Australia's New National Disability Insurance Scheme: Implications for Policy and Practice

Australia is immersed in its largest reform of disability services in a generation – the staged rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Enacted swiftly to capitalize on rare bipartisan political and public support, the AU22billion scheme promises to design and deliver disability services differently, with emphasis on service user choice and control. However, the scheme’s rollout is outpacing the readiness of service users, service providers and the agency charged with implementing it to achieve its stated aims, threatening to derail it. Research suggests issues arising in the implementation of the scheme can be attributed in part to the design of the policy and, in part, to how it is translated into practice, both making scant reference to lessons from comparable reforms. Reflecting on the implications of these findings for policy and practice, we explore a range of challenges that arise when embarking on large scale reform in an environment of tight timelines, high expectations, extant policy silences, competing priorities, and jurisdictional ambiguities. This paper adds to the growing body of literature on the NDIS by bringing in the views of participants, and elaborating on implementation challenges posed by its governance structure, system architecture, and administrative structures.