The NDIS and NDIS providers are under increased scrutiny. Reform is under way. Gain the latest updates on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024 reforms, NDIS regulatory compliance requirements and NDIS provider director and governance obligations. Navigate issues relating to the NDIS client including exploring the unfair contracts regime relating to NDIS contracts, the balance between client’s home and their home as a workplace, plus a deep dive into client decision-making and risk-taking. Plus, gain a view from the Bench as a former Deputy President of the AAT and head of the NDIS Division shares his expertise and experience with you.
- How do the legislative reforms try to clarify the interface between the NDIS and other service systems such as criminal justice and health?
- How does the new Act shape the future calculation of funding and the range of supports available under the NDIS?
- How might the rollout of foundational supports and revised early intervention programmes affect eligibility for the scheme?
- How does the new Act revise the oversight of spending, compliance and the quality of supports provided by the scheme?
Presented by Dr Darren O’Donovan, Senior Lecturer, La Trobe Law School
- Current priorities for regulating providers and workers
- What are the Commission’s regulatory levers?
- Some examples of noncompliance and the tools applied
- Roadmap for responding to a complaint
- What actions can providers take to proposed regulatory action
Presented by Gemma McGrath, Managing Director, Panetta McGrath; Preeminent Medical Negligence and Malpractice (Defendant), Doyle’s Guide 2023, Recognised, Insurance Law and Professional Malpractice Litigation, Best Lawyers
- The responsibilities of a company director and 'key personnel'
- Specific NDIS requirements
- The various types of statutory and common law requirements including ASIC, Work Health and Safety
- Case studies of breaches of NDIS requirements and outcomes for directors
Presented by Bronwyn Herbertson, Associate, Engels Floyd Quality Consulting; NDIS Auditor and Solicitor
- Strategies for managing families wanting to use CCTV and other monitoring devices to support their loved ones
- Tips to ensure compliance with workplace and other surveillance legislation
- Managing the duty of care owed to residents and staff in respect of audio visual monitoring
Presented by Luke Geary, Partner, Mills Oakley; Recognised lawyer, Non-Profit/Charities law and Lawyer of the Year, Non-Profit/Charities Law, The Best Lawyers Australia; Ranked Lawyer, (Band 2) Charities, Chambers Asia-Pacific
- Ensuring clarity around service provision, pricing, claims and budget management
- Drafting fair termination, cancellation and variation clauses
- Balancing rights and responsibilities with duty of care
- Assessing fairness in the context of the contract as a whole
Presented by Elizabeth Tylich, Chairperson & Partner, Corporate Commercial and Ariel Bastian, Senior Associate, Jackson Mcdonald; Recognised in Charities Law, Chambers & Partners Asia-Pacific 2024
- Resolving the tension between substituted and other forms of decision makers
- Review of the landscape
- What is the landscape of representative appointments
- When is a substitute decision maker appointment unconditional
- Navigating overlapping and competitive appointments
- How do you put the will and preference of the NDIS recipient first
- Evolving and establishing good practice for dealing with recipient decisions
- Establishing good practice for decision making: understanding the decision making capabilities and limitations of the NDIS recipient
- Distinguishing will and preference from decision making capabilities
- Establishing priorities between the NDIS recipient and their representatives for establishing a plan for integrating the recipients into their plan
- Reconciling and handling supply and demand and recipient objectives
Presented by Dr Jane Lonie, Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist and Michael Perkins, Special Counsel, SouthernWaters Legal; Accredited Specialist Wills & Estates
- Duty of care: What is it? How is it discharged?
- Dignity of risk and the right to make poor decisions
- Understanding risk: 10 questions to support positive risk assessments
- Creating a culture of respect and inclusion: overcoming practical challenges
Presented by Prue Campbell, Senior Associate, Panetta McGrath
Attend and earn 7 CPD units in Substantive Law
This program is applicable to practitioners from all States & Territories
Chair: Kim Boettcher, Barrister, Frederick Jordan Chambers
Presented by The Honorable Michael Mischin MLC, former Deputy President, Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and former Division Head of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Division
Chair: Clare van Drunen, General Counsel, My Place
- Where service providers have guardianship
- What is coercion and what is coercive control?
