National Disability Services (NDS) welcomes the Australian Labor Party (ALP) disability policy announced today, which largely addresses a number of policy commitments that NDS has called for through the Teamwork Works campaign.

The campaign led by NDS has raised concerns about the number of cuts to people’s NDIS plans and NDS welcomes the announcement of an Expert Review to guarantee that plans are not being unfairly reduced.

NDS also welcomes the announcement of a review of NDIS pricing, markets and compliance and the commitment to develop a comprehensive NDIS workforce strategy.

It’s great to see a commitment from Labor that unworkable NDIS pricing will be addressed with a review of pricing models. The pricing review needs to take into account the views of service providers to ensure that actual market conditions are being assessed.

NDS notes, however, that the pricing review is not being proposed to be an independent pricing authority, which the organisation has been calling for to ensure there is no conflict of interest with the role of the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).

The policy comments that up to 10 per cent of the scheme is being lost to fraudulent service providers. However, NDS notes that this figure is not consistent with current data from the NDIA.

NDS has also been asking for a commitment to a genuine partnership in policy between the NDIA, scheme participants, and service providers.

We are very pleased to see that the expertise, sector knowledge, and willingness of service providers to engage in partnership with the NDIA has been recognised through the commitment to include service providers and workers in the co-design of solutions with people with disability, their families and carers.

NDS also welcomes the focus on the implementation of the National Disability Strategy, in addition to the implementation of the NDIS.

It’s pleasing that there has been commitment to better disability employment outcomes with the announcement of a Disability Employment Centre for Excellence.

NDS supports the commitment to building up an evidence base through the National Disability Research Partnership, and a stronger commitment to funding independent advocacy for people with disability, which the peak body has long been calling for.

NDS is looking forward to seeing the NDIS policy announcement from the Federal Coalition parties.