Julia Gillard defends troubled $22 billion NDIS

Julia Gillard has launched a strident defence of the troubled $22 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Julia Gillard: “Ground-breaking societal change takes time to get right”. Picture: Julie Kiriacoudis

Julia Gillard has launched a strident defence of the troubled $22 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme, declaring it ranks alongside Medicare and compulsory superannuation as the nation’s greatest social reforms.

The former Labor prime minister defended the rollout of the NDIS against criticisms that it has been rushed at the expense of quality and that it faces potentially massive cost blowouts.

In a speech tonight in Perth entitled “Great reform requires courage”, she said her government had been prepared to find hard savings needed to fund the “costly” scheme.

“Budget choices are one way of demonstrating what you believe in and prioritise,” she said.

“Landmark policies, groundbreaking societal change, takes time to get right and become a valued part of our society. There will always be challenges along the way but that doesn’t mean we should falter.”

Ms Gillard also took aim at criticisms — including by the nation’s leading mental health advocate Patrick McGorry — that the NDIS should not have included mental health support.

Professor McGorry, a former Australian of the Year, has said the mental health sector should never have been shoehorned into the NDIS because it had been designed primarily for people with physical disabilities.

Ms Gillard, who will take over the chairmanship of mental health advocacy group Beyond Blue from former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett within days, said the NDIS was never intended to replace the mental health system.

“Some have contended that including mental health in the NDIS was a mistake: it was not,” she said.

“But it is a decision that will require time, flexibility, transparency and co-operation across governments to get right.

“The NDIS is still being rolled out so the time is right to continue to raise concerns, debate the detail and identify potential gaps in the system before they are cemented.

“That’s why the government I led always envisaged starting the NDIS through launch sites and learning lessons on roll out along the way.”

The Productivity Commission warned this month that the Gillard government’s “highly ambitious” rollout schedule for the NDIS was already compromising the quality of care offered to participants.

It also warned the program was facing a litany of cost pressures because more children than expected were signing up to the scheme.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter admitted the NDIS was facing a “whole range of challenges” to deliver services on time and on budget, warning that the tight schedule was an ­“estimate” from Labor’s last year in government.

Ms Gillard was delivering the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library anniversary lecture at Perth’s Curtin University.