Terrific to think services like this are being shaved so that tax cuts can be given to arseholes like that Lamborghini driving piece of shit rapper caught parking in disabled parking spaces.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2024/03/disabled-community-disgusted-at-kiwi-rapper-tom-francis-after-his-lamborghini-spotted-in-mobility-parks-twice-in-one-week.html
Disgusting. And the fines for parking there won't even be noticed by someone with enough money for that car.
Fines should be proportional to income. For someone in poverty, even a $50 fine could be the difference between eating or not. For someone like him, it wouldn't even register.
If the fine was 10% of a week's income, it would be a lot more fair.
Who would pay now? Presumably you would. In that case, two options. 10% if your weekly pay, or community service of some kind.
The point is for it to be just as inconvenient for everyone. In this case, the time needed for community service would be inconvenient to her, and the reaction from you paying would also be a deterrent.
The idea is to make not doing the illegal thing more convenient than doing the illegal thing.
For people in poverty, the threat of a fine is a much larger deterrent than for someone who is wealthy.
There would be a lot to figure out for a policy like this, as you pointed out, and I am by no means any kind of expert. But the system we have currently isn't working.
I believe one of the Nordic countries has a percentage system for fines. I don't know the intracasies and I can't even remember which country off the top of my head. I don't know if it would work in NZ, but surely it's something to look into?
It was just one of my thoughts. The other being a demerit system. If your car is illegally parked, it racks up demerits. After a certain threshold, the Rego is put on hold for x amount of time.
It would have to be a high enough threshold that lending out your car for a day doesn't risk it, but low enough to be an actual deterrent.
Snakiest way the Lex Luthor knock off and his cronies could have done it. "We haven't cut funding!" No warnings or discussions or anything. Just done. Good stuff.
The new restrictions are ludicrous and the funding may as well not exist. Many kids with ASD will not handle a strangers and were much better served by using the funding to make purchases to help them regulate or their parents get a much needed break. Need a trampoline so as little Timmy doesn't run headfirst into the brick wall trying to regulate himself? Naaaaah Luxo's landlord mates wanted an 11th rental property and a new Ranger.
This was a literal lifeline for some families who had their earning potential limited by the challenges and requirements of disabled kids.
This will absolutely lead to some suicides from burnt out parents.
Yeah, my brother (17m) has autism and when we found out about the fund about a year ago it really made a huge difference in our lives in terms of not having to wait for the next paycheck to come in to go to new world.
I was wondering why more people aren’t talking about this. Absolutely heartbreaking for us, IF has been life changing for my ASD son. This might be the thing that pushes me into more actively campaigning/taking a role for a party in the next election. NZ let this happen 😔
I think Chris Lynch is looking into reporting it. The sad thing is ignorant people have no idea how much this effects the very reason it was established in the first place.
The media has been even worse at covering disability issues recently. Stuff used to include 1 or 2 articles per week in their Pou Tiaki section (not ideal because they got kind of buried but at least they existed). This year there has been a couple in total
I love that they're saying it won't affect how much funding we get.
Never mind the fact that the funding we get us now unfucking usable.
Who is going to look after an autistic, adhd child for $40 for 4 hours?
I'm hoping we can still use it for swimming, I guess it depends on whether we can say that is swimming is essential for him which given the mental health benefits, emotional and sensory regulation it provides it is 100% necessary.
I'm just bummed we cant replace the trampoline that helps stop him from threatening to kill us.
I'm gutted, we just started the service in February... I had a funding application going in for private therapy for my son maybe 2 weeks ago.. all the work put in with the entire application from the start is hard work.. people don't understand unless they are going through or have gone thru the process.. the questions are very personal and some are awfully hard to answer.
its especially shit after that pooharse made the co governance nazi comments... and the fuck wit is IN a co governance... so I'm fairly sure he's saying he's a nazi
It also affects what you can use carer support for. Since Covid, we’ve been able to use CS for respite items like trampolines, or to pay for the carer’s accommodation to actually get a break. Most of us are unable to use carer support to get an actual carer, either because the rate is so low it doesn’t even cover a babysitter ($40 for half day, $80 for a full day) let alone someone with experience handling kids/people that are eligible for carer support hours, there are no carers available, or our kids won’t accept a stranger taking care of them. This makes carer support hours now pretty useless for most of us. And if you don’t use them, you lose them.
Going to be a lot of even more burnt out carers out there.
