing it back by stealth by introducing. The Minister will also have the power to introduce new ratios of support. So he could say everybody can have one support worker to three participants instead of one to one supports. And that will mean that trans and gender diverse people with disabilities will have to move into essentially group homes with other people with disability, which is putting them at great risk. So we're moving back towards institutionalisation with all the dangers that come along with that and all the. We're moving away from the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission, which said to end segregated society.

For people listening who are worried about how these changes will affect them or someone that they love, what practical steps can they take right now to protect their supports and stay informed?

Remember, right now, you can keep your plans. This is still a bill, it's not law yet. That said, a lot of people are still having their plans cut. We are Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion. We are overwhelmed. We have an absolute. We've never seen the amount of demand for our NDIS appeals, lawyers and advocates as we are seeing right now. So if you are getting your plan cut, get advice if you. We have on our website, we have a range of resources to help people appeal their plans, to review their plans. Don't accept anything less than what you need without asking for all the reviews and putting all the information forward. Expect it to be a frustrating process. All of the people that we're working with have experienced so many difficulties throughout the appeals and review process. So I'd like to say it's an easy process that's about giving you your supports that you need and the rights that you have. But the reality of the people that we're speaking with on a daily basis shows that that's not the case. But you do, at the moment, have rights and these laws have not yet taken effect. There is a link to People with Disability Australia campaign that we can give you to sign up and to oppose these cuts. There's another. There's a number of different organisations that are campaigning against these cuts. We are hoping the Senate will make some, at least, very least, some amendments to these cuts and to bring some more procedural fairness, some more justice to the process.

Thank you so much, Matilda, for your time today.

Thank you.

Foreign. If you'd like to learn a bit more about how you can get some advice, head to qaiqai.org au and you can also head to QDN, which is Queenslanders with Disability Network. They have their campaigns page there. You can take a look. I will chuck these links up on the transmission socials rans with a Z Radio head over there and I'll also put the links in the show notes. You can head to 4 Triple Z.org au and head to programmes and take a look at the transmission page. All the links will be there for you as well. And now we're going to jump into an interview with that. I spoke just yesterday, actually, with Annabel Oxley, a trans woman and NDAs participant and longtime advocate. So let's just jump straight in to my chat with Annabelle.

My name is Annabel Oxley. My pronouns are she, her. I'm 33 and I've been transitioning for about 10 years. I've been on the NDIS for roughly the same amount of time and I've done a lot of work around advocacy and doing a lot of advocacy around the intersection of disability in the LGBT community.

How are you feeling about these NDIS changes?

I guess the best words I could use is cynical, but also informed. Like, when you look at the logic they're using, it's very. They are framing it as positive. But when you look at the history around the ndis, I think there's a lot of reason to Be scared and cynical about what's going on right now.

Some of the changes seem to be likely to directly impact some of the living situations for people with certain levels of care. Are you concerned about anything for yourself? Like, how are you feeling about that?

I have the benefit, and I use that word in quotes heavily, of having a very visible physical disability. But I do expect that a lot of my supports are going to be cut back. I think there's going to be a lot of housing issues and I think that there's not a lot of infrastructure ready to support the changes they're trying to make. By which I mean that the federal government is claiming that there will be other supports, but those supports haven't been created, let alone stress tested or used properly in a way that they will be when up to 140,000 people start using them. So I think we're going to see a lot of backlog in terms of access to needed care and support.

How do you feel about the changes that involve low to moderate needs folks who might already be on ndis? Are they likely to be. Do you think that they will struggle to access support when it's not on the ndis, like workers and other services?

Yes, I believe that the goal or the stated goal and the actual goal of the government in this case are two different things. They are making statements about fraud, which are very wide and scary in general. But when you look at the actual actions, they're trying to move low to moderate needs people out of the federal government's purview, which is going to cause major issues because a lot of those low to moderate needs people have consistent needs that weren't being met in the decades before the ndis and there were no adequate supports available. So you're going to see a lot of people with, as you would call it, low to moderate needs in crisis situations, particularly in cases like supported independent living or sda, where they had funding to live in these places and now they don't. Because where will the low to moderate needs people get their support?

