‘Dodgy data’ blamed for NDIS underspend

NDIS Minister Stuart Robert has blamed a $4.6bn underspend on dodgy data.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Minister Stuart Robert. Picture: AAP

National Disability Insurance Scheme Minister Stuart Robert has blamed a $4.6bn underspend on dodgy data, after Labor launched an attack claiming Australians with a disability were “propping up” the budget.

Spending on the NDIS more than doubled in 2018-19 compared to the previous year, ­according to the final budget outcome released on Thursday, increasing from $4bn to $8.5bn.

But the government had estimated it would spend $13.1bn on NDIS packages in the last financial year.

Mr Robert said data from the states and territories had anticipated 302,000 Australians would have transitioned from existing programs to the NDIS but in ­reality that figure was 100,000 less than originally estimated.

That data, he said, had been “wrong” or some participants had been double counted — contributing to the underspend.

At the same time, participants were spending on average 47 per cent of their NDIS budgets in the first year of their plan and 75 per cent in the fifth year.

Opposition NDIS spokesman Bill Shorten declared families and people with disabilities would be “furious to discover they are subsidising the government’s budget” and maintained the attack in question time.

“I refer to nine-year-old Angus,” Mr Shorten said. “His family were left to transport him around the family farm in a wheelbarrow because the ­National Disability Insurance Scheme could not approve and provide him with a wheelchair for 12 months. Isn’t Angus just one victim of the government’s $4.6bn underspend on the ­National Disability Insurance Scheme?”

Josh Frydenberg said the NDIS was a demand-driven program and every approved plan would be fully funded.

“There are now 300,000 people in the NDIS, over 100,000 of whom are getting support for the first time. 115,000 people came onto the NDIS in the last year alone,” the Treasurer said.