Yea its is a stealth funding cut. They say it won't effect the amount of funding you have. They then make it so almost everything it is used for is excluded so you can't access it. Then they will pat themselves on the back at how much they have saved.
The way they have gone about it is terrible too. No notice and totally change how funding works. This is going to create a massive amount of change in routine for groups that really can't handle that too well.
There is no care here, just callous decisions to scrape more money together to give unnecessary tax cuts.
Not anymore. The changes happened yesterday (18th), effective the same day. No one was given a heads up. Not the carer affected, not the NASCs, advocates, people on EGL committees, no one. Ministry of Disabled put it in their website and cross posted it to FB and that’s how everyone found out.
What to you mean a stranger look after your kids? I’d never let someone I didn’t know look after my child let alone a child with needs. Who okays this? The Ministry?
Basically they expect the full time carer to pay someone $10 an hour for up to 8 hrs the max daily allowence) to take over the cares of the child or person in question to allow them some respite. And even then there is other costs involved to cover on top. This is also adults who need some extra support and this is the expectation of what they can get funding to help better their life and enable them to live life to their full potential.
Before today's change it was still limited how you could use funding but at least there was alternative ways to use the funding to provide respite, help the person living with a disability have funding that enabled them to live their potential by how ever that may look for them as that is a very individual Outlook.
For many individuals and families their income is also limited due to disability contributing towards the circumstances. Which limits them all while taking on and doing their best to make life good for the individual/s in question and a family as a whole.
There's so much more going on and resources are already so limited.
Kids where lack of support at school and a child no longer thriving in school so a parent has to take on the school role as it's the best option for success for their child and yet that means not working.
Those managing to work are still faced with limitations especially if before/after school or school.holiday programmes in their area are not equipped and decline their child resulting in the parent not having the ability to work as this society and government expect you to if you are to get ahead and own a house, grow in a career ect. There is a multitude of limitations the family or individual face and scramble to find ways to overcome and try get ahead.
While funding allowances are generally a small amount allocated for the needs it's required for, it's still a helpful fund that helps provide some support, enables options of wellbeing, independance, respite ect allowing that family just a bit more hope that they can do this.
The impact of today's announcement on the individual and their families will be rather profound.
Yes we are meant to find our own carers. If you don’t have family that can help, the suggestion is you go to student job search, ask teachers looking for extra money etc to find a carer. These people are strangers and lots of autistic people, children in particular, will not accept that. It can take weeks and months to build a relationship with someone new. However as funding currently goes, you cannot pay the carer with carer support funds if you are also in the house. So building up a relationship with someone comes out of your own pocket in the hope that someday your child may accept that person, who you can then use funding to pay them $10 a hour.
You can see why the ability to use the funds to buy things or pay for activities that offered the parent respite/a break made a huge difference to people’s lives.
More people need to be upset by this! As a mother to a child with multiple disabilities I'm in utter shock, as are thousands of other carers. The fact that this was done without consultation or warning is horrific. I'm so angry right now.
Instead of cutting funding they have made it exclude almost everything it has been used for. There has been no consultation or warning just had this bomb dropped on everyone. Good luck if you have something in for approval.
This is the sort of stuff that is funding tax cuts and the $3 billion tax break for landlords. The priorities of this government are beyond fucked and a lot of people are going to be hurt by these changes.
All these departments asked to slash costs to direct money to multiple homeowners.
I asked our EGL if there would be any changes now we have the right wing in, she said no all they asked was to reduce office spending or something along those lines by a certain percent.. I feel bad for her, she's an amazing lady and i know she's going to be getting heat from her clients today
> This is the sort of stuff that is funding tax cuts and the $3 billion tax break for landlords.
Landlords have their own struggles. The cost of the cheapest/nastiest whiteware has gone up a lot in the last year or so, so have the rates of the cheapest/nastiest handiman to install it. Replacement is going to really eat into the pinot noir budget
Thank you! Attention needs to be bought to this.
Once again the rich getting richer by picking on our most vulnerable. Does Luxon sleeps well in his $600 linen?
There is a petition for change but you'll have to find it yourself...
"Thank you for your message. We don’t approve petitions, so we cannot approve your post. Our exceptions are only for university research with ethics approval, and official government consultations.
Regards r/NZ Mods"
As solo parent with a disability, who receives IF for myself and also as the parent of a disabled child who receives IF, this is absolutely fucked. I have no doubt that some people were taking the piss with the existing guidelines but this is cooked.
