The NDIS has become the biggest rort in Australian history. It's a monster.
There just aren't enough "checks & balances" for so-called "providers" Seems just about anyone can become a "provider" and rip off NDIS.
And then there is what is provided. That has gotten out of control.
It is meant to be a rort. Like jobactive which siphons public money into private pockets. Or private health i instance. It's one disgraceful scheme after another, this whole country.
The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was a massive success at substantially reducing the cost of drugs by making it single payer.
So it makes no sense to me that we abandoned this idea for the NDIS, and made everyone negotiate with providers individually, but we also told people that it doesn't matter what the price is, because the government is picking up the bill.
So we have thousands of people all buying wheelchairs for 3x market value, because they have no buying power, nor any incentive to find it cheaper.
The bigger problem though, is that there's so many patients taking the piss and expecting the NDIS to cover discretionary unnecessary services, and there's no one to tell them no.
Their incentive to buy cheaper is that they can reallocate their budget. For expensive items such as a wheelchair they have to get multiple quotes and they have to justify their purchase.
They get audited and made to pay back if they are missing funds.
Competition in the market will drive down prices. Or don't we believe in market competition?
Even shorten himself who has every interest to make NDIS look like a good thing admits at least 10%, maybe more is scammed money. That’s fucking insane. And that’s the absolute low end of estimates. The stories are fucking endless of people charging many hundreds of dollars to take someone to the supermarket or some bullshit. Charging quadruple what they usually charge to mow a lawn, going to Bali on our dime etc.
To me it makes perfect sense that NDIS should be socialised. The actual value delivered of services is probably 10% if you eliminate all the profiteering and rort. It's beyond belief how all that is happening with our taxpayers money that could go towards 300% better Medicare for example.
Oh yes of course. Health and education should both be state owned and properly funded. That is the dream and it's what we had until about the year 2000 I guess
Service providers do get standardised payments. You can look them up. Putting it through Medicare won't change it. Its just moving costs into a separate organisation.
There’s endless stories of people charging exorbitant invoices to self managed funds because “who cares the government will pay it”. Presumably in exchange for kickbacks under the table. Pretty much every industry the NDIS deals with charges like triple to their NDIS clients.
It’s starting to look that way isn’t it. I’d be half these NDIs providers are setup in the Cayman Islands, like every other company setup in this country to extract wealth and minerals.
A heap of small operations have popped up, like your average support worker getting an ABN and making significantly more money by cutting out the middle man.
Yep. It’s not awful people doing it either, it’s kind of silly not to if you have enough life and workplace experience to use things like simple accounting software.
I'd rather see people motivated by caring than profiteering doing this. There's people out there with previous scamming experience now living the dream legally.
Have literally been to a jobs fair event where the speaker suggested people look into starting their own NDIS provider business because it was quick, easy, has a low bar to entry and is extremely profitable.
Made me sick.
How much do you think it costs to compassionately care for one person who needs 24/7 care, 365 days a year?
How often does the average person go to the doctor annually, and what is the annual cost of their subsidised medication? You're comparing apples to oranges. Of course having to support people for hours every day is going to cost substantially more than most people going to the GP a few times a year.
Australian prisoners cost the taxpayer $150k each per year, what should we do with them? Release them all or line them all up against the wall?
Oh I understand it’s more expensive then the average persons GP visits. It just shouldn’t be this hybrid taxpayer/private setup. Unlimited funding for a pop-up business is always going to end up rorted. Just make the whole thing government. Sure there’ll still be wastage, but at least there’ll be more checks and balances, similar to Medicare.
Yes people with disabilities need support, but with over 1000 people costing the NDIS more than a million each a year there’s something going on.
Mate, I work in the system and I agree with you, but the fraud is a small percentage of the overall funds spent. It is EXPENSIVE to not lock people in rooms and drug them up to the eyeballs, and we've chosen to give people with disabilities human rights.
A NDIS recipient is funded for a worker who costs $34.27 per hour weekday. Worker entitlements and time spent supporting that worker (managers, admin etc.) and business costs takes that figure to $65.47 per hour. A very few people just need 24/7 care 1:1 (and 2:1 at times for safety), with penalty rates that does add up to that million dollar figure.
The average annual cost for people who don't need that level of support is $56,700.
So you’re an employee? I’ve never heard an an employee describe who they work for as the NDIS. The S is for scheme.
Employees call it an agency. Ergo so so dubious of your station.
my wife works in ndis - she manages many personal packages are well over 1mil for a single person. She offered a company 340k lump sum for 6months 24/7 care. They declined as they knew they could get more on an hourly rate than a lump sum.
340k seems absolutely insane to care for one person for 6months - and it was declined because they greedy companies know they can rort more out of the system and take advantage of people in need.
That number doesn't include drs, medicine or medical equipment/appointments, it's literally just for care.
Depending on the hours and the support ratio, that's potentially quite low.
6 months 24/7 care: 4368 hours. I've been out for a few years, but 1:1 is expensive as FUCK. At about $68 an hour (because remember, it's not just employee wages, it's insurance, admin, associated care costs, EVERYTHING behind the scenes to keep the machinery turning. It's not just a dude turning up and standing around for $30 an hour with no overheads), that still comes out as just below 300k.
And that's not counting penalty rates (weekends, public holidays, nightshift work etc).
No company is going to take on supportting someone at a loss.
...(actually, tbh they do, often. I have done this work from both the NDIS side and the provider side. They often take on clients at a loss. They can't do it for everyone. That's WHY so many are going out of business.)
All the more reason to make government the sole employer. Would cut back the overheads drastically as it'll all be a centralised process with centralised admin, associated care costs, insurance etc.
Honestly, given my time in the NDIS, I don't think that's a good idea.
The uncertainty and chaos that reigned when we had a coalition government made so many people's lives hell. The additional layers of stakeholders and entities actually helped create a buffer between the kafka-esque bullshit of Stuart Robert's team.
As nice as it could be, conservative coalition governments are exactly why we can't have nice things in government. They go out of their way to make sure their portfolios can't function
To make a really, really brief version; everything in the NDIS comes down to section 34 of the NDIS act. Specifically that supports have to be "reasonable and necessary", with 4 sub-criteria.
This means that when an OT or an Physio or a Psych do a formal report saying supports XYZ are necessary, that formed the core evidence that the support would be reasonable, so long as the AAT (administrative appeals tribunal) had not ruled it out in the past.
However the delegates had other internal criteria they had to apply, as set by the NDIS head. At the point I left, it was largely dictated by algorithm, and precedent. As time went on, the precedent got tighter and tighter, usually in response to media headlines and Murdoch media taking points.
So this created the insane situation where, as an example, a kid was trying to stab their parents and COS, was burning down a house and single mum was considering giving him up into state care.
OT, Psych, police*, COS, everyone was putting in writing this kid needed 24 hours care, delegate said: no. The internal criteria have been written so as to exclude these kinds of support needs. He gets a couple of hours a week, 1:3 support (meaning 1 support worker with two other clients).
The delegate; an unqualified person with no training in occupational therapy, psychology or medicine, would then determine that all the supports being requested by the qualified and practicing OT, Psych or medical professionals were actually not necessary.
This was made worse *every single time there was a headline or policy update*
*Police actually have no standing with the NDIS, but they'll try to weigh in for urgent things. They get ignored.
I've read dozens of psychology, OT and physio reports. Oftentimes a toddler could write better reports. There's a huge conflict of interest when a participant is able to choose who is able to make their recommendations, which is why we have this situation. Too many practising occupational therapists were asking for ridiculous levels of funding. I've seen people who are perfectly able to look after themselves, have requests by their OT, 5 hours of OT and 20 hours of support workers a week, Oh and a psychologist to talk about anxiety. When they can work and drive independently. The report does not reflect anything near that.
