The government’s bill, which was introduced into Parliament on 31 May, seeks to create a new statutory authority with national responsibility for implementing the scheme’s Quality and Safeguarding Framework.

In this year’s budget, the Federal Government allocated $209 million over four years to operate the new body, which would replace existing state-based regulatory schemes as the NDIS becomes fully operational by 2020.

The Senate referred the government’s bill to a Senate committee inquiry on 15 June and the committee is due to report on 5 September.

Under the proposed government legislation, the new authority would be given wide-ranging responsibilities including to:

• register NDIS providers and monitor compliance with national standards
• respond to complaints and reportable incidents, such as abuse of a person with disability
• oversee and enforce a new national code of conduct for all workers, and
• issue penalties for breaches of the code
• set national policy for the screening of workers
• monitor restrictive practices in the industry, such as use of physical restraints.

Source: Community Care Review