WHAT WAS CLAIMED
There are 1300 NDIS businesses based in the suburb of Lakemba.
OUR VERDICT
False. There are 16 active, registered NDIS providers with an office in Lakemba.
AAP FACTCHECK - The number of disability service providers