Reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme are generating signs of improvement, with NDIS Minister Bill Shorten saying he was seeing “green shoots of recovery.”
This comes as the architect of the NDIS will say Australians are treating it like it was a “magic pudding.”
In a speech set to be given at a disability conference on Aug. 22, the designer of the NDIS Professor Bruce Bonyhady will tell listeners that “people were treating the scheme as an endless resource.”
“We must stop thinking of the NDIS as though it is a limitless magic pudding,” he will say.
The magic pudding is a beloved character from an Australian children’s book of the same name.
Prof. Bonyhady is currently overseeing an independent review of the NDIS, which will be handed down to the government in the latter part of the year.
“I think Bruce is right that there are some people who are abusing the scheme, and by that, I don’t necessarily mean participants.
“There are some people who are abusing the scheme, and by that, I don’t necessarily mean participants,” the minister said.
“There’s a lot of rent seekers and ticket clippers. There’s over-servicing; there’s unethical behaviour by a minority of service providers.”
But he noted he was “completely confident that we can engineer reforms.”
Scheme Costs Blow Out
The NDIS cost $35 billion (US$22.4 billion) in the past financial year, with the scheme on track to be more than $50 billion by 2025/26, overtaking the annual costs for Medicare.The government pledged to rein in the spending growth of the scheme to eight percent by July 2026.
Mr Shorten said reforms were being carried out to ensure money involved in the scheme was well-spent, with some measures already starting.
“What we want to do is moderate the rate of growth of the scheme,” he said.
“Just because someone has an NDIS package doesn’t mean a service provider should charge double or three times what they charge if a person wasn’t on the scheme.”
But Prof. Bonyhady is set to say meeting the eight percent growth target could be difficult to achieve.
NDIS, Health and Aged Care to Contribute to Rise of Federal Outlays
Meanwhile, the success of the NDIS cost trimmings comes as five central spending pressures—health, aged care, NDIS, defence and interest payments on debt—are projected to grow from one-third of total Commonwealth government spending in 2022-23 to one-half of total spending by 2062-63.This comes as Australians will get a snapshot of their economic future when Treasurer Jim Chalmers releases the latest Intergenerational Report (IGR) this week.
The report will outline the significant economic and Australian societal changes over the next four decades.
“Whether it’s essential spending on health, aged care, defence and the NDIS or the interest costs on the eye-watering debt left behind by the Liberals, the budget is under pressure in the long term,” Mr. Chalmers said.
Coalition frontbencher Simon Birmingham said the opposition was waiting for the government to produce the policies to address the issues raised.
“If the government wants to bring forward sensible measures to ensure the sustainability of the NDIS or the sustainability of aged care spending, we are up for working with the government because we want to be constructive in these areas,” he said.
Mr. Chalmers will explain in a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra what the government is doing to position Australians to benefit from the changes rather than be victims.
