The number of NDIS participants bringing new cases to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal is steadily declining after a dramatic surge which thrust the scheme into the federal election spotlight, new figures show.
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A massive backlog of "legacy" cases before the tribunal is also slowly being whittled down, although NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said it's not happening fast enough.
A Canberra-based disability rights activist is now calling on the Albanese government to settle cases which are costing taxpayers more to fight in the tribunal than they would to fund the supports the participants are trying to secure.
Appeals to the tribunal skyrocketed in the past financial year amid widespread reports of funding packages being slashed.
At one stage the agency was spending an average of about $4 million a month on lawyers' fees to fight the cases.
It reached a peak in the December quarter when almost 1870 new cases were filed with the tribunal - a more than 350 per cent rise on the same period 12 months earlier.
The percentage of overall participants bringing new cases also rose, meaning the increase wasn't just a reflection of the growing number of people on the scheme.
But the numbers are now in decline.
The National Disability Insurance Agency's latest report showed the number of new cases brought to the tribunal had fallen for the second consecutive quarter, after 1300 appeals were filed in the three months to June.
After being sworn into the NDIS portfolio following the Labor's election win in May, Mr Shorten made it his top priority to reduce the backlog of almost 5000 cases which had built up in the dying days of the Morrison government.
While about 200 "legacy" cases have been resolved since coming to government, Mr Shorten said the backlog wasn't being cleared fast enough.
"We have more to do, but I'm confident I'm steering the NDIA in the right direction," he told The Canberra Times.
"I expect we will have significantly reduced the former Liberal government's legacy caseload waiting for a resolution at the AAT by Christmas."
There were 4408 active cases in the tribunal as of June 30, according to the report.
Mr Shorten has promised to introduce a new dispute resolution process for participants who suffer severe funding cuts, in the hope of resolving cases before they reach the tribunal.
An agency spokeswoman did not respond directly when asked to offer an explanation for the fall in new cases to the tribunal since the start of the year.
However, the agency did indicate that allocating extra resources had helped to reduce the backlog of cases since May.
"The National Disability Insurance Agency is working to ensure cases before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) are solved quickly and fairly," the spokeswoman said.
Asked to comment on the new figures, Advocacy of Inclusion head of policy and veteran disability rights activist Craig Wallace said they didn't reflect experiences on the ground.
He said his Canberra-based organisation was assisting about half a dozen participants through complex tribunal cases, some of which had dragged on for more than two years.
Mr Wallace said the agency should settle and pay out participants whose cases were costing more to "fight rather than fund".
"People's lives are in limbo while there's cases ongoing - everything stops. We think it is problematic for the agency, problematic financially and it's very problematic for the clients," he said.
People with a Disability Australia president Samantha Connor "cautiously" welcomed the steady decline in appeals.
But she said there was still daily reports of participants have funding requests for support knocked back, as she warned the new government that it had a tough task ahead of it to address the scheme's underlying problems.
"The NDIS doesn't resemble the NDIS that was originally envisaged all those years ago and Labor has a hell of a job on their hands to find out exactly what is making all those banging and rattling sounds. How do you fix an aircraft while it's in the air?" she said.
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Dan Jervis-Bardy
Dan covers federal politics from Parliament House, with a special focus on climate policy and the NDIS. He has previously reported on ACT politics and urban affairs since joining the Canberra Times in 2018.
Dan covers federal politics from Parliament House, with a special focus on climate policy and the NDIS. He has previously reported on ACT politics and urban affairs since joining the Canberra Times in 2018.
