18/04/2023
I continue to despair as to the rhetoric from both the media as well as our members of Parliament when they discuss the spending on NDIS and ultimately the spending on people with disability. My understanding is that last year the spending on the NDIS was of the order of $36 billion. Yes, it is a high figure.
Let us however, put some perspective around this expenditure. For starters, it pales into insignificance in comparison to Defence spending this year of around $47 billion. And that is without even looking at AUKUS and that fiasco.
Now let us look at what happens to every dollar that is spent on people with disability. Every person with disability has a very low propensity to save. In other words, they spend just about every dollar that they receive on services to allow them to access the necessities in life (things that those people without disabilities take as granted in their lives). Those people providing these services then pay tax on their income received for providing them. And they spend a considerable amount of what they receive. So, every dollar spent by the person with disability has a multiplier effect of around 4 or 5 times as it works its way through the economy. That then means that the $36 billion is multiplied many times as it is earned and spent by various links in the chain of the economy.
A further comparison is that International Students to Australia inject around $28 billion into our economy. That is less than the people with disability. Yet we demonise people with disability endlessly as being some kind of “burden” to the taxpayer. All they are accessing is goods and services that allow them to live a life in a similar fashion to others in the economy without disability.
Let’s change the rhetoric.
Suresh Rajan
