My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Caalcuttin woman from Gadighal Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's Friday, the eighth of December. I'm Sam, I'm Billy. Yesterday, an independent review about Australia's National Disability Insurance scheme made twenty six recommendations for Australia's governments to better support Australians living with a disability. We're going to explain exactly what you need to know about these recommendations. But first, Billy, there was some big news from Australia's media yesterday.
Yes Australian broadcaster Alan Jones has been accused of inappropriate behavior with several young men in an instigation by The Sydney Morning Herald. In her report, journalist Kate McClymont alleged Jones used his position of power to prey on a number of young men. Jones denies the allegations and his legal team has confirmed they have taken the first step in commencing defamation proceedings against The Sydney Morning Herald.
Fiji's Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prosad has called for a no visa requirement to travel between Australia and the Pacific Islands. In an address in Australia, Prasad said Australians and Pacific Islanders should be able to freely move and work across the vast blue Pacific. He suggested a visa free Pacific as the next step, highlighting the benefits of economic integration between the countries.
The International Air Transport Association has announced expected net profits of twenty three point three billion US dollars for the global airline industry this year. The association includes Australian airlines like Quantus and Virgin The Director General of the Association said that on average, airlines make eight dollars for each customer that.
Travels and today's good news I like this one. Viewers of Deal or No Deal in the UK have helped raise thousands for a contestant who has mode A neuron disease. Brad Whale went on the show to win enough money to fulfill his bucket list, but he only walked away with five pounds that's about ten Australian dollars. A fellow contestant on the show set up a GoFundMe page, which has now raised more than one hundred thousand pounds to
help Whale complete his bucket list. Okay, so Billy. Yesterday, an independent review of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and we more commonly know it as the NDIS made twenty six recommendations to create what it said would be a more sustainable, functional and equitable support system for Australians with a disability. The authors of the review said their recommendations would renew the promise of the NDIS two people with disabilities.
Before we go to those twenty six recommendations, why don't we go back a few steps and talk through what exactly the NDIS actually is.
Yes, it seems like a really logical place to start, So for those who don't know, the NDIS provides necessary support and services for Australians who have a permanent and significant disability. So it offers access to community service which can be things like just going to the doctors, for example, and it also provides assistance for necessary support such as you know, if you need a car to be modified, it can provide the financial assistance to do things such
as that. Now, it was launched in two thy and thirteen, so it's about ten years old, but it was rolled out incrementally and it was ultimately completed in twenty twenty. Today there are now over six hundred and ten thousand Australians who receive support from the NDIS. But for reference, there are two point five million Australians with a disability under the age of sixty five, and sixty five is the cutoff age for NDIS support.
Okay, and so ten years into the program there's been this big review. But before we go into what the review found, was there anything that kind of triggered the commissioning of the review in the first place.
Yeah, definitely. So in order for a review to be commissioned, there needs to be a reason for that, and so the government launched the review in twenty twenty two, and that was because of widespread concerns about deteriorating support for NDIS recipients. You work in the media, I'm sure, you've heard a lot of complaints over the years. I feel
like I've been hearing about them for years now. One of the key concerns was the ndis's functionality, So there were a lot of allegations about the presence of unethical providers who are allegedly overcharging recipients for ineffective or even
just unnecessary supports. And another big concern was just how expensive the NDIS was becoming, and that was attributed to a number of reasons, but one was the number of participants needing the NDIS and that growing much faster than was initially expected ten years ago.
So basically, if I was to kind of generally bundle those two issues, it's wastage and its programs not being efficient, and that's because of some bad actors, but also some problems with the way that grants are given out, but also then the rising costs of the program. And we covered earlier this year the number of people with ADHD on the NDIS, and I think that kind of story symbolized to politicians the different ways in which the NDIS is being used in twenty twenty three.
Definitely, And before you go on, I do just want to point out Obviously we're focusing on the bad stuff. There is obviously a lot of good that the NDIS.
Had done, really and that is the message that comes from the government whenever those bad stories come out, is that we're focusing on the bad actors. But there's people who are using the NDIS funds.
For good totally, and they want to focus on the bad because they want to fix it exactly.
So they did focus on the bad and they did this review. What did the review find?
