Billions lost to NDIS fraud while demand keeps climbing. Preetinder Grewal and Ranjodh Singh break it down on Haanji Melbourne — free on Radio Haanji.
ਆਸਟ੍ਰੇਲੀਆ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੁਣ ਲਗਭਗ 55 ਲੱਖ ਲੋਕ — ਯਾਨੀ ਹਰ ਪੰਜ ਵਿੱਚੋਂ ਇੱਕ ਵਿਅਕਤੀ — ਕਿਸੇ ਨਾ ਕਿਸੇ ਤਰ੍ਹਾਂ ਦੀ ਅਸਮਰਥਾ ਨਾਲ ਜੀ ਰਹੇ ਹਨ। ਉਮਰ ਵੱਧਣ ਨਾਲ ਇਹ ਅੰਕੜਾ ਹੋਰ ਵੀ ਤੇਜ਼ੀ ਨਾਲ ਵਧਦਾ ਹੈ, ਜਿੱਥੇ 65 ਸਾਲ ਤੋਂ ਉੱਪਰ ਦੇ ਅੱਧ ਤੋਂ ਵੱਧ ਲੋਕ disability ਦਾ ਸਾਹਮਣਾ ਕਰ ਰਹੇ ਹਨ।
ਇਹ ਅੰਕੜੇ ਦਰਸਾਉਂਦੇ ਹਨ ਕਿ disability ਹੁਣ ਸਿਰਫ਼ ਇੱਕ ਸਿਹਤ ਸਮੱਸਿਆ ਨਹੀਂ ਰਹੀ, ਸਗੋਂ ਇੱਕ ਵੱਡੀ ਆਰਥਿਕ ਅਤੇ ਸਮਾਜਿਕ ਸਮੱਸਿਆ ਬਣ ਗਈ ਹੈ, ਜਿਸਦਾ ਸਿੱਧਾ ਪ੍ਰਭਾਵ National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) ਵਰਗੀਆਂ ਸਕੀਮਾਂ ’ਤੇ ਵੀ ਪੈਂਦਾ ਹੈ, ਜਿੱਥੇ ਲੋੜ ਲਗਾਤਾਰ ਵੱਧ ਰਹੀ ਹੈ ਅਤੇ ਸਿਸਟਮ ’ਤੇ ਦਬਾਅ ਵੀ ਨਜ਼ਰ ਆ ਰਿਹਾ ਹੈ।
ਇਸਦੇ ਨਾਲ ਹੀ NDIS ਸੈਕਟਰ ਵਿੱਚ fraud ਅਤੇ misuse ਦੇ ਮਾਮਲੇ ਵੀ ਵਧ ਰਹੇ ਹਨ, ਜਿੱਥੇ ਕੁਝ ਲੋਕਾਂ ਅਤੇ ਕੰਪਨੀਆਂ ਦੁਆਰਾ ਗਲਤ billing, fake services ਜਾਂ overcharging ਵਰਗੀਆਂ ਗਤੀਵਿਧੀਆਂ ਸਾਹਮਣੇ ਆ ਰਹੀਆਂ ਹਨ। ਸਰਕਾਰ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਇਸ ਦੇ ਰੋਕਥਾਮ ਲਈ ਯਤਨ ਵੀ ਕੀਤਾ ਜਾ ਰਿਹਾ ਹੈ, ਪਰ ਮਾਹਿਰਾਂ ਦਾ ਕਹਿਣਾ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਸਿਸਟਮ ਦੇ ਤੇਜ਼ੀ ਨਾਲ 50 ਬਿਲੀਅਨ ਡਾਲਰ ਤੱਕ ਵਧਣ ਕਾਰਨ ਇਸ ਵਰਤਾਰੇ ਨੂੰ ਨੱਥ ਪਾਉਣਾ ਇੱਕ ਵੱਡੀ ਚੁਣੌਤੀ ਬਣ ਗਿਆ ਹੈ।
ਕੀ ਆਸਟ੍ਰੇਲੀਆ ਦਾ ਇਹ ਨਿਹਾਇਤ ਜ਼ਰੂਰੀ NDIS ਸਿਸਟਮ ਆਉਣ ਵਾਲੇ ਸਮੇਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਇਸ ਵਧਦੀ ਲੋੜ ਅਤੇ ਵਧਦੇ ਘੋਟਾਲਿਆਂ, ਦੋਹਾਂ ਦਾ ਬੋਝ ਝੱਲ ਸਕੇਗਾ ਜਾਂ ਸਰਕਾਰ ਹਾਲ ਲਈ ਕੁਝ ਸਖਤ ਕਦਮ ਚੁੱਕੇਗੀ, ਇਹ ਅਗਲਾ ਸਮਾਂ ਹੀ ਦੱਸੇਗਾ।
ਹਾਂਜੀ ਮੈਲਬੌਰਨ ਤੋਂ ਰਣਜੋਧ ਸਿੰਘ ਅਤੇ ਪ੍ਰੀਤਇੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਗਰੇਵਾਲ ਇਸ ਆਡੀਓ ਸ਼ੋ ਵਿੱਚ ਇਸੇ ਵਿਸ਼ੇ ’ਤੇ ਚਰਚਾ ਕਰ ਰਹੇ ਹਨ। ਹੋਰ ਵੇਰਵੇ ਲਈ ਇਹ ਪੋਡਕਾਸਟ ਸੁਣੋ.....
Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme was supposed to be a safety net. For hundreds of thousands of people living with disability, it still is. But right now, the scheme is carrying more weight than many thought possible — and the cracks are starting to show.
The NDIS has crossed the $50 billion mark in annual spending. That number alone tells you something about how drastically the demand for disability support has grown across the country. And running alongside that growth is something far more troubling: a wave of fraud, fake billing, and financial abuse that is siphoning money away from the people who need it most.
In a recent episode of Haanji Melbourne on Radio Haanji 1674 AM, hosts Preetinder Grewal and Ranjodh Singhbroke this topic down — talking through what the NDIS is, where the money is going, and what the growing fraud problem means for ordinary Australians and the Punjabi diaspora community.
