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.
