RICK MORTON, Social Affairs reporter
The $22 billion national disability insurance scheme has reached total capacity in the ACT less than half a year after full rollout in the region and new participants who are eligible for support are being turned away,
The bilateral agreement between the ACT government and the federal government allowed for almost 5100 people to be included at full rollout but this figure has been hit and the only way someone new can enter the NDIS is if someone exits, typically if they die.
The crisis goes to the heart of the accuracy of the numbers initially proposed for the NDIS and casts a shadow over whether other states, who will not reach full rollout until 2019-20, will experience a similar issue.
“This is something the disability community has been warning for some time, for years now,” Advocacy for Inclusion chief executive Christina Ryan told The Australian.
“I know the ACT government are working their butts off to get this fixed but we are very close to moving back to the old system.
“The figures in the ACT bilateral were largely based around people who were already in the old system, people who already had services. But there are many new entrants, people who never had access under the old system.
“Those people are more often women and they are more often indigenous. It is completely unacceptable.”
The Australian has previously published reports about the sturdiness of the actuarial analysis that has gone into the NDIS with particular concerns about undercounts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote areas.
The NDIS agency has been approached for comment.