NDS MEDIA RELEASE
The Federal Government will take the first steps to establish a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), as recommended by the Productivity Commission and advocated by the disability sector.
An NDIS would transform the provision of support services to Australians with significant disability. NDS congratulates the Government on its endorsement of the vision articulated in the Productivity Commission's final report on Disability Care and Support and looks forward to strong progress in implementing the reforms.
Today, Prime Minister Gillard, Ministers Macklin and Shorten and Parliamentary Secretary McLucas released the Productivity Commission's final 1,000-page report on Disability Care and Support. While supporting the Productivity Commission's vision, the Government has yet to endorse its recommendations or commit the additional funding required to implement the NDIS beyond an allocation of $10 million to support a newly-established technical advisory group. It will respond to the detailed recommendations in the report at a later date.
In the plan set out in the report the NDIS would be implemented in stages and not fully implemented until 2018-19. Regional launch sites would operate in 2014 to enable the new system to be tested and fine-tuned. In the 2012 Federal Budget NDS would like to see forward estimates reflect a funding commitment to support these launch sites. The NDIS must be built on the security of a guaranteed and sustainable funding commitment.
NDS strongly supports the Productivity Commission's conclusion that while full implementation of the NDIS would require an additional $6.5 billion a year, the social and economic returns will outweigh its cost.
In its 18 month inquiry into the disability services system, during which it received over 1,000 submissions, the Productivity Commission found the current system to be fragmented, underfunded, inequitable and providing little choice to people with disability and their carers. The Government accepts that patching up the existing system would be insufficient to fix these problems.
The involvement of State and Territory governments is critical to the successful implementation of an NDIS. The Prime Minister will seek agreement at COAG later this month to establish a Council on Disability Reform consisting of Treasurers and Disability Ministers.
The support of the Federal Coalition is also critical and NDS hopes that the Coalition continues to offer support for the establishment of an NDIS.
For the not-for-profit disability services sector the prospect of reform that Minister Jenny Macklin today described as "transformational change" is both exciting and daunting. An NDIS will require a much larger workforce appropriately skilled; and gearing up not-for-profit organisations to work effectively in a competitive, individualised funding environment. Meeting these challenges will require investment in building the capacity of the sector if the value of not-for-profit organisations in creating social capital is to be retained and strengthened. This is a matter to which the technical advisory group should give considerable attention.
The Government has said that, consistent with the Productivity Commission's recommendation of a parallel National Injury Insurance Scheme, it will discuss with the States and Territories how to extend catastrophic injury insurance to all people not currently covered, regardless of the cause of their injury.
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