Complex NDIS likely to be delayed to get it right

NDIS chairman Bruce Bonyhady will drop the biggest hint yet that the $22 billion program could be delayed.

NATIONAL Disability Insurance Scheme chairman Bruce Bonyhady will drop the biggest hint yet that the $22 billion program could be delayed, even as the Queensland government quickens the pace on its planned 2016 rollout.

Mr Bonyhady will tell the National Press Club today that nothing should be done to jeopardise the ultimate success of the scheme just for the sake of meeting deadlines set before the scheme started.

He says adhering to government recommendations and other advice was a complex task.

“Build the scheme up too fast and allow demand to outstrip supply, and we risk failure by driving up costs through inflation and lowering service quality,’’ Mr Bonyhady said.

“Build it up too slowly and we will also fail people with disability, their families and carers.

“Therefore the only consideration in the mind of the board is to build it right, for future as well as current generations.’’

Although Queensland is trialling the NDIS last — behind other states — it is using the time to methodically prepare for the dramatic change in support systems.

Trials in other states and territories have been beset by incoherent planning, low price assumptions and some customers receiving less support than previously.

Informed of the mistakes in the scheme so far, many of which have haunted the bureaucracy based in Geelong, the Queensland government is giving agency staff and its own workers time to begin.

“Everyone wants to make sure that the NDIS rollout in Queensland from 2016 is as smooth and effective as possible,” Queensland Disability Services Minister Tracy Davis said.

Four extra staff members from the National Disability Insurance Agency will join the 70-strong Queensland government NDIS team in Brisbane and Townsville to determine the eligibility of current disability clients for the NDIS, build awareness about the trial and begin to draw detailed plans for the first regions to transfer to the scheme.

There are already more than 1100 Queenslanders using self-directed funding to buy disability supports.

The government has budgeted $868 million across the six years to 2018-19 for NDIS preparations.

In his address, Mr Bonyhady will highlight the many victories in the scheme, adding the “political system has acted magnificently” in support of it.

“The NDIS has withstood all of the searching tests set for it and reaffirmed people’s faith that our democracy can deliver what it has promised,” he said.

He will outline how the scheme is now within budget and has allocated 5400 individual packages with a satisfaction ­rating among its clients of 90 per cent.