Labor’s NDIS overhaul will leave participants more ‘isolated’ and ‘segregated’, former royal commissioner warns

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/may/23/albanese-government-ndis-legislation-cuts-changes-reform-australians-more-isolated

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    5 Comments

    1. Grumpy_Cripple_Butt on

      *The health minister, Mark Butler, has argued the cost of the supports were skyrocketing and not all were providing value for money, citing examples of support workers taking participants out only to spend the entire time scrolling on their phone.

      “That’s not community participation. Yes, it’s getting out of the house, but we want something more than just getting out of the house,” Butler last month told Guardian Australia’s Australian Politics podcast after announcing the changes.*

      Does he know dsp recipients are most likely poor because welfare is cooked with inflation? Like what’s he want them to do pony up $27 for a burger or get up out of their wheelchair and walk?

      They cut riding horses and similar therapies from being available on the ndis last time just before shorten retired. And sex worker interactions were nixed under morrison.

      So serious question is what do they want us to do if having a coffee isn’t enough?

    2. T0kenAussie on

      Shoulda never been privatised this much and allowed the big lobbyists to come in and crack the dam so they could exploit the system

      > McEwin expressed reservations about “overreach” in the legislation, in particular new powers allowing the federal minister to cut funding to some supports and make decisions on pricing

      This is necessary because unfortunately it’s public money and you don’t get a blank cheque to do with it what you want too. I’ve got 2 kids on the scheme because they inherited my AUDHD and the amount of absolute pisstake pricing I’ve seen from service providers and suppliers not to mention the Facebook mums and how they try to script iPads and laptops and other stuff under “social inclusion”.

      Tbh the most positive impact from a social inclusion perspective when I was growing up was the special olympics, sport and social events were pretty good and we had to fundraise our trips for the big tournaments and meets.

    3. Ill-Caterpillar6273 on

      Before this gains too much traction, I’d just like to remind people of both Governments’ perspective on acceptable expenditure:

      A review of Covid stimulus estimates that somewhere between 25 and 40 billion dollars was paid to ineligible businesses which didn’t suffer the mandated downturn in revenue required to access the Government’s scheme. Since discovering this, both sides of government refused to implement any kind of repayment or clawback scheme. That’s upwards of $40 billion dollars unnecessarily sucked from the public purse that got a day or two’s worth of media coverage.

      The way people talk about the NDIS as a money sink definitely has merit. But people need to remember that at least it is funding a societal benefit. Whereas the Government will happily toss aside around a year’s worth of NDIS funding because they “can’t be bothered to reign in businesses”.

    4. niles_thebutler_ on

      lol. No it won’t. It’ll finally go to the people who actually need and deserve it and not career criminals. Only morons don’t understand how this works and that it’s much needed