Review Round-Up: 5 May 2023

Hello and welcome to the 'review round up'.

We understand the news that came of out of National Cabinet last week, as well as recent reports in the media, have caused a lot of concern for people with disability and their families. We understand people are worried about what the news means for them – but also what it means for the work of the NDIS Review.

We want you to know that we understand why you are worried. But we also want you to know that whatever the announcements, our work continues as planned.

Since the beginning of the Review, all of the members of the panel have felt the weight of the responsibility of our job. We know you are all counting on us to deliver changes that will mean that the scheme that works well for participants and is around for many years to come.

We also know that we don't have to do that work alone. We know you have some fantastic thoughts and ideas about ways to make sure we get the scheme working the way we all want it to. We know that work will not be easy, as we meet the challenges that lie ahead for the NDIS.

And now, given the announcement by National Cabinet, working together is more important than ever.

We promised at the beginning of this Review to do it differently. We promised to put people with disability, their families and carers at its centre.

We have been overwhelmed by the responses we have received. More than one thousand submissions as well as many meetings with people with disability, their families, carers, service providers and government officials. In fact, more meetings than we can count!

The insights and ideas we have heard in meetings and read in the submissions have been invaluable in shaping our thinking and our work.

We have written a short summary of the written submissions we have received so far.

But we also know that you still have much more to say. And we want to hear all your ideas – both big and small. All your ideas are welcome – the bigger the better.

So will continue to take submissions on our website until Friday 18 August.

Have your say

If you don't want to make a written or oral submission – that's ok. There are going to a number of other ways you can have your say.

One way we are doing this is by partnering with disability representative organisations, Every Australian Counts and other community groups to arrange virtual and in-person consultations that will start over the next few weeks.

We are also asking people how we can make sure we reach everyone who wants to share their views and experiences, including people who are often not heard in government reviews. This includes people living in regional, rural, remote and metropolitan areas, people from First Nations, CALD and LGBTIQA+ communities, people with one or more conditions or disabilities including intellectual disability, psychosocial disability, autistic people and people with sensory, neurological, physical and other disabilities. 

We will also keep arranging meetings with advocates, disability representative and carer organisations, disability service providers and workers, unions, community groups, health and medical representative organisations, housing providers and government agencies.

We want to hear all your ideas

Now is the time, don't hold back!

We are here to make big changes to the NDIS. We want to hear your big ideas of how to make the NDIS work the way it should.

In the next little while we also release some other information about what we have heard so far. That information will have some more questions we want to ask you. So stay tuned.

And finally and most importantly we want to thank you for everything you have shared with us so far. It has made an incredible difference to our work. We look forward to everything we can do together in the next six months.

Best wishes

Bruce and Lisa

Co-Chairs, NDIS Review

What we have heard

We have pulled together a very short summary of what we have heard through our online submissions. It has been great to hear what is working well for you, what needs to be better, and your ideas for change.

Read more about What we have heard.

Is the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework ok?

The NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework says what governments will do to keep NDIS participants safe and make sure the services they receive are good quality.

We want to improve the framework. We have listened to what you have told us so far and have come up with some ideas about how we might do that. Now we want to know what you think about those ideas.

Read more in the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework issues paper.

Disability Reform Minister's Council

On Friday 21 April we attended the meeting of the Disability Reform Council. The Council is made up of the Disability Ministers from all around the country. We discussed ideas we have been developing for pricing and payments in the NDIS and improving participant safeguarding.

These ideas were informed by the views and experiences that people with disability, participants, carers, families and others have shared with the Review so far, as well as issues raised in other reviews and inquiries.

We have will publish both the Pricing and payments paper and the Participant safeguards paper in the coming week and welcome your feedback on both of them.

Early childhood workshop

We recently held a workshop that brought together families of young children, people with disability, disability organisations representing both people with disability and family members, researchers and independent experts. At the workshop we talked about some of the current problems with the way the current system supports children and families and what the solutions might be. It was a fantastic day and we left with so many ideas about ways to improve support for children and their families.

You can read more about the outcomes from the day on our website.