When the NDIS was introduced and "baked" into Budget outlays by Labor, it sent a chill up my spine.
The cost to taxpayers has ballooned from $4.2 Billion in 2016/17 to $34 Billion for the current year according to Budget papers, and is forecast to conservatively cost $60 Billion per year by 2029-30, according to an actuarial report prepared by the NDIS actuary for Minister Linda Reynolds last June.
According to a news report a fortnight ago, spending on NDIS is forecast to overtake the cost of Medicare within three years and is growing at a rate of 12% per annum. Currently there are almost 500,000 NDIS recipients receiving an average annual package of $68,000 per annum, according to the NDIS website. The actuarial report provided to the government forecasts that number to rise to 870,000 by the end of the decade. Of those, 26,000 are in receipt of Supported Independent Living [SIL] packages which cost taxpayers an average of $321,000 a year. SIL packages can extend to almost $1 Million for an individual in certain cases. Some fundamental research on the internet reveals a plethora of NDIS service providers only too willing to offer assistance to maximise payments and how to best utilise one's annual package so as not to lose it.
By any measure there is a strong element of the service industries that exploited the pink batts debacle, except this time on steroids. When the NDIS was announced, I believed it will eventually bankrupt our country unless massively overhauled. The out of control growth of funding affirms that belief. Instead of urging caution almost a decade ago, the Coalition foolishly and wholeheartedly embraced the concept, partly because of expenditure baked into forward spending and partly because it has been afraid of the reaction if they took a razor gang to it. It now finds itself strapped to the mast along with Labor, unable or afraid to implement effective reform. The NDIS ought never have been implemented. It is now an albatross around the necks of all taxpayers, and it will eventually drag us under.