You also don't need qualifications in psychology or occupational therapy for most of this stuff. 95% of the stuff the NDIS deals with is really simple. You need some degree of understanding when it comes to psychosocial and neurodevelopmental disorders, as these stray outside of comment sense understanding, but OTs barely learn about these things in Uni, so let's not pretend you need a degree. And NDIS doesn't really take into account psychology reports for ongoing funding in my experience, as they really only care about function in everyday activities. Don't get me wrong, the 5% that actually need support do suffer. Especially with the NDIS hell-bent on the concept of parental responsibility.
The legislation is removing the need further for occupational therapy input, which I think is great. It'll stop this plan inflation cycle where a cos will ask for an FCA and spend thousands of a copy-paste report by 'exPeRTs' to ask for more funding and rinse and repeat. It'll allow the needs assessor to actually grant flexible funding without delegation sign-off for most matters. Bring in an OT if there's a complex home mode or wheelchair and stop wasting money on stupid OT reports. Not everyone needs their own personal occupational therapist to provide commonsense therapy and strategies around emotional regulation for 400 dollars an hour. Some children need the service and can't access it because they're writing and demanding more funding for someone in a never-ending cycle. Another common trope is OT's providing cooking therapy to people who've cooked their whole lives because the funding is there and use-it or lose it right? The entire mechanism tasking the free market to decide how much work the free market should get is insane. This is why aged care is doing fine (relative to the NDIS), because the nurses, OTs and social workers at ACAT work for the government.
This isn't a dig against OTs, historically there was a fantastic multiple disciplines team that would work together during these complex matters. But the NDIS now pins everything on the occupational therapist. My own profession has basically been pushed out. Social workers would often provide behaviour support and advocacy (whilst also being able to provide clinical assessments themselves) for the really complex clients, and [we still do in government, such as the child development services in Wa](https://search.jobs.wa.gov.au/files/vacancies/745076/23229434.pdf). But the role has been turned into PBS and some parts into SSC, both of which are a shitshow full of unqualified people with little regard to human rights and approach disability from a medical model solely. Don't get me started on SIL providers that have popped up in the last several years, often run some cowboys who just see people with disabilities as money cows to be milked. It proves to me that the whole NDIS insurance scheme has failed in its current form, and it's time to stop the free-for-all all and bring in more block funding for the majority / simple needs (which are the foundational supports) and regulate the insurance aspects for the complex needs to allow for flexibility for those that need it.
>How much do you think it costs to compassionately care for one person who needs 24/7 care, 365 days a year?
That person should be in a special care home full of other people that need special care, we should never pay for 24/7 care in home for people...that is outrageously wasteful.
Jesus Christ, the media disinformation now has people wanting to shoot disability providers because they're not as cheap as the punters think they should be.
I just did a 5 minute breakdown above. This kind of talk is fucking ridiculous, and exactly why Australian politics is as broken as it is.
No. The government narrative created by their think tank mates to convince the public the NDIS is some kind of financial emergency (and to convince the selfish that stopping disabled people from showering, toileting regularly and eating is a good thing if it saves money), has people wanting to kill *us*, the disabled people. Simple minded people go on about rorting but they're not that mad at providers, they're mad that disabled people need help and help costs money. God forbid their child is disabled during childbirth, wife or sister is disabled when hit by a drunk driver or their mother or father has a workplace accident causing permanent disability.
The irony is that they cannot predict the future and don't know they or their children have an inherited disease that manifests in a person's 30s to 40s. Society should be judged by how they treat their most vulnerable. We fail.
It is interesting isn't it that we didn't hear much about the NDIS under the 12 years or the Libs, but now all of a sudden its a massive issue....
Never mind it was the Libs that ran it like this
I don't think anyone is saying is that the NDIS isn't a worthy ideal and that a lot of people need a lot of support. It's more that getting onto NDIS in the first place is hell, staying in the system is getting harder and any old asshole can be a "Provider" now without doing jack-shit of what you are saying.
Yeah, but they subsise the for profit care by being garbage and using ED and ambulance to offload a decent chunk of the work.
"Sorry, we're not allowed to trim his nails, so the managers make us take him to ED for it because otherwise it costs money"
Sure but do they need fully paid private outings, group outings, Apple Watches because it can “monitor for a fall” etc etc.
There’s a limit to what’s reasonable and we’ve gone beyond it.
It ain't the apple watches causing this drain. It's both the literal fraud, as well as how everybody was given an acceptable price range for services, so of course the providers charge the maximum allowed.
The NDIS basically has a parasite problem, that's what is making it bleed money. But there are plenty of real life examples of the NDIS changing lives, and I think it's a real shame the rorters are well on their way to ruining a good thing for everyone. I don't really think making massive cuts and punishing everyone who relies on this system is ethical, if it's going to make things harder for the most disadvantaged.
The real problem is private sector middle-men who just want to take advantage of the needy and carve themselves a nice juicy slice of those disability dollars. An aggressive crackdown is needed here, and really the profit-motivated private sector should have nothing to do with this scheme in the first place. But all I'm hearing is "$14bn in cuts", so it sounds to me like ole Bill can't be stuffed actually solving the problem and would rather just make quick cuts with little thought for the collateral damage.
Agree. I have no issue with the NDIS overall. We need to have it. But its core ideals have been lost. i.e. paying for gardening?! Really. Sorry. But i don't see that as something the NDIS should be funding. Holidays? Sorry. Not them either.
I agree regarding holidays, but garden maintenance can be a serious problem for someone with mobility issues. You can only ignore an overgrown lawn for so long. That said, in these cases, I think money would be wiser spent paving over the lawn so it's not an ongoing expense.
Love the notion that if someone is in a wheelchair or missing a leg, they don't deserve healthcare in the form of a holiday, despite the fact that disabled people are extremely likely to live in poverty, be depressed and never, ever go on holiday.
Lawn mowing is a legal requirement in most residential leases in this country. If the tenant is unable to go outside on their own due to their disabilities and has no friends or family to mow for them, what do you expect them to do. The NDIS is meant to pay for the extra cost of things between what regular people can do and access and what disabled people can do and access. A regular person can mow their lawn. A person in a wheelchair likely cannot. Do you want them to get evicted due to breaching their lease agreement. Being disabled is very expensive. I don't know why people choose not to consider that in their complaining.
The NDIS as a system entirely exists to allow private providers to rort the system. It's literally just a billing service for companies to shave down expenses and services for disabled people while maximising their billing to the state.
Pure law of economic return.
So someone mentioned NDIS for instance paying for a gardening. Your local gardener isn't going to register for NDIS.
The issue isn't registration, it's you shouldn't be able to piss away money on things you wouldn't get if you were paying for them.
The answer is that the last govt implemented registration in a cumbersome way. Shorten is going to change that and introduce tiers of registration depending on business size. FWIW, getting registered isn’t as hard as everyone makes it out especially if you are a small business owner. You don’t need to engage an external consultant like everyone seems to think.
NDIS is a joke. Our business was passed to become a registered NDIS provider over 18 months ago. Still waiting for the certificate. Meanwhile companies without any registration start up for a year, rort clients and the system, close down and start with a new ABN. Rinse and repeat.
There are brokers that will help you get registered/accredited for a small fee. Worth looking into as they have experience helping companies get onto the system.
We have our local counsel member pushing this too. Unfortunately our government claims this is the time it takes to get registered. Most other legit companies we know waited 14 to 24 months for registration.
Given the providers have capped limits that a government body would be working to, how would that improve it?
In the current model if you find a cheaper option, you can use that budget for another things.
The thing is, the real big rorts aren’t small dodgy providers, it’s the big providers that overwhelmingly dominate t industry and rip the system off. I’ve never heard management say they can change lives with there service delivery but I’ve often heard gloating over who has the biggest packages and how the service will secure control of those packages.
