Advocates say ‘hard lines’ must be put down for states to deliver foundational supports

Bill Shorten must introduce ‘hard lines’ for states and territories if they fail to stump up on foundational supports for people with disability outside the NDIS, advocates say.

People with Disability Australia President, Nicole Lee. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Bill Shorten must introduce “hard lines” for states and territories if they fail to stump up on foundational supports for people with disability outside the NDIS, advocates say.

While the NDIS Minister touted the “goodwill” of states and territories in delivering on the expanded foundational supports recommended by a review into the $42bn scheme to stop it becoming the only lifeboat in the ocean, advocates warned relying on a collaborative approach may not be enough.

“Ultimately there needs to be some hard lines at the end of that if (states) are really dragging their heels and not wanting to engage,” People with Disability Australia president Nicole Lee said.

States and territories agreed on Wednesday to fund 50 per cent of additional foundation supports – including schools and childcare centres – that could provide services to people with disability rather than them relying on the NDIS.

The 50-50 funding agreement was one of 26 recommendations by the NDIS Review, which also scrapped automatic access to the scheme based purely on medical diagnosis. This would mean the diagnosis of a condition, such as autism, does not guarantee access to the NDIS.

Despite this change in how people would be assessed for the NDIS, Ms Lee said “there was no indication” from the review or from government that there would be a concerted effort to push people off the scheme.

She said she considered the five-year time frame for the recommended reforms “ambitious”.

Children and Young People with Disability Australia CEO Skye Kakoschke-Moore said it would not surprise her if parents of children with autism would “feel like they are still lacking clarity” after the review’s release, given concern over the ballooning of the scheme as hundreds of thousands of children with autism joined it.

RMIT social economy professor David Hayward said he was disappointed by the review, which he said confirmed the NDIS would remain “a fiscal sink hole”.

“Rather than offering solutions it is effectively recommending more of the same when what is needed is wholesale reform,” he said. “The review is full of ideas for reform involving new forms, new types of bureaucracy and bureaucrats with new names, as well as more funding; for example, on foundational supports.

“It does not explain how all of this new bureaucracy and funding will lead to … value for taxpayers’ money rather than more revenue for private providers who can keep rorting the system.”

Grattan Institute disability program director Sam Bennett said while the review’s reform directions were “broadly the right ones, … they were a very long way from being implementable”.

“The review says key legislated terms need to be defined, rather than defining them. It recommends new assessment processes are developed and trialled without saying what they should be.

“And it recommends an implementation road map is put in place rather than actually providing one.”