‘Redesigning the NDIS’ Report

We are all eagerly awaiting the recommendations  that will come out of the current NDIS review. The initial paper: ‘What We Have Heard So Far’ was released on 30^th June by NDIS Review co-chairs  Bruce Bonyhady and Lisa Paul. Guardian Living Australia contributed to a submission for this paper, done by the SDA Alliance, the national body representing SDA providers. Guardian Living Australia was a founding member of the SDA Alliance and is currently represented on their board.

Disability Advocacy Network Australia has just released a paper, co-authored by Dr Simon Duffy and Dr Mark Brown, which sets out a number of challenges faced by the NDIS reviewers.

“The NDIS can be [successfully] reformed . Fundamentally this requires a different kind of thinking about the challenges ahead and the way in which good solutions are generated.”

The recent review of SDA pricing (implemented from July 1st, 2023) has led to renewed optimism, and a re-start to the SDA housing.  However, there is a long way to go to meet the demand from people with disability. Housing and supports provide the basis for economic and social engagement.

There is currently little incentive for innovation because the SDA sector is largely working from an attitude of  ‘build it and hope they will come’. This means accurate data on the level of demand is hard to find. In this scenario, risk lies with the SDA builders and financiers, and their business decisions need to account for that.

While we see interest from Participants in SDA properties that we have already built, that demand is not always matched by their NDIS approvals either for the types of dwellings or the shape of their supports.

In other words, in our experience it is often the case that a participant’s clearly articulated needs and preferences, although backed up by OT assessments, do not align with the SDA outcomes they receive.

These issues can be addressed with the NDIS review – and the re-framing work that the DANA paper has outlined, would go a long way in achieving that.