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NDIS Minister Bill Shorten has announced that the Government has secured the support of states and territories for its controversial legislation and reform agenda. Word on the street is that with Coalition support, the bill could pass as early as this week.
The Government and the Opposition have both proposed new amendments, which can be found on Parliament’s website.
Today, Minister Shorten announced that the Government reached a deal with the Council for the Australian Federation (CAF) to enhance co-governance arrangements, rule-making and approval processes for the NDIS. The Government and CAF have agreed to a number of amendments to the NDIS Bill, that will strengthen how state and territories work together with the Commonwealth on NDIS reforms, once the legislation is made law.
Specifically, they have proposed making most legislative instruments into Category A rules that will now require the agreements of the states and territories. They agreed to introduce faster timeframes for approving NDIS rules, and to establish a new dispute resolution approach to escalate issues to First Ministers.
To streamline decision making processes, the proposed amendments move from requiring unanimous support for rules, to majority First Ministers’ support for rules which significantly impact people with disability and governments.
More detail about the co-governance agreement between the States, Territories and the Commonwealth Governments can be found on the Parliament’s website.
These new arrangements are complex, and we’re working on getting our heads around the details as we speak.
We will be holding a webinar with Dr. Darren O’Donovan, Ebe Gannon and DSC’s Chris Coombes this Friday at 10am AEST to help you make sense of what is happening and digest what is about to change.
It’s an event not to be missed, we hope to see you there.
