...NDIS started as a great idea that received bipartisan support, I think the Libs did not dare to oppose it for fear of coming across as lacking care and empathy and focusing just on the $$.
...And because there was, over the years, a lack of political will to check the growth of disbursements or initiate pushbacks (because that would be uncaring), it has been subjected to rife rorting for too long and scope creep that became out of control.
...The returns to the economy are woeful, but yes, not everything needs to be measured in financial terms, certainly when it comes to addressing disability, yet at the end of the day, there is only so much money that can be stretched,....unless the public are happy to pay higher taxes in one form or another or face cutbacks on health and education and infrastructure, which we know isn't sufficient to address serious mental health issues and declining education outcomes.
...People must understand that there is no free lunch.
...It would still be money well spent (provided it is better controlled) ahead of monstrous billions amount thrown into defence had we (Australia) stayed neutral in geopolitics and not logger heads with China. We got it wrong on ‘wasteful’ NDIS: former PC boss Michael ReadEconomics correspondent
Apr 17, 2024 – 7.00pm
Former Productivity Commission boss Gary Banks has conceded the organisation got it wrong when it recommended the creation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and warned that Labor’s proposed overhaul will do little to reduce the program’s explosive budget trajectory.
“In retrospect, the commission clearly underestimated the incentives for ‘overservicing’ that such a scheme presents and, in particular, was too optimistic about the prospects of an eventual payback to the economy,” Professor Banks said in a speech to the Centre for Independent Studies’ The Road Ahead conference on Wednesday.
“As in the song Hotel California, it seems that many people enter the program but few ever leave. The fact that increasingly the entrants are children is storing up big problems for the future.”
Professor Banks’ blunt remarks are notable because it was under his leadership that the Productivity Commission in August 2011 recommended the creation of the NDIS in a lengthy 1079-page report.
Professor Banks said on Wednesday that the NDIS had become the “most wasteful use of resources” within the care economy, remarking it had already exceeded the cost of Medicare despite operating for barely a decade.
It was originally argued the NDIS would pay for itself by getting more disabled people into the workforce. Despite initial estimates it would cost $13 billion, repeated budget overruns meant its running cost was forecast to be $42 billion this financial year, and on track to hit $125 billion by 2034, according to the Australian government actuary.
The Australian government actuary predicts more than 1 million people will be on the NDIS by 2032, despite initial estimates that the scheme would service just 400,000 people at maturity.
“Based on such data, Australia could claim to have the most disabled population in the world,” Professor Banks said. Calls to limit eligibility
The Albanese government is in the early stages of overhauling the NDIS, aiming to reduce the program’s current 23 per cent annual growth rate to 8 per cent by 2026.
Recent budget blowouts have been due to a surge in children with autism and developmental delay joining the NDIS. About 12 per cent of boys aged five to seven are on the scheme.
The changes announced by NDIS Minister Bill Shorten will enable authorities to move children from the NDIS to state programs, if they no longer need the level of care provided under the scheme. Mr Shorten has also focused his efforts on clamping down on dodgy service providers rorting the system.
Although it was “regrettable” the NDIS’ vulnerability to rorting was not addressed from the outset, Professor Banks said reducing fraud “won’t do much to resolve the basic problem of a scheme that is simply too generous to too many people, in some cases perversely so”.
“That will require major reforms to limit eligibility to those suffering profound disability. That is now a tall order politically, with even minor steps in that direction causing a ruckus.”
Professor Banks also said the gatekeeping arrangements critical to the viability of the scheme’s demand-led design had been progressively diluted.
“This was not helped by the truncation of trials needed to test the scheme before it opened for business, nor by locating the agency administering it in a country town,” he said. The National Disability Insurance Agency is headquartered in Geelong.
