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The federal government is cracking down on NDIS providers offering residents in remote Northern Territory Aboriginal communities gifts, including food, alcohol and tobacco.
The federal government is responding to concerns about National Disability Insurance Scheme providers offering residents in remote Northern Territory Aboriginal communities gifts including food, alcohol and tobacco.
The National Disability Insurance Agency will fund new positions in 17 remote communities across the NT to help residents understand the scheme. The scheme's watchdog, the NDIS Commission, will also set up a special "consortium" of NT disability advocates to gather intel about providers in the bush.
The federal government has announced new measures to crack down on unscrupulous National Disability Insurance Scheme providers in the Northern Territory, with a focus on the use of inducements to recruit and retain vulnerable participants in remote Aboriginal communities. Under the changes, new community access workers will be employed in 17 remote NT communities, as well as eight in Queensland and four in New South Wales.
The roles will be funded through the National Disability Insurance Agency , which runs the NDIS, but will be drawn from the ranks of local Aboriginal health services. Earlier this year, an ABC investigation revealed the use of gifts such as food, cash, alcohol and cigarettes by NDIS providers was widespread in remote Aboriginal communities.
One woman from the community of Wugularr spoke up about having been offered tobacco by a provider, who she saidAnother man, Floyd Rose, from the desert community of Lajamanu, alleged he witnessed an NDIS provider supplying alcohol to his mother, who was one of their clients. NDIS Minister Jenny McAllister said there was still "more work to do within the Territory".
"These new initiatives seek to ensure First Nations people with disability across Australia are offered the services they need and are protected from those who seek to do the wrong thing," she said. Jenny McAllister says the changes will mean First Nations people with a disability "are protected from those who seek to do the wrong thing".
Senator McAllister's office said the 17 new NT positions being introduced under the remote community connector program would help locals understand the complexities of the scheme. The government said the NDIS Commission would also contract a group of NT disability advocacy services to run "check-ins" in remote communities.
The check-ins are designed to fill gaps in the traditional complaints process, which can be difficult to access for remote Aboriginal people who may not own phones or computers, or speak English as a first language. Some residents in remote NT Aboriginal communities say NDIS providers have offered them gifts including food, alcohol and tobacco, leaving them feeling pressured to sign up to plans.
The advocates will go into communities and speak with NDIS participants and their families and carers, as well as traditional owners, before feeding information back to the regulator. In new figures provided to the ABC, a spokesperson for the NDIA said the agency had "critically examined" more than 1,000 public tip-offs related to 234 providers operating in the NT over the past three years. The spokesperson said 47 providers working with NT participants had been referred for "serious compliance action".
The agency also said it was targeting a trend of "unscrupulous providers moving into the NT market from Melbourne and Sydney" by manually checking their payment claims.
NDIS National Disability Insurance Agency Jenny Mcallister Crackdown Inducements Gifts Alcohol Tobacco Food
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