Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler will use a keynote speech next week to reveal Labor’s plans for slowing down growth in the $50 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme, as the Coalition lends its support to cracking down on unregistered providers in the program. Source: The Age.
The Opposition’s assistant NDIS spokesman, Henry Pike, who recently took on the role in Angus Taylor’s new shadow ministry, said he wanted the Government to start by clamping down on leakage from the scheme with a better payment system and stronger provider registration regime.
While the Coalition indicated it would work with Labor to achieve those changes, both Mr Pike and the Coalition’s senior NDIS spokeswoman, Melissa McIntosh, accused the Government of banking savings in the budget without outlining how it would achieve them.
“If the Government is projecting billions in savings, it should be transparent about how those savings will be achieved. The current trajectory suggests increasing pressure on participants rather than structural reform,” Mr Pike said.
More details will be revealed when Mr Butler addresses the National Press Club in Canberra next week to outline Labor’s NDIS plans before the May budget, which includes three packages – on savings, tax reform and productivity – that are framed around intergenerational equality.
The Age last week revealed that lowering growth in the NDIS would be a centrepiece of Labor’s budget savings plan, spurring a political debate over the scheme’s future as the Government sought to reduce its annual growth rate from 10 per cent, at present, to 6 per cent or lower within four years.
Large NDIS providers were encouraging the debate, with some arguing it was the Government’s last chance to change course before the scheme buckled under its own weight, while crossbench MPs warned the Government must slow down its plans until it could demonstrate there was support to catch people outside the scheme.
Mr Butler was not ruling any options in or out ahead of the Government’s announcement – including a push from some Labor MPs and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson to means-test the scheme – but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the weekend said means testing was not on the cards.
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Coalition backs crackdown on NDIS providers as Butler prepares to reveal savings plan (By Natassia Chrysanthos and James Massola, The Age)
