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NDIS Europe Study Tour Axed After Backlash

A European study tour by members of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS has been abruptly cancelled after a political backlash erupted over timing and optics.

The 10-day trip to the UK and Sweden was designed to examine international disability service models. Within hours of becoming public - and sharp criticism that MPs would travel on business-class flights, use chauffeur-driven vehicles, and stay in five-star hotel rooms - the study trip was canned.

The contrast between the trip and the unprecedented cost pressure the NDIS now faces was just too great.

The travel was never going to be funded from the NDIS budget. Such trips are paid for from a separate bucket: parliamentary travel, overseen by the Presiding Officers of Parliament. It was a standard committee tour, routinely undertaken by MPs from both sides.

But these aren’t standard times.

The burgeoning cost of the NDIS, now well in excess of $40 billion, has shifted the political dynamic. The government is under sustained pressure to rein in spending. And anything that even looks like indulgence — especially in the disability space — is now radioactive.

NDIS Minister Mark Butler shut it down swiftly.

“The committee has reflected on this... and will not be taking up that trip,” he said, distancing government from the decision. “This is not something funded by government. Government was not involved.”

The message is clear: the politics of disability have changed. The era of quiet, business-as-usual committee trips is over.

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