Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme Linda Reynolds is calling for states and territories to increase their contribution to the scheme, arguing the program is coming over cost and was never intended to function as a “welfare scheme for life”.
But experts say there are several issues with Reynolds’ claim. Firstly, the NDIS is not welfare, and has never functioned as such. Secondly, there is limited data to explain the “cost blowout” the Coalition have complained about in recent months.
Where’s the evidence?
CEO of Physical Disability Council NSW Serena Ovens told Crikey the states would likely take issue with being told to pay more — especially on the basis of limited evidence. The scheme started out with a 50-50 financial split between the Commonwealth and the state and territory governments combined, though states and territory contributions were later capped at a 4% annual increase.
NSW, Ovens said, shoulders $3.2 billion a year as part of their obligation. Many state-run community disability and mental health services have been defunded to support the NDIS.
“If the NDIS truly is underfunded and everyone needs to put in more to make it work properly, we’d need absolute evidence on where the costs are and where the states are falling down,” she said.
“But we’re seeing huge numbers [of cost blowout] with no evidence at all.”
Reynolds and NDIS CEO Martin Hoffman previously pointed to the increase in average payments to NDIS participants rising from $39,600 to $52,300 between 2018 and 2020.
But this is in line with 2012 Australian Government Actuary estimates. The modelling estimated the NDIS would provide care to 441,000 people at a cost of $22 billion a year or $50,000 a person. There are 10,000 fewer people on the scheme than anticipated.
Ovens said it’s rare for someone to use 100% of their plan package value, reducing costs.
Reynolds also pointed to a drop in participants classified as “high functioning” and an increase in “low functioning” participants who need more support as proof the NDIS was failing. But data shows the number of participants categorised as low functioning remained steady at the time.
“Welfare system for life”
In order to be eligible for the NDIS, people have to prove they have a permanent disability. In short, the NDIS is largely supposed to be a lifelong support scheme.
Fewer people are exiting the NDIS as planned, a 2017 review by the Productivity Commission found — but this is because fewer are dying or entering residential aged care — which overall is a win, not a loss.
“[Reynolds] calling it a welfare scheme shows she misunderstands it,” Ovens said. “It’s an insurance scheme to allow people to have control and independence over their lives and be fully engaged and included in communities.”
Emeritus Professor at Sydney University’s Centre for Disability Studies Trevor Parmenter told Crikey the idea that some people would improve under the scheme was based on a very limited cohort.
“It was the idea that if a support scheme was introduced, support would enable people to not be influenced by the environmental causes of disability,” he said. This could include rehabilitation for physical injuries or support for some psychosocial disabilities.
“But it doesn’t work for blind people, people with Fragile X syndrome or many other disabilities,” he said, adding it wasn’t applicable to the NDIS. “The idea some people would cost less is ridiculous.”
People with disabilities are also living longer due to advances in health science and may experience physical or mental fragility earlier than the rest of the population, increasing support costs.
“This is where [Reynolds] doesn’t seem to understand the scheme and makes it out as failing,” he said.
“We don’t have anyone giving advice [to the government] who understands what disability means and how we can support them optimally and economically.”
Sydney University’s Trevor Parmenter said “This is where [Reynolds] doesn’t seem to understand the scheme and makes it out as failing…”
What a surprise. Upton Sinclair explained back in 1934: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Reynolds is not employed to make the NDIS succeed. Quite the opposite.
Yep, Gillard got the original NDIS up despite massive opposition from State & Federal Liberals. Another scheme the Libs are desperate to destroy.
Is there anything that this incompetent government touches that it doesn’t stuff up?
Short answer,no
That’s from our point of view. From theirs there have been no stuff ups. Putting the knee on the necks of disabled people and getting away with it has been glorious fun.
Reference the Prosperity Theology doctrine if you need further clues.
Absolutely. The Coalition never wanted the NDIS, never supported the aims or underlying philosophy of the NDIS and have been white anting it from day one.
And they’ve succeeded in dismantling the disability sector so well, and isolating services by making us compete with each other for the same buck from the same pay master, that they’ve silenced us beautifully and destroyed our ability to advocate for our clients.
It has indeed been glorious fun and a roaring success for them, and now here we are, back to calling people on disability support welfare bludgers.
The tragedy is those of us who have been on the frontlines in the industry for decades knew this would happen. We knew “choice” means sweet FA while ever some one else writes your menu and dictates your budget and now the dictator isn’t the big disability services like it used to be- it’s the Coalition government, composed of a bunch of religious horrors who believe disability is the result of god’s disfavour.
It sickens and enrages me.
I’ve heard quite a few Liberal voters say that they’re annoyed that the NDIS was ever implemented as there were never “funds” available for it… seems Liberal voters aren’t all that clued into how the Federal Government funds things… nothing is ever funded until the Govt decides to fund it…
Yep. The joy of being a sovereign currency issuer. And once created, that budget can be quietly…repurposed. To buy votes. In marginal electorates perhaps.
In their eyes, and the eyes of their corporate supporters, destroying the systems that support vulnerable people is not ‘stuffing up’.
FFS “…. never intended to function as a “welfare scheme for life” – ‘Permanent disability’ is a passing fad????
WTF is Reynolds on? “Incompetency Meds” – as well as our $tax?
What is she? Tin-man and the Scarecrow’s love child? Piss off and let someone with a brain and a heart have a go.
