17/05/2026
Dr Keith McVilly has always been a respected voice within the disability sector and helped shape my early understanding of Positive Behaviour Support.
If he is worried, that says enough for me.
I was around in “the old days” too and witnessed the despair experienced by people with disability and their families under the previous system.
We waited more than 5 years for my sister to move 10 hours closer to our family. Her relocation was repeatedly declined because she never met the threshold for “priority”. She was not considered homeless, so she never ranked highly enough at panel meetings when vacancies became available.
Because she had no capacity to travel to me, I drove 10 hours to see her several times each year. Any annual leave I could accrue, was spent travelling to see her.
That was not choice. It was being trapped in a system that did not value the stories, relationships, or humanity of people with disability and their families.
Eventually, a vacancy became available an hour away that nobody else wanted, so we accepted it immediately. That is how the system worked. It was not what we wanted, but there was always the fear that if you did not take what was offered, there may never be another opportunity.
At the time, I was grateful to drive one hour instead of 10. But it did not take long to realise she still was not close enough for us to rebuild the bond we once had.
Under the NDIS, my sister finally had greater choice about where and how she lived, and with that came a move to Tamworth and a whole new quality of life.
I will always be grateful that, through the NDIS, she was finally able to live close to family and truly be part of our lives. We spent the last few years of her life doing ordinary sister things. I would pick her up and bring her to our house, pick her up for some KFC and a drive thru car wash or chill at her house.
For the first time in a long time, we genuinely felt like sisters.
That is what choice and control means.
And that is what is at risk of being lost.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-17/will-ndis-cuts-lead-to-the-mistakes-of-the-past/106665656?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=safari
The states are once again on the hook for disability services due to the Commonwealth's drastic NDIS cuts. Can the mistakes of the past be avoided?
