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Just how much is the country prepared to spend on disability support?

In yesterday’s Guardian, Greg Jericho provided the above graph which examines the cost of the NDIS for the budget’s bottom line. He added a comment.

“As for overall spending,” he said, “we have a range of commentators weirdly trying to compare the amount the government is spending now with how much it spent before the NDIS was introduced. Once we take that disability support, not only is this budget not a big-spending one, it is actually downright measly”.

Unfortunately though, this dramatically exposes the growing cost of the NDIS.

The Financial Review used this to take another line. It focused on exactly the disability support Jericho was pulling out, but this time labeling it as profligacy.

“The NDIS is still out of control. The 10 per cent increase in the past year in NDIS spending is higher than the government’s planned 8 per cent “cap”. Moreover, as teal MP Allegra Spender says, such a high level of continuing expenditure growth would jeopardise public support for the scheme. Whoever forms the next government must face up to the need for a combination of tightening eligibility rules and cutting per-person funding packages to make the NDIS financially sustainable.”

This poses an existential danger to support for the scheme.

Particularly before any election, opinion pollsters work overtime. One of their vital tasks is to work on framing, or how to present issues so the answer is ‘obvious’. Because defence is seen by most voters as being more important than disability care, this offers a very simple line of attack for the opposition.

Asking if Labor should be spending more on disability than defence exposes the government’s vulnerability on this issue.

When he was Minister, Bill Shorten focused on the need to crack down on ‘shonks’ supposedly exploiting the NDIS. The Liberals can use this to say it’s not the scheme they’re opposed to, but rather that the cost blow-out is directly related to fraud.

This delivers a dream political trifecta for the opposition. They can claim to be for the scheme and pro disability care, but insist the government is simply incapable when it comes to administering it. They can use Shorten’s words against Labor by pointing to ‘rorting’. Finally, they can bank purported savings and use them for tax cuts elsewhere.

This is a dangerous political vulnerability for the government and, by extension, the NDIS. The growing cost of the scheme is threatening its very existence.

Today’s issue focuses on the increased spending on the NDIS. Our point is not to suggest this is too high - we are instead drawing attention to the increasing political risk that comes with this growing cost.

Tuesday’s Budget failed to deliver a convincing path to sustainability. It also highlighted that the NDIS is still growing faster than the economy. The result will inevitably end in tears.

Nic Stuart, editor