Australian Minister trying to remove severe autistic - jail

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The Victorian Disability Minister has urgently intervened to remove a young man with a profound intellectual disability from jail.

Francis, 20, has been stuck behind bars despite having a $1.5m NDIS package
On Thursday, the Victorian Government stepped in and found Francis a provider
Minister Martin Foley made the decision after 7.30 informed him the young man was there because, under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), no disability provider would have him.

Francis has been in prison on remand since September because disability providers refused to give him the 24-7 care he requires due to his complex needs.

Every time he had a bail application he had to stay in jail because he had no other options, and was looking at being in the high-security Melbourne Assessment Prison, which houses some of Victoria's most hardened criminals, until February.

This is despite his NDIS package funding him for $1.5 million a year in services.

Francis, who has autism and an intellectual disability, turned 20 this week, but his mother Janet told 7.30 he has the mental age of a toddler and an IQ in the 40s

"He just doesn't understand why he's there."

7.30 alerted Mr Foley to Francis's situation this week and he said he was distressed to hear of it.

"When this tragic set of circumstances of Francis's situation was brought to our attention, we've acted," Mr Foley said on Thursday.

"Today we've secured a quality provider who will start tomorrow the process of engaging with Francis and starting to get him out of the remand prison."

Victoria Legal Aid has made a submission to the Federal Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS to say it has four clients in this position, and knows of others in New South Wales, who cannot leave prison because they have nowhere to go and there is no provider of last resort when the market failed to offer care to people with complex disabilities.

Legal Aid manager of mental health and disability, Sonia Law, told the committee that clients' families were being told by the NDIS it was simply and "insurer or a bank", and by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, which used to provide care before the NDIS, that it was simply a "landlord".

"The market" was supposed to provide the care, but disability providers in that market were describing clients like this as a "business risk".