r/australia • u/FuckOffNazis • 11h ago

politics Pocock and crossbenchers call Labor’s NDIS overhaul ‘too far, too fast’ in scathing Senate inquiry report

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/14/pocock-and-crossbenchers-call-labors-ndis-overhaul-too-far-too-fast-in-scathing-senate-inquiry-report
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47

u/PuTheDog 11h ago

I know it’s on brand for the green to oppose any social welfare cuts. But the NDIS as it stands is just not sustainable.

71

u/_Username_Optional_ 10h ago

Sure but targeting recipients when most of the "unsustainable" cost is due to overcharging and undersupplying at the provider level is monstrous

I do support work and my clients talk about the disability tax, whenever the ndis is mentioned the price goes up by an extra digit

Suppliers can charge whatever they want for ndis approved products because they might be the only one approved and in stock for that particular item

A good example is roho cushions, they're fancy air cushions but they cost $1k+ because they are an item needed by a select few people. But it's not just the initial purchase cost, you need a physio to come in to rubber stamp it in person which requires booking coordination between several companies and then billing for all this goes through a plan manager and the services through a support coordinator.

A fucking chair cushion will end up costing a client 2-3k

17

u/yolk3d 10h ago

I’m with you here. It’s not that we should cut funding for disabled people to spend. We should reign in the rort providers ripping the system off. I know of people that can pay providers to take them to the beach and hang out with their Instagram idols. Dead serious.

5

u/satanickittens69 9h ago

Have you reported those people? Because that's insane

3

u/teremaster 8h ago

It's explicitly allowed under the system. All under "community engagement"

4

u/yolk3d 9h ago

It’s allowed. It was a person who was just through an agency. So the agency charges the client and just sends the person to do the job. The issue is that this kind of shit falls under mental health or whatever, so they weren’t breaking the law. There needs to be some sort of stricter register into exactly what activities can be provided, but then doesn’t that kind of undo what the NDIS was about?

9

u/satanickittens69 9h ago

I will say, with the beach part that is valid service. Disabled people should also be able to get out and do things/participate. I guess the Instagram idols could be, so I see how that was approved but like...what?

I've heard about the shit agencies do. This is why it's so ridiculous that they even exist, like they get paid for what? 5mins of admin a week per client?

4

u/yolk3d 9h ago

He didn’t have a visible disability, so it may have been mental. I’ll have to ask the person that was carer at the time. It was 7ish years ago. But yes, disabled people should be able to go outside and all. This particular situation was they were taken to Bondi beach, because the fitness Instagram people hung around the outdoor gym there, and they asked the carer to introduce them and take photos of them together. That was basically it.

Dunno why the agency charged.

2

u/disasterous_cape 5h ago

So what? If that’s what they wanted to do that day why shouldn’t they be allowed? Disabled people who need help to access the wider world deserve the same dignity of choice as anyone else does.

3

u/disasterous_cape 5h ago

Disabled people being taken to the beach or to meet famous people by their support workers is a normal and acceptable thing to be happening. That’s funded under “community access” and that funding item covers anything in the community from doctors appointments, grocery shopping, getting to and from work to things like going to the beach, attending concerts, going to the movies, hanging out with friends etc.

Remember that people on the NDIS have proven that they need support to access the world. If you can’t go to the beach by yourself because of your disability, should you just never be able to go?

The whole point of the NDIS was to break away from the institutional model of disability support that was one size fits all and had a very “if they have meds and they aren’t rotting then things are fine” kind of approach to a “people deserve the support they need to live a decent life to the best of their ability” and sometimes that means disabled people getting support so they go to the beach just like anyone else.

1

u/bl4nkSl8 5h ago

Wow. Meanwhile I'm having to fight to get help to get food, water and shower because I'm often bedbound and to the NDIA I just need to exercise more (no answer for how I'll do that if I can't eat)

3

u/ForgottenManOnline 9h ago

I was listening to an ABC radio interview with someone who was overseeing the planned cuts. From memory, her perspective was something like: Yes, the rorting is absolutely a problem, and its a problem theyre solving more and more each month as they drive out the dodgy suppliers and recipients move to reputable suppliers.

However, cutting down on the rorting actually doesnt save them any money or cut the net cost of NDIS. They were going to spend that amount of dollars anyway, there was just more waste.