Like certain people who stood trial at Nuremberg in the late 1940’s, she is just following orders.
Maybe she just means “NDIS is our Morrison government’s welfare scheme for torture, deprivation, tribulation and suffering”?
“Robodebt for the even more vulnerable”?
For the Coalition, anything that is not a hand out to the private sector is welfare. Ironically the NDIS, which the Coalition had no interest in ever working, has made a number of private providers with Liberal connections very rich. I doubt Reynolds reads or understands much of what the Dept tells her and in turn they probably know what she wants to hear.
This touches on the nub of the matter. The Coalition follows A religion. No, not Morrison’s happy clappy one, where participants can feel proud that God is with them as they are with God. The religion is a political ideology about how best to run the economy. There are a number of principles to be followed: always ensure that you spend less in any area as time goes on. Why? Well this is done in manufacturing of various kinds, so this is what competition always produces. The facts are, of course, that spending less in some areas of manufacturing is done by reducing the quality of the product in ways that customers will not notice. The religion assumes that customers always know what they are buying, so this can’t happen. Nevertheless, it does. The result? Funding is squeezed in public education and public health services and in Medicare so that its costs are reduced over time but the sick pay more. This result is required in the NDIS too. How do you get it? You make sure most NDIS providers are private operators. The religion says that these always minimise their charges because they compete and you have to reduce prices to compete. In the real world, of course, firms in disability have no real competitors and they charge more. What does the religion demand? You must reduce costs? How? Reduce estimates of what people with disabilities need. In reality, this will reduce the quality of cover for disability, but Some paid experts might be willing to say the support suffices. After all, the religion says that experts have to compete and will not want to ruin their reputation. The net result is that the poor and vulnerable suffer from having less, while the wealthy get more. Would the Coalition not pursue the needy to get back more than they deserve or leave them be, as they left billions in the hands of businesses that did not need job keeper subsidies? What Australia needs is less religion and more grasp of realities.
Maybe it’s a “lifestyle choice “?
It is about time the Government’s statements about the NDIS are challenged.
It was atrocious that State Governments began cutting Community Mental Health Services so that funding could be shifted to help fund the State’s contribution to this new system. This is more disastrous when you realise the NDIS was not originally designed with Mental Health Criteria and the ‘catch up’ patching up still excludes people who used the Community Services that have been defunded. I remember the Health Department operatives nearly wetting themselves with the excitement that State Mental Health money could be diverted to other health services. They did not understand that it would be ‘lost’ and the only people rubbing their hands were people in Treasury, since more was to be withdrawn from Mental Health than was going to NDIS contributions. Both State and Federal incompetence contribute yet again to poor Mental Health Support Services, with the Federal Government most at fault with their added lack of contribution to the direct financial support and the draconian behaviour coming out of the CentreLink system.
These people mostly end up in prison. It costs more but it’s a different dept and budget, and looks like toughness on crime for the pollies.
We should try to play the ball, not the person, as far as we can anyway.
Wikipedia advises Reynolds enlisted in the Australian Army Reserve in 1984, aged 19.[5] She served variously as an officer cadet, regional logistics officer, training development officer, military instructor at the Army Command and Staff College, commanding officer of the 5th Combat Service Support Battalion, director of the Active Standby Staff Group, project director at the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, strategy development director of Raytheon Australia, director of the Accountability Model Implementation Project, and director of the Army Strategic Reform Program. She was adjutant general of the Army Reserve from 2012 to 2013.[1] She was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in the 2011 Australia Day Honours for “outstanding achievement as the Director of Army Strategic Reform Program coordination”.[7] On attaining the rank of brigadier in 2012, Reynolds became the first woman in the Australian Army Reserve to be promoted to a star rank.[8] … (and) Reynolds was elected to the Senate at the 2013 federal election from third position on the Liberal Party’s ticket in Western Australia. However, her position was placed in doubt when the High Court ordered a fresh half-Senate election after determining that there were missing ballot papers.[9] Reynolds was successful in the re-run and her Senate term commenced on 1 July 2014.[10] She was subsequently re-elected to the Senate at the 2016 federal election and the 2019 federal election, leading the Liberal Party’s ticket in the latter. She chaired a number of Senate committees prior to her elevation to the ministry in 2018.[1]
So we might guess that Ms Reynolds is highly competent (including achieving the rank of Brigadier) while also having an excellent understanding of knowing one’s place and taking orders in a boys’ world. But we might also guess that her skills and experience are rendered virtually useless by virtue of being female in the current LNP setup (much as we see and hear almost nothing from say Marise Payne or Karen Andrews or Michaelia Cash).
On top of which all care sectors (ageing, disability and child) were corporatised a long time before Ms Reynold’s appointment to NDIS. These days, the marketing and real estate and vehicle fleet are fabulous, but who even remembers what support and care used to be? Unless Ms Reynolds’ ministry comes with a wand, it seems more likely she (and Ms Cash, Andrews, Payne et alia) get to serve only as the female fall guys for any problems Mr Morrison might strike in their ministries.
Plus we know so well nothing bugs the LNP quite as much as spending on peoples’ need: if any of us has a need, we may be sure the LNP is coming for us. (As for the other parties, myself, I don’t think they would do much differently.)
The best Smirky has is the Sceecher as AG! Now that is telling you everything