The Northern Territory has now signed on to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and NT Chief Minister Adam Giles signed an agreement on 15 May 2013 that will see DisabilityCare Australia, the NDIS’s new name, rolled out across the territory by July 2019.
The scheme will eventually cover an estimated 7000 NT residents with significant or profound disabilities.
“The NDIS is the reform of a generation and has the potential to transform the lives of people in the Northern Territory with disability, their families and carers,” Ms Gillard said in a statement.
Under the agreement, the scheme will launch at a single site in July next year.
Other eligible people with disability in the NT will start entering the scheme from July 2016, and by July 2019 all eligible NT residents will be covered by the scheme.
When the scheme is fully up and running the federal government will pay for about 51 per cent at a cost of about $105 million. The NT will provide the remainder of about $99 million.
The NT deal means Liberal West Australian Premier Colin Barnett is the only leader yet to agree to the disability insurance scheme.