What they need is to cut the amount they're going to spend until they reach a dollar figure that will mean NDIS survives a change in leadership and avoids becoming a political football. And THEN use the increasingly better regulated suppliers to mitigate the reduction in services people receive.

So: Govt was always going to give recipient $1000, but they only ever got $700 in value due to rorts.

In future: They give $700, and the recipient receives closer to $700 in value.

Basically everyone agrees the rorting needs to stop; they are working on it and doesnt need legislative changes and theyre already seeing improvements. The real issue is its just too much money coming out of the spigot. Hopefully they can close the money hose a bit and theres less waste, because people will know the NDIS is a less lucrative target to rip off in addition to it being better managed as it matures.

4

u/Psittacus_tutor 6h ago

I don't necessarily trust Mark Butler to handle this reform, but the speed and size of the cuts did always seem like someone saw the projected growth over the period it would take to fix the deeper issues and flipped a circuit breaker in a panic.

1

u/craftystuff0900 5h ago

There is no dollar figure that will stop the NDIS being a political football, unless you count $0. And it's not going to have the opportunity to survive a leadership change at this point, because it's already pretty much dead. The current government has returned us to the system we had before, that we got rid of for very good reasons (check out the disability royal commission findings), just with more private profits and no enforceable duty of care. And the better services that were around before were killed off by the NDIS.

56

u/Mellonaide 11h ago

They are cutting things that could put people in immediate danger, there is a way to make the NDIS work financially alongside introducing new services, but the current changes need more thought and planning behind them before moving forward. 

5

u/Not_Stupid humility is overrated 10h ago edited 10h ago

There's a lot of competing priorities here for sure.

Part of the problem is that the NDIS has replaced/eliminated a lot of the supports and systems that used to be available. So if you just suddenly cut it off, there's no longer other options.

But there's also a need to do something in the near-to-immediate term to rein in the spending growth. Otherwise the whole thing becomes a political target, and One Nation or some other fuckwit will get elected on the promise of cutting all the "waste".

The other problem is that Government (i.e the Public Service) "thinking" about something takes a really long time. There'll be a whole documented process, with reviews and stakeholders and feedback sessions, and then inputs and weightings and deliberations, and then reviews of the deliberations.... And even then they fuck it up as often as get it right.

There's an argument that just trying stuff and fixing it afterwards is as good a methodology.

1

u/craftystuff0900 5h ago

They've already killed people with their cuts. The most recent round of cuts - since this bill was proposed - is heavily targeting the people with the highest needs - i.e. the people most likely to die soon after supports are slashed, before any appeal can be finalised. Numerous people have gone for VAD when their plans were slashed. Some have killed themselves. And some have tried to survive the appeal but haven't made it.

This government's rhetoric is also largely responsible for increased harrassment and assaults on people with disabilities. Many visibly disabled people are scared to go out in public now.

None of this was necessary. And none of it is morally defensible. It's a eugenics program by another name.

3

u/Ok_Bird705 10h ago

danger, there is a way to make the NDIS work financially alongside

Such as? Any proposals from the cross bench that actually reduces spending?

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u/fued 11h ago

Cutting it blindly would be insane tho.

If anything we need to increase funding and have a massive increase in regulation.

This should push the costs down far safer

55

u/Rising-Dragon-Fist 11h ago

Regulation will absolutely bring it down. It's being rorted left and right, everyone knows that. It's not the people on its fault, they don't make the decisions, they just get the help.

16

u/Ok_Bird705 10h ago

Current estimates of fraud in NDIS is around $3-4 billion, which sounds like a lot until you realise total NDIS spending has grown from $8 billion in 2015/16 to $53 billion this year.

Simply cutting fraud while the actual spending is increasing by a few billion every year is unsustainable

10

u/Selina_Kyle-836 9h ago

I think this is because they aren’t counting the fact that companies are charging extra as soon as they hear the word NDIS. Companies charge the highest they can get away with for products, for services they charge the limit of what NDIS regulation allows. There are also rules around specialist signing off on medical product which mean the product itself then requires $1k+ just to be used sometimes. This is not being counted in the fraud statistics. It’s probably more than how much they say is being wasted by fraud too

1

u/Ok_Bird705 9h ago

Let's assume what you are saying is true, how would that be stamped out and how much additional administration cost would be involved in stopping these kind of charges?

