Disability Services Minister Bill Shorten says the government's central agency for supporting Australians with a disability has "lost its way" and needs significant work to ensure it can survive into the future.
Speaking at the National Press Club, Mr Shorten described what he deemed mismanagement of the scheme for almost the entirety of its existence, resulting in an agency rife with fraud, inefficiency and spiralling costs that would not help participants if left unaddressed.
Mr Shorten said there was still "more good than bad" in the scheme, but he outlined a six-pronged plan to overhaul the NDIA, including a lift in staffing, longer-term care plans, addressing fraud and rorting, supporting more people with disability to live at home, purging ineffective providers and linking other community services up to the NDIA better.
"The National Disability Insurance Scheme is here to stay. It is not going away. But, and this is important, we do need to get it back on track," Mr Shorten said.
The minister has commissioned an independent panel to make recommendations for how to "reboot" the agency, due by October.
Among the changes the panel has been tasked to examine are growing the NDIA workforce, returning some call centre functions to the agency and reducing workforce churn.
Mr Shorten said NDIS participants often had to repeatedly prove their disability to different agency workers, and that the agency should be able to offer multi-year plans that could be adapted over time, enabling better planning, support spending and the ability for participants to develop relationships with agency workers.
Shadow NDIS Minister Michael Sukkar said Mr Shorten's address had left participants "in the dark" about what the government was proposing to do.
"After nearly 12 months of kicking key decisions down the road, all Bill Shorten could provide was the usual prevaricating motherhood statements, identifying issues without providing detailed solution," Mr Sukkar said.
"Instead of focusing on workforce provider shortages, this minister was more fixated on the bureaucracy within the NDIA.
Shorten promises cost crackdown not a threat to participants
Mr Shorten said he also wanted to address the spiralling cost of the scheme, including confronting providers who overcharged for their services.
"[Just] because an NDIS package is taxpayer-funded, it is not fair game for the doubling and tripling of prices. It shouldn't be treated as some sort of wedding tax," Mr Shorten said.
"And, remember, if one provider is overcharging for their service it means the participant can't afford another service they might need."
Additionally, he warned those who were taking advantage of the scheme by offering services that gave little benefit to people with disability.
"If you have a business model where you are sort of mining someone's supported independent living package for your own interests … sell your business now, because it's not going to be worth much by the time we're finished with you," he said.
The minister has previously told the ABC that some people had made themselves rich from rorting the NDIS, and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission chief Michael Phelan last year estimated 15 to 20 per cent of all NDIS expenditure was rorted.
Treasury estimated last year the $34 billion scheme would cost $97 billion by 2032 unless brought under tighter control, and the NDIS has become second to debt interest payments as the federal government's fastest-growing payment.
Mr Shorten reassured participants that a crackdown on fraud would not threaten their support packages, and that it would be necessary for the NDIS to continue to grow in expense.
However, he said, those costs must translate into improved outcomes for participants.
"What makes the scheme sustainable is if public trust in the scheme is high," he said.
"The scheme will grow each year. That's inevitable and I say that again, clearly, for people beyond this room.
"I don't see the scheme as shrinking, and that's not what we're trying to do but, if we focus on the outcome for the participant and rebuilding of public trust, then I think you will end up seeing the right priorities being targeted."
Disability advocate Elly Desmarchelier said Mr Shorten had made a "huge effort" to make clear that the government was committed to the NDIS.
Ms Desmarchelier told ABC's The Drum she was one of many people who had to go back to the NDIA each year to prove she had cerebral palsy, which she has had since birth, and welcomed five-to-ten year plans that would "provide stability" for her and others.
She accepted the scheme was costly, but said that, on the other hand, there were "the huge outcomes it has delivered for the almost 600,000 people with disabilities, supporting them every day to live a life of their choosing".
"That is something we need to be proud of in this country."
