State Lib hits out at ‘toxic’ sniping over NDIS’s ‘failure’

Rumours and speculation on the funding and cost of the $22bn NDIS are ‘toxic’, says the NSW minister responsible.

‘Rumours and speculation are toxic’: NSW Minister for Disability Services John Ajaka. Picture: Phillip Rogers

Rumours and speculation on the funding and cost of the $22 billion National Disabil­ity Insur­ance Scheme are “toxic”, accord­ing to the minister responsible for delivering it in NSW, who has taken a thinly veiled swipe at his federal colleagues.

Responding to a jittery federal­ government, John Ajaka, the NSW Disability Services Minister, writes in The Australian today that it is “crucial that people­ with disability, their families­ and service providers have certainty”.

“Based on some of the recent critical commentary on the scheme, you could be forgiven for thinking that on the whole the NDIS was failing,” he writes.

“That the NDIS was being overwhelmed, that is was costing too much money or that it was set to fail. I want to assure people that this is not the case. Rumours and speculation are toxic.

“They undermine the trans­ition and erode confidence in the scheme. The NSW government’s commitment to the NDIS is rock-solid. And that will not change.”

In the NSW Hunter region, where the scheme has been trialled, 23 per cent of participants have autism compared with the scheme’s actuarial projections of 19 per cent.

The average annualised cost of support plans in the Hunter was $42,959 at the end of Novembe­r, excluding large residential institution costs.

This is about $7000 higher than the average package cost across all trial sites around the nation of $34,083 at the end of last year. The benchmark average­ package cost, including inflation, is $38,588 in 2015-16.

The average cost of supported accommodation in NSW is $240,000 a year; in the Northern Territory it was about $300,000.

New data released by the NDIS agency this week shows 110 per cent of the agreed funding envelope was committed in support in 2014-15, or $502.4 million across the country.

So far in 2015-16, $722.1m has been committed, which is about 83 per cent of the agreed figure by the end of July. “Due to the phasing of participants into the scheme during the trial period, comparing committed support with the bilateral agreement does not reflect full scheme costs,” the NDIS report says.

During Senate estim­ates yesterday the agency bosses said the NDIS was running as planned.

Victorian Disability Minister Martin Foley told a conference last night that next month’s meeting of ministers was “the last” true chance to lock in the NDIS as planned: “This is the year the federal government needs to step up and work with the states, people with disabilit­ies, their families and their organ­isations to achieve this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”