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Whaikaha - Ministry for Disabled People are still sticking heartlessly and mercilessly to their script regarding their shock cuts to accessing our disability flexible funding on the 18th March 2024.

“No-one will lose access to essential services through the revisions to the Purchase Rules” is their ongoing lie from the previous minister, Penny Simmonds, before she was sacked as our supposed champion and advocate. She was replaced by Louise Upston who is refusing to engage with the disabled community’s concerns and questions.

Another of Penny Simmonds’ infamous quotes/lies was “This is just a temporary pause” to flexible funding access. Why aren’t Whaikaha bandying that phrase around?

Tomorrow marks three months since any Aotearoa NZ-based parent carer/disabled parent carer received adequate support and respite.

Their responses read like they were copied and pasted by a person from the Guidance for Hosts and NASCs document.

Another insult and disservice to us all.

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Such an amazing result! I feel like there will be an onslaught of retrospective payments coming…

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This makes me so mad. It’s just a list of half answers where they say the same thing differently: We don’t care about your lived experience, or what works for you and the disabled person in your life. You will just have to fit into our narrow box now.

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I'm going to take that mention of equine therapy as a way to "mitigate potential risks to continuing in study" as justification for sending in RDA invoices.

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Thank you for this. I'm autistic & was just getting the hang of managing my IF when they changed the rules. It's so confusing now! And their attitude about it makes me so angry! I hate having to ring and ask if things will be covered, but with the new, amorphous rules I'm never sure what they'll approve.

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I appreciate the transparency in sharing Whaikaha's responses to the community questions. It's important to keep the lines of communication open and address concerns promptly. Excellent work! 👏🏼

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