NDIS Issues Overview: Adapting to Build and Utilise What Works

In December 2017, the Commonwealth and WA Governments executed a Bilateral Agreement confirming that the national NDIS (delivered by the NDIA) will be rolled out in Western Australia commencing in June 2018. The effect of this agreement was to discontinue WA NDIS and to establish the NDIS in WA in a similar form to that established elsewhere but based on a bilateral, rather than multilateral, agreement. From 1 July 2018, the NDIA will assume responsibility for the delivery of the NDIS in WA. The NDIS will continue to roll out on a geographic basis and is intended to be fully rolled out across Western Australia by 2020.

In order to be successful though, it is important that the design and governance of the NDIS be structured and implemented in such a way that is locally responsive and captures all of the benefits of the mature system established in WA over the past six decades by including existing mechanisms that will enhance local decision making. It must articulate with the rest of the disability system.