Hitting the right Tune
Fulfilling the intent of the Tune review will iron out the wrinkles in the NDIS. By Alister Henskens.
From the inception of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, NSW has led the way in implementing the world-leading rollout and advocating for changes to make it better. Now is the time for renewed leadership about the immediate and long-term future of the NDIS.
Of the 146,000 participants accessing the NDIS in NSW, 80,000 people who need supports are receiving them for the first time in their lives. These people are exercising choice and control in pursuit of their life goals.
This month’s Disability Reform Ministers’ Meeting signalled a shift in the narrative on the NDIS. Federal NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds listened to people with disability and agreed to put a halt to planned radical changes to the NDIS Act. In addition, the federal government listened to NSW’s calls for the full and free flow of all information about the financial projections and future cost pressures of the scheme.
Reynolds inherited a federal position to claim costs associated with the NDIS were ballooning beyond projections, based on a recently released financial sustainability report.
While the peer reviewer of the report identified “significant uncertainty” in the federal government’s projections, the report failed to provide any qualitative analysis of the drivers of the recent results or concrete detail on how proposed changes to the act would help rein in costs to aid in the analysis of what changes if any should be agreed to.
The federal government has decided to go back to the drawing board on its proposed changes.
I believe the immediate focus should be on doing what we already know is needed to create a fairer NDIS. David Tune’s 2019 review of the NDIS provided a blueprint. Some of his changes have been made, others haven’t, and it is time to finish what we started.
Front of mind should be three things Tune recommended: more robust specialist disability accommodation housing options for NDIS participants with high needs; a review of the supported independent living operational guidelines; and implementing the participant service guarantee.
NSW also wants further development of tier two of the NDIS, more commonly known as information, linkages and capacity building, to bolster community supports for all people with disability, not just those in the scheme.
Implementing these changes would improve the NDIS in a way that would result in better outcomes for people with disability and would ease the agreed cost pressures and make the NDIS more sustainable into the future.
These elements of the Tune review have not been the federal government’s focus previously. Instead, the review has been used to present opaque cost projections and the advocacy of unpopular legislative change.
The biggest mistake the federal government has made is not to bring people with disability and the disability support sector along for the journey. But Reynolds on Friday changed the approach of the federal government for the better by listening to the sector and being collaborative with her state and territory colleagues.
I have heard loud and clear from the sector that it wants to see many of Tune’s recommendations implemented. Fulfilling the intent of the review will iron out the wrinkles we know exist in the NDIS, delivering better services for people with disability and better value for taxpayer dollars.
NSW will continue to work with the federal government to identify the levers available to preserve the integrity of the scheme while improving its consistency and sustainability so the NDIS can work better for the people who rely on it. I am sure it can be improved after properly listening to the people with disability, their families and carers, and careful analysis as to the best way forward.
Alister Henskens is the NSW Families, Communities and Disability Services Minister. This article first appeared in The Australian and has been republished with permission.