New taskforce to advise on mandatory NDIS worker registration

Despite fears among some NDIS participants, the Albanese government is pushing ahead with plans to make the registration of NDIS service providers and workers mandatory.

Bill Shorten is backing the introduction of a new registration system for all NDIS service providers. Picture: iStock

Bill Shorten is backing the introduction of a new registration system for all NDIS service providers and workers, including more than 150,000 who currently unregistered, as a way to keep the $42bn scheme’s 630,000 participants safe and make spending more transparent.

The NDIS Minister has appointed a new taskforce to overhaul the registration of providers and workers, despite heavy resistance from some disability advocates who fear they will lose “choice and control” of how they manage their funding.

Mandatory registration was a key recommendation of the recent review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and Mr Shorten has asked the taskforce to work with the disability community to co-design a new model, then chart a course to deliver it.

The NDIS review proposed a “graduated” regulatory model according to the risk level of the support provided, with more intensive registration requirements for providers doing complex personal tasks and light touch regulation for those offering more hands-off support such as providing equipment or doing home modifications.

Mr Shorten made it clear he supported the idea of a “proportionate, risk-based registration system” for the NDIS that kept participants safe while maintaining their choice and control.

He said the planned change was to ensure “participants continue to receive quality supports that recognise their human rights and support their safety and quality of life … Australians also reasonably expect the government to know how funding is being spent, whether it’s the NDIS, Medicare or Centrelink.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

“We need to overhaul the current shoddy and inconsistent registration by making it more transparent and targeted to deliver quality and consistent outcomes that reach all groups of participants and providers.

“The NDIS is about people with disability, not making millions of dollars for some shonky providers,” Mr Shorten said.

The new taskforce will be chaired by disability advocate and lawyer Natalie Wade, and includes former ACCC chair Allan Fels, former ACTU assistant secretary Michael Borowick and former Northern Territory admini­strator Vicki O’Halloran.

Ms Wade said the taskforce was still looking at the question of whether all providers and workers needed to be registered, and to what extent. “The recommendation from the review is that all providers and workers be registered, but I’ll hear directly from Australians with disability from diverse and intersectional experiences and report to the minister accordingly,” she said.

Natalie Wade, new chair of the NDIS provider and worker registration task force. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Mariuz

“The taskforce is absolutely committed to ensuring choice and control of participants in the scheme, and acknowledges there are existing arrangements for people with disability and their families. We are committed to … hearing directly from them about how those arrangements can be upheld.”

The issue of mandatory registration of all NDIS workers and providers has been a contentious one. The NDIS review reported that in the three months to June last year, more than 154,000 unregistered providers received an NDIS payment compared with 16,000 registered providers,

It said the existing system was “leading to high-risk supports being delivered with little regulatory oversight … Most providers can opt out of registration (and it was) only mandatory for a limited number of high risk support types … the market of unregistered providers is larger than expected.”

Disability advocate George Taleporos, the independent chair of Every Australian Counts, has urged Mr Shorten to protect individualised arrangements in the NDIS, resist forcing participants to use registered providers and maintain an option to directly employ or engage their own support workers. “Please respect our rights to decide who comes into our homes and who touches our bodies,” he said.

The taskforce has been instructed to ensure new arrangements allow for a direct employment model.