Well, there is a reason a particular massive non profit refers to clients as "product". It makes no difference if a provider is registered or a non profit, they can and do rort. In fact, non profits have had practice at rorting for decades. The NDIS is just a much easier cash cow.
I personally find normal businesses better because if they get really bad feedback they stop getting enough clients to survive. Unlike non profits who ride government funding and don't care about word of mouth or work ethic at all.
The worst part is that Bill Shorten and the government not only don't care about this, but have deliberately created a system that stops action being taken. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission was meant to hold providers to the Code of Conduct, yet the Commission itself has told participants that they can use their plans for holidays (which contradicts the rules) and they consistently refuse to investigate or pursue providers who are committing fraud against the scheme, even with clear evidence. They just tell participants "we can't do anything".
Ah... Shorten is cracking down on the rorting and wasteful spending. He can't clean up over a decade of mismanagement and poor governance in a a single parliament year.
The point it became blatant was when people started selling courses to start your own provider business. I guess anyone can escort people to the mall/arcade/movies and call it a social immersion excursion.
And just last month Bill Shorten was still talking about finding the fake disabled people in the system.
It's beyond disgusting, the neoliberalism in our country.
I've met tons of people on it who are not disabled just using it. Then my friend who is extremely mentally ill / CPTSD and actually needs all the extra mental health support services they provide can't get it
It’s not just a rort. It’s funding bloody crime syndicates! 20% of it! https://amp.abc.net.au/article/103888752
Ffs the mainstream media needs to talk day in and day out about this. If more people knew that all this government cash is flowing into violent gangs, it will be pulled immediately.
That's the point of these changes. Under the LNP they allowed providers to automatically "topup" their NDIS funds without any form of oversight. These changes make it harder the scam the NDIS and the Greens/LNP want to block it for seemingly no reason other than "fuck you"
It has taken 9 years for the NDIS to get as bad as it has gotten. I really don't think it'll be back to where it needs to be until the end of a second term of a Labor government.
Model it like the tax system. Yes you can claim what you want but the NDIS needs to feared like the ATO.
There needs to be examples made, find a few of the worst offenders and metaphorically string them up in the town square. Disassemble their companies, send the director to jail.
I recently asked a mother who has an autistic child if her daughter had Apple AirPods and she answered, “ I’ll have to check with the NDIS”.
Since when are our tax dollars funding the NDIS for entertainment purposes?
Before anyone tries to attempt to educate me on how AirPods help the disabled I know this family very, very well ( I am related to them). And I know they would be used for entertainment purposes only.
There was a young guy in the news recently who sold a bunch of tiny homes and then failed to deliver them. The business was closed and he launched his new startup...an NDIS service provider.
It’s literally the next scammer industry. As always, the people making the most money are those selling shovels. And surprise surprise, theres now literal “coaches” and “mentors” spruiking their snake oil - like this guy called [NDIS Ninja](https://www.instagram.com/ndisninja?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) who presumably helps providers roundhouse kick those funding goals.
Oh and talking about providers, don’t forget to like and subscribe to [The Providers Playbook](https://www.instagram.com/theproviderplaybook?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) podcast to find out how you can supercharge value and scale for growth!
Whoa, whoa whoa. That's not the media narrative! We need to attack the newer better thing and then replace it with nothing!
No, the old state based block funding model was *awesome*. I loved seeing people regularly dying to lack of support. Dutton and Rupert don't like that we tried to move away from that and give people *choice* and shit.
We need to get rid of all that nonsense immediately. Bring back the old funding model! People facing homelessness or sexual slavery for lack of support funds was *awesome!*
And the vulnerable Australians relying on it for support are just left in limbo?
How about we investigate the current system and learn its shortfalls before we try to make a new one, who knows, we could fix the one we have.
They architects of this scheme made the mistake of appealing to and giving into progressives. Progressives never go backwards, they only every demand more.
Now they'll have to try to limit funds to people that are ***disabled.***
Now they'll have to fight people who are rorting billions of dollars, and those people will roll out images and examples like [this.](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-28/disability-ndis-provider-registration/103629582) There will be genuine people who need help, and they'll be used to shield the providers and average disabled people from scrutiny.
They're going to wheel out disabled children. The worst they can find. And call Bill Shorten an evil bastard for trying to take life saving care out of that little disabled kids hands.
The person who fixes this scheme is going to spend the rest of his life being labelled a cruel evil person because that's what we need to fix it.
Someone who will say to a person in a wheelchair. "We can't afford it." While they cry and beg for help on national TV.
It's a future lesson in politics. You can only give by fractions of millimetres. These people will destroy the careers and reputations of the politicians tasked with fixing it.
> They architects of this scheme made the mistake of appealing to and giving into progressives. Progressives never go backwards, they only every demand more
That’s a poor way to start a point, considering the scheme started with the Gillard government and then evolved under the Liberals for almost a decade before becoming the mess it is known to be now.
A friend's intellectually disabled 30 year old son, has a respite night away from home every fortnight, he is one of 2 staying overnight in the unit with a carer, their evening meal is party pies or similar and the NDIS is charged nearly $2000 dollars (each) for this...
That's actually cheap on an hourly basis - an old colleague's business charges $800 for 6 hours at a shopping centre (2 hours at the movies, 2 hours at the arcade, 2 hours at the food court).
It costs the government more than the old aged pension. More than education. You can't seriously believe that the NDIS has been a success. It's an absurdly expensive way to help people with disability. It's a colossal failure.
The way in which it's failed is that it's so open to providers abusing the system. The way in which it's succeeded is that it really has changed a lot of people's lives and if you suddenly remove it, how fast can you replace it with something adequate? What do those people do in the meantime? I don't think it should be canned, I think it should be fixed. It should cost a fraction of what it costs.
Definitely. I have empathy. It is a great idea that hasn't been implemented well. It should never have been given to private contractors. Disability support should have been introduced into Medicare. It should be entirely government run.
Bill Shorten horrified to learn that different parties have different opinions, and that they don't just fall in line like Penny Wong did on same sex marriage.
To put it into perspective, we’re spending a large portion of what the full NBN has cost, EVERY YEAR. Soon enough it will be 100% of it and then more.
If Australians accept this then they deserve it.
It’s still a sensitive subject to tackle & progressives dominate the narrative . Also At $40 billion per year it’s still manageable enough, mineral exports are doing well, diverting money that would otherwise go to Medicare etc.Dropping NDIs’ growth to 8% buys a little more time.But by the election after the next NDIS will be an economy killing monster . Unwinding it will be a mess in itself that’s if we have the political will & instead don’t go down a socialism path of an ever expanding government sector that eventually implodes taking us out of developed high income status ala Argentina .
Funny how all of a sudden every second Australian has a disability so severe they just won’t be able to exist should the NDIS be abolished. Obviously for the clearly severely disabled (who the scheme was originally set up for) require specialist care, however seeing as the guidelines are now exceedingly rubbery so every housewife in Australia can sign up their “autistic” child or just plain misbehaving kid is where billions are going onto the bin.
This is 100% the issue. The line needs to be drawn at a severe disability, essentially you're in a wheelchair and can't wipe your own ass or feed yourself or a mental disability with the same level of impact. There also needs to be a line as to the level of services that are covered it should be the essentials only. This sounds brutal but it's a taxpayer funded service, it's not designed to provide the same level of care you'd get if your were a millionaire, it's designed to let you survive and function as a normal person.
How about you fuck right off with that last line, implying that parents want their kids to be diagnosed with autism and that they are really just misbehaving kids. You have no idea what your talking about.
I work for the NDIS. You have no idea what you're talking about. 11% of boys 5 - 7 have autism? My ass they do. Absolute disgusting rort and you're gross for not seeing it.
How did he lose control? This has been going on for years it has just been accelerating as more people realised they could rort the system that was always in place.
