People with disability want more coordination ahead of NDIS reforms

Key points:

• In March, the government announced $732.9 million over four years to improve the sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme

• Mr River Night is a national disability sector advocate and outspoken supporter of reform and improvements in the disability and NDIS sector

• The advocate expressed that many in the sector were ‘fuming’ over clashes between federal and state responsibility of disability services

Last week, states and territories informed the Federal Government that they would only negotiate their contribution to the NDIS if the GST ‘no-worse-off guarantee’ was made permanent.

The ‘no-worse-off guarantee’ requires the Australian Government to compensate states for shortfalls in their GST revenue share between the old and new distribution arrangements until 2026 – ‘27.

Mr River Night, national disability sector advocate and cofounder of Developing Australian Communities, said he was deeply disappointed by the current political rhetoric he is hearing regarding funding, disability services and responsibilities.

“Disability funding and departments in each state were not responsible for Medicare-funded services, health, education and allied health services pre-NDIS and they still are not. Yet, what we see is this thinking that because we have [the] NDIS supporting around 10 percent of Australians living with disability, all those other state services are somehow no longer required and can be scaled back,” said Mr Night.

“Professionals, like psychologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapy, early intervention in schools, school guidance officers and professionals supporting our teachers throughout educational institutions, hospitals and specialists […] were not funded by State Disability Service Departments.

“The services funded by our State Disability Department budgets are rightly now in the hands of [the] NDIS, but that doesn’t mean all the other services states have always delivered and continue to, can save a buck by reducing their programs and spending and prioritising services expecting [the] NDIS to do [it] all.

“One of our biggest issues is that an individualised-only approach like NDIS is the most expensive way to deliver many types of services, such as professional or clinical services, because they are external to other stakeholders.  

“When [the] NDIS rolled out, we lost the local disability service contact point that case managed and supported people in a human way, networked with other local services from other areas like education, health and community programs and do things as smart and effectively with funds as possible.

“The local coordination role was the glue that connected everything around a person with complex needs, because most people with a diagnosis requiring significant support, will require a range of disability and mainstream services working together.

“The role of LACs or support coordinators should have continued that local case manager role and local coordination, but those roles have been hijacked and limited with the NDIS roll-out.

“People living with disability don’t want more and more money spent on inefficient and ineffective service options and approaches. We want a good, coordinated health care system.

“Our pre-NDIS systems were struggling already but they were replaced with an even more disconnected, federal program, we lost the local coordinated response, we lost the human part of human services and we lost the capacity of the ‘system’ to respond in real-time to crisis and changes.

“We could easily save billions if we planned directly with people, had a system where all agencies worked together easily and it was coordinated by a local professional. It’s not rocket science.”

As part of the NDIS reforms and in response to the 222 recommendations from the Royal Commission, Mr River said that he is demanding the ‘urgent’ reintroduction of local coordination and case management, not just to ensure funds are used effectively but to ensure the model that the NDIS was originally designed to deliver is carried out.

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