The Government has confirmed key details of changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme due to come into effect in two days. The biggest change is a definitive list of what NDIS money can and can't be used for. Anything directly linked to a person's disability will be included such as accredited assistance animals or domestic assistance. NDIS funds can't be used for drugs or alcohol, or services not guided by scientific evidence such as cuddle therapy. The list is part of a range of changes which were recommended by a review into the scheme. Kurt Fearnley gave this interview prior to the list being made public.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Kurt Fearnley, thank you for joining me. Talk me through some of the changes that are coming
00:06into effect.
00:07There are a lot of changes coming into the scheme but some of them are now, some of them
00:12are going to come into place over time. For the ones that are coming in now with the legislation
00:18change there is the creation of a list which is called Section 10 that is there to help
00:24guide our participants to be able to make choices around what is and what isn't in their
00:28plans.
00:30What if someone needs an item that is directly linked to their disability but it's off the
00:34list?
00:35So if there is the ability to be able to find an experience or a product that is of equal
00:44value to the list but it is, it gives greater outcomes then you are able to go through an
00:49alternate process that is the substitutions list.
00:53Some people are very worried about racking up debts if they spend the money incorrectly.
00:59What mechanisms are being put in place to prevent this from happening?
01:03One of the great things that has come through the legislation is the ability to be able
01:07to waive a debt when it comes to somebody's disability. There is also a 12 month period
01:12of time where we will have an education focus. And there were also issues with this adversarial
01:17nature with the scheme being a line by line argument, a fight over every single column.
01:22And that's one of the exciting things that with the creation of the list that we are
01:26able to go down that path of the top down budget settings.
01:30One of the other changes is to allow the agency more powers to intervene, particularly if
01:35there is suspected fraud in relation to someone's plan. I have spoken to some people who have
01:41already had this happen in recent time and have said that in the end after an investigation
01:47there was no fraud that had been found but they had still had distressed cause to them.
01:53How can people trust that the agency won't act in haste here and will do the right thing?
01:58Unfortunately, I have also heard the other side of that discussion where I have heard
02:03from participants who have been the victim of fraud. They want anybody who is in the
02:07scheme, who is defrauding the scheme to be rooted out of the scheme.
02:10The government and the agency keep saying that they are consulting and there is ongoing
02:15co-design with the community but some in the community have criticised that process saying
02:20it hasn't been done well enough. What's your response to that?
02:25Since I have come into the agency we have rebuilt the agency. We have made sure that
02:28disabled people are at every layer. The voice is heard at every layer of the agency. There
02:33are more people at senior leadership than ever before in the agency that are disabled
02:37people.
02:39These are some of the biggest changes in the NDIS since its inception. Some in the community
02:45have argued that the government and the agency have mishandled this entire process. What's
02:51your response?
02:51I think that whenever disabled lives are taken into what is a robust adversarial parliament
03:00then it can feel like your voice is diminished. But I would just say to see that process on
03:06its own I think doesn't do justice to the amount of change that has happened over these
03:10last two years.
03:12Kurt Fearnley, thank you very much for joining me.
03:14Thank you for having me, it's been a pleasure.