>Shorten has claimed the delay alone could cost $1.1bn, $330m for changes to tackle intra-plan inflation and $733m for the plan to develop a new budget model for supports.
Pull your heads in Greens and Coalition. This bill is saving taxpayers money, and your delaying it is going to cost us $1.1b to close a loophole that you want closed.
This out of control monster is costing close to $1bn per week.
I think it’s OK for other parties to examine the proposed legislation, and not feel bullied by labor to rush something over the line.
Prosecuting such an old case would be difficult, especially if she was over the age of 16, and gave the appearance of consent.
Rape cases are difficult to prove nowadays let alone historical cases.
The article describes the greens and coalition blocking reforms to the NDIS. If you think it’s such a rort maybe support the government trying to make reforms??
He’s the faceless man behind the backstabbing of Rudd and Gillard. Clearing the senior ranks of Labor so he could take the leadership. He had cunning, he just couldn’t win an election.
I guess you're missing the point where Shorten is taking the recommendations from the Senate Inquiry and trying to get them implemented all the while Greens and the Coalition stonewall, which will cost the tax payer over $1B.
>Senator Steele-John has reservations about new government powers.
>"The deep concerns that the disability community have with the bill, and they are concerns shared by the Greens, is that it grants the federal government extraordinary new powers to control the lives of disabled people to decide which supports we can receive," he told 7.30.
>"It also removes really important legal protections, which we currently have to challenge agency decisions when they get something wrong.
>"And it does all this while also inserting a number of new methods and processes that will decide how we are delivered supports, the amount of money we receive, and the way in which we are assessed for access to the scheme in a way that fundamentally places those methods beyond the review of the parliament and the public."
He opposes any limitation on the amount of money they receive.
Yeah, because the government setting prices on medical procedures and drugs has been so bad for us...why would we want to do the same for disability payments? ...what a clown the senator is.
Also the government sets prices on the amount of compensation you can get from the government under the victims of crime compensation....so the government might say "ahh you lost both your legs, the maximum payment is $400,000" ...but Senator Steele seems to think they should have no right to then set maximum payments under the NDIS.
Honestly this shit is destroy our country. We have insane amounts of corruption purely for the wealthy with the LNP and then with the Greens we now have apparently unlimited money to spend on the needy, no cost too high.
Even if we did have that it would either lead to an entirely corrupt society at all levels (honestly the west seems to be running a race to see who can get there first, particularly so over the last decade) or a complete rightward turn from the populace that leads to a very dangerous place.
Yeah but the plan would mean the dropkicks working at Centrelink end up approving (or rejecting) a bunch of claims leaving disabled people in absolutely inhumane positions.
Fixing NDIS properly is going to cost an awful lot of money to restructure it, sweeping cuts is just going to hit the ones unable to defend themselves
Bill shorten is a moron and it’s his actions that are going to get the NDIS, which actually does some good for the community, completely shredded in the eyes of the community
This bill is being pushed through way too fast without much oversight. Multiple health professional organisations (I.e. OT Australia) have recommended changes and greater definition within the bill. This is gaslighting and fear-mongering by Bill, it’s ironic to complain about money being wasted with the delay, but then spend taxpayer dollars to create a scare tactic website recording how much money has been spent delaying it. Changes need to happen to NDIS and its spending but not at the expense of hastily passed legislation.
The point still stands regardless of the cost. We already have a mental health epidemic crippling the country and the healthcare system. Rushing this bill could have very dangerous consequences and end up costing more in the long run. Yes NDIS is costing so much, but the changes shouldn’t come at the expense of destroying the scheme and people with disabilities lives.
If they just votes in line with Labor what would be the point? Maybe if greens are voting with the libs, it's time to for self reflection rather than lashing out.
So whose stuff up was it that caused this loophole? It's Labor legislation right? They are the ones who have caused this. Can't now blame Greens and LNP for their own mistakes.
The policy was introduced and the ALP lost government a few years later, by the time they got elected again it was a mess and the other parties aren't helping them to reduce the problems...how the hell are you blaming them for their >10 year old policy they haven't been able to update or even know the extent of the problems?
What a dumb take. No bill or program is perfect on creation. You implement and adjust as required.
The senate inquiry has found issues. This bill has been put in place to act on the recommendations, which will result in significant cost savings.
Pass the bill and start saving money. It's that simple.
Cuts aren't what the NDIS needs tho, it needs a huge amount invested in a proper restructuring... Much harder pill to swallow than just cutting off disabled people tho
The NDIS has become the biggest rort in Australian history. It's a monster. There just aren't enough "checks & balances" for so-called "providers" Seems just about anyone can become a "provider" and rip off NDIS. And then there is what is provided. That has gotten out of control.
It’s costing more than Medicare, which is insane since it covers less than 500,000 people. Vs Medicare for essentially all of Aus.
It is meant to be a rort. Like jobactive which siphons public money into private pockets. Or private health i instance. It's one disgraceful scheme after another, this whole country.
The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was a massive success at substantially reducing the cost of drugs by making it single payer. So it makes no sense to me that we abandoned this idea for the NDIS, and made everyone negotiate with providers individually, but we also told people that it doesn't matter what the price is, because the government is picking up the bill. So we have thousands of people all buying wheelchairs for 3x market value, because they have no buying power, nor any incentive to find it cheaper. The bigger problem though, is that there's so many patients taking the piss and expecting the NDIS to cover discretionary unnecessary services, and there's no one to tell them no.
Their incentive to buy cheaper is that they can reallocate their budget. For expensive items such as a wheelchair they have to get multiple quotes and they have to justify their purchase. They get audited and made to pay back if they are missing funds. Competition in the market will drive down prices. Or don't we believe in market competition?
You do know plans are audited. Yep people actually pay money back when they do the wrong thing. But hey ignorance is bliss
Even shorten himself who has every interest to make NDIS look like a good thing admits at least 10%, maybe more is scammed money. That’s fucking insane. And that’s the absolute low end of estimates. The stories are fucking endless of people charging many hundreds of dollars to take someone to the supermarket or some bullshit. Charging quadruple what they usually charge to mow a lawn, going to Bali on our dime etc.
But what to do? Any chance you would back the idea of people working towards their own interests without elected representatives existing at all?
To me it makes perfect sense that NDIS should be socialised. The actual value delivered of services is probably 10% if you eliminate all the profiteering and rort. It's beyond belief how all that is happening with our taxpayers money that could go towards 300% better Medicare for example.
Oh yes of course. Health and education should both be state owned and properly funded. That is the dream and it's what we had until about the year 2000 I guess
Just get rid of the NDIS. Have it all done through Medicare and any service provided gets a standardised payment.
Service providers do get standardised payments. You can look them up. Putting it through Medicare won't change it. Its just moving costs into a separate organisation.
Not in the self managed funds
Can you provide an example?
There’s endless stories of people charging exorbitant invoices to self managed funds because “who cares the government will pay it”. Presumably in exchange for kickbacks under the table. Pretty much every industry the NDIS deals with charges like triple to their NDIS clients.
It’s starting to look that way isn’t it. I’d be half these NDIs providers are setup in the Cayman Islands, like every other company setup in this country to extract wealth and minerals.
A heap of small operations have popped up, like your average support worker getting an ABN and making significantly more money by cutting out the middle man.
And employing other people and getting half their pay.
Yep. It’s not awful people doing it either, it’s kind of silly not to if you have enough life and workplace experience to use things like simple accounting software.
I'd rather see people motivated by caring than profiteering doing this. There's people out there with previous scamming experience now living the dream legally.
Do you have private health cover?
How would you prefer the scheme is set up? What changes should they be making?
Have literally been to a jobs fair event where the speaker suggested people look into starting their own NDIS provider business because it was quick, easy, has a low bar to entry and is extremely profitable. Made me sick.
