The review of Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme has been brought forward in a bid to restore trust with participants and rein in waste as the minister revealed the scheme will cost $8.8 billion more than the previous government forecast earlier this year.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said the review, co-chaired by the architect of the NDIS Bruce Bonyhady and experienced former senior public servant and policymaker Lisa Paul, is about improving outcomes for participants.

Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill Shorten with review panel members (from left) Lisa Paul, Dougie Herd, Bruce Bonyhady, Judy Brewer and Kirsten Deane.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The scheme will cost $8.8 billion more over the next four years than forecast in the March budget, and will cost more than $50 billion a year by 2025-26 – $4 billion higher than estimated just seven months ago.

He said the review would also seek out waste and “rent-seeking” to ensure the funds went to people with disability.

“This review is not about a razor gang and cost-cutting,” he said. “I think we can improve the processes and cut out the bureaucracy. But it won’t be at the expense of people with disability.”

Bonyhady, who was the first chair of the National Disability Insurance Agency which administers the scheme, said the scheme should be overhauled to meet “its original intents” of empowering people with disability.

“This review has to belong to people with disability. So, we are going to engage closely with them on this review in order to ensure that the NDIS does meet people’s expectations as originally intended,” he said.

“This scheme was intended to invest in people with disability to achieve maximum opportunities, maximum lifetime outcomes, so we want to return to some of those original intents.”

Bonyhady will chair the first part of the review, which will look at the scheme’s sustainability, design and operation. In the second part of the review, Paul will examine the disability support service providers and workforces.

“I hope we can restore some trust and confidence and pride in the scheme not just for participants but for all Australians,” Paul said.

The NDIS is the second-most expensive government-funded program after the age pension. Shorten said there was a “real piece of microeconomic reform” to be done to fix the scheme after nearly 10 years of control by the Coalition government.

“I absolutely want to see this scheme to be sustainable. I absolutely want to see what we can do to moderate the growth cost trajectory,” he said.

President of peak body People With Disability Australia, Sam Connor, welcomed the review and the expert panel and said it was important the government acted on recommendations as they were made.

“We’ve been waiting a long time to make sure that we had an NDIS that was built for and by people with a disability, and that [it] worked for us,” she said.

The panel includes Kevin Cocks, Judy Brewer, Dr Stephen King, Dougie Herd and Kirsten Deane.

Greens disability spokesman Jordon Steele-John said the disability community trusted the panel members and co-chairs, but he would like to see action taken now – and not one dollar removed from the scheme.

“There is an opportunity for the government… to put their money where their mouth is next week in the budget but doing a couple of those things which the community has been calling for consistently,” he said.

Steele-John said people needed more money in their plans, and the government needed to invest more in the Quality and Safeguards Commission, as well as funding other recommendations.

“That is really the key test that will show us as disabled people, whether the rhetoric is matching up with the action.”

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