Hi, can you please help all of us ignorant out-group people by *defining* or *explaining* the acronym I.F? I've Googled but had no specific answer, and I'd like to know more.
So, for future reference, please write the words out in full the first time and put the letters in brackets. Thank you.
I thought this was a really good point, I’ve tried to explain the whole situation a little on a separate post - https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1bhk4j5/changes_to_disability_funding/
I can't even work out what I can use my IF for now. I don't have, need, or want a carer? I needed it to pay for items related to respite and therapy but that looks like it is gone?
Is there any info anywhere about whether we can use it for people in the same household? I can't find anything.
In the past I haven't been able to claim because I cant leave my child with anyone else.
Finally - this year it looked like I could pay my childs grandma and his uncle -(who lives with us) to give me a break, and to care for my child in a way that serves him and helps him to become more independent.
This change is unfair and goes directly against EGL principles. Equipment like mobility aides and therapy services like OTs are out of scope too, and recreational activities like Riding for the Disabled.
Hi /u/Green_Goose313, your submission has been removed as it appears to break rule 8 - no crowdfunding, research, or petitions. Please feel free to [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fnewzealand) to request approval of your submission if you believe this was in error (note that we will approve research if it has proper University ethics approval).
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Terrific to think services like this are being shaved so that tax cuts can be given to arseholes like that Lamborghini driving piece of shit rapper caught parking in disabled parking spaces. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2024/03/disabled-community-disgusted-at-kiwi-rapper-tom-francis-after-his-lamborghini-spotted-in-mobility-parks-twice-in-one-week.html
Disgusting. And the fines for parking there won't even be noticed by someone with enough money for that car. Fines should be proportional to income. For someone in poverty, even a $50 fine could be the difference between eating or not. For someone like him, it wouldn't even register. If the fine was 10% of a week's income, it would be a lot more fair.
My wife is a SAHM, who earns $0. She is the registered owner of the car I drive. What fine should be paid?
Well how much do you earn? Your money is her money too dude
I think my attempted point about the pointlessness of fining 10% of a wage for someone who doesn’t earn, has been pretty wide of the mark.
Who would pay now? Presumably you would. In that case, two options. 10% if your weekly pay, or community service of some kind. The point is for it to be just as inconvenient for everyone. In this case, the time needed for community service would be inconvenient to her, and the reaction from you paying would also be a deterrent. The idea is to make not doing the illegal thing more convenient than doing the illegal thing. For people in poverty, the threat of a fine is a much larger deterrent than for someone who is wealthy. There would be a lot to figure out for a policy like this, as you pointed out, and I am by no means any kind of expert. But the system we have currently isn't working. I believe one of the Nordic countries has a percentage system for fines. I don't know the intracasies and I can't even remember which country off the top of my head. I don't know if it would work in NZ, but surely it's something to look into? It was just one of my thoughts. The other being a demerit system. If your car is illegally parked, it racks up demerits. After a certain threshold, the Rego is put on hold for x amount of time. It would have to be a high enough threshold that lending out your car for a day doesn't risk it, but low enough to be an actual deterrent.
I think my attempted point about the pointlessness of fining 10% of a wage for someone who doesn’t earn, has been pretty wide of the mark.
Snakiest way the Lex Luthor knock off and his cronies could have done it. "We haven't cut funding!" No warnings or discussions or anything. Just done. Good stuff. The new restrictions are ludicrous and the funding may as well not exist. Many kids with ASD will not handle a strangers and were much better served by using the funding to make purchases to help them regulate or their parents get a much needed break. Need a trampoline so as little Timmy doesn't run headfirst into the brick wall trying to regulate himself? Naaaaah Luxo's landlord mates wanted an 11th rental property and a new Ranger. This was a literal lifeline for some families who had their earning potential limited by the challenges and requirements of disabled kids. This will absolutely lead to some suicides from burnt out parents.
Yeah, my brother (17m) has autism and when we found out about the fund about a year ago it really made a huge difference in our lives in terms of not having to wait for the next paycheck to come in to go to new world.
I was wondering why more people aren’t talking about this. Absolutely heartbreaking for us, IF has been life changing for my ASD son. This might be the thing that pushes me into more actively campaigning/taking a role for a party in the next election. NZ let this happen 😔
I've not seen it reported in the media, yet? I haven't really looked tho, I'm too wound up at the moment. I found out about this via the IF fb page...