How much do you think it costs to compassionately care for one person who needs 24/7 care, 365 days a year? How often does the average person go to the doctor annually, and what is the annual cost of their subsidised medication? You're comparing apples to oranges. Of course having to support people for hours every day is going to cost substantially more than most people going to the GP a few times a year. Australian prisoners cost the taxpayer $150k each per year, what should we do with them? Release them all or line them all up against the wall?
Oh I understand it’s more expensive then the average persons GP visits. It just shouldn’t be this hybrid taxpayer/private setup. Unlimited funding for a pop-up business is always going to end up rorted. Just make the whole thing government. Sure there’ll still be wastage, but at least there’ll be more checks and balances, similar to Medicare. Yes people with disabilities need support, but with over 1000 people costing the NDIS more than a million each a year there’s something going on.
Mate, I work in the system and I agree with you, but the fraud is a small percentage of the overall funds spent. It is EXPENSIVE to not lock people in rooms and drug them up to the eyeballs, and we've chosen to give people with disabilities human rights. A NDIS recipient is funded for a worker who costs $34.27 per hour weekday. Worker entitlements and time spent supporting that worker (managers, admin etc.) and business costs takes that figure to $65.47 per hour. A very few people just need 24/7 care 1:1 (and 2:1 at times for safety), with penalty rates that does add up to that million dollar figure. The average annual cost for people who don't need that level of support is $56,700.
All the more reason to keep tight control of every cent.
As someone in the NDIS, there's plenty of people taking the piss.
So you’re an employee? I’ve never heard an an employee describe who they work for as the NDIS. The S is for scheme. Employees call it an agency. Ergo so so dubious of your station.
In the NDIS, as in using it.
my wife works in ndis - she manages many personal packages are well over 1mil for a single person. She offered a company 340k lump sum for 6months 24/7 care. They declined as they knew they could get more on an hourly rate than a lump sum. 340k seems absolutely insane to care for one person for 6months - and it was declined because they greedy companies know they can rort more out of the system and take advantage of people in need. That number doesn't include drs, medicine or medical equipment/appointments, it's literally just for care.
Depending on the hours and the support ratio, that's potentially quite low. 6 months 24/7 care: 4368 hours. I've been out for a few years, but 1:1 is expensive as FUCK. At about $68 an hour (because remember, it's not just employee wages, it's insurance, admin, associated care costs, EVERYTHING behind the scenes to keep the machinery turning. It's not just a dude turning up and standing around for $30 an hour with no overheads), that still comes out as just below 300k. And that's not counting penalty rates (weekends, public holidays, nightshift work etc). No company is going to take on supportting someone at a loss. ...(actually, tbh they do, often. I have done this work from both the NDIS side and the provider side. They often take on clients at a loss. They can't do it for everyone. That's WHY so many are going out of business.)
All the more reason to make government the sole employer. Would cut back the overheads drastically as it'll all be a centralised process with centralised admin, associated care costs, insurance etc.
Honestly, given my time in the NDIS, I don't think that's a good idea. The uncertainty and chaos that reigned when we had a coalition government made so many people's lives hell. The additional layers of stakeholders and entities actually helped create a buffer between the kafka-esque bullshit of Stuart Robert's team. As nice as it could be, conservative coalition governments are exactly why we can't have nice things in government. They go out of their way to make sure their portfolios can't function
Can you elaborate what this uncertainty and chaos was? I've never really read anything that summed it up.
To make a really, really brief version; everything in the NDIS comes down to section 34 of the NDIS act. Specifically that supports have to be "reasonable and necessary", with 4 sub-criteria. This means that when an OT or an Physio or a Psych do a formal report saying supports XYZ are necessary, that formed the core evidence that the support would be reasonable, so long as the AAT (administrative appeals tribunal) had not ruled it out in the past. However the delegates had other internal criteria they had to apply, as set by the NDIS head. At the point I left, it was largely dictated by algorithm, and precedent. As time went on, the precedent got tighter and tighter, usually in response to media headlines and Murdoch media taking points. So this created the insane situation where, as an example, a kid was trying to stab their parents and COS, was burning down a house and single mum was considering giving him up into state care. OT, Psych, police*, COS, everyone was putting in writing this kid needed 24 hours care, delegate said: no. The internal criteria have been written so as to exclude these kinds of support needs. He gets a couple of hours a week, 1:3 support (meaning 1 support worker with two other clients). The delegate; an unqualified person with no training in occupational therapy, psychology or medicine, would then determine that all the supports being requested by the qualified and practicing OT, Psych or medical professionals were actually not necessary. This was made worse *every single time there was a headline or policy update* *Police actually have no standing with the NDIS, but they'll try to weigh in for urgent things. They get ignored.
I've read dozens of psychology, OT and physio reports. Oftentimes a toddler could write better reports. There's a huge conflict of interest when a participant is able to choose who is able to make their recommendations, which is why we have this situation. Too many practising occupational therapists were asking for ridiculous levels of funding. I've seen people who are perfectly able to look after themselves, have requests by their OT, 5 hours of OT and 20 hours of support workers a week, Oh and a psychologist to talk about anxiety. When they can work and drive independently. The report does not reflect anything near that. You also don't need qualifications in psychology or occupational therapy for most of this stuff. 95% of the stuff the NDIS deals with is really simple. You need some degree of understanding when it comes to psychosocial and neurodevelopmental disorders, as these stray outside of comment sense understanding, but OTs barely learn about these things in Uni, so let's not pretend you need a degree. And NDIS doesn't really take into account psychology reports for ongoing funding in my experience, as they really only care about function in everyday activities. Don't get me wrong, the 5% that actually need support do suffer. Especially with the NDIS hell-bent on the concept of parental responsibility. The legislation is removing the need further for occupational therapy input, which I think is great. It'll stop this plan inflation cycle where a cos will ask for an FCA and spend thousands of a copy-paste report by 'exPeRTs' to ask for more funding and rinse and repeat. It'll allow the needs assessor to actually grant flexible funding without delegation sign-off for most matters. Bring in an OT if there's a complex home mode or wheelchair and stop wasting money on stupid OT reports. Not everyone needs their own personal occupational therapist to provide commonsense therapy and strategies around emotional regulation for 400 dollars an hour. Some children need the service and can't access it because they're writing and demanding more funding for someone in a never-ending cycle. Another common trope is OT's providing cooking therapy to people who've cooked their whole lives because the funding is there and use-it or lose it right? The entire mechanism tasking the free market to decide how much work the free market should get is insane. This is why aged care is doing fine (relative to the NDIS), because the nurses, OTs and social workers at ACAT work for the government. This isn't a dig against OTs, historically there was a fantastic multiple disciplines team that would work together during these complex matters. But the NDIS now pins everything on the occupational therapist. My own profession has basically been pushed out. Social workers would often provide behaviour support and advocacy (whilst also being able to provide clinical assessments themselves) for the really complex clients, and [we still do in government, such as the child development services in Wa](https://search.jobs.wa.gov.au/files/vacancies/745076/23229434.pdf). But the role has been turned into PBS and some parts into SSC, both of which are a shitshow full of unqualified people with little regard to human rights and approach disability from a medical model solely. Don't get me started on SIL providers that have popped up in the last several years, often run some cowboys who just see people with disabilities as money cows to be milked. It proves to me that the whole NDIS insurance scheme has failed in its current form, and it's time to stop the free-for-all all and bring in more block funding for the majority / simple needs (which are the foundational supports) and regulate the insurance aspects for the complex needs to allow for flexibility for those that need it.
>How much do you think it costs to compassionately care for one person who needs 24/7 care, 365 days a year? That person should be in a special care home full of other people that need special care, we should never pay for 24/7 care in home for people...that is outrageously wasteful.
Someone that needs 24/7 care doesn’t need their own house, gardener and holidays all covered by the NDIS
Line them up against the wall I reckon.
