Disabilities, markets and rights: The limits of a marketised national disability insurance scheme

Abstract

This article considers the compatibility of Australia’s marketised National Disability Insurance Scheme and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The author recognises that market-based disability support is largely compatible with Australia’s human rights commitments but resists the idea that it is capable of serving the interests of all Australians with disabilities. Markets can and do fail, and market stewardship, the government’s proposed antidote, is only a partial solution. As such, we should embrace a pluralist disability support system that sees non-market mechanisms – like block funding – as playing an important role in disability support systems.