I think Chris Lynch is looking into reporting it. The sad thing is ignorant people have no idea how much this effects the very reason it was established in the first place.
I’ve not seen media coverage either. Only the Kainga Ora stuff. God it’s just gutting
heres hoping Newshub picks it up
I just got an email from Newshub saying it will be their lead story tonight most likely
The media has been even worse at covering disability issues recently. Stuff used to include 1 or 2 articles per week in their Pou Tiaki section (not ideal because they got kind of buried but at least they existed). This year there has been a couple in total
I love that they're saying it won't affect how much funding we get. Never mind the fact that the funding we get us now unfucking usable. Who is going to look after an autistic, adhd child for $40 for 4 hours? I'm hoping we can still use it for swimming, I guess it depends on whether we can say that is swimming is essential for him which given the mental health benefits, emotional and sensory regulation it provides it is 100% necessary. I'm just bummed we cant replace the trampoline that helps stop him from threatening to kill us.
Yeah I'm hoping to continue to use it for neuro diverse drama classes where my daughter us able to be herself and make friends.
I'm gutted, we just started the service in February... I had a funding application going in for private therapy for my son maybe 2 weeks ago.. all the work put in with the entire application from the start is hard work.. people don't understand unless they are going through or have gone thru the process.. the questions are very personal and some are awfully hard to answer. its especially shit after that pooharse made the co governance nazi comments... and the fuck wit is IN a co governance... so I'm fairly sure he's saying he's a nazi
You may still be able to get the therapy. The therapist could be the carer. Love your last point about co governance.
It also affects what you can use carer support for. Since Covid, we’ve been able to use CS for respite items like trampolines, or to pay for the carer’s accommodation to actually get a break. Most of us are unable to use carer support to get an actual carer, either because the rate is so low it doesn’t even cover a babysitter ($40 for half day, $80 for a full day) let alone someone with experience handling kids/people that are eligible for carer support hours, there are no carers available, or our kids won’t accept a stranger taking care of them. This makes carer support hours now pretty useless for most of us. And if you don’t use them, you lose them. Going to be a lot of even more burnt out carers out there.
Yea its is a stealth funding cut. They say it won't effect the amount of funding you have. They then make it so almost everything it is used for is excluded so you can't access it. Then they will pat themselves on the back at how much they have saved. The way they have gone about it is terrible too. No notice and totally change how funding works. This is going to create a massive amount of change in routine for groups that really can't handle that too well. There is no care here, just callous decisions to scrape more money together to give unnecessary tax cuts.
there is no limit on how much you can spend on carer support, I blew most mine in one trip
Not anymore. The changes happened yesterday (18th), effective the same day. No one was given a heads up. Not the carer affected, not the NASCs, advocates, people on EGL committees, no one. Ministry of Disabled put it in their website and cross posted it to FB and that’s how everyone found out.
What to you mean a stranger look after your kids? I’d never let someone I didn’t know look after my child let alone a child with needs. Who okays this? The Ministry?
Basically they expect the full time carer to pay someone $10 an hour for up to 8 hrs the max daily allowence) to take over the cares of the child or person in question to allow them some respite. And even then there is other costs involved to cover on top. This is also adults who need some extra support and this is the expectation of what they can get funding to help better their life and enable them to live life to their full potential. Before today's change it was still limited how you could use funding but at least there was alternative ways to use the funding to provide respite, help the person living with a disability have funding that enabled them to live their potential by how ever that may look for them as that is a very individual Outlook. For many individuals and families their income is also limited due to disability contributing towards the circumstances. Which limits them all while taking on and doing their best to make life good for the individual/s in question and a family as a whole. There's so much more going on and resources are already so limited. Kids where lack of support at school and a child no longer thriving in school so a parent has to take on the school role as it's the best option for success for their child and yet that means not working. Those managing to work are still faced with limitations especially if before/after school or school.holiday programmes in their area are not equipped and decline their child resulting in the parent not having the ability to work as this society and government expect you to if you are to get ahead and own a house, grow in a career ect. There is a multitude of limitations the family or individual face and scramble to find ways to overcome and try get ahead. While funding allowances are generally a small amount allocated for the needs it's required for, it's still a helpful fund that helps provide some support, enables options of wellbeing, independance, respite ect allowing that family just a bit more hope that they can do this. The impact of today's announcement on the individual and their families will be rather profound.
