The independent review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme heard from more than 10,000 people with lived experience of disability or an interest in the support sector. Carried out by one of the scheme's original architects Professor Bruce Bonyhady and former senior public servant Lisa Paul, it was tasked with delivering reform to ensure viability into the future and tackle problems such as fraud, inequity and slow service delivery.
Minister for the NDIS Bill Shorten told the National Press Club it was time for a reboot.
"The National Disability Insurance Scheme is here to stay. It is not going away. But we need to get it back on track."
The scheme, designed to deliver support services to people with disabilities through individualised funding, is threatening to cost the government nearly $100 billion within a decade.
For Briana Blackett, whose teenage sons Max and Fred, both have autism, it's impossible to put a dollar value on meaningful support.
"And it can be quite upsetting to hear people talking about the disability community in a way that just has a price tag attached to it rather than looking at the value that kids like mine bring into my life and those around them and then to the broader community."
Her family at times found the scheme inconsistent, slow and difficult to navigate.
But she says the support her sons received has been life changing.
"Without the NDIS we were effectively living under lockdown. So if you remember what that was like. We had trouble accessing the community. Even leaving the house to go shopping was like a military operation. And we really needed support to do basic things."
One of the biggest recommendations from the review is to expand disability support beyond the NDIS.
The review says the government has become too reliant on the scheme, and recommends the creation of foundational supports for all Australians with disability regardless of whether they are on the NDIS.
Some of these additional supports would be provided through schools and childcare centres, and half their costs would be funded by the states.
It's a proposal welcomed, like much of the review, by a number of disability advocacy organisations at a joint media conference in Canberra.
People With Disability Australia President Nicole Lee.
"You know, foundational supports don't just benefit people with disability, they benefit people who sit outside the scheme, they benefit everyone in the community. Whilst the foundational supports is a really big piece, we also understand there's a lot of nuance that needs to be worked out in the details of how that's going to happen. It's not going to happen overnight. We understand that this is going to take significant time, investment and planning to actually implement."
About 9 per cent of Australian children aged five to seven are currently on the scheme and nearly double that experience learning difficulties or developmental delays.
The review recommends the removal of automatic access to the scheme based on a diagnosis such as autism, in favour of access based on impairments to a participant's daily life.
Bill Shorten again.
"In the in past, people were getting on the scheme by diagnosis alone, to in some cases, parental diagnosis. We want to meet the person who is to go on the scheme and see what the impact of their diagnosis is having on their daily life. There's no point saying to someone we'll give them 40 hours a week if that's not beneficial. We want to make sure every Australian child who has a developmental delay gets on the radar."
CEO of Autism Awareness Australia Nicole Rogerson has some reservations about the proposed changes.
"What we do know is the government has determined that there are too many children in this scheme, and that for some of those children, they would be better supported outside the NDIS, and hence they're going to shift that cost over to the states. But at the moment, we just don't know whether the states are ready to pick up that ball and run with it."
Other recommendations include better measures to help users navigate the scheme, greater oversight of service providers, and a new approach to psychosocial disabilities.
The review also seeks to address the issue of workforce shortages by ensuring ongoing professional training, and allowing workers to transfer leave and superannuation entitlements between jobs.
Angus McFarland from the NSW and ACT Australian Services Union says the changes will help retain and educate support workers.
"The NDIS review is a bit of an early Christmas present for workers, I think, in the NDIS. Because they have been calling for a long time for more support for them so that people with disability can then get the best possible disability support."
Dwayne Cranfield, CEO of the National Ethnic Disability Alliance says any reform to the NDIS needs to ensure it is widely accessible.
"Culturally and linguistically diverse people make up 20 to 21 per cent of the cohort of the NDIA and currently we have a buy-in of that community of about 9 per cent. It's important that these messages and these changes are accessible to all Australians, but accessible to those people have issues with culture, language, and communication."
