NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said there were 4501 active disputes over NDIS packages before the AAT at the end of May. This had fallen to about 4000 since the election.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
It would provide an alternative to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal,but participants would not lose their spots in the AAT queue if the committee could not resolve the issue.
Soon after Labor was elected in May,Shorten said thehuge backlog of appeals to the AAT was obscene and he was determined to clear it.
The appointment of Innes and independent,expert case reviewers was designed to “blitz the thousands of cases at the AAT. To be very clear,this is a voluntary process,no one loses their place in the AAT queue,” Shorten said on Tuesday.
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“Participating in a review of their matter doesn’t mean that they have to accept what the review says,this is an entirely voluntary extra effort to try and cut the bullshit and just get on with the issues,” he said.
“I think that the agency ... must acknowledge that things have been bad – the internal review process opaque and unaccountable,AAT processes complex,frustrating. It’s been,in my opinion,in most cases broken. Under the previous Liberal government the number of participants in the NDIS seeking external review of planning decisions increased by 400 per cent.”
Shorten said there were 4501 active disputes over NDIS packages before the AAT at the end of May.