Shorten said the children’s autism pilot,which will involve700 families in Western Australia,would examine whether pre-emptive interventions for children with early behavioural signs of autism could reduce the support they needed later in life.
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“It could have exciting prospects for future generations and for early intervention mainstream services outside the NDIS,so that NDIS is not the only life-boat in the ocean,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s inevitable that every child with a developmental delay at the age of three should end up on the NDIS. But we got to make sure there’s other supports out there.”
Treasurer Jim Chalmers this week said the NDIS is also among the fastest-growing pressures on the budget alongside interest payments on government debt,aged care,defence and health care.
The NDIS has already blown its $34 billion budget for this financial year and is expected to cost $51.8 billion by 2026,climbing by about 14 per cent annually.
Shorten said the scheme had saved the disability system from collapse 10 years ago,becoming “the difference between life and a living death” for participants,but it had been led by “administrative vandals for 90 per cent of its existence” in the Coalition government.
The NDIS has seen higher-than-expected participation rates since it launched in 2013.Credit:AAP
He ordered a review of the scheme last year but said changes would begin before the final report is handed down in October,elements of which will be introduced in the May 9 budget.
There had already been some improvements:A fraud taskforce,established last October,has38 investigations under way involving $300 million worth of payments. Discharge delays for NDIS participants in hospitals have also been slashed by four months,saving about $550 million.
But Shorten said systemic reform of the entire disability ecosystem was needed,including bolstered support from state governments andthrough the education,mental health and transport systems so the NDIS was not people’s only option.
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He said the NDIS itself was also too rigid a system. “It throws up Kafkaesque barriers to access,lacks empathy,gouges on prices,is too complex,and often traumatising to deal with,” he said.
Unethical practices that treated NDIS participants as “cash cows” – such as pressuring participants to ask for services they don’t need,accepting additional fees for a service,and offering rewards for taking services that aren’t on a participant’s plan – also needed to be stamped out.
“It’s also about – through a renewed focus on evidence and data – getting rid of shoddy therapies that offer little to no value to participants or desperate parents,” Shorten said.
The government will review supported independent living arrangements,which were delivering poor outcomes for many participants,while it lifts staffing caps in the NDIA and returns some call centre functions in-house to improve participant experiences.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weeklyInside Politics newsletter here.