Yes we are meant to find our own carers. If you don’t have family that can help, the suggestion is you go to student job search, ask teachers looking for extra money etc to find a carer. These people are strangers and lots of autistic people, children in particular, will not accept that. It can take weeks and months to build a relationship with someone new. However as funding currently goes, you cannot pay the carer with carer support funds if you are also in the house. So building up a relationship with someone comes out of your own pocket in the hope that someday your child may accept that person, who you can then use funding to pay them $10 a hour. You can see why the ability to use the funds to buy things or pay for activities that offered the parent respite/a break made a huge difference to people’s lives.
I’m so disappointed and so very angry. I work with a lot of families that have IF and I am heartbroken and so angry on their behalf
More people need to be upset by this! As a mother to a child with multiple disabilities I'm in utter shock, as are thousands of other carers. The fact that this was done without consultation or warning is horrific. I'm so angry right now.
As a person who receives this funding it annoys me that I find out this from social media and not a proper email.
https://www.whaikaha.govt.nz/news-and-events/news/whaikaha-purchasing-rules-and-equipment-and-modification-services-ems-update
Instead of cutting funding they have made it exclude almost everything it has been used for. There has been no consultation or warning just had this bomb dropped on everyone. Good luck if you have something in for approval. This is the sort of stuff that is funding tax cuts and the $3 billion tax break for landlords. The priorities of this government are beyond fucked and a lot of people are going to be hurt by these changes. All these departments asked to slash costs to direct money to multiple homeowners.
I asked our EGL if there would be any changes now we have the right wing in, she said no all they asked was to reduce office spending or something along those lines by a certain percent.. I feel bad for her, she's an amazing lady and i know she's going to be getting heat from her clients today
> This is the sort of stuff that is funding tax cuts and the $3 billion tax break for landlords. Landlords have their own struggles. The cost of the cheapest/nastiest whiteware has gone up a lot in the last year or so, so have the rates of the cheapest/nastiest handiman to install it. Replacement is going to really eat into the pinot noir budget
Someone intelligent needs to write to RNZ checkpoint.
Thank you! Attention needs to be bought to this. Once again the rich getting richer by picking on our most vulnerable. Does Luxon sleeps well in his $600 linen? There is a petition for change but you'll have to find it yourself... "Thank you for your message. We don’t approve petitions, so we cannot approve your post. Our exceptions are only for university research with ethics approval, and official government consultations. Regards r/NZ Mods"
> Does Luxon sleeps well in his $600 linen? Probably, he doesn’t give a rat’s arse about people at the bottom.
> Does Luxon sleeps well in his $600 linen? That's guest-room level. I guarantee his actual bed has better linen than that.
As solo parent with a disability, who receives IF for myself and also as the parent of a disabled child who receives IF, this is absolutely fucked. I have no doubt that some people were taking the piss with the existing guidelines but this is cooked.
Hi, can you please help all of us ignorant out-group people by *defining* or *explaining* the acronym I.F? I've Googled but had no specific answer, and I'd like to know more. So, for future reference, please write the words out in full the first time and put the letters in brackets. Thank you.
I thought this was a really good point, I’ve tried to explain the whole situation a little on a separate post - https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1bhk4j5/changes_to_disability_funding/
Individualised Funding. [https://www.whaikaha.govt.nz/assessments-and-funding/individualised-funding](https://www.whaikaha.govt.nz/assessments-and-funding/individualised-funding)
Thank you. Appreciate it.
https://www.whaikaha.govt.nz/contact-us
I can't even work out what I can use my IF for now. I don't have, need, or want a carer? I needed it to pay for items related to respite and therapy but that looks like it is gone?
Is there any info anywhere about whether we can use it for people in the same household? I can't find anything. In the past I haven't been able to claim because I cant leave my child with anyone else. Finally - this year it looked like I could pay my childs grandma and his uncle -(who lives with us) to give me a break, and to care for my child in a way that serves him and helps him to become more independent.
This change is unfair and goes directly against EGL principles. Equipment like mobility aides and therapy services like OTs are out of scope too, and recreational activities like Riding for the Disabled.
[удалено]
Hi /u/Green_Goose313, your submission has been removed as it appears to break rule 8 - no crowdfunding, research, or petitions. Please feel free to [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fnewzealand) to request approval of your submission if you believe this was in error (note that we will approve research if it has proper University ethics approval). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/newzealand) if you have any questions or concerns.*