Explore more community discussions → https://haanji.com.au/podcast
What Is the NDIS and Why Does It Matter?
The National Disability Insurance Scheme is Australia's government-funded program providing support to people living with a permanent and significant disability. Launched in 2013, it funds services ranging from personal care and therapy to specialised equipment and home modifications.
Australia now has roughly 5.5 million people — about one in five — living with some form of disability. Among those aged 65 and over, more than half face disability-related challenges. These numbers don't stay flat. They climb every year as the population ages and as diagnostic awareness of conditions like autism and psychosocial disability grows. The NDIS was designed to grow with that need.
What nobody fully anticipated was how fast it would grow — and how difficult that speed would make proper oversight.
$50 Billion and Counting: The Scale of the Scheme
When the NDIS was first modelled, it was expected to cost around $22 billion annually by 2023. The actual figure is more than double that. This isn't just cost overrun — it's a reflection of genuine need, yes, but also of a system that grew faster than its safeguards.
The scheme now supports over 680,000 participants. Every year, that number increases. Access decisions, plan budgets, and the sheer volume of providers entering the market have all added pressure to a system that, until recently, was running with remarkably thin oversight.
According to a 2024 Australian National Audit Office report, manual reviews covered just 0.4% of the $41.85 billion in payments processed — and of those, more than half were flagged for non-compliance. That statistic alone explains how fraud at this scale was able to take hold.
For the Punjabi and Indian community in Australia, this matters. Many families rely on NDIS support for children with disability, elderly parents, or family members recovering from serious illness or injury. When the system is drained by fraud, there is less to go around — and that hits real families.
How Fraud Is Playing Out Inside the Scheme
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has warned that as much as $6 billion per year may be misused within the NDIS — including by organised crime groups. That figure is staggering. It means for every eight dollars the NDIS spends, roughly one could be disappearing into fraudulent claims.
