Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIA) is under fire for offering disabled criminals financial support up to $1 million after serving time in prison. Qualified recipients include dangerous sex offenders, rapists, and pedophiles who may have a “mild to medium” intellectual disability or a significant mental illness.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, heavily redacted court records revealed that the $42 billion-per year scheme enables repeat offenders to access funds as part of a post-prison supervision plan often ordered by judges or government officials.
In one shocking case, a 40-year-old pedophile with a “mild to moderate intellectual disability,” referred to in court records as RXR, was offered $1.4 million in taxpayer-funded NDIA support on top of helping him secure housing in Victoria.
Although RXR was convicted of “rape, sexual assault, committing an indecent act with a child under 16, making and possessing child abuse material and stalking,” he secured disability funding after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, a pedophilic disorder, and a compulsive sexual behavior disorder. Additionally, the NDIA told the court it would pay to have two staff supervise RXR at all hours of the day.
Another disturbed criminal, identified as JS, received $100,000 from the NDIA despite previously breaching parole and being convicted of “incest involving sexual assault in 2002 and 2004.” NDIA funds were doled out after JS obtained a diagnosis stating that he had below-average intelligence, severe psychopathic personality disorder, sexual sadism disorder, and major depressive disorder.
In addition to not being placed on a supervision order, the judge explained JS’s funding was approved because of his “depressive symptoms and related impairments.”
News that Australian taxpayers are on the hook to cover repeat sex offenders disability support shocked many on X (formerly Twitter), including Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick, who took to the platform to express his disgust that criminals are receiving more support than their victims.
“I would have thought it would be cheaper to keep offenders in jail. Surely there has to be a cheaper way of monitoring these people? I doubt their victims receive this much government funding.”
Agreeing, others, like user @BazzaCCtook, decried the funding as an abuse of the system.
“Pedophiles should never come under the NDIS. Mild to moderate intelligence is not what it’s meant for… I mean, half of Australia would come under this. They are sick c#nts.. if you know my history, then you know what I’d do.”
Although widespread criticism has inspired the government to reevaluate the scheme, initially intended for citizens with a permanent disability, an NDIA spokesperson expressed that “every Australian, regardless of any previous criminal conviction, is entitled to access support systems offered by [the] government to help them live their life.”
“Such supports may be crucial in reducing the risk of further re-offending,” they added.
Although only 1,000 participants nationwide have qualified for up to $1 million or more in support, with less than seven qualifying for $2 million, the NDIA reportedly declined to confirm which participants who received over $1 million were “serious offenders.”
Despite the backlash, NDIS Minister Bill Shorten told The Australian that he hopes to bring in reforms to ensure “every dollar gets through to those it was intended [for]” and that individuals entitled to over $1 million often require “intensive, around-the-clock care in order to stay alive.”
“These are Australians with the most complicated disabilities and challenging behaviors, including complex cerebral palsy, the severest spinal cord injuries or mental health conditions that require at least two carers at a time for safety and to meet their physical needs,” explained Shorten.
This is not the first time Australia has been under fire for being sympathetic toward disturbed criminals.
In November 2022, 56-year-old serial pedophile Robert Gordon Cummins, who began identifying as a woman in 2019 and was suspected of committing “over 1,000 sex crimes against children,” was told to “self-manage the risk of offending” by the Supreme Court of Western Australia.
According to the pro-woman news outlet Reduxx, Cummins had his community sentence modified because a judge ruled that his medications offered him a “protective factor.”
In addition to referring to Cummins with She/Her pronouns throughout the proceedings, the judge expressed his hope that the court would keep his “gender dysphoria” in mind while considering his risk of re-offending.
Despite being convicted for the first time in 1999 and spending several decades in and out of jail for continuing to commit heinous crimes against children, Cummins continued to plot out his abuse against children throughout his time in prison.
From 2005 to 2008, serving time in a Casuarina Prison, a maximum security prison in Perth, Cummins and two fellow convicts made plans to create a child-sex trafficking ring in Thailand by setting up a doll-making business called “Little Angels” and recruiting impoverished women to help lure children.
After Cummins was released on parole in 2008, he began implementing the plan. In addition to building relationships with “simple” low-income Thai women to gain access to their children, he started looking into properties to host his pedophile ring and gathering information for fake passports.
“The idea behind it was to assist them and become valuable to them,” explained Cummins to the court. “So they would allow me to do anything I wanted… Including sexual activity with the children.”
Despite pleading guilty to his disturbing plans and receiving a reduced sentence of only two years and seven months, Supreme Court Justice John McKechnie ordered that Cummins be released early because he had already spent over one year in prison awaiting trial.
