Health Services Union slams NDIA as NDIS price setter, calls for independent body

With today’s publication of the NDIA’s price limits for the next financial year, the HSU renews its calls for an independent price setter, and funding for wages and conditions above the minimum Award.

The Annual Pricing Review (APR) sets the maximum price limits that NDIS providers and health professionals are permitted to charge when providing services to NDIS participants. These limits shape what resources providers to have to pay workers under the NDIS.

In a submission to the APR, the HSU made 24 recommendations to the Agency, to highlight a few:

• Increasing the pay assumptions for disability supports and supervisors, so that workers are paid the right rates under the SCHADS Award.
• Increasing supervision rates, up from the meagre allocation of one supervisor to 15 workers.
• Providing dedicated funding for training and buddy shifts.
• Adequately funding handover and debriefing work so avoid workers missing out on wages.
• A 2-3% increase to price limits so that providers can honour legal obligations under EBAs.
• Funding the legal entitlement of shift workers to a 5th week of annual leave.
• Requiring platform providers to pay superannuation and worker compensation.
• An increase in price limits for allied health for the first time in six years.

These recommendations were hardly radical. They asked for funding so that providers pay workers the right wage, pay them for every hour they work, and have enough supervisor support and training to work safely under the NDIS.

For yet another year, the NDIA has ignored workers. We are currently experiencing massive workforce shortages; we need 128,000 workers by June 2025 to meet demand and the HSU found one in four workers are wanting to leave the sector. The vast majority cite stress and excessive workloads as the main reasons to leave.

Yet the NDIA refuses to listen when they call for more funding: for increased supervision, training, and funding to complete shift notes and debrief.

The NDIA both funds the scheme and sets its prices. It has a fundamental conflict of interest.

Disability support workers will not stand by while their pay and conditions are repressed so the NDIA can keep its books in check. The longer the NDIA keeps its job as a price setter, the more workers are burned out of the sector, and the more waste we see in the scheme.

The NDIA has failed workers. It has failed participants. It is high time the Government rescinded the NDIA’s price-setting powers and handed them to Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) in line with Recommendation 11.3 of the NDIS Review.

Quotes attributable to HSU National Secretary Lloyd Williams

“Another year goes by, and price caps set by the NDIA remain as restrictive as ever. Frontline disability support workers are being left behind by disconnected bureaucrats with little regard for their pay and conditions.”
“You couldn’t get a clearer sign that pricing and funding in the NDIS is totally disconnected from the reality of delivering disability supports.”
“Once again, NDIS funding is limited to the minimum Award rates. The NDIA is forcing workers to accept the absolute bare minimum. Do they seriously expect the sector to fill the massive workforce shortages by offering minimum wages?”
“The HSU is getting on with the job. We’re securing agreements that value support workers, the emotional labour and skill they bring to their work.”
“We’re working hard to address the workforce shortages plaguing the sector. But the NDIA appears insistent on stopping our every effort.”
“And if the NDIA think it’s sustainable for half of the workforce to carry out unpaid work, for 72% of our members to feel emotionally drained, and for less than half to have adequate supervisor support, they’re most welcome to join me on a worksite visit and explain why this is okay to a frontline worker.”