Federal Minister for Families and Social Services Paul Fletcher said the NDIS and its individual participant approach is working for disabled people outside of the city centres. 

Mr Fletcher said disabled people in Dubbo don’t have the same choices available to them as those in Sydney so allowing them to choose individual outcomes was at the heart of the scheme.

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“The key principal of NDIS is choice and control; it gives the participant control over how they are supported,” he said.

“The plan that is agreed by the participant allows them to pay for a disability support worker, an occupational therapist, or perhaps round the clock support.

“It is a huge change in direction to the way people with a disability have historically been supported.”

Mr Fletcher said one of the significant advantages of the NDIS for those living in rural Australia is it allows for more focus on the person who needs the support, and it takes into account their locality.

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“We recognise that if you are in a regional area the range of support available to you is not as great as it would be in bigger towns and city’s,” he said.

“But because the person being supported now controls where the money goes they are now in a position to have some leverage, it is a pretty fundamental change in the provision of services, and it gives people who are not in the city more bargaining power when they come to the table.”

However, a Central West disability advocate, who asked not to be named, said while Mr Fletcher was mostly correct in his assessment of the NDIS, accessing personal support was not easy for some.

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“The self-managed option is a wonderful aspect of the NDIS, it is a great thing, and a lot of people in Dubbo do make use of that option,” they said. “But, if the person has an intellectual disability that option is not available to them.

“Not everybody gets a support coordinator who can support them through that process. Someone who has no legs but still has full cognitive ability can navigate the system, they know they can talk to someone and ask for something they need and they’ll probably get it, but when you have a significant intellectual disability, they won’t be able to self manage.

“There are not many services registered in regional areas, and that limits their choices to have the control the Minister speaks of.”