Toward a values-based NDIS

Toward a values-based NDIS

Few public institutions have transformed Australian social policy as profoundly as the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

Now, more than a decade after its establishment, the Scheme is entering its most significant period of reform, as the Government seeks to secure it for future generations through changes to eligibility, planning, market settings and the broader disability support system.

CHA members and staff recently appeared before the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, where we welcomed the broad direction of reform while identifying several areas where we believe the package could be strengthened.

The detail of those reforms will undoubtedly matter. Equally important, however, is the set of values against which they should be judged. Before considering how the NDIS should evolve, it is worth reflecting on what Australians set out to achieve in the first place.

The view from abroad

My interest in these reforms is not only professional. As the younger brother of a person with disability who has spent years navigating England’s fragmented ‘social care’ system (a blend of disability and aged care), I have seen the consequences of a system in which responsibility is divided, reform is too often postponed, and access to support depends on understanding a complex web of agencies and institutions.

My family — like so many others — has had to become expert in navigating bureaucracy out of necessity. Despite that, access to support for people with disability often depends as much on where you live, who conducts your assessment, or which side of the health and social care divide you fall on, as it does on your actual needs.

I mention this because there is a reform debate taking place in England right now that is remarkably familiar. Questions about the relationship between health, aged care and disability; about funding arrangements; and about the absence of a coherent national disability support system are, in many respects, the same questions Australia confronted more than 15 years ago in the lead-up to the Productivity Commission’s landmark 2011 inquiry.

Most strikingly, English policymakers from across the political spectrum have repeatedly pointed to Australia’s NDIS as an example of what a more coherent disability support system might look like.

That may come as a surprise amid Australia’s often sceptical domestic debate. Yet viewed from abroad, the NDIS continues to be recognised as one of the most ambitious disability reforms undertaken anywhere in the world. The reason, I would suggest, has less to do with the design of the Scheme than with the values that underpin it.

A different vision

The architects of the NDIS understood that disability policy should be about more than providing care or meeting basic needs. Rather, the Scheme was designed as a rights-based system — one that enables people with disability to participate fully in community life as citizens, workers, neighbours, volunteers, parents, students and friends.

That aspiration represented a profound shift in how Australia understood disability, moving the conversation from welfare towards genuine participation and inclusion — principles that are currently missing from the English system.

Of course, none of this is to suggest that the NDIS is beyond reform. Like any major public institution, it has evolved in ways that were neither anticipated nor always desirable. The Government is right to address weaknesses in areas such as eligibility, market design and fraud, and CHA has consistently supported the broad direction of those reforms.

The more difficult task, however, is ensuring that necessary change strengthens the principles that made the Scheme worth creating in the first place.

The role of Catholic Social Teaching in the NDIS

The NDIS’s founding vision aligns closely with the Catholic tradition and social teaching, which begins from a particular understanding of the human person — namely, that every individual possesses an inherent, inviolable dignity because they are created in the image and likeness of God.

Public policy carries a moral purpose beyond the efficient allocation of resources, to create the conditions in which people can flourish, exercise their gifts, sustain relationships, and participate in the communities to which they belong.

These ideas are often expressed through Catholic principles such as the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity and stewardship, all of which offer a practical framework for thinking about how institutions should serve people.

Of these, stewardship has particular relevance to the NDIS debate, as it asks us to care wisely for the institutions and resources entrusted to us — preserving them not simply as they are, but so they remain faithful to their purpose for future generations.

Viewed through that lens, many of the current debates take on a different character.

Public discussion has understandably become dominated by expenditure, growth rates and other headline figures. While evidently important, the success of the NDIS cannot be judged solely by whether expenditure has been contained or participant numbers have stabilised. A more meaningful measure is whether more Australians with disability can participate in community life with dignity, security and opportunity.

This is where CHA members can offer a unique perspective.

Working at the intersection of hospitals, disability, aged care and community services, Catholic providers have a particular vantage point on these reforms: our members see every day how the NDIS forms part of a much broader care economy.

Moreover, many have been supporting people with disability for decades — long before the NDIS existed — and continue to deliver supports through a mission that places people and communities at the centre, even when some services may not be financially viable.

That experience also makes clear why the NDIS cannot be considered in isolation from the systems around it. Over time, the Scheme has increasingly become the destination for needs that are more appropriately addressed across the broader care economy.

When housing is unavailable, community supports are variable, or mainstream services are inaccessible, the NDIS becomes the default institution expected to bridge the gap — the ‘only port in the storm’, as it has been described. Yet no insurance scheme, however well designed, can indefinitely substitute for strong and accessible mainstream services.

The same principle applies to the provider market. Strong regulation is essential to maintaining public confidence, but so too is a viable provider market capable of delivering safe, high-quality supports. As regulatory expectations increase, funding arrangements must continue to reflect the real cost of meeting those obligations. Stewardship requires careful management of public resources, but also the preservation of the providers upon whom participants ultimately depend.

These considerations informed CHA’s evidence before the Senate Committee. We argued that reforms should preserve meaningful participant safeguards, support a sustainable provider market, and be implemented with appropriate sequencing, governance and accountability. Those recommendations were not intended to stymie reform, but to help ensure its long-term success.

Australia has every reason to protect the NDIS for future generations. Equally important is preserving the idea that inspired it. A sustainable Scheme matters because it safeguards something larger: a national commitment to ensuring that people with disability can participate fully and equally in the life of their communities.

That, ultimately, is the measure against which these reforms should be judged.

Dominic Butler is a Policy Officer at Catholic Health Australia.