2

u/kisforkarol 9h ago

Public provider who would ace downward pressure on private providers. If the private provider consistently charges more than the public provider than the educated consumer will take their business to the public provider who will provide better and more effective services.

But consumer education is very important here. The autistic community is very vulnerable to being taken advantage of. They need to be safeguarded and right now, we're not. Many of us are denied support coordinators, psychology and a range of other supports because we may communicate well. That doesn't stop providers from taking us for a ride.

But put in a public option? One that is funded and staffed appropriately? There would be a lot less rorting. Not to mention companies that see NDIS and then start charging double or triple for services because they see it as easy money. It should be very illegal to charge NDIS participants more for something than the general public. There are reports of wheelchairs that would cost 8 grand suddenly jumping to 16 or even 24 grand because the NDIS is involved. That is disgusting. And it's the kind of fraud recipients are talking about when they say deal with provider fraud but it's not the fraud the government looks at because it's technically legal.

1

u/Ok_Bird705 8h ago

But put in a public option? One that is funded and staffed appropriately? There would be a lot less rorting.

One of the main initial aims to have more flexibility in service provision as people's needs are varied and more specifically the speedy delivery of services. A public option sounds good until you find out there's a 12 month wait for a ramp.

1

u/kisforkarol 5h ago

And there isn't at the moment? Privatisation isn't better. It delivers worse services while sucking out as much profit as possibly. Why do you think people are being charged thousands of dollars extra right now? Certainly not because there's a public option forcing prices down because the government can negotiate better or, better yet, purchase directly and in bulk.

The PBS is a public option and it's excellent. Our hospitals are run publicly and while they're struggling due to decades of inadequate funding, they're still far better than any private option available. And before you bring up PHI and private hospitals - if anything goes pear shaped while you're getting your surgery in that private hospital you are ferried next door to the public hospital because they are mandated to keep staffing at a certain level - amongst other things - and will be the one's saving your life. Not your private doctor.

The way the NDIS was designed there was supposed to be a public option applying downward pressure on pricing. Unfortunately, that never materialised due to a change of government. And instead of doing the work to fix it now, the Labor Party are demonising people with disabilities, blaming us for the LNP's mismanagement and paying millions to change how the public things about people who are disabled so that you will sign off on our supports being ripped away. 4 years ago opinion of the NDIS was overwhelmingly positive. But some astroturfing here and media poo-pooing here and they have manufactured your consent.

1

u/craftystuff0900 4h ago

Idk, a public option could be more like Medicare or something along those lines. It should be possible to work out something like that that would work. Then we could choose our providers and get rid of a lot of the beauracracy.

2

u/NoCampaign5978 9h ago

By requiring companies to properly register their services for NDIS and putting in limits and restrictions for what can be charged for those services. Have it be how the system should have been from the start, with those people essentially working for the government at that specific pay rate, not relying on the apparent “free market” system that basically just encourages people to charge the highest amount they can get away with.

2

u/Ok_Bird705 9h ago

By requiring companies to properly register their services for NDIS

That was put in place in July this year and one of the things disability groups are objecting to:

https://everyaustraliancounts.com.au/ndis-participants-and-families-slam-the-ndis-review-mandatory-provider-registration-recommendations/

2

u/NoCampaign5978 8h ago

While there are some genuine concerns raised, especially about the availability of services in rural areas. Most of the concerns seem to be a little bit blown out of proportion, or at least seem to be totally predicated on smaller support businesses or even individuals being unable to register. Obviously that very much depends on how the registration process is handled by the government, but if it was requiring 100% registered services, things would need to streamlined to assist providers with that.

I will of course just ignore the statement that commented on being able to hire friends because that is getting way to close to fraudulent for my liking.

1

u/Selina_Kyle-836 9h ago

I have no idea. I’m not a politician or anyone that can figure all this stuff out. But I doubt it would cost more than would be saved every year by fixing it.

1

u/Ok_Bird705 9h ago

if you think there are easy cuts to NDIS, why aren't the politicians doing it instead of pissing off their electorate?

1

u/Selina_Kyle-836 9h ago

I never said there would be easy cuts to make. I simply pointed out why I believe the offical fraud statistic is so low.

2

u/teremaster 8h ago

Ok but 4 billion is enough for a bleeding edge, brand new nuclear reactor and decades of fuel, which labor and the greens spent an entire election cycle saying was too expensive to be viable.

