Sarah Ferguson presents Australia's premier daily current affairs program, delivering agenda-setting public affairs journalism and interviews that hold the powerful to account. Plus political analysis from Laura Tingle.
BILL SHORTEN, NDIS MINISTER : We promised to make the NDIS a priority and not penalise people with disability for wanting to live fulfilled lives and we promise to restore trust in the scheme.
In the May budget, the Government announced cuts to the scheme of $14.4 billion over four years - a cut only designed to stop costs blowing out further. But for the next eight weeks, I really don't believe we're going to hear a new argument that hasn't been put in the last six months. A fundamental idea in the NDIS has been that it provides support on the basis of what can be argued and assessed to be ‘reasonable and necessary’ to someone’s particular needs, rather than generic supports.
And it also removes really important legal protections, which we currently have, to challenge agency decisions when they get something wrong. And it does all this while also inserting a number of new methods and processes that will decide how we are delivered supports, the amount of money we receive, and the way in which we are assessed for access to the scheme.
LAURA TINGLE: One common criticism is that the bill has been introduced before the government has even made a formal response to the NDIS review, or to the Disability Royal Commission. There have been accusations of fraud in the scheme, sometimes involving organised crime, with stories of NDIS money being used to buy drugs and alcohol, or expensive overseas holidays and cars.Much of this stems from the fact many providers of NDIS services do not even have their most basic details registered with the organisation that runs the scheme.
LLOYD WILLIAMS, HEALTH SERVICES UNION NATIONAL SECRETARY: We've seen time and time again, examples of fraud and deception and misuse of the scheme. So here we have a $10 billion scheme, but only one in 10 providers are registered. LAURA TINGLE: A bit like the argument about ‘reasonable and necessary’ support, the idea of disabled people retaining full ‘control and choice’ over the support they receive, and from whom, is a threshold issue for some in the disabled community who are resisting any moves to impose a registration system on providers.
LLOYD WILLIAMS: We see it every day when we bring an electrician into our home or a plumber into our home, we know that they are properly trained, and that they are properly certified to carry out the work that we're asking them to do.
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