Solving one of the great conundrums of Australia’s disability policy
by Sam Bennett
It’s a great conundrum of Australia’s disability policy: we spend a higher proportion of our GDP on disability than most comparable countries, yet we are failing the disabled Australians who need help most.
Grattan Institute’s new report shows more than 43,000 Australians with NDIS support packages costing on average more than $350,000 a person a year are seeing little benefit from a scheme that was supposed to give them greater choice and improved independence.
These are the very people the National Disability Insurance Scheme most needs to support: they make up 7 per cent of people on the scheme but account for almost 40 per cent of the cost.
The only option now for many of these severely disabled Australians is to live in a group home, often with six or more residents. It can be a terrible life: they have little say in who shares their home or how services are provided, and are at high risk of violence and abuse.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Deliberate policy choices over decades mean that in Western Australia, many people with severe disability now live in the broader community rather than in group homes.
Likewise in Britain and parts of Canada and the US, where individualised living arrangements have been introduced as alternatives to group homes.
Our research shows it is possible to support people with intensive needs in ordinary homes in the community with individualised supports that can be cheaper than the group homes they live in today.
The key is to include what we call “semi-formal support” in NDIS packages. This can mean support from a housemate or host family who get a subsidy for providing support around the house such as companionship, cooking, cleaning, and being home overnight.
It’s cost-effective and it also means disabled people can be more connected to a local community and less reliant on paid workers for relationships, which are a natural safeguard against abuse.
There are more than 3000 registered group homes in Australia and many more unregistered. They should be phased out over the next 15 years for individualised arrangements such as living with a housemate or host family. It would be a win-win: many of our most profoundly disabled people would have better and safer lives, and taxpayers would be better off too, because the NDIS would be more sustainable.