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Butler says government takes extended NDIS inquiry ‘seriously’

Mark Butler, the federal health minister, was asked about the recommendations from the inquiry to improve the NDIS.

We’re very keen to work on registration schemes for workers across the care economy, not just in the NDIS but also in the aged care sector as well. … Our priority right now is to register providers. It doesn’t make much sense to have workers registered if they’re employed by providers who are not registered and whom we know nothing about. …

We’re moving at a pace really to make sure that the few hundred thousand organisations and companies that are providing services are registered, that they tick a range of boxes around quality, and we have a good line of sight of who they are and what their character is.

We’ll take this extended inquiry very seriously and treat it with the respect that all of those inquiries deserve.

Disabled people deserve an NDIS that is both protected from fraud and designed around their rights, not one where they are treated with suspicion because governments have failed to crack down on those actually exploiting the system.

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