So overall, just as a general sentiment, the report found that the current system was difficult to navigate and that it didn't really encourage high quality services for people with disabilities. So to solve this, it made twenty six recommendations overall, and that came with one hundred and thirty eight supporting actions, so ways that the government can action those recommendations, and those are to be implemented over a.
Five year period.
So I'll put a link to the report in the show notes if you do want to have a closer look. But just as a top line overview of what it recommended, the first recommendation was that the NDIS should not be the sole source of disability support in Australia and should more be part of a bigger system of connected disability services.
Do they offer like an idea of how that could actually operate.
So it recommended investing in something it called foundational supports and those would be available to all people with a disability and it would exist outside of the ndis's individualized budgets. So at the moment, the way the NDIS works is that if you're a person with a disability, you can go to the NDIS and ask for specific personal support. But what this review recommended was that there should be something overall outside of individualized support that all people across
Australia with a disability can access. Does that make sense?
Yeah, so like blanket mainstream services exactly.
That everyone can access. And so it said that by setting up these kind of foundational supports, the government can reduce the inequity, which was a word that kept coming up between people in the NDIS and those who are not in the NDIS.
So basically the report recommended that the NDIS not be this sole source of disability support in Australia, but be part of like a broader network of disability support systems that everyone can access.
Yeah, exactly spot on.
Okay, so what else did the report find?
Another recommendation was around how people who are on the NDIS have their budgets managed. So just quickly, for people on the NDIS, the government doesn't provide support payments directly, so you don't just get a lump sum put into your bank account. Instead of that, participants get a budget
which they can use to purchase support from registered providers. Now, the NDAs hasn't suggested changing that basic structure, but it has said that there needs to be a greater flexibility in how participants of the NDIS can spend their budget with minimal exceptions, and it also said that the government should adopt a quote trust based approach to overseeing how budgets are spent.
So we've pretty much talked about ways that people inside the NDIS can have the program modified to make it more effective. Did the report recommend anything for those who wish to apply to the NDIS.
Yes, this was another key recommendation, so it addressed how people apply to access the NDAs and it said that in this application process, the NDIS should prioritize those with quote significant functional impairment and need over a medical diagnosis
which you might be asking why. So it said at the moment, many participants are gaining automatic access to the NDIS because they have a medical diagnosis, which has led to a focus on the need of having a medical diagnosis rather than the actual function and disability related support needs.
That's interesting.
Yeah, And it said that this has led to inequity. Again, like I said, that's a word that just kept coming up in this report, and it said it created this inequity because it favored only those with means to obtain a diagnosis.
Right, so basically favoring people who had access to doctors and assessments that could get them the paperwork that they need to access the program.
Yes, exactly.
How has the government come out yesterday to respond to all of this?
So, like we said, the report only came out yesterday, and my understanding is that the government didn't have the report before it was released to the public, so they haven't detailed yet whether or not they will accept each recommend or not. But Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi has said that a full government response will be released next year, which will follow further consultation with the disability community over
the coming months. In how the government should respond to this, but in terms of initial comments about it, NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said, quote this is a significant moment in Australian history, particularly for people with disability and their families and the disability sector. Our nation will reap the rewards of the review's work. But he also added it is important that Australians understand changes are not going to happen overnight.
Have you heard anything from the opposition.
Yes, so we have a statement from the Shadow Minister for NDIS, Michael Suka, and he said quote Unsurprisingly, the independent review has left many questions unanswered and stones unturned. The Government will now have to outline which changes they support and how they plan to transform these recommendations into tangible action. He also said, it seems clear that the government will seek to deny access to the NDIS for children with autism and developmental delay.
And we know that the NDAs is this joint program
between the Commonwealth and the States and territories. And on Wednesday at the National Cabinet meeting and the National Cabinet is that meeting between the Prime Minister and the leaders of the States and Territories, they all agreed to work together on new laws to improve the NDAs, so I think we will see some of these recommendations play out in the structure of those new laws, and hopefully see some changes to the programs where those inequities have been identified.
We'll be back in New Years on Monday morning. It's going to be hot for a lot of the country this weekend, so please look after yourself, drink a lot of water, and share this podcast with a friend for a bit of weekend listening. Until then, at a wonderful weekend,