The Human Rights Commission President has warned of the dangers that states and territories might not step up and fill the gaps in service provision coming as a result of the changes to the NDIS.

“I worry about the impact on people”, President de Kretser says. “We need to make sure the states are shouldering their part of the load because the states ae at risk of retreating from this.”

The Human Right’s Commission head particularly acknowledged the concerns of people on the scheme during this interim period as the new system is introduced. “We need to make sure that those people who are currently on the NDIS are properly supported,” de Kretser said.

Health Minister Mark Butler has said the federal government will gradually stop committing money to particular services, but state governments have not yet detailed how they will fill this emerging funding gap.

“There is a need to look at reforming the NDIS to make sure it’s achieving the result originally intended.” de Kretser continued. “Our worry is there are thousands of people now, people with disabiliyt, their families, there carers, their parents, who are worried about losing the support that they currently have.”

The HRC head pointed out that there is an ‘information gap’ that’s accompanying the move to reduce the federal government funding for the NDIS.

“There’s not enough information about how the federal, state and territory governments working together are going to provide appropriate support to people who are going to no longer be in the NDIS under these rule changes,” de Kretser says.

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De Kretser also noted that he already has personal experience of the funding pressures on the NDIS.

He says as a former director of Flourish Australia, one of the country’s largest community-based organisations mental health organisations, he had felt the emerging pressures confronting not-for-profits in the sector.

“I sat on board meetings looking at the financial challenges of trying to run an organisation that provided quality care to people who needed complex care”, de Kretser continued.

“The problem was the funding model for that made it extremely hard to provide quality care, when we were being undercut by providers offering substandard care, but with good marketing who were taking clients away from us.”

Flourish specialises in supporting people with complex mental health needs. It has now spent more than 70 years helping individuals with mental health issues live their lives in a meaningful way. De Kretser says resolving the problem of balancing needs against cost is not easy.

“These are some of the problems inherent in the system. In itself that’s no problem. It’s good to look at to make sure the investment we’re making - and it’s a substantial investment - is achieving the outcomes that we want,” he continued.

What de Kretser was emphasising is that in order for the system to work it remains vital that governments do not retreat from their role in filling the emerging care ‘gap’. This will require the states to actually deliver on their previous commitments to provide community support.