New Zealand's Once-Visionary Accident Compensation Scheme and Australia's Revolutionary Vision in its National Disability Insurance Scheme: A Tale of Two Countries.

Abstract

New Zealand's "visionary" accident compensation scheme came into force in 1974. Described as "the original sin" of the scheme, eligibility was confined, largely for affordability reasons, to accidental injury, leaving disability from sickness, disease and congenital conditions out in the cold, dependent on much less generous support. The scheme's architect, Justice Owen Woodhouse, intended its eventual extension to all forms of disability, regardless of cause. But repeated attempts to do so have all failed. Nearly 40 years later, it is now New Zealand's turn to look with envy at Australia's revolutionary National Disability Insurance Scheme, a comprehensive scheme that provides support for all forms of disability, regardless of cause. The article traces the forces that aligned resulting in the NDIS, summarises its key elements, and briefly considers its challenges and how its future can best be secured. I argue that the NDIS should inspire the final achievement of Woodhouse's "unfinished business" for the benefit of all New Zealanders.