The NDIS has transformed my life – and the last thing we need is media hysteria about its cost

‘Just like Julia Gillard promised nine years ago, we’re not turning back. People with disability aren’t turning back.’ Photograph: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Nine years ago, the former prime minister Julia Gillard introduced a Medicare levy to pay for the creation of a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) into the House of Representatives with an at times emotional speech. On the cost of the scheme and a new levy to pay for it, she was clear: ‘‘This is a united embrace of national responsibility and a great act of mutual care and solidarity.’’

We seem to have lost our heart and any sense of “mutual care”, or at least that’s what you’d come away thinking if all you’d heard about the scheme was the past few weeks of media commentary.