As the spectre of the Trump presidency looms large in many people's mind, it's time for a good news story.
Try this.
![The National Disability Insurance Scheme will help around 450,000 Australians when operational.](/web/20170124132128im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/s/l/t/u/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtw22b.png/1485080685898.jpg)
Behind the scenes, the wheels of Australian government are in feverish full swing to build one of the largest pieces of social and economic infrastructure this country has ever seen.
In terms of cost, it's on par with building the National Broadband Network – every year.
It's the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) of course, this nation's most ambitious attempt ever to deliver more money and better services to the most vulnerable people in our communities.
Australians should feel rightly proud of the scheme. But vigilance is also required.
While you were at the beach, the Coalition government has ushered in a new era in the scheme's development.
In December, Social Services Minister Christian Porter purged the board of the agency responsible for administering the scheme, replacing the man dubbed its "grandfather" and inaugural chair Bruce Bonyhady with Helen Nugent, a former banker and career chairwoman.
Where the previous board of eight had six members with lived experience of disability, the new board of 12 has just four, the remainder being experts on finance, insurance and corporate governance.
And last Friday, Minster Porter and Treasurer Scott Morrison announced a Productivity Commission review of the costs of the scheme and "overall sustainability".
The review is nothing unusual in itself. It was always envisaged the Commission would review costs in 2017. If anything, it's just happening a few months early.
Under current arrangements, the federal government pays an agreed percentage of the cost of the NDIS, plus 75 per cent of any cost overruns – with the states to foot the bill for the remaining 25 per cent.
The irony in having the Commission review costs is that it was the Commission which in 2011 originally recommended the federal government foot 100 per cent of the costs, including cost overruns – the reason being that the federal government has deeper pockets than the states.
Disability services had been chronically underfunded for decades, in part because states have a limited tax base from which to fund them.
The radical idea of the NDIS is to provide an insurance-style product to people to facilitate early and adequate intervention to avoid the huge costs of people who become so cut off from society they need even more care or become unemployable.
Instead of funding disability service providers, the government will put dollars in the hands of disabled people to spend as they see fit.
A trial of 30,000 people has now been completed and the scheme will roll out to around 450,000 by 2019.
Of course, as with most ambitious ideas, the scheme has had its fair share of teething problems, including IT issues and some cost blowouts.
Critics are keen to characterise the scheme as a massive Labor government boondoggle, a white elephant with a bureaucracy to make the producers of Utopia blush.
It is indeed a behemoth; in the coming three years, the NDIS will account for 20 per cent of all expected jobs growth, roughly 60,000 to 70,000 full-time positions.
But a clear headed – not defeatist – assessment of the challenges facing the scheme is needed.
Importantly, the risk of a cost blowout is real. When a big bucket of money meets a relatively fixed supply of services, the threat of price rises is ever present.
In a leaked letter sent to Minister Porter just before Christmas, Bonyhady acknowledged as much. "One of the greatest challenges of transition will be ensuring that growth in supply meets growth in demand without inflationary pressures," he wrote, pointing out that demand for disability services is expected to rise 15 per cent this financial year and by 40 per cent in each of the following two financial years.
He also noted that money set aside to cover operating costs, at 7 per cent of the total scheme cost, was "highly aspirational". Capping admin costs, however, "threatens a blowout in package costs, due to inadequate quality control or oversight".
Another vulnerability of the scheme is that it suffers, at least in the early stages, from being a little bit too liberal, being based around a theory of consumer choice and agency. Taking some of the most vulnerable people in society and expecting them to suddenly become well-informed and empowered consumers was always quite a stretch.
In practice, even well-educated, well-resourced parents of disabled people have struggled to navigate the paperwork required to receive funding. As a result, an initial insistence on completely individually tailored packages during the trial period has already given way to "reference packages", designed based on a few key criteria.
In his detailed list of issues, Bonyhady also identifies ongoing problems with IT systems, a lack of funding for individuals who fall just outside of qualifying for the scheme and the risk inherent in the rapid rollout of the scheme.
During the entire three-year trial period, NDIS staff wrote a total of 30,000 plans for disabled people. In the six months of last year, they had to write the same amount again. They are now writing about 450 a day. By 2018-19, it will need to be 850 plans a day. Once fully operational, 2,000 plans will need reviewing each day.
There is an ongoing battle between signing people up as quickly as possible and "to have individual needs met in an appropriately personal way".
The new custodians of the NDIS should rightly keep a close eye on costs.
But the needs of disabled people should always trump penny pinching.
Societies are defined by how we treat the weakest. The NDIS remains a bold and ambitious plan to help our most vulnerable. Yes, it's expensive. But it's hard to think of a more worthy way to spend taxpayer money.
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