Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill Shorten with review panel members (from left) Lisa Paul,Dougie Herd,Bruce Bonyhady,Judy Brewer and Kirsten Deane.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
The scheme will cost $8.8 billion more over the next four years than forecast in the March budget,and will cost more than $50 billion a year by 2025-26 - $4 billion higher than estimated just seven months ago.
He said the review would also seek out waste and “rent-seeking” to ensure the funds went to people with disability.
“This review is not about a razor gang and cost-cutting,” he said. “I think we can improve the processes and cut out the bureaucracy. But it won’t be at the expense of people with disability.”
Bonyhady,who was the first chair of the National Disability Insurance Agency which administers the scheme,said the scheme should be overhauled to meet “its original intents” of empowering people with disability.
Loading
“This review has to belong to people with disability. So,we are going to engage closely with them on this review in order to ensure that the NDIS does meet people’s expectations as originally intended,” he said.
“This scheme was intended to invest in people with disability to achieve maximum opportunities,maximum lifetime outcomes,so we want to return to some of those original intents.”