The process for determining the supports and services which can be funded through the NDIS will be reviewed as part of the major new inquiry into the scheme.
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But NDIS Minister Bill Shorten has ruled out sweeping changes as he rubbished suggestions that participants were claiming "exotic services" - including sex therapy - en masse.
Mr Shorten made the comments after he joined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott on Wednesday to launch "the Field", a new job-seeking website tailored to people with a disability.
The latest cost blowouts to the NDIS, which is now forecast to cost $50 billion in 2025-26, has prompted fresh media scrutiny on the types of services which taxpayers are funding for participants.
The NDIS funds support and services which are considered "reasonable and necessary" for a participant.
To meet the criteria, the support must be related to their disability, not include day-to-day living costs, must represent value for money and must be likely to be effective.
Mr Shorten said there was "no doubt" that the process for determining the supports which fit that criteria would be examined as part of a major review of the NDIS announced last month.
But Mr Shorten said there would be no wholesale changes and the "commonplace" supports which people relied on weren't on the chopping block, as he refuted suggestions participants were claiming taxpayer-funded services they didn't need.
"I think we owe it to people with a disability on the scheme - there are 550,000 people on the scheme - they are not all getting exotic services or special things which people will see as unusual," he said.
"99.9999 per cent of the scheme is going to things that people think the scheme was set up for: wheelchairs, early intervention therapies, assistance animals, home mods."
One type of support which has attracted media interest is sex therapy.
The Federal Court ruled in 2020 that participants could use their funds to access specialised sex workers, in a judgment which prompted then NDIS Minister Stuart Robert to launch a failed attempt to change the law to ban the practice.
Mr Shorten said despite the ruling, he questioned if the public would consider sex therapy for NDIS participants an "appropriate" use of taxpayer funds.
He said he was only aware of one case of a participant using their funds for sex therapy.
At the launch of the new website, Mr Albanese urged the nation's employers to give disabled job-seekers "a chance".
The unemployment rate for disabled people compared to non-disabled people has not changed for almost 30 years. There are almost 500,000 people with a disability trying to find a job.
"Give people a crack here and they will more than give back," he said.
The initiative, which has the backing of $6 million in federal government funding, is designed to make it easier for disabled job-seekers to connect with employers.
Mr Albanese said businesses and the public sector could do "much better" in bringing people with a disability into their workplace.
Mr Alcott said the website had been built with special design features which allowed applicants to present themselves in the format they felt comfortable with.
"Not everyone with disability can work and that's OK, but for those that can, they deserve the right to choose if they do," he said.
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.