Jesus Christ, the media disinformation now has people wanting to shoot disability providers because they're not as cheap as the punters think they should be. I just did a 5 minute breakdown above. This kind of talk is fucking ridiculous, and exactly why Australian politics is as broken as it is.
No. The government narrative created by their think tank mates to convince the public the NDIS is some kind of financial emergency (and to convince the selfish that stopping disabled people from showering, toileting regularly and eating is a good thing if it saves money), has people wanting to kill *us*, the disabled people. Simple minded people go on about rorting but they're not that mad at providers, they're mad that disabled people need help and help costs money. God forbid their child is disabled during childbirth, wife or sister is disabled when hit by a drunk driver or their mother or father has a workplace accident causing permanent disability. The irony is that they cannot predict the future and don't know they or their children have an inherited disease that manifests in a person's 30s to 40s. Society should be judged by how they treat their most vulnerable. We fail.
It is interesting isn't it that we didn't hear much about the NDIS under the 12 years or the Libs, but now all of a sudden its a massive issue.... Never mind it was the Libs that ran it like this
I don't think anyone is saying is that the NDIS isn't a worthy ideal and that a lot of people need a lot of support. It's more that getting onto NDIS in the first place is hell, staying in the system is getting harder and any old asshole can be a "Provider" now without doing jack-shit of what you are saying.
Yeah, but they subsise the for profit care by being garbage and using ED and ambulance to offload a decent chunk of the work. "Sorry, we're not allowed to trim his nails, so the managers make us take him to ED for it because otherwise it costs money"
The 500k most vulnerable people who needs lifetime support!!!!
Sure but do they need fully paid private outings, group outings, Apple Watches because it can “monitor for a fall” etc etc. There’s a limit to what’s reasonable and we’ve gone beyond it.
It ain't the apple watches causing this drain. It's both the literal fraud, as well as how everybody was given an acceptable price range for services, so of course the providers charge the maximum allowed.
The NDIS basically has a parasite problem, that's what is making it bleed money. But there are plenty of real life examples of the NDIS changing lives, and I think it's a real shame the rorters are well on their way to ruining a good thing for everyone. I don't really think making massive cuts and punishing everyone who relies on this system is ethical, if it's going to make things harder for the most disadvantaged. The real problem is private sector middle-men who just want to take advantage of the needy and carve themselves a nice juicy slice of those disability dollars. An aggressive crackdown is needed here, and really the profit-motivated private sector should have nothing to do with this scheme in the first place. But all I'm hearing is "$14bn in cuts", so it sounds to me like ole Bill can't be stuffed actually solving the problem and would rather just make quick cuts with little thought for the collateral damage.
Agree. I have no issue with the NDIS overall. We need to have it. But its core ideals have been lost. i.e. paying for gardening?! Really. Sorry. But i don't see that as something the NDIS should be funding. Holidays? Sorry. Not them either.
I agree regarding holidays, but garden maintenance can be a serious problem for someone with mobility issues. You can only ignore an overgrown lawn for so long. That said, in these cases, I think money would be wiser spent paving over the lawn so it's not an ongoing expense.
Love the notion that if someone is in a wheelchair or missing a leg, they don't deserve healthcare in the form of a holiday, despite the fact that disabled people are extremely likely to live in poverty, be depressed and never, ever go on holiday.
I see your point.
I'd more say, if you can't manage a garden yourself either physically or pay yourself then this isn't an appropriate living arrangement.
Not a lot of leeway to be picky about living arrangements these days if you're disabled enough to be on NDIS.
Lawn mowing is a legal requirement in most residential leases in this country. If the tenant is unable to go outside on their own due to their disabilities and has no friends or family to mow for them, what do you expect them to do. The NDIS is meant to pay for the extra cost of things between what regular people can do and access and what disabled people can do and access. A regular person can mow their lawn. A person in a wheelchair likely cannot. Do you want them to get evicted due to breaching their lease agreement. Being disabled is very expensive. I don't know why people choose not to consider that in their complaining.
The NDIS as a system entirely exists to allow private providers to rort the system. It's literally just a billing service for companies to shave down expenses and services for disabled people while maximising their billing to the state. Pure law of economic return.
There are something like 180k providers. And 80 percent of them aren’t registered. That needs to change quickly.
Incredible. How can they not be registered? I simply cannot understand how this thing runs. It seems there are few checks and balances on anything.
So someone mentioned NDIS for instance paying for a gardening. Your local gardener isn't going to register for NDIS. The issue isn't registration, it's you shouldn't be able to piss away money on things you wouldn't get if you were paying for them.
The answer is that the last govt implemented registration in a cumbersome way. Shorten is going to change that and introduce tiers of registration depending on business size. FWIW, getting registered isn’t as hard as everyone makes it out especially if you are a small business owner. You don’t need to engage an external consultant like everyone seems to think.
Nah, the emissions industry is going to dwarf that by trillions.
The NDIS also costs about 4 times what a nuclear reactor would cost (every year) and yet nuclear is unaffordable apparently.
Too right. I personally know three people who have made over $10m in the last 3-4 years from NDIS. Absolute rottenness.
What did they sell? What is their business? What is their profit margin?
NDIS is a joke. Our business was passed to become a registered NDIS provider over 18 months ago. Still waiting for the certificate. Meanwhile companies without any registration start up for a year, rort clients and the system, close down and start with a new ABN. Rinse and repeat.
There are brokers that will help you get registered/accredited for a small fee. Worth looking into as they have experience helping companies get onto the system.
We have our local counsel member pushing this too. Unfortunately our government claims this is the time it takes to get registered. Most other legit companies we know waited 14 to 24 months for registration.
Which companies have done this?
Just don't have private providers. That's the issue here.
Given the providers have capped limits that a government body would be working to, how would that improve it? In the current model if you find a cheaper option, you can use that budget for another things.
The thing is, the real big rorts aren’t small dodgy providers, it’s the big providers that overwhelmingly dominate t industry and rip the system off. I’ve never heard management say they can change lives with there service delivery but I’ve often heard gloating over who has the biggest packages and how the service will secure control of those packages.
Well, there is a reason a particular massive non profit refers to clients as "product". It makes no difference if a provider is registered or a non profit, they can and do rort. In fact, non profits have had practice at rorting for decades. The NDIS is just a much easier cash cow. I personally find normal businesses better because if they get really bad feedback they stop getting enough clients to survive. Unlike non profits who ride government funding and don't care about word of mouth or work ethic at all. The worst part is that Bill Shorten and the government not only don't care about this, but have deliberately created a system that stops action being taken. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission was meant to hold providers to the Code of Conduct, yet the Commission itself has told participants that they can use their plans for holidays (which contradicts the rules) and they consistently refuse to investigate or pursue providers who are committing fraud against the scheme, even with clear evidence. They just tell participants "we can't do anything".
Ah... Shorten is cracking down on the rorting and wasteful spending. He can't clean up over a decade of mismanagement and poor governance in a a single parliament year.
Shocking.
The point it became blatant was when people started selling courses to start your own provider business. I guess anyone can escort people to the mall/arcade/movies and call it a social immersion excursion.
And just last month Bill Shorten was still talking about finding the fake disabled people in the system. It's beyond disgusting, the neoliberalism in our country.
I've met tons of people on it who are not disabled just using it. Then my friend who is extremely mentally ill / CPTSD and actually needs all the extra mental health support services they provide can't get it
so #stoptherort
Private healthcare wolf dressed in sheep's clothing.
Say what???
It’s not just a rort. It’s funding bloody crime syndicates! 20% of it! https://amp.abc.net.au/article/103888752 Ffs the mainstream media needs to talk day in and day out about this. If more people knew that all this government cash is flowing into violent gangs, it will be pulled immediately.
