Minister for Primary Industries and Water
Minister for Community Services and Development
Minister for Disability Services
Minister for Women and the Prevention of Family Violence Tasmanian Level 5, 4 Salamanca Place HOBART T AS 7000 Australia Government
GPO Box 123 HOBART TAS 7001 Australia
Phone: +61 3 6165 7758 Email: jo.palmer@dpac.tas.gov.au
09 FEB 2024
Dr Jane Thomson
Committee Secretary
Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Dear Dr Thomson
Thank you for your email of 5 December 2023 offering the opportunity to make comment on the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participant experience in rural, regional and remote Australia.
As I am sure you appreciate, I am very interested in this Inquiry and what the Joint Standing Committee will learn about the participant experience for Australians with disability who live in rural, regional and remote Australia. Tasmanian NDIS participants consistently report difficulty accessing supports and services, especially services that require a professionally skilled workforce to deliver therapy and complex care supports, for example.
The ‘thin markets’ in rural and regional areas in Tasmania pose a barrier to choice and control, but also mean NDIS participants are unable to fully utilise funded NDIS plans. I also believe that there is inconsistency in the value of NDIS plans between regions in which NDIS participants live, with those in rural and remote regions being worse off.
As of 30 September, the NDIS Quarterly Report showed that 13,702 Tasmanians were active NDIS participants. Of those participants
- 3,981 participants live in the North of Tasmania.
- 2,997 participants live in the North West of Tasmania.
- 3,065 participants live in the South East of Tasmania.
- 3,659 participants live in the South West of Tasmania. I highlight the North West of Tasmania as an example of some of the challenges for rural and remote regions in Tasmania and indicators of the participant experience for this particular region. I urge the Joint Standing Committee to pay some particular attention to this region, as well as Tasmania as a whole, and further understand the limitations of the NDIS for participants. Some of those immediately obvious are high cost of services, markets dominated by a few providers, thin markets for certain service types and limits on exercising choice and control.
While Tasmania’s North West region has the lowest number of participants, annualised plan budgets and payments are the highest across all participants. The region reports the most difficulty in accessing services, with thin markets in many specialised areas but particularly in allied health professions.
The North West also records the highest per cent of market concentration in Tasmania with 58 per cent of payments going to the ten largest providers.
I have a keen interest in the outcomes and recommendations of the joint Standing Committee in relation to this matter. I also urge the joint Standing Committee to consider this Inquiry in the context of the recommendations made by the Independent Panel for the NDIS Review.
The Tasmanian Government has welcomed the NDIS Review to put people with disability back at the centre of the NDIS and to restore trust, confidence and pride in the Scheme. The scope of the Review, which was intentionally broad, has looked at the design, operations and sustainability of the NDIS and ways to make the market and workforce more responsive, supportive and sustainable.
I am pleased to note that nearly 4,000 submissions were received as part of the Review process and we know that many more Australians, including many Tasmanians, engaged with the Review in other ways.
Most of all, I am keen to see governments work together to achieve a NDIS which delivers a better participant experience and better-quality outcomes for participants, regardless of where they live in Tasmania.
Yours sincerely