Minns, Allan criticise feds over NDIS threat ahead of negotiations

The Albanese government is facing a fight with premiers over NDIS funding, with NSW’s Chris Minns and Victoria’s Jacinta Allan both warning Canberra it will need to work with the states to secure changes.

Minns insisted on Sunday that NSW would not be forced into any agreement at national cabinet this week after NDIS Minister Bill Shorten delivered a warning that the states must accept his proposed disability reforms.

Premier Chris Minns (second from left) and Jacinta Allan (second from right).Credit: Ben Searcy

Allan said the NDIS was a federally administered program but the support of the states would be needed to change how the program is funded and run.

An independent review of the NDIS, which is beset by cost blowouts, is set to be released before national cabinet meets on Wednesday and the states will be pressed to take greater responsibility for funding the treatment of early developmental disorders and mild autism, particularly in schools.

The NDIS and health system will feature prominently at national cabinet as Shorten seeks to limit spending growth to 8 per cent, down from about 14 per cent at present.

Following a meeting of the country’s treasurers on Friday, the states also demanded billions of extra dollars in GST payment and infrastructure investment and flagged possible tax rises if Canberra did not cough up more funding.

At issue with the GST is the cost of a deal struck by then-treasurer Scott Morrison in 2018 which guaranteed Western Australia its GST share would not fall below 70 cents in the dollar – and which also ensured no other state would be left worse off until at least 2027. The cost has massively blown out, from $2.3 billion to $33.9 billion.

The states have asked federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers to promise no state will be left worse off, but Minns acknowledged that a deal may not be struck at the meeting.

One option being considered is a compromise that would keep the existing GST arrangements in place, so no state is worse off, ahead of a 2026 Productivity Commission review of GST distribution.

The NSW Premier, Chris Minns, said it was “not likely [that a deal would be struck on Wednesday] but we are hopeful for an agreement or a deal” on the key sticking point of state/Commonwealth financial arrangements.

Responding to a report on Sunday that Shorten claimed vulnerable Australians were at serious risk if the states did not accept his NDIS reforms, Minns shot back with a warning that NSW would not be bullied.

“If Bill Shorten wants to remove people from the NDIS, he can do it and we’re not going to stand in his way,” Minns said. “What he can’t say is the states will take up the services because we handed over our public servants and our money to the Commonwealth a decade ago for them to run it. ”

Asked on Sunday if Victoria would support the reforms laid out by Shorten, Allan said her state government had been “disappointed not all of the information about these reforms have been provided to the states in a timely way, in a fulsome way”.

“Our disability minister went to this a week or so ago where we’d hoped there would have been better information flow coming to the states to make what are really big and important decisions,” she said.

“The NDIS is a federally administered program, administered obviously within particular areas with the support of the states ... the federal government is looking at making changes and needs the support of the states to do that. We look forward to doing that in a co-operative way.”

Minns said the states and Commonwealth had to work together on an agreement.

“If they want to say to the states, ‘We believe there’s too many people in the NDIS, we want to remove a big cohort of them from the NDIS, and we want the states to take responsibility for it’, we have to do that together,” Minns said.

A spokeswoman for Shorten said the minister wouldn’t pre-empt national cabinet and that he remained optimistic that a deal was not impossible between leaders of goodwill.

“He is also conscious that people with disability are watching this debate and want to see all governments work together.”