A landmark nationwide insurance scheme for Australians with a disability is turning into the old joke about a boat, a crossbench senator believes.
"It's a hole in the water into which you throw money," Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
He was responding to a new report that reveals how disability service providers are struggling to meet demand as the program's rollout hits numerous hurdles.
"The NDIS is turning into a massive scheme in which money is being spent with poor results," Senator Leyonhjelm said.
He argued the system of support for people with disability should be devolved to the state, or even local government level.
"So that the people who are delivering the services are managed and administered by people who are close to the disabled community," he said.
"Not here in Canberra, remote from everybody."
The National Disability Services 2017 state of the sector report surveyed 516 disability service providers with results to be presented to chief executives in Sydney.
It found that only half of the surveyed providers could keep pace with demand for their services.
Seven in 10 had witnessed demand for their services increase over the last year.
But only three out of five had increased capacity to meet that demand.
In 2017, only 58 per cent of respondents plan to expand services in the next 12 months - down from 68 per cent in 2015.
Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie said the government was providing funding adequate to ensure the NDIS could be rolled out as soon as possible
"I'm very proud to be part of a government that's actually not just made the glossy announcement but actually written it into the budget," she said.
But Labor senator Louise Pratt said she was receiving feedback that people were having difficulty with the project's timing and assessments.
"I've certainly had people that have needed to be reassessed more than once," she said.
"So this really underscores the fact that there are problems with the NDIS rollout and the government needs to pay more attention to the detail of the problems within it."
The number of NDIS participants has grown from 30,000 to 113,000 in the 15 months since the trial period ended in July last year.
In October, a Productivity Commission report warned deadlines for the program's rollout would not be met.
