Well the NDIS saga continues to unfold.
Without change, the cost of the NDIS will continue to grow at an unsustainable rate, undermining political support for the scheme, an expert says.
The cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is growing at an unsustainable rate and unless it has an overhaul, political support for the scheme is at risk, a global expert on disability support systems has warned.
Dr Simon Duffy said it was concerning that the NDIS seemed to keep growing as a share of GDP, with the scheme’s latest annual financial sustainability report projecting expenses to increase from 1.48 per cent of GDP in 2022-23 to 2.55 per cent in 2031-32.
In a report released on Tuesday, Duffy said that without urgent reform, the spiralling cost of the NDIS would almost certainly undermine political support for the scheme and put Australia’s commitment to disability rights at risk.
“Today, the considerable achievements of the NDIS are being overshadowed by a growing sense of crisis,” Duffy and co-author Dr Mark Brown, an NDIS participant and researcher at the Summer Foundation, say in the report.
The report was commissioned by Disability Advocacy Network Australia as part of its contribution to a government-commissioned independent review of the $35.1 billion NDIS.
“In our view, the NDIS is a world-leading development in disability rights; but it suffers from a significant design flaw, which we fear will make the NDIS unsustainable if it is not urgently addressed,” the report says.
It identifies five major problems, including that the overall budget for the NDIS is open-ended, which means when costs increase, they must be passed on to the taxpayers.
“This becomes a critical weakness if costs are not effectively controlled elsewhere,” the report says.
It says the NDIS creates uncertainty for people, with support packages determined using opaque rules and providing no long-term security.
“The built-in system of annual or two-yearly reviews (reviews which might radically reduce or remove your budget) is one of the most peculiar features of the NDIS, especially as the NDIS is defined as being for people with ‘permanent impairments’,” it says.
The report also says the National Disability Insurance Agency reduces funding if there are other forms of support available in the community, which has led to states and civil society organisations withdrawing support and helping people make successful claims against the NDIS instead.
“The poor experiences of people using the NDIS and the ever-growing costs of the NDIS are two sides of the same problem: a badly designed system that creates cost inflation and undermines responsible action at every level,” it says.
NDIS participants should have clear budgets, increased security of funding and much more flexibility in how they can use their budgets, according to the report.
“If people know that their funding is unlikely to radically change, unless there was a significant change in health or in level of need, then people could plan properly, take risks and explore what works best for themselves,” it says.
The authors say they hope Australians with disabilities can work with the government to agree on urgent changes necessary to ensure the sustainability of the NDIS, which could include reaching agreement on the overall level of funding needed.
Brown said the government had flagged that it was going to limit spending on the NDIS.
“The disability community has got to negotiate among themselves and with the government on behalf of taxpayers about the best way to make use of limited resources,” Brown said.
He called for a more consistent approach to allocating funding under the NDIS.
“As people with disabilities, we might be better off negotiating in a more collective way, rather than each person going into a planning meeting and justifying why them having a certain number of showers a week or a wheelchair is reasonable and necessary,” he said.
The review of the disability insurance scheme was announced by NDIS Minister Bill Shorten in October. A final report is expected by this October.
Disability Advocacy Network Australia said it had commissioned the report to obtain an international perspective on the NDIS and galvanise debate within the Australian disability community.
Chief executive Jeff Smith said all indications were that the NDIS review would lead to fundamental changes to the scheme, and the network wanted to help inform the debate.
“If there is going to be change, it’s people with disability who need to be sitting at the table making sure the change works for them,” he said.
Smith said the report had made it clear that while the purpose of the NDIS was world leading, design flaws undercut the sustainability and legitimacy of the scheme.
Disability rights lawyer Natalie Wade said she welcomed the report’s focus on redesigning the NDIS to fulfil the human rights of people with disabilities.
“The budget setting of the NDIS is tricky and it requires input from many levels of government, in a conversation led by people with disabilities,” Wade said.