How do you think for trans and gender diverse people with disability this will impact them?

I think it's going to be very dicey because historically the NDIS has made a commitment, and it's a very vague commitment around the LGBT community, but they've never managed to have a set of actionable steps in place for the protection of LGBT people. Couple that with the fact that this legislation wasn't co designed and foundational supports haven't been co designed with LGBT people or realistically any Other minority in mind. What you've got is a situation where the supports aren't going to be there to handle gender diverse disabled people or gender diverse neurodiverse people. There's going to be a gap of education where a lot of these people are going to fall through the cracks. And that's what I'm going to picture happening when, when these changes start taking effect.

It is really just almost like a return to the 1970s for disability support. I feel like there's a lot of growing concern in the community. There's been protests recently. Have you been able to attend any of the protests? How are the community? What's the feeling in community at the moment?

Well, I haven't attended the protests. I have been speaking with community and being in community spaces, I can say the community are concerned. Community don't feel like that the states are being supported to provide equitable alternatives and that what alternatives there will be are going to have to rush to fill the space. What we're seeing is a, is a problem because when the NDIS is discussing fraud, they're discussing in their paperwork an increase of neurodivergent diagnoses and thus referrals to the ndis. And we know from data that a lot of people with gender diversity or in the LGBT community experience those issues of neurodiversity. So you're going to see a lot of that community lose support networks that have been in place for the last decade and are going to be replaced with services that aren't yet fully formed. The question then becomes, how can community organisations who have been benefiting, and in a lot of ways relying on ndis referrals and funding, pick up this sudden influx of LGBT people with disabilities when the government hasn't waited for there to be a proper soft landing spot for these people? So I think there's a lot of fear there.

Did you have anything that you would like to say more broadly to the community or on air about these changes?

I'll say this much, the last day for submissions regarding these changes is going to occur on Monday, 1 June, by close of business. So as your listeners are listening to this, they will have five hours, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less, to submit statements regarding what the impact of this looks like. And when they do that, they need to not only look at the. What the ndis is doing, but how those supports have become baked into community. Like, when these supports are gone, the people that they are supporting are going to have potentially acute crises. So this isn't just a disability issue, it is a widespread community issue, so it could also be an employment or a social interaction issue. So we need to begin this process now, before these changes start really coming into a wider and more focused effect.

Do you have any advice for people who are concerned about losing supports or maybe not being able to access support if they haven't applied for the NDS before? What do you recommend people do to look after themselves?

There's a few different options, I think. First and foremost, I think getting this information into the hands of community organisations is important, because one of my key roles throughout the last 10 years has been working with organisations to make them more accessible, to help them get community data and feedback. But going to your local LGBT organisations and pointing out that this is an issue and this is going to be an issue is important. Keeping notes about what your worst day looks like if you're talking with the ndis, is important, but also self care is important because this is going to be a very long, protracted battle. We may not win today or next week or in two months, but people need to start taking care of themselves and utilising community resources to let the community know the position that the LGBT disability intersection are in. We also need to take care of each other and that's the best advice I could give at this point.

That there was my chat with Annabelle Oxley about the ndis and how we can look out for each other during these changes and where you can make submissions, make your impact statements. You can head to the transmission socials, Ranswithaz Radio on the socials there. I'm gonna put a link up for you to follow. To get to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment bill. The committee is the Community Affairs Legislation Committee and you've got until close of business today, 1st of June, to write those impact statements and submit them. This is all to push back and just, just tell them what you need and hopefully we can make some positive changes and hopefully there can be some changes before this bill goes through. And yeah, just sort of like trying to get some sense of things through the political noise. So thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you next week. Bye. Thanks for listening to Transmission. Catch us every Monday live on 4zzz from 10am or listen to our podcast on the community radio plus applause.