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Lee Eastham says the court’s ruling made him proud. (ABC News: Josie Taylor)<\/p>\n
Mr Eastham appealed the decision to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART), which reviews government decisions.<\/p>\n
He said his need for a mobility scooter was directly linked to the combined effects of all his disabilities.<\/p>\n
The ART ruled in Mr Eastham’s favour, but the NDIA appealed that decision to the Federal Court, which late last month also ruled<\/a> in the 60-year-old’s favour.<\/p>\n “I feel like I’ve actually achieved something that’s going to not only benefit me, but everyone else that’s going through the same process,” Mr Eastham said.<\/p>\n As well as the scooter, the NDIA has now been directed to pay Mr Eastham’s costs for both the ART and Federal Court proceedings.<\/p>\n It comes as the federal government scrambles to reduce the cost of the NDIS, which has been projected to exceed $50 billion this financial year and $60 billion by 2028\u201329.<\/p>\n “They’ve just drawn it out so far and spent so much money on [what could have just been a $7,000] scooter,” Mr Eastham said.<\/p>\n “I could have bought the [scooter] company for what they’ve spent.<\/p>\n “They’ve actually wasted money that some poor kid out there probably really needed.”NDIS at a glanceThe NDIS is undergoing a generational redesign that the government hopes will claw back billions of dollars over the next decade.The scheme supports more than 760,000 participants \u2014 much less than the 5.5 million Australians estimated to be living with disability.Annual growth of the NDIS is 10.3 per cent, down from a high of more than 20 per cent under the Morrison government.The Albanese government wants to see it come down further to 5 or 6 per cent.NDIA must use ‘common sense’<\/p>\n Central to Mr Eastham’s case was a section of the NDIS Act<\/a> requiring a participant’s NDIS supports to be related only to the impairments that gave them access to the scheme.<\/p>\n The Justice and Equity Centre, which represented Mr Eastman, said the Federal Court had clarified the NDIA must view participants according to the interplay of their multiple conditions \u2014 not just those that gave them entry into the scheme \u2014 as well as other environmental factors, such as transport available where they live.<\/p>\n “The really important thing that this case has said is that a person’s whole life is important,” senior solicitor Mitchell Skipsey said.<\/p>\n “Somebody isn’t just a bundle of disabilities or diagnoses, but instead a whole person and that whole person is what the NDIS needs to be taking into account when it looks at what their needs are.”<\/p>\n In handing down her decision, Justice Lisa Hespe warned the NDIA against being too “prescriptive” when making decisions on participants’ supports and those decisions needed to involve “logic” and “common sense”.<\/p>\n Families frayed by NDIS cuts brace for more change ahead of defining 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Families frayed by NDIS cuts are bracing for even more change ahead of a year that’s set to reshape the scheme into something more sustainable, write Nas Campanella and Evan Young.<\/p>\n Justice Hespe also rejected the agency’s argument that the mobility scooter he sought funding for was not a “motorised mobility device” but rather a “personal mobility device”.<\/p>\n Mr Skipsey said the NDIA would need to alter the way it made decisions on participants’ plans.<\/p>\n “Every time the NDIA makes a decision about a new plan \u2026 they will need to do it with this court decision in mind and the approach to interpreting the NDIS Act that this court has said is the correct way to do it,” he said.<\/p>\n Naomi Anderson says the court’s ruling is “extremely significant”. (ABC News: Patrick Stone)<\/p>\n Naomi Anderson \u2014 principal solicitor at the Villamanta Disability Rights Legal Service, which supports participants with their appeals \u2014 said the judgement was “extremely significant”.<\/p>\n “This has been an issue participants have argued strongly \u2014 ‘It’s my body. I can’t just ignore this other impairment or this other disability,'” she said.<\/p>\n “The [NDIA] had very firmly taken the view that they can compartmentalise people and they can look at just one factor and consider whether that is the cause of the need for the support.<\/p>\n “Human beings just don’t work that way.”‘It was about the precedent’<\/p>\n Families have been increasingly reporting cuts<\/a> to NDIS plans in the past 24 months, with the NDIS caseload at the ART in 2024\u201325 increased by 95 per cent<\/a> compared to the year prior.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2d6b946329c2ae5954a72f7f217648a9.jpeg\")
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