Help four million not in NDIS, says Dylan Alcott

Australian of the Year wants better support for four million Australians with disabilities not eligible for NDIS.

Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott. Picture: Getty Images

Australian of the Year Dylan ­Alcott is calling on governments to give the four million Australians with disabilities not eligible for the NDIS better support and says the $32.9bn scheme should continue to grow if “demand says so”.

Mr Alcott will hand a report to NDIS Minister Bill Shorten on Tuesday warning that people with disabilities who are not on the NDIS face a “desert” when it comes to their support options, creating an all-or-nothing approach to the scheme.

Produced by Get Skilled Access – an organisation Mr Alcott founded to improve workplace inclusiveness – the report suggests overhauling the funding model for NDIS providers, elevating employment outcomes for people with disabilities and handing NDIS participants greater autonomy over the services they need.

Mr Shorten said it was a “quality report” and that he supported its principles. “The type of work put into this plan, this type of consultation, is crucial to the success of the NDIS and the Labor government’s work to rebuild trust in the scheme,” he said.

The report, titled NDIS 2.0, a disability-led plan for the NDIS,” warns that the insurance scheme was “supposed to be accompanied by a Tier 2 of community-based supports for people with disabilities who don’t have NDIS plans, but this has never fully happened”.

NDIS participants and individuals in the sector interviewed ­between May and June are quoted throughout the report, with some criticising state governments for winding down support after the ­establishment of the NDIS.

“A lot of the state funding that was there pre-NDIS, that’s all gone now,” said one. “What are the states doing to support in that area? They just go, ‘Well, we’ve offloaded over it to NDIS and if you don’t make the scheme, then you’re not supported’.”

The report also suggests an overhaul of the existing funding model for providers to encourage them to improve results for participants rather than just deliver services.

It argued that the NDIS has become too transactional and that government should trial “blended payment models”.

This would “allow participants to pay providers in another way ­instead of only fee-for-service.”

“For example, paying more for a provider who can demonstrate high quality service delivery, or paying a provider for meeting a participant’s needs for trust, stability, and relationships over a period of time instead of service-by-­service,” the report said.

To help reorientate the focus of the scheme back towards participants, the report suggests the government pursue a target of supporting “10,000 people with disability into open employment in five years, and reducing home & living application wait times to less than three months for all participants”.

Mr Alcott said he wanted to produce the report to promote the benefits of the NDIS, but also to “highlight some of the areas where it can be improved”.

“We want to make sure that no people with disability are left ­behind,” he said. “We don’t want all the attention to go to people that are on it (the NDIS) and other people to be forgotten about.”

The Paralympian said the focus on the scheme had become all about cost, despite data from progressive think tank Per Capita suggesting that for every $1 invested in the NDIS up to $2.25 of economic benefit was generated.

He said it was critical that funding for the scheme not be cut and that he’d be “shocked” if the government chose to target the NDIS to make savings in future budgets. “Obviously we don’t want any cuts, that’s a given,” he said.

“We want more and more ­people to be able to access the scheme and get the supports that they need. I would be very, very shocked if there were any cuts to the NDIS.

“If demand says it has to grow, it should grow.”

Investment in the NDIS is due to tip over $40bn a year by 2024-25 and reach almost $60bn by the end of the decade.