Journal of Social Inclusion, 3(2), 2012 NDIS: In context

A national disability insurance scheme Australia's move toward the development of an insurance scheme that provides the opportunity for Australians with a disability to receive adequate support was initiated at the 2020 summit in 2008. Since that time, a range of actions have been undertaken to bring Australia to the point at which it now stands, on the brink of decision making about the implementation of an National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The Australian Government has stated its commitment to developing a national disability strategy (Productivity Commission, 2011, p. iv) and it was in this context that the possibility of an NDIS was developed. An NDIS would see the development of an entitlement based scheme that is needs driven and which, quite importantly, sees the person with a disability as the customer, as opposed to the current system which arguably sees the person with a disability as the passive recipient of services. Why is the NDIS the next logical step for Australia? It was not that long ago that people in Australia who had a disability were completely separated from the community. People with disabilities were seen as not being normal. However it can be argued that the idea of normal is not part of human nature and that it is instead a construction of our society (Davis, 2010, p. 3). Attitudes to people with a disability did not begin to change until after the two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century when servicemen who had experienced disablement as a result of war, began to return home (Barnes, 2010, p. 27). But it was not until the 1950's that we began to see a move to reduce segregation, and not until the 1960's in America was there any plan to move people from institutiona