The revelations come as Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan last week announced a crackdown on youth crime across the state, including a pledge to send children aged 14 and over convicted of violent crimes, including carjackings, to prison more often and for longer.
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Police Commissioner Mike Bush did not directly address the premier’s plans for reform, but said rehabilitation and early intervention was as important as enforcement in preventing crime.
“One’s more long-term, the early intervention partnerships … but they’re both effective,” Bush said on Monday morning.
NDIS officials and MPs have long promised to clean up the almost $50 billion program after reports criminals were extorting Australians living with disabilities to steal their entitlements.
Last week, McAllister said the government would grant the NDIS Commission greater powers to penalise people and companies rorting the system.
“We want to strengthen deterrence so providers doing the wrong thing know they will face consequences,” she said in a speech at think tank the McKell Institute. “It means stopping the rorts.”
The teenage criminals’ trip was funded by the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Credit: Shutterstock
The NDIA’s fraud investigators in 2024-25 reviewed more than 100,000 claims by NDIS providers and rejected $86 million worth of claims.
Labor has committed $550 million federally to tackling rorting of the scheme.