- Handling client’s money and avoiding conflict
- Euthanasia and how to manage this without conflict
Presented by Dr Jane Lonie, Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist and Michael Perkins, Special Counsel, SouthernWaters Legal; Accredited Specialist Wills & Estates
Presenters
Elizabeth Tylich, Chairperson & Partner, Corporate Commercial, Jackson Mcdonald
She is experienced in drafting and negotiating a broad range of commercial arrangements, including bespoke contractual arrangements, managing transactions, conducting due diligence exercises, and advising on IT contracting and software solutions. She has considerable experience advising both government and non-government organisations on matters of statutory interpretation. Elizabeth has acted on numerous public and private transactions, and is extensively experienced in advising on mergers and acquisitions, business sales, joint ventures, partnerships, and corporate matters, including constitutions, shareholders’ agreements, directors’ duties and corporate governance. She often advises boards and undertakes board governance training. Elizabeth advises charities and not-for-profit organisations on their corporate structure, charitable status, governing documentation and has successfully implemented NFP mergers. She is also experienced in the areas of competition and consumer law.
The Honorable Michael Mischin MLC, former Deputy President, Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and former Division Head of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Division
Luke Geary, Partner, Mills Oakley
Luke has a particular expertise assisting institutions in responding to claims of child sexual abuse under a restorative justice framework and in accordance with best practice principles identified by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. In this regard, Luke appeared as a legal advisor in a number of public hearings before the Royal Commission, he participated in many of the Royal Commission’s roundtables (both public and private) for the development of policy positions and has appeared before the Australian Senate Committee and worked with the Commonwealth Redress Taskforce in its design of the National Redress Bill (which is anticipated to provide assistance in justice outcomes for approximately 60,000 Australians). Luke is regularly briefed by major institutions in the most sensitive and significant common law abuse claims and assists in their delicate resolution in a trauma-informed way. Additionally, Luke acts for survivors of abuse in claims against State government institutions, assisting them to obtain either common law or redress justice outcomes compassionately and giving them assistance in finding healing in their lives. Luke was named one of Australia’s Best Lawyers for Non-Profit/Charities Law in the 2023/2024 Best Lawyers list for the eighth consecutive year, including in both 2020/2021 and 2023/2024 being named as Australia’s Non-Profit/Charities ‘Lawyer of the Year’.
Gemma McGrath, Managing Director, Panetta McGrath
Gemma McGrath is a Director of Panetta McGrath Lawyers and specialises in providing advice to health practitioners and hospitals in civil claims for negligence and disciplinary proceedings. Prior to studying law, she trained as a registered nurse. Gemma is also an NMAS Accredited Mediator providing professional mediation services in workplace mediation and in the health, aged care and disability sectors. She is recognised in Doyle’s Guide as a pre-eminent Western Australian medical negligence and malpractice lawyer (Defendant). She is also named in Best Lawyers in the categories of insurance law and professional malpractice litigation. Gemma is a member of the Australasian Professional Indemnity Group, Australian Insurance Law Association and Law Society of Western Australia. She is also a member of the St John of God Health Care Scientific Review Sub Committee and a Board member of Alzheimer’s WA, a not for profit organisation providing support for people living with all types of dementia.
Kim Boettcher, Barrister, Frederick Jordan Chambers
Kim is a Barrister at Frederick Jordan Chambers in Sydney. Kim practises in Equity, Common Law, Protective and Guardianship Law, and in the Probate and Succession List. Prior to coming to the Bar, she practised as a Solicitor in commercial and civil litigation law in England and Wales, New South Wales and Queensland. More recently, she was a Solicitor at the Seniors Rights Service, an independent legal centre and regularly attended the UN Open-ended Working Group on Ageing in New York as a civil society representative. Kim was appointed to the NSW Minister of Fair Trading's Retirement Villages Advisory Council in 2013 and also to the Minister's Expert Committee on Retirement Villages Standard Contract Terms and Disclosure Documents in 2011. Kim was a Member of the inaugural Legal Services Council in 2014 and reappointed from 2017-2020. She is a past Treasurer of the International Commission of Jurists Australia and was appointed to the NSW Bar Association’s Succession and Protective Law Committee in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Dr Darren O’Donovan, Senior Lecturer, La Trobe Law School
Dr Darren O'Donovan commenced as a Senior Lecturer in La Trobe Law School in July 2016. Darren holds a BCL (Hons), and a PhD from University College Cork, Ireland, where he also lectured from 2009-2012. Darren's main teaching and research specialisation is Administrative Law. He has written extensively on rights, oversight and public administration, including the book Law and Public Administration in Ireland (co-authored with Dr Fiona Donson). Much of Darren's work has reflected upon the centrality of non-judicial review bodies and first instance decision-makers to delivering administrative justice. These ideas also featured in his examination of the Office of the Ombudsman which was published in the leading international law journal, Public Law. Drawing upon these themes, Darren is currently undertaking research projects in relation to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and social security system.