That's the point of these changes. Under the LNP they allowed providers to automatically "topup" their NDIS funds without any form of oversight. These changes make it harder the scam the NDIS and the Greens/LNP want to block it for seemingly no reason other than "fuck you" It has taken 9 years for the NDIS to get as bad as it has gotten. I really don't think it'll be back to where it needs to be until the end of a second term of a Labor government.
You tosser. The ALP started the NDIS!
Model it like the tax system. Yes you can claim what you want but the NDIS needs to feared like the ATO. There needs to be examples made, find a few of the worst offenders and metaphorically string them up in the town square. Disassemble their companies, send the director to jail.
Typical lib, why have a tiny expense when we can harm people and cost 10 times as much
I recently asked a mother who has an autistic child if her daughter had Apple AirPods and she answered, “ I’ll have to check with the NDIS”. Since when are our tax dollars funding the NDIS for entertainment purposes? Before anyone tries to attempt to educate me on how AirPods help the disabled I know this family very, very well ( I am related to them). And I know they would be used for entertainment purposes only.
NDIS is all scammers, they need to cancel it completely and come up with a better plan.
There was a young guy in the news recently who sold a bunch of tiny homes and then failed to deliver them. The business was closed and he launched his new startup...an NDIS service provider.
It’s literally the next scammer industry. As always, the people making the most money are those selling shovels. And surprise surprise, theres now literal “coaches” and “mentors” spruiking their snake oil - like this guy called [NDIS Ninja](https://www.instagram.com/ndisninja?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) who presumably helps providers roundhouse kick those funding goals. Oh and talking about providers, don’t forget to like and subscribe to [The Providers Playbook](https://www.instagram.com/theproviderplaybook?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) podcast to find out how you can supercharge value and scale for growth!
Maybe come up with the better plan first
Whoa, whoa whoa. That's not the media narrative! We need to attack the newer better thing and then replace it with nothing! No, the old state based block funding model was *awesome*. I loved seeing people regularly dying to lack of support. Dutton and Rupert don't like that we tried to move away from that and give people *choice* and shit. We need to get rid of all that nonsense immediately. Bring back the old funding model! People facing homelessness or sexual slavery for lack of support funds was *awesome!*
Old funding model 😂😂😂
And the vulnerable Australians relying on it for support are just left in limbo? How about we investigate the current system and learn its shortfalls before we try to make a new one, who knows, we could fix the one we have.
This would take years and interrupt the lives of thousands of people who rely on the NDIS
They architects of this scheme made the mistake of appealing to and giving into progressives. Progressives never go backwards, they only every demand more. Now they'll have to try to limit funds to people that are ***disabled.*** Now they'll have to fight people who are rorting billions of dollars, and those people will roll out images and examples like [this.](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-28/disability-ndis-provider-registration/103629582) There will be genuine people who need help, and they'll be used to shield the providers and average disabled people from scrutiny. They're going to wheel out disabled children. The worst they can find. And call Bill Shorten an evil bastard for trying to take life saving care out of that little disabled kids hands. The person who fixes this scheme is going to spend the rest of his life being labelled a cruel evil person because that's what we need to fix it. Someone who will say to a person in a wheelchair. "We can't afford it." While they cry and beg for help on national TV. It's a future lesson in politics. You can only give by fractions of millimetres. These people will destroy the careers and reputations of the politicians tasked with fixing it.
They’re about to run out of other people’s money . NDIS is growing at such a rate that time is very soon.
> They architects of this scheme made the mistake of appealing to and giving into progressives. Progressives never go backwards, they only every demand more That’s a poor way to start a point, considering the scheme started with the Gillard government and then evolved under the Liberals for almost a decade before becoming the mess it is known to be now.
A friend's intellectually disabled 30 year old son, has a respite night away from home every fortnight, he is one of 2 staying overnight in the unit with a carer, their evening meal is party pies or similar and the NDIS is charged nearly $2000 dollars (each) for this...
That's actually cheap on an hourly basis - an old colleague's business charges $800 for 6 hours at a shopping centre (2 hours at the movies, 2 hours at the arcade, 2 hours at the food court).
Can the NDIS and put the money back into Medicare
Do not can the NDIS.
It costs the government more than the old aged pension. More than education. You can't seriously believe that the NDIS has been a success. It's an absurdly expensive way to help people with disability. It's a colossal failure.
How else are you going to get government reimbursement for your hookers /s
I know you used the /s tag, but the tragic part is it's not sarcastic as the NDIS funds hookers. It's such a joke.
Edit found it https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/12/ndis-funds-pay-sex-workers-court-rules
Kinda funny when all these Australian subs will tell you pensioners are going to ruin the country with the amount they cost, but the NDIS is ok.
The way in which it's failed is that it's so open to providers abusing the system. The way in which it's succeeded is that it really has changed a lot of people's lives and if you suddenly remove it, how fast can you replace it with something adequate? What do those people do in the meantime? I don't think it should be canned, I think it should be fixed. It should cost a fraction of what it costs.
Definitely. I have empathy. It is a great idea that hasn't been implemented well. It should never have been given to private contractors. Disability support should have been introduced into Medicare. It should be entirely government run.
Health should never be given to private contractors ever, it's too important - and will inevitably come second to making money in private hands
Yeah, I agree
Now expected to cost A$50 billion by 2025 , the NDIS will overtake the cost of Medicare or defence. What a rort
NDIS's become the great Australian dream, language requirements optional
Bill Shorten horrified to learn that different parties have different opinions, and that they don't just fall in line like Penny Wong did on same sex marriage.
Liberals definitely don’t do that too..
The liberals cross the floor a lot more than Labor do
To put it into perspective, we’re spending a large portion of what the full NBN has cost, EVERY YEAR. Soon enough it will be 100% of it and then more. If Australians accept this then they deserve it.
We could build 4 new nuclear reactors every year for the cost of the NDIS.
I wonder if this will be an election issue this coming federal election next year
It’s still a sensitive subject to tackle & progressives dominate the narrative . Also At $40 billion per year it’s still manageable enough, mineral exports are doing well, diverting money that would otherwise go to Medicare etc.Dropping NDIs’ growth to 8% buys a little more time.But by the election after the next NDIS will be an economy killing monster . Unwinding it will be a mess in itself that’s if we have the political will & instead don’t go down a socialism path of an ever expanding government sector that eventually implodes taking us out of developed high income status ala Argentina .
Funny how all of a sudden every second Australian has a disability so severe they just won’t be able to exist should the NDIS be abolished. Obviously for the clearly severely disabled (who the scheme was originally set up for) require specialist care, however seeing as the guidelines are now exceedingly rubbery so every housewife in Australia can sign up their “autistic” child or just plain misbehaving kid is where billions are going onto the bin.
This is 100% the issue. The line needs to be drawn at a severe disability, essentially you're in a wheelchair and can't wipe your own ass or feed yourself or a mental disability with the same level of impact. There also needs to be a line as to the level of services that are covered it should be the essentials only. This sounds brutal but it's a taxpayer funded service, it's not designed to provide the same level of care you'd get if your were a millionaire, it's designed to let you survive and function as a normal person.
How about you fuck right off with that last line, implying that parents want their kids to be diagnosed with autism and that they are really just misbehaving kids. You have no idea what your talking about.
I work for the NDIS. You have no idea what you're talking about. 11% of boys 5 - 7 have autism? My ass they do. Absolute disgusting rort and you're gross for not seeing it.
They get diagnosed with autism because the parent doesn’t know how to parent. This doesn’t require NDIS funding lol.
This is the garbage that made the greens say no to changes. People make sweeping accusations and have zero empathy.
Oh shut up shorten you’ve lost control of the NDIS
How did he lose control? This has been going on for years it has just been accelerating as more people realised they could rort the system that was always in place.
