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<\/p>\nIn the West Australian outback town of Derby, Katie-Lee Stoker has started keeping a close eye on her 13-year-old son Cooper’s NDIS plan.<\/p>\n
She says multiple companies have billed for services not provided, draining the money that’s vital in helping Cooper \u2014 who lives with cerebral palsy, epilepsy and is non-verbal \u2014 with daily tasks and to engage with his school and community.<\/p>\n
One company had charged Cooper’s plan more than $250,000 in less than two years, with Ms Stoker questioning many of the supports claimed.<\/p>\n
In invoices seen by the ABC, Cooper’s plan was billed for support work on a Sunday and on a public holiday, despite Ms Stoker being adamant he did not receive any care on these days.<\/p>\n
“He’s never had supports on a Sunday \u2026 that’s our at-home family day off together,” she told the ABC.<\/p>\n
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Katie-Lee Stoker has cancelled providers she fears were misusing her son Cooper’s funds. (By Dunja Karagic)<\/p>\n
Cooper’s care provider told the ABC the billing on a public holiday was a “typographical error” and “strongly denied” allegations of overcharging.<\/p>\n
Ms Stoker has since cancelled the service and is planning on making a complaint to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.<\/p>\n
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Ms Stoker has previously complained about a provider to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. (Dunja Karagic)<\/p>\n
Their experience is one of many uncovered by the ABC over the past few years, part of an industry now driving a tsunami of rorting estimated to be worth up to $8 billion a year.<\/p>\n
John Dardo, head of integrity transformation at the NDIS, last week told a parliamentary inquiry into the scheme<\/a> about 8.3 per cent of the $45 billion in payments made last financial year could be attributed to “integrity leakage”, which was used to describe everything from fraud to “inadvertent non-compliance”.<\/p>\n The federal government has just unveiled a dramatic overhaul of the scheme that it says will include a crackdown on fraud<\/a>.<\/p>\n Announcing the changes, Disability Minister Mark Butler described the scheme as one of Australia\u2019s great human rights achievements, but also “a soft target for shonks and rorters \u2013 as well as the worst elements of organised crime”.<\/p>\n Do you know more about this story?<\/p>\n Contact Elise Kinsella at elisekinsella@proton.me<\/a>. If you’re sharing sensitive information,\u00a0read our tips on how to contact us confidentially<\/a>.<\/p>\n But advocates and insiders say the government has been on notice for years that fraud had infiltrated the system.<\/p>\n In 2022, the acting commissioner of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Michael Phelan, estimated that as much as a fifth of NDIS funding was being abused.<\/p>\n A 2023 report warned that the NDIS had become a hunting ground for predatory operators \u2014 outlining how clients in Victoria were being “kidnapped” and financially abused in boarding homes<\/a>, induced to switch accommodation providers through offers of fast food.<\/p>\n By late 2024 it was still happening, with the ABC documenting a young man with a plan worth $670,000 being lured away from his existing supported independent living arrangement and cut off from his family<\/a>.<\/p>\n