Mark The Graph posted the below chart on Twitter (X) showing the extraordinary growth in job vacancies in the Healthcare & Social Assistance industry, which he attributes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS):
The following chart from Alex Joiner at IFM Investors likewise shows that ‘government-aligned’ jobs are booming, whereas market sector job growth has flatlined:
Once more, personal care jobs, which are booming as a result of the NDIS, are what are driving this growth in “government-aligned” jobs:
Meanwhile, data from Westpac shows that public demand as a share of GDP hit a record high of 27.2%, “illustrating the growing size of public demand in the economy”:
This record public demand has been driven by record infrastructure investment from the states, alongside enormous growth in NDIS and aged care spending from the federal government.
The explosion in NDIS-related spending and job growth augers badly for Australia’s productivity, given that ‘government-aligned’ jobs have experienced far slower productivity growth than market sector jobs:
Whatever your view of the NDIS, we should all be concerned that the scheme is being targeted by criminal syndicates, billionaires, and private equity firms, who view it as one giant honeypot.
“Private equity companies from Australia, the US and Europe are spending hundreds of millions of dollars buying up NDIS providers and services”, the article read.
“The flood of cash into the NDIS has raised concerns among experts and workers that money supposed to pay for the care of some of Australia’s most vulnerable will instead end up in the pockets of already wealthy investors”.
Whenever the government has set up a privatised market with a gigantic pot of money, we have witnessed rorting, misuse, and waste.
We witnessed similar rorting of the private vocational education and training (VET) system, pink batt schemes, and childcare subsidies. Now the NDIS is being targeted.
Disclosure: I have a profoundly non-verbal autistic son on the NDIS.
