Taskforce to crack down on NDIS rorting

Key points

• A $126.3 million multi-agency fraud taskforce will tackle exploitation of the NDIS.
• An August estimate said 15 to 20 per cent of its annual budget may have been misused.
• The NDIS is the second-most expensive government program and expected to rise by 12.1 per cent a year for four years.
• The scheme is predicted to cost more than $50 billion a year by 2025-26.
• A further 380 permanent NDIS staff will be employed at a cost of more than $158 million.

A souped-up joint taskforce will be formed to crack down on the rorting, non-compliance and funding wastage plaguing Australia’s National Disability Insurance scheme and diverting critical funds away from some of the nation’s most vulnerable people.

In its first budget, handed down on Tuesday, the federal government vowed to restore trust in the troubled scheme by announcing $126.3 million for a multi-agency fraud taskforce to address growing concern the NDIS is being exploited.

The cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is rising rapidly.Credit: Louie Douvis

The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes revealed this year that criminal syndicates, including members of Sydney’s Hamzy crime network, were laundering money through the NDIS and rorting the scheme at an unprecedented scale.

The NDIS is the second-most expensive government program after the age pension. Spending on the scheme, brought in under former prime minister Julia Gillard, is now estimated to rise by 12.1 per cent a year over the next four years.

The taskforce will bring together more than a dozen agencies, including law enforcement and regulatory bodies, such as the federal police, Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the nation’s criminal intelligence commission. It will replace the existing NDIS fraud taskforce.

In August, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission chief Michael Phelan called for a new multi-agency taskforce to tackle the problem, citing intelligence that revealed Australians with disabilities had been extorted, threatened with violence or even involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric ward by crime syndicates seeking to steal their NDIS entitlements.

Phelan said at the time the extent of rorting surpassed that of the pink batts and school halls scandals and involved “fair dinkum, serious and organised crime crooks”.

He estimated that as much as 15 to 20 per cent of the service’s annual budget of close to $30 billion might have been misused.

The government also vowed to increase the NDIS’s annual funding by $385 million in 2023-24 and employing 380 additional permanent staff at a cost of more than $158 million. A further $19.4 million will be used to extend the disability employment services program for another two years.

Earlier this month, NDIS Minister Bill Shorten brought forward a review of the scheme, saying the government needed to restore trust by reining in waste and tackling price gouging by providers, amid revelations the scheme would blow out by $8.8 billion more than a government forecast earlier this year.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the skyrocketing cost of the NDIS – which is forecast to grow from $27.6 billion in 2021-22 to $40.7 billion in 2024-25 – was one of five major pressures on the federal budget.

The scheme is estimated to cost more than $50 billion a year by 2025-26 – $4 billion higher than estimated just seven months ago.

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