Review Round-Up: 26 October 2022

First Edition

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A message from the co-chairs - Lisa Paul & Bruce Bonyhady

Wow, what a big first week!

On Tuesday 18 October 2022, Minister for the NDIS Bill Shorten announced the beginning of a review into the NDIS. Launched one year ahead of schedule, the review will be overseen by a panel of experts and co-chaired by both of us.

The Panel will report directly to Disability Ministers from around Australia. We don’t have to wait until the end of the year to make recommendations for change – we can let Ministers know as soon as recommendations are ready. That way work can start as soon as possible.

In our first week, the Panel met with Minister Shorten and participated in an online meeting with about 30 disability organisations, community peaks, and leaders. We spent an hour or so listening to what areas they think the review should focus on and how it should work.

We are only one week in, but we are already so encouraged by how many people have said they want to get involved with our work.

We look forward to continuing our conversations with you. We will keep you up to date with what we are doing in lots of different ways – including through this weekly newsletter. In future editions we will share panel member profiles as well as key dates for your calendars.

It is so great to have the Review underway - there is so much for us to do and time is short!

Best wishes, Lisa and Bruce

Out & about

We headed to Perth on Friday to meet the new Chair of the NDIA Board, Kurt Fearnley and new NDIA CEO, Rebecca Falkingham. It was the first meeting since we all took up our new roles and we had plenty to talk about. This was the first of many talks we will all have.

Then we went to the Disability Reform Ministers meeting. The meeting was a good reminder that the NDIS involves all Australian governments – and for it to work well everyone has to a role to play. We were really pleased to see how committed all the Ministers were to improving the NDIS. A link to the formal communique from the meeting will be shared in our next newsletter.

While we were in Perth we took the chance to meet with advocates and providers to hear from them about their hopes for the Review. We were especially pleased to catch up with representatives of People With Disability Australia (PWDA) including Suresh Rajan who is also the President of the Ethnic Communities Council of WA. We look forward to continuing to work with them.

We also met with Joan McKenna-Kerr, from Autism WA and Julie Waylen, who is the CEO of a small regional provider. We also had a fantastic discussion with Scott Hollier and Kane Blackman on the direction of the Review. And finally, we also managed to squeeze in a chat with Senator Jordan Steele-John.

We hope these conversations are the first of many as we travel around the country hearing about what is important to you.