Labor has promised to overhaul the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and NDIS shadow minister Bill Shorten MP was in the ACT yesterday to push that message.

“The Morrison Government is conducting a stealth campaign of cuts against people on the NDIS in Canberra,” Mr Shorten warned.

From 2019 to 2022, the number of people receiving significant cuts to their packages had increased, while the number of people receiving improvements had decreased, Mr Shorten said.

Earlier this week, AAP reported, Labor pledged to launch a sweeping review of the NDIS and provide better services for more than half a million Australians – including more than 10,000 people in the ACT – who rely on it for support.

Labor would raise the staffing cap; streamline the planning process; appoint a senior officer to deliver better services to regional areas; pause changes to supported independent living; investigate ways to cut red tape; and stop queues mounting for people with a disability finding appropriate housing.

Government mismanagement, Mr Shorten claimed, had led to a 400 per cent increase in NDIS decisions being taken to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the National Disability Insurance Agency spending $28 million in six months on legal fees.

“Labor will improve the National Disability Insurance Scheme,” Mr Shorten said yesterday. “We will restore trust. We will stop the unfair cuts. We’ll hire more people to work in the disability agencies, so that people needing advice can talk human beings and not digital portals or recorded phone messages. We’ll stop the unfair cuts; we’ll get rid of the red tape.

“We want every person in Canberra to receive the same sort of support that other people in Australia receive.”

Federal Government response

Senator Linda Reynolds, Minister for the NDIS, defended the scheme under the Morrison Government, including record investment in this year’s budget, and thought that another review would be unnecessary and cumbersome.

“The Morrison Government is providing record funding for disability services, which is only possible because we have a strong economy,” Senator Reynolds said.

“The economic insecurity offered by an Anthony Albanese is a real risk to this record funding.”

The Morrison Government, Senator Reynolds stated, has delivered year-on-year funding increases to this ‘world-leading’ scheme, growing from around $8 billion before the NDIS to $33.9 billion budgeted for 2022-23.

In the March 2022 Budget, the Liberal Nationals Government provided record investment in the NDIS of $157.8 billion over four years, Senator Reynolds said.

The average payments per participant had grown from $52,300 to $54,900 over the year to December (an 11.5 per cent increase).

Average plan budgets increased by 4.5 per cent per annum for all participants over the three years to December 2021.

As an insurance scheme, participant plans could go up or down dependent on the individual’s disability-related needs.

“Labor’s introduction of an additional layer of bureaucracy with “expert reviews” will slow down decisions for participants,” Senator Reynolds said.

“Labor’s promise for yet another review, on top of all the previous reviews, will add more uncertainty for participants and providers.

“Labor’s unfunded promise to remove the NDIA staffing cap and for another 380 NDIA staff needs to be properly accounted for in Labor’s policy costings.”

Canberrans waiting in hospital beds for NDIS funding

A Canberra amputee had been in hospital for six months, waiting for the NDIA to approve modifications to his home, the Canberra Times reported yesterday. That, Mr Shorten said, was “a scandal … an abuse” – and more than 1,000 other Australians who had been assessed as eligible to receive support were also in hospital beds, waiting for accommodation.

“The Federal Government, by not properly funding the NDIS, by not helping people who are profoundly and severely impaired, are actually costing taxpayers millions and millions of dollars,” Mr Shorten said. “It’s causing bed block in Canberra hospitals.”

If elected, Labor would “do a blitz” to move everyone ticked as able to be released from hospital and qualifying for the NDIS into appropriate accommodation, Mr Shorten promised.

“Accommodation which gives these people dignity, frees up scarce hospital beds, gives people a better quality of life, and also saves taxpayers a lot of money, which is currently being burned by incompetent federal government management.”

Local Labor politicians Alicia Payne MP, Member for Canberra, and Dr Andrew Leigh MP, Member for Fenner, joined Mr Shorten at the doorstop.

“I am so proud that a Labor government will fix the NDIS, and put people with disability at the centre of the scheme, where they always should have been,” Ms Payne said.

As a member of the Parliamentary Committee on the NDIS and a local MP, she had heard “countless heartbreaking stories” of people’s experiences with the NDIS.

“People who have to battle to get the most basic and obvious of supports; people who have waited completely unacceptable amounts of time to get things at the detriment of their own wellbeing; or in some cases, the detriment of children who needed supports.”

Similarly, Dr Leigh said many NDIS clients had come into his electorate office “frustrated because their packages have been cut, because their staff aren’t strong enough, because the agency just doesn’t get their problems, and is being clamped down by poor management and an arbitrary staffing cap”.

“We have heard of people traumatised by their experiences of dealing with the NDIS, and a Labor government would fix this – fix the way this scheme is being implemented that is destroying its very objectives at the moment.”

Have your say

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