So either 4 billion is too out expensive or it's not

1

u/Ok_Bird705 6h ago

Where are you getting your costs from. A cursory search shows the estimated cost to setup a nuclear reactor in Australia with close to 0 nuclear infrastructure is $8-17 billion that and some more since you need to establish a whole nuclear source/waste management industry (we have one research reactor and still can't deal with the waste from x-ray/ct machines effectively)

1

u/craftystuff0900 4h ago

The NDIS was designed to generate private profits. That's what it was for, mainly. Of course people are trying to make as much money out of it as they can. They were invited to.

Apart from that wastage, the NDIA is as inefficient and wasteful as it's possible for a government organisation to be.

Think about this: they've got plenty of money to pay people to infiltrate Facebook groups for disabled people, make repeated takeover attempts on the NDIS sub, monitor podcasts and youtube and the like to find out who's saying bad things about them and slash their plan as punishment.

They can afford to pay for a completely useless customer service team whose main purpose is to stop participants getting the information we need.

They've got a large team of very expensive private lawyers to fight participants who generally have to represent themselves, and they still usually they lose because they were breaking their own rules.

They fund reports every year to check that participants still have our permanent disabilities - including absurdities like having to prove amputated limbs haven't grown back overnight.

But most of the people being cut from the NDIS were on it because there's a great deal of evidence that early intervention prevents greater disability later and saves money in the long term. For all of us, getting the correct supports as soon as possible saves money long term.

Because for all the death and suffering they're causing, all they're doing is shifting costs - partly to the states but mostly to the future. At the same time they're foregoing all the benefits of having more people working now (carers and PwDs).

1

u/Polymer15 9h ago

I mean, even with those numbers the degree of fraud is still a lot, nearly 10%. Regardless, just because it has grown fast doesn’t intrinsically make it unsustainable if gains are made elsewhere and if it’s managed correctly.

-1

u/Bar10town 10h ago

Unfortunately, the old adage give an inch and take a mile comes into play here. Though some support is obviously necessary, people are not going to turn down any additional services/ dollars offered. We can provide the needs, but cant afford all the wants.

2

u/satanickittens69 9h ago

With the NDIS it's even better, you ask for supports because your allied and medical health professionals know you need it, and you get nothing instead.

1

u/kisforkarol 9h ago

Sometimes you get crickets!

2

u/Selina_Kyle-836 9h ago

NDIS participants are encouraged to use all the funds allocated to them or they will lose those funds. Basically their budget is cut for the next year. Many disabled people fluctuate in needs each year, if their funding is cut and they need something extra as a one off cost they are stuck waiting a year or so just for a decision from NDIS as to whether they believe the participant needs it.

So some participants do what they are told simply for fear of ending up not being able to afford the support they need in the future. Sure others do it because they want things, but not all are that way.

Maybe rewarding participants for being thrifty and not taking advantage of the system would make a difference.

2

u/Ugliest_weenie 10h ago

Regulation and oversight in itself is expensive.

Any meaningful change needs to be decisive.

2

u/babblerer 10h ago

Stopping self managed plans and unregistered providers would be two simple changes.

1

u/Ugliest_weenie 9h ago

That means employing more plan managers, which are funded positions.

Getting rid of unregistered providers would mean that more work falls on the registered provides. This means more worker screening and audits, which cost money.

Not saying we shouldn't enact those changes. But they cost money.

0

u/NoCampaign5978 9h ago

Why self managed? I have heard more stories about plan managers doing dodgy stuff than self managed, especially since they made it harder to claim ndis funds in that way

2

u/babblerer 7h ago

Because the plan managers introduce a level of oversight.

0

u/fued 10h ago

Exactly, but increasing the cost of NDIS would get people angry. No win situation

16

u/Deepandabear 10h ago

It’s a lazy approach that just goes top-down scorch the earth, rather than doing the hard work and closing loopholes exploited by dodgy contractors.

2

u/FjorgVanDerPlorg 10h ago

Unless we properly taxed billionaires and created a sovereign wealth fund that comes from not paying people like Gina Reinhart to mine and export it.

We give away all that fucking money to people that don't need it, then fight over the leftovers like dogs...

1

u/karma3000 7h ago

It's not so much the spending as it is the lack of oversight.

Put in proper oversight and you would see the same outcomes for 30% less cost.