NDIS provider says scheme improved service ‘choice’ but not access

The NDIS has improved service choice for Territorians living with disability but has not improved access, a major provider says. Here’s how the Disabilities minister hopes to rectify the problem.

The chief executive of Central Australia’s oldest disability services provider says the NDIS launch a decade ago brought “more choice” to Territorians but it did not resolve access issues.

Rachel Choy said Mparntwe-based Casa Services was founded by a group of concerned parents in 1976 and would help Territorians living with disabilities “pre, post and during NDIS”.

But centralised service access was not always equivalent to ease of access.

“If you’re prepared to come to a centre like Alice Springs or Darwin, it obviously makes it easier to access services but if you want to live on Country, in community, it becomes far more difficult for Territorians to access services,” Ms Choy said.

“If they’re prepared to move off Country and live here, it’s easier for them but because it’s a remote area (and) it’s hard to attract people here, they still miss out on some services.

“There’s a very long waiting list for any sort of therapeutic or allied health services.”

Ms Choy said there was “no silver bullet” to make the NDIS more effective for remote participants but was optimistic in light of the current review of the scheme.

“I think the thing to understand about the NDIS, first of all, is it is actually working but it’s not working as well as it could for everyone,” she said.

“One of the biggest barriers is knowledge and when you lack knowledge, you can’t have informed choices.”

Disabilities minister Ngaree Ah Kit – who last month travelled to Maningrida alongside NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commissioner Tracy Mackey and key architect Bruce Bonyhady – hopes to support communities by bridging that gap.

“I’m open to innovative ways of working and things that haven’t been done before, because we’re the Territory,” she said.

“Can we support the community to get to a stage where they’re able to tap into all of that information, where the NDIS instead of being solely legally responsible for all participants, can they do that in partnership with the community if an entity is set up in the appropriate way?”

Disabilities minister Ngaree Ah Kit said she hoped to equip remote communities with enough knowledge of the NDIS to support them in creating tailored community plans. Picture Glenn Campbell

Ms Ah Kit said equipping remote communities with the knowledge to develop tailored plans would be key to making the scheme work for remote participants.

“The end game will be a community plan that the community – through an oversight mechanism – can hold us all to account to ensure everyone is delivering and doing what they should because they’re the ones on the ground,” she said.

“They’re the closest to the people living with disability and they’re the ones best placed to say, ‘Minister, you’re not doing what you said you would’ or ‘what you’re doing isn’t having the desired effect, how can we sit and try and fix that?’”

Ms Ah Kit said she was not putting a firm time frame on formulating community plans for NDIS participants.

In choosing two remote communities – Maningrida in the Top End and Yuendumu in Central Australia – for an NT-based deep dive, she hopes to formulate a “way forward to get the NDIS sorted”.

“I don’t want to take all the time in the world but we’ve got to make sure we get it right,” she said.

Originally published as NDIS provider says scheme improved service ‘choice’ but not access