Crackdown: Millions saved in exposed disability fraud schemes

A major crackdown of one of the government’s most expensive policies — the NDIS — has uncovered 35,000 dodgy payments.

More than $44m in dodgy claims have been saved from the National Disability Insurance Scheme in the past 12 months alone as the Commonwealth cracks down on major rorts in the program.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that almost 35,000 false or non-compliant payments were cancelled by the government between September 2021 and last month and almost $214m of the scheme’s total funding is being investigated or re-evaluated.

Another 41 fraud investigations are underway — with 13 in front of the courts — and almost 4800 people are expected to be impacted by potential fraud by disability services providers.

The major overhaul of the scheme came after NDIS Minister Bill Shorten vowed to bring the program’s mammoth budget “back on track”.

Questions have been repeatedly raised about the sustainability of the NDIS’s large budget with the previous government warning up to 10 per cent of the annual budget — equalling $2.87bn — was being lost to fraud.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten has vowed to bring the program “back on track”. Picture: Dylan Coker

The concerns prompted the federal budget commitment to establish a new Fraud Fusion Taskforce to work across agencies and stamp out rorts — including a trend that has seen professional fraudsters moving from exploiting childcare and fee-help programs to now exploiting the NDIS.

“For too long successive Liberal Governments sat on their hands while the worst kind of crooks stole money from the Scheme and Australians with disability, contributing to greater NDIS costs,” Mr Shorten said.

More than $44m have been saved in rorts from the NDIS. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

“The new Fraud Fusion Taskforce is empowered to help fight that scourge for taxpayers and for Australians with disability.

“People with disability and taxpayers will not tolerate goons ripping off deserving Australians. This should have happened years ago but I will get on with the job.”

The figures also revealed that public tip-offs relating to potential disability fraud have increased dramatically going from about 1,500 in 2017-2018 to more than 9,200 in 2021-2022.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers had foreshadowed a crackdown on wasteful spending in the NDIS ahead of last week’s budget — flagging the overall policy was set to cost $50bn in the near future.

“It’s going to hit $50 billion before long and it is one of the three biggest pressures on the Budget,” he said.

“We want to do the right thing by Australians with a disability. That means making sure that spending in the program is sustainable. We hope that this review that is being undertaken right now means we can improve the quality of the spending over time and then we’ll update the figures.”