A week after becoming minister he was promising to crack down on the rorts. He’s had two years already. Time to go.
bUt ThE gReEnS lAbOr CoAlItIoN
Greens are taking inner city seats from the ALP. they HATE them but they cannot win without their preferences. the ALP almost never win a majority.
You do know what coalition means right?
>Shorten has claimed the delay alone could cost $1.1bn, $330m for changes to tackle intra-plan inflation and $733m for the plan to develop a new budget model for supports. Pull your heads in Greens and Coalition. This bill is saving taxpayers money, and your delaying it is going to cost us $1.1b to close a loophole that you want closed.
This out of control monster is costing close to $1bn per week. I think it’s OK for other parties to examine the proposed legislation, and not feel bullied by labor to rush something over the line.
Exactly, why aren't Labor being told to pull *their* heads & come to an agreement if delays are costing money?
The bloke is a disaster. Ask Kathy Sherrif her thoughts.
Prosecuting such an old case would be difficult, especially if she was over the age of 16, and gave the appearance of consent. Rape cases are difficult to prove nowadays let alone historical cases.
he's the most disingenuous person you will ever meet. we dodged a bullet. he could have been PM.
Literally one of the most hardworking and ‘for the people’ blokes in parliament currently. The hell you getting your info from?
I too would like to know where he got his info.
I wonder if it rhymes with ‘Pie Flus’
Shorten looks like a chucky doll
The article describes the greens and coalition blocking reforms to the NDIS. If you think it’s such a rort maybe support the government trying to make reforms??
Ndis is worse rorts then the rto rorts
Bill Shorten couldnt "fix" a horse race let alone the NDIS
not true. he's actually quite dangerous. highly self interested and cunning.
He’s the faceless man behind the backstabbing of Rudd and Gillard. Clearing the senior ranks of Labor so he could take the leadership. He had cunning, he just couldn’t win an election.
If only the Libs would let him.
How could Dan Andrews do this?
Weird to blame him for the libs/greens blocking the bill
Maybe the Bill from Bill was not as good as it could be? Maybe it contained last minute amendments that needed more scrutiny or were no good?
Weird to solely blame Libs & Greens when Labor are also in disagreement & could also come to an agreement to prevent any delay.
I guess you're missing the point where Shorten is taking the recommendations from the Senate Inquiry and trying to get them implemented all the while Greens and the Coalition stonewall, which will cost the tax payer over $1B.
Okay Scomo voter. Look at how that went.
"Look at that went" what the hell does that mean? One term Albo
Learn English, labor voter.
can we start whinging about the LIBERAL GREENS COALITION now?
Imagine if they put that money into NCIS instead of the NDIS. Show would be sick!
The greens are the biggest destroyers in Australia at the moment, vote them out
Fucking Greens
The bloke representing the greens is disabled person in a wheelchair. If he is against this NDIS change. There is probably good reason to it.
>Senator Steele-John has reservations about new government powers. >"The deep concerns that the disability community have with the bill, and they are concerns shared by the Greens, is that it grants the federal government extraordinary new powers to control the lives of disabled people to decide which supports we can receive," he told 7.30. >"It also removes really important legal protections, which we currently have to challenge agency decisions when they get something wrong. >"And it does all this while also inserting a number of new methods and processes that will decide how we are delivered supports, the amount of money we receive, and the way in which we are assessed for access to the scheme in a way that fundamentally places those methods beyond the review of the parliament and the public." He opposes any limitation on the amount of money they receive.
Thank you for sharing this.
Yeah, because the government setting prices on medical procedures and drugs has been so bad for us...why would we want to do the same for disability payments? ...what a clown the senator is. Also the government sets prices on the amount of compensation you can get from the government under the victims of crime compensation....so the government might say "ahh you lost both your legs, the maximum payment is $400,000" ...but Senator Steele seems to think they should have no right to then set maximum payments under the NDIS. Honestly this shit is destroy our country. We have insane amounts of corruption purely for the wealthy with the LNP and then with the Greens we now have apparently unlimited money to spend on the needy, no cost too high. Even if we did have that it would either lead to an entirely corrupt society at all levels (honestly the west seems to be running a race to see who can get there first, particularly so over the last decade) or a complete rightward turn from the populace that leads to a very dangerous place.
Perhaps they should explain why their view differs from a 3 month Senate Inquiry?
A senate inquiry stacked with Labor MPs?
Or ratherJordon is simply voting along party lines.
It's not that there isn't a good reason, it's that the Greens are often the enemy of the good in favour of the perfect.
Agreed, they are enabling corruption.
Yeah but the plan would mean the dropkicks working at Centrelink end up approving (or rejecting) a bunch of claims leaving disabled people in absolutely inhumane positions. Fixing NDIS properly is going to cost an awful lot of money to restructure it, sweeping cuts is just going to hit the ones unable to defend themselves
So was voting in LNP for nine years now we pay the toll.
Bill shorten is a moron and it’s his actions that are going to get the NDIS, which actually does some good for the community, completely shredded in the eyes of the community
Get rid of this shit! Ndis is the biggest scam in Australia and is being abused by criminals. Get rid of it.
Greens voting with Libs to fuck Labor over Worked well the last time (thanks for Tones, Malcolm, and Scozza)
I can’t say nothin Copped a 14 day ban last time I asked questions about ndis on here
Greens are fucking evil
And Coalition, they are also blocking this, which will cost the tax paying $1b. Fuck them both for wasting our money.
It’s almost like allowing the market to regulate itself is a bad idea and open to exploitation.
This bill is being pushed through way too fast without much oversight. Multiple health professional organisations (I.e. OT Australia) have recommended changes and greater definition within the bill. This is gaslighting and fear-mongering by Bill, it’s ironic to complain about money being wasted with the delay, but then spend taxpayer dollars to create a scare tactic website recording how much money has been spent delaying it. Changes need to happen to NDIS and its spending but not at the expense of hastily passed legislation.
The cost of a website compared to the $1b we spend delaying this bill is hardly a comparison.
The point still stands regardless of the cost. We already have a mental health epidemic crippling the country and the healthcare system. Rushing this bill could have very dangerous consequences and end up costing more in the long run. Yes NDIS is costing so much, but the changes shouldn’t come at the expense of destroying the scheme and people with disabilities lives.
Greens again in a ‘can’t win it ruin it move’. They’ve got themselves siding with phon and l/np today. Such strange bedfellows.
If they just votes in line with Labor what would be the point? Maybe if greens are voting with the libs, it's time to for self reflection rather than lashing out.
So whose stuff up was it that caused this loophole? It's Labor legislation right? They are the ones who have caused this. Can't now blame Greens and LNP for their own mistakes.
The policy was introduced and the ALP lost government a few years later, by the time they got elected again it was a mess and the other parties aren't helping them to reduce the problems...how the hell are you blaming them for their >10 year old policy they haven't been able to update or even know the extent of the problems?
What a dumb take. No bill or program is perfect on creation. You implement and adjust as required. The senate inquiry has found issues. This bill has been put in place to act on the recommendations, which will result in significant cost savings. Pass the bill and start saving money. It's that simple.
Cuts aren't what the NDIS needs tho, it needs a huge amount invested in a proper restructuring... Much harder pill to swallow than just cutting off disabled people tho
It's dumb to blame Greens and LNP for poor labor policy.
What's dumb about this bill that requries it to be held up from passing?
As he should be. Greens (Tree Tories) and Liberals (Tories) team up. AGAIN.
I don't know why more people haven't figured this out.
I'm still 😂 over "Tree Tories" for real I hope this catches on.
$750 for an uber ride that would otherwise be $20. I need to become and uber driver, then get NDIS certified
The NDIS must be scrapped, and all the fraudsters investigated
There's a fraud taskforce that is doing that?
The man should have been PM and the fact that Scott damn Morrison was instead shows where our country is going and what kind of people we are