The National Disability Insurance Scheme has “lost its way” and needs far greater reform than just weeding out crooks to ensure it remains sustainable, the Albanese government concedes.
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten, who helped establish the scheme when Labor was last in government, will use a pre-budget speech to the National Press Club to assure those in need that the scheme is “here to stay”– but badly in need of a “reboot”.“And that will not be easy. It will take time and require the kind of collective effort you showed during the campaign to fight for the NDIS in the first place,” he will say, according to extracts of his speech.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed on Monday the NDIS, barely a decade old, was second only to interest payments on debt as the fastest growing demand on the budget. He will say unethical practices go beyond tackling criminal syndicates and extend to gouging by service providers who effectively use the disabled as “cash cows”.Mr Shorten will flag a crackdown on “junk therapies” which, he says, “offer little or no value to participants or desperate parents”.
Under a deal struck by the Gillard government to get the states on board, the scheme would be funded on a 50:50 basis with the Commonwealth liable for any blowout. The Commonwealth is now paying 71 per cent of the cost of the scheme and, sources said, it may try and renegotiate the deal with the states at the end of this year.Mr Shorten will say the fact the NDIS has outlived the government which introduced it shows it could be a great reform, but the scheme has “lost its way”.
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