The Federal Government has introduced an amended National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Bill before Parliament, which it says addresses feedback from consultations with people with disability, their families and carers, and the states and territories.

The key amendments include:

  • Elevating the importance of certain obligations that Australia has as a party to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and explicitly recognising the broader context for disability reform. This ensures that the rights of people with disability, their families and carers are at the heart of the NDIS.
  • Clarification that people who need early intervention therapies and supports, including for degenerative conditions, and who are not better supported by another systems such as the health care system, can access the NDIS.
  • Clarification that all people who are NDIS participants will be able to choose to remain in the scheme after they turn 65.
  • Changes to the compensation provisions so that the NDIS Launch Transition Agency (the Agency) can conduct legal proceedings on behalf of a person with disability who does not choose to conduct those proceedings.
  • Ensuring the NDIS Board receives and considers actuarial advice, helping to safeguard the financial sustainability of the NDIS.     

 

The Government will also establish an NDIS division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and an independent expert panel to advise the Agency’s merits review process.

To ensure that these review arrangements are working for people with disability, they will be reviewed two years after the launch commences.

The Federal Government has also announced it has accepted the advice of the Productivity Commission on establishing the 65 year age threshold for entry into the scheme, on the basis that older citizens have access to aged care facilities.