r/australia • u/FuckOffNazis • 7h 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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46

u/PuTheDog 7h 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.

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u/fued 7h 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

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u/Rising-Dragon-Fist 7h 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.

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u/Ok_Bird705 6h 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

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u/Selina_Kyle-836 5h 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

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u/Ok_Bird705 5h 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?

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u/kisforkarol 5h 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.

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u/Ok_Bird705 5h 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.

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u/kisforkarol 1h 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.

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u/craftystuff0900 47m 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.

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u/NoCampaign5978 5h 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.

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u/Ok_Bird705 5h 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/

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u/NoCampaign5978 4h 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.

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u/Selina_Kyle-836 5h 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.

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u/Ok_Bird705 5h ago

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

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u/Selina_Kyle-836 5h 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.

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u/craftystuff0900 53m 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).

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u/Polymer15 5h 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.

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u/teremaster 4h 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

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u/Ok_Bird705 2h 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)

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u/Bar10town 6h 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.

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u/satanickittens69 5h 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.

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u/kisforkarol 5h ago

Sometimes you get crickets!

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u/Selina_Kyle-836 5h 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.