Clare van Drunen, General Counsel, My Place
Dr Jane Lonie, Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist
Dr. Jane Lonie is a Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist with over twenty years of experience in the assessment and management of cognitive dysfunction in adults and older adults. She is author of over twenty peer reviewed articles in the areas of dementia and capacity, (the most recent paper appearing in the Australian Bar Review), and maintains a special interest in provision of medico-legal opinion in matters relating to legal capacity. She regularly provides assessment and reports in matters of questionable testamentary capacity, guardianship disputes, financial management orders, capacity to instruct, give evidence or appoint powers of attorney. During her twenty years of experience in specialist Neuropsychological practice, Dr. Lonie has provided assessments and reports for in excess of 3,500 patients. She offers private consultations to patients at the request of patients themselves, carers, referring clinicians and legal practitioners. Dr. Lonie has substantial experience in assessment, report writing and court appearance for the purposes of provision of expert opinion relating to areas of expertise: Assessment of Cognitive function (Adults and Older Adults); Assessment of testamentary capacity (contemporaneous and retrospective) ; Guardianship disputes/ application reports; Financial management Capacity; Assessment of capacity to grant/revoke Powers of Attorney; Return to work assessment ; Total and Permanent Disability insurance claims; Neuropsychological function in criminal matters; Capacity to give evidence.
Michael Perkins, Special Counsel, Southern Waters
Michael is a lawyer, author, and educator with four decades of experience in trusts, estates, and private client practice. Michael is co-author of the book “Estate Planning: A Practical Guide for Estate and Financial Services Professionals”, published by LexisNexis, Co-author of the “Estate Planning – Core Principles and Practice” chapter contribution to Financial Planning in Australia (10th edition), by Sharon Taylor & Anor (Lexis Nexis). Supported Decision Making is important to Michael as a method of client care in professional practice and dealing with the orderly management of a person’s interest as they age. Michael has worked collaboratively with Dr Jane Lonie to evolve processes and practices that help professionals deal with clients with impaired decision-making ability or a suspicion of decision-making impairment. Michael holds the MICW designation from the Institute for Collaborative Working and is active in the operations of the Institute in Australia. In addition, he is a Trust and Estates Practitioner (TEP) member of the international Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (“STEP”), Founder and member of Academic Community of STEP.
Bronwyn Herbertson, Associate, Engels Floyd Quality Consulting; NDIS Auditor and Solicitor
Bronwyn Herbertson is a Human Services Sector specialist, with a wide range of experience, knowledge and training. She has high level management and governance experience along with being a solicitor and having post graduate certificates, being appointed an NDIS and ISO auditor and providing consultancy support. She has worked across the disability, aged care, youth and child safety, domestic and family violence and Not For Profit communities sectors. Bronwyn has a passion for continuous improvement, quality assurance and governance and enjoys assisting organisations and individuals to be the best they can be.
Prue Campbell, Senior Associate, Panetta McGrath
Ariel Bastian, Senior Associate, Jackson Mcdonald
Ariel is a corporate commercial lawyer and advises businesses, not-for-profits and government agencies in relation to corporate governance and regulatory compliance, health and aged care regulation, privacy and information security, customised commercial contracting (including service, funding, sponsorship, data sharing and technology contracts), competition and consumer matters (including advertising and marketing materials), e-commerce, intellectual property, and anti-modern slavery programs. Ariel is known for balancing legal and regulatory requirements with commerciality and an appreciation of her clients’ varying risk appetites. Previous experience as an inhouse lawyer has gifted her with an understanding of being in the client’s shoes. Ariel will get in the trenches with you to ensure she delivers viable and tangible solutions to problems. With extensive board and governance experience, Ariel appreciates the tactical nuances of running smooth and constructive meetings. She is naturally collaborative, with demonstrated success in building relationships and working constructively with stakeholders at all levels. Ariel is proactive in making sure her clients are getting the most out of their relationship with Jackson McDonald.