The NDIS is not just flawed but utterly broken: Julie Cross

Shocking allegations of providers owing $10m to tax authorities, unpaid staff and neglect show the NDIS is a sorry state of affairs, and Aussies deserve better, writes Julie Cross.

Over the past two weeks shocking allegations about an NDIS provider tasked with looking after some of the most vulnerable people in the country have exposed a system that is not just flawed but utterly broken.

Cocoon SDA Care and its parent company Horizon SolSolutions have been under the spotlight after it was revealed the government was investigating it, and was withholding NDIS claims owed until further notice.

Withholding payments for services already rendered meant the company struggled to pay staff.

The result was that scores of support workers and other staff across the country were not paid for weeks. One, owed $13,000, said he couldn’t afford the bus fare for his kids to go to school. Another was forced to go to a food bank.

Cocoon SDA Care and its parent company Horizon SolSolutions are being investigated by the government.

After weeks of not getting paid, many, quite rightly, looked elsewhere for employment.

That of course meant that participants living in specialist accommodation were suddenly without their regular care workers.

One participant’s mum claimed just one agency support worker turned up instead of two, to look after her daughter, and on that shift she gained access to a knife, cut herself and ran into the road.

Meanwhile, the agency decided to slap a temporary ban on Horizon preventing it from providing some NDIS services, which left hundreds of people having to find a new provider, and in some cases move home.

Both the agency and the watchdog, reassured participants they would be supported during this transition.

One advocate claimed all they got was a list of phone numbers of providers.

Tanya-Lee Quinn, was CEO of Cocoon SDA Care for less than a week and tried to raise the alarm about the financial and compliance irregularities back in 2023. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Daily Telegraph

She said her client, a woman who had suffered a stroke, had a van and two men turn up to her property and remove the furniture and white goods – washing machine, dishwasher, microwave – that had come with her lease deal.

She managed to cling onto her fridge because she still had food in it.

But back to the company at the centre of all this.

This week a whistleblower – and former CEO – came forward to say she had warned former NDIS minister Bill Shorten’s office and the watchdog of her concerns about Cocoon, supplying them with a bombshell dossier – in 2023.

NDIS firm Cocoon SDA Care’s co-founder Zaffar Khan. Picture: LinkedIn

She alleged the company was in a financial mess, and investors not getting returns promised, as well as other irregularities.

A look at their latest financial report reveals Horizon owes the ATO almost $10m.

There were red flags everywhere.

Now it is emerging that those associated with Cocoon have been able to set up new companies and are allegedly transferring clients across. So, it’s business as usual then?

The biggest losers – apart from the taxpayers, the devoted carers and the mum and dad investors – are, of course, the people with a disability.

What an absolute farce.

Originally published as The NDIS is not just flawed but utterly broken: Julie Cross