Off the back of the 4 Corner's investigation into the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has renewed calls for reform of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (NDIS Commission), claiming that unsafe workloads and grave mismanagement are at the core of the regulator's failings.
CPSU members who work at the NDIS Commission have repeatedly raised issues of unsafe workloads and mismanagement, and communicated the impact this is having on their ability to do their job. They have repeatedly been ignored.
In April this year, an Improvement Notice was issued to the NDIS Commission after they were found to be in breach of health and safety laws, with unsafe workloads and job demands having adverse impacts on staff.
People with disability and their families need the NDIS Commission to be a proactive and powerful body that regulates providers of NDIS disability support services and ensures people with disability are not experiencing neglect or abuse.
Current mismanagement, and significant work, health and safety breaches within the Commission are compromising its ability to do that.
The union believes that the Commission is being gravely mismanaged and is in urgent need of reform and an increase to frontline staff, and is calling on the Albanese Labor Government to step in.
Quotes attributable to Melissa Donnelly, CPSU National Secretary:
"The ABC's 4 Corners program shone a much-needed light on the consequences of an overworked and poorly managed NDIS Commission.
"For years, CPSU members in the Commission have been ignored when raising issues about the unmanageable workloads and mismanagement that exists.
"They care deeply about the work that they do and want the disability scheme to succeed, but this is being put at risk.
"It has become increasingly clear that the leadership at the NDIS Commission do not share the passion of our members, or their determination to fix current issues.
"As recently as June this year, the CPSU was forced to send a letter to NDIS Commissioner Tracey Mackey, requesting the Commission cease and desist the targeting of employees who blew the whistle on cover ups and misinformation within the Commission.
"How can we expect a workplace that can't look after its own staff, to look after hundreds of thousands of Australia's most vulnerable people?
"People with disability and their loved ones deserve a regulator that does its job, and workers have a right to safe workloads and safe staffing levels.
"The union believes that the Commission is being gravely mismanaged, and that change is urgently required.
