Geelong celebrates NDIS turning 10

THE National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is a decade old, and some of the people who helped make it happen marked the milestone at an event in Leopold.

About 90 NDIS participants, their families, carers, and providers joined Minister for the NDIS Bill Shorten and Corangamite Labor federal member Libby Coker for the celebration at the Leopold Library and Community Hub on Tuesday this week to mark the passage of the establishing legislation by the Gillard Government 10 years ago this week.

Geelong has a long history with the scheme – the Barwon region was one of the first four trial sites that started in July 2013, and the National Disability Insurance Authority (NDIA), which administers the scheme, opened its headquarters in central Geelong in March 2019.

The NDIS became available to all Australians in June 2020, and about 590,000 Australian adults and children with a disability and their families are now receiving support, some for the first time.

Speaking at the meeting, Ms Coker – who chairs Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS – acknowledged the members of the Corangamite NDIS reference group in the audience.

“One thing we did was we actually knocked off the individual assessments – they were something that many people were really afraid of – and the one thing we want to in government is to take that sense of fear and anxiety out of having to do a plan,” she said.

Mr Shorten said the NDIS “was here to stay”, despite some media and political commentary.

“We can have a discussion about any other issue, which is entirely legitimate, but no-one should ever think that when we discuss the NDIS, it’s from the basis that its very existence is being questioned, because it’s not.”

He said the NDIS had changed lives and was a vast improvement on the previous system, which distributed resources by crisis, or “the idea that your house has got to be more on fire in order to get the fire brigade than than less on fire”.

“It’s also a radical notion, but I’m proud that it’s radical globally. But just because we’re the first to do it doesn’t make it bad; I think it makes it good.

“Yes, we’ve got a fair way to go, obviously, but we have come a fair way.”

Grassroots activism from people with disability, community organisations and advocates was a key driver in the NDIS being introduced, and Mr Shorten congratulated those in the audience who were part of the “Every Australian Counts” campaign.

“The reason why there’s a scheme is because a whole lot of people asked for it; it was an irreplacable part of establishing the NDIS,” he said.

“And one thing I always knew about the disability sector was that even though I thought it was getting insufficent love from the political process, the disability advocates were very good.”

The event included brief talks from some NDIS recipients and providers.

Mr Shorten and Ms Coker also met NDIA staff at the Geelong headquarters earlier on Tuesday.

“There’s a change of mood, there’s a change of heart, and I think that things are different,” Ms Coker said.