My Perfect Storm: ‘Phonegate’, the NDIS, the ART and me

By Simmonne Dyson-Holland

In August 2023, I moved my twin adult sons, who are both challenged by Autism and intellectual difficulties, into their own private rental property.  They were assisted (daytime and nighttime) by myself and support workers. I had planned to pay our support workers with my sons’ Core funding, until my sons were approved for Supported Independent Living (SIL) funding.

I never thought that I would still be battling for SIL funding sixteen months later.  In December 2024, I was preparing for my second appeal meeting with the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART), which was set for January 2025.

During this journey I had to unravel an obvious question: which ‘i’ was not dotted, and which ‘t’ was not crossed, to cause our funding applications to be constantly rejected?

It began with the event of ‘Phonegate’.  The original Occupational Therapist wrote in her reports, which were supporting evidence for my sons’ SIL funding applications, that each of them had a mobile phone and were able to use their mobile phone.

The NDIA interpreted this to mean that my sons did not need funding to support them with non-active sleepovers, as they would be able to use their phones in an emergency to call for help.  If they did not need a support worker to sleep over every night, then they did not need SIL funding.

The Occupational Therapist did not emphasise in her reports that my sons’ problem-solving abilities were impaired, and that their communication would further deteriorate in a stressful situation, potentially resulting in reactive behavioural issues. Teaching them to refer to a social story to assist them in an emergency was not a realistic option either.

Our Support Coordinator at that time either did not read or detect this problematic detail in the reports. Additionally, a Roster of Care (the hours of support needed daily and weekly, and the estimated cost) had not been submitted with the SIL applications. No Roster of Care in our supporting evidence meant no approval of SIL funding.

Prior to my second ART meeting, I was told that the NDIA lawyer would send me the ‘Statement of Issues’ they had, regarding my sons’ SIL applications, at least 48 hours before we met online.  Instead, the Statement of Issues was emailed to me 5 hours before our meeting.

Whilst I was in an online work meeting, trying to look like I was listening and contributing, in reality I was frantically working through the lawyer’s ‘issues’ and developing an evidence-based response to their arguments.

The outcome of the ART meeting was that I needed new supporting evidence which specifically responded to the lawyer’s Statement of Issues and which also clearly upheld my arguments.

Upon picking myself up from rock bottom, I organised meetings with our new Occupational Therapist, and our ongoing Behavioural Practitioner and Speech Pathologist.  I asked them to use the NDIA lawyer’s sentences and language from the Statement of Issues, to weave into their responses, to directly address and rebut the lawyer’s arguments.

The Behavioural Practitioner had to provide Incident Reports of my sons’ behaviour, from the time they had moved into their new house, to prove their need for daytime and nighttime support.  In contrast, he also had to report upon skills they had learned or were learning in their new house, to prove ‘value for money’, regarding the NDIS’s financial investment in my sons.  The Speech Pathologist had to concentrate on the limits of my sons’ communication and problem-solving skills.

I gave our new Occupational Therapist the mission of blowing up ‘Phonegate’, once and for all.

Prior to submitting all the new Allied Health reports to the ART, I read every word of every page of these documents.  Our new Support Coordinator was supposed to check them too.  I discovered several significant errors, one of which accidentally supported an argument used by the NDIA lawyer, instead of disputing it.

Needless to say, it has been my experience that until systemic issues are improved, factors other than the NDIS (i.e. the other service providers we rely upon) will fuel perfect storms in the lives of people with disabilities and carers.

Sam Paior (founder and director of The Growing Space), in her video entitled ‘Lousy therapist reports wreck ART!  Butler v NDIS Sept 2025’, provides the following tips.

In summary:

• AI should not be relied upon by therapists to write reports.
• All reports should be checked, and errors should be corrected.
• Therapeutic recommendations should be based on the therapists’ face to face observation of the NDIS participant.
• The requested supports need to be linked to NDIS recognised disabilities, not to other conditions.
• Therapists need to show how each requested support meets the new definition of Reasonable and Necessary supports.
• Therapists should not write reports as an Advocate of the participant. Instead, therapists need to provide their expert opinion, based on their therapeutic background

The day before my second ART meeting, I still hadn’t received the NDIA lawyer’s Statement of Issues, regarding our new supporting evidence.  I contacted the lawyer, and she responded that we would not need to meet.

For I had provided enough information and evidence.  The lawyer would be ruling that my sons should be given the SIL funding I had requested.

My Perfect Storm had eased.  For now.