NDIS chief calls for slow phase-in

THE Abbott government will consider slowing the rate at which new users come into the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

THE Abbott government will consider slowing the rate at which new users come into the National Disability Insurance Scheme as a way to deliver the project without having to tear up agreements already struck with the states and territories.

The Australian understands this is the option favoured by the NDIS agency board.

Under the proposal, likely to be recommended to the federal government by agency chairman Bruce Bonyhady in the next month, the government would put the brakes on the acceleration of the scheme from 30,000 people covered across the life of the trial sites to the 400,000 total due to be covered by July 2019.

The government maintains it will not make a final decision until it receives the formal recommendation. “Our task is to create an organisation capable of moving from zero staff to potentially several thousand, and from zero participants to some 400,000,” Mr Bonyhady told the National Press Club yesterday.

He was quick to claim, however, that any tinkering to the phasing-in would not amount to a delay. The start date of the full scheme in 2019 would remain, for example, unaltered.

“We are not talking about delay of this scheme. We are not talking about a slower rollout; what we are talking about is how quickly we can accelerate to those 400,000. We want to know what is the best way to get those 400,000 into the scheme?

“There are aspects of the scheme we think we can bring forward, such as investment in housing, but the other aspects really depend on how quickly the market delivers. We’re not sitting still about that, either.”

The Australian understands the proposal to fine-tune the jump from 30,000 to 400,000 can be done within the current intergovernmental agreements and the legislation.

Assistant Social Services Minister Mitch Fifield said he was waiting on formal advice. “The commonwealth will be guided by the advice of the independent board of the NDIA in relation to the optimal rollout schedule,” he told The Australian.

“The intergovernmental agreements can’t be altered other than with partner governments.”

John Della Bosca, director of the campaign that gave the NDIS momentum, Every Australian Counts, said talk of delaying the scheme was unacceptable. “Rolling out the NDIS is a big job, but it’s hardly sending someone to the moon and it should not take a decade to deliver,” he said in a statement.

“A delay in rolling out the NDIS means many Australians with disability and their families will struggle without the supports they desperately need.”