The types of fraud the Fraud Fusion Taskforce (FFT) — a 24-agency joint operation — has uncovered include:
- Fake services: claims submitted for support sessions that never happened, including cases where participants were actually in prison when services were supposedly delivered
- Ghost clients: fake NDIS participants created to generate invoice payments
- Overcharging: providers billing at maximum rates for services worth a fraction of that
- Organised syndicates: criminal networks running multiple companies simultaneously, funnelling millions through false claims
In late 2025, a national week of enforcement disrupted over $50 million in suspected fraud. One operation alone — Operation Banksia — targeted a syndicate allegedly claiming $40 million. Another, Operation Howell in Western Sydney, chased $7 million linked to hundreds of fake service claims.
In February 2026, an NDIA employee in Darwin was charged after allegedly using his position to refer clients to a business he secretly co-owned — a business that had claimed $28 million in NDIS funds since 2019, with around $5 million flagged as suspicious.
What the Government Is Doing About It
The government is not standing still. The Fraud Fusion Taskforce has disrupted more than 1,900 providers submitting incorrect or non-compliant claims. Integrity interventions are estimated to deliver $2.3 billion in benefits to the scheme, including over $598 million in prevented non-compliant payments.
But experts and auditors are frank: the oversight infrastructure was not built to match the scheme's size. Catching fraud after the fact is expensive and slow. Prevention requires better upfront checks — on providers entering the market, on high-volume invoices, on participants who may be at risk of exploitation by unscrupulous operators.
Some proposed fixes being discussed include requiring participants to approve invoices above certain thresholds, better data-sharing between agencies, and faster deregistration of providers flagged for suspicious activity.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the NDIS and who does it support?
The NDIS is Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme, a federal government program providing funded supports to people living with a permanent and significant disability. It covers therapy, personal care, equipment, and more. As of 2025, it supports over 680,000 Australians and costs over $50 billion annually — making it one of the largest social programs in the country's history.
How much money is lost to NDIS fraud each year?
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has estimated that up to $6 billion per year may be misused within the NDIS, including by organised crime syndicates. The government's Fraud Fusion Taskforce has so far disrupted more than 1,900 non-compliant providers and prevented hundreds of millions in fraudulent payments — but the full scale of fraud remains difficult to quantify.
How does NDIS fraud happen?
NDIS fraud typically involves submitting claims for services that were never provided, creating fake participants to generate payments, overcharging for support services, or running multiple companies to claim funds across different access points. Some cases involve organised crime networks with dozens of individuals coordinating false claims across several states.
Can the government recover NDIS fraud money?
Yes, in some cases. When prosecutions are successful, courts can order repayment of defrauded amounts. The FFT's integrity interventions have also diverted payments away from flagged providers and towards compliant ones. However, recovering money already paid is far more difficult than preventing fraudulent payments in the first place.
How does growing NDIS costs affect everyday Australians?
The NDIS is taxpayer-funded. As costs rise beyond projections, pressure builds on federal budgets, which can affect other social services. The disability community itself is affected when fraudulent operators crowd out genuine providers, reduce available support options, or exploit vulnerable participants who may not be aware of their rights.
Conclusion
The NDIS remains one of the most important social programs Australia has ever built. For families navigating disability — including many in the Punjabi community across Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane — it provides critical support that didn't exist a generation ago.
But a $50 billion scheme without proportionate oversight is also a target. Fraud on this scale doesn't just waste money. It takes resources away from people with real needs, erodes public trust in a genuinely vital program, and puts pressure on governments to scale back rather than improve.
Preetinder Grewal and Ranjodh Singh's conversation on Haanji Melbourne gets into exactly this — the tension between a scheme that is essential and a system that needs serious work to stay that way. It's worth a listen.
Listen to this NDIS discussion on Haanji Melbourne with Preetinder Grewal and Ranjodh Singh — only on Radio Haanji.
Listen free:
What's Your Reaction?
