National Disability Insurance Scheme Minister Bill Shorten says he is willing to strike a deal with the Coalition on reforming the $40 billion-a-year scheme without the backing of state governments. Source: The Australian.
Mr Shorten admitted he did not have the support of Labor premiers “at this point” for the current proposal to make the disability program more sustainable.
While states and territories agreed in December to split the cost of a new system of “foundational support services”, which would give disabled Australians with milder conditions an alternative to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, several premiers have since raised concern with a lack of detail and total cost to their budgets.
The national cabinet deal – under which the states agreed to increase the cap on growth for their annual contributions to the NDIS from 4 per cent to 8 per cent – was accompanied by billions of dollars promised by the Albanese Government to the states.
Mr Shorten said yesterday he was talking “pretty animatedly with the states” about legislation before federal Parliament to reform the NDIS, which will be critical to ensuring Labor meets its target of reining in the annual growth of the scheme from about 15 per cent a year down to 8 per cent.
But in a rare concession of growing disharmony within National Cabinet over the issue, Mr Shorten conceded the states did not support the reforms “at this point”.
“Until the legislation is passed, I will do everything I can to make the states feel they can support it, (which) they don’t at this point. So I will give it my best shot. It’s a work in progress,” he said at his National Press Club address yesterday.
FULL STORY
States don’t feel they can support NDIS legislation ‘at this point’, says Bill Shorten (By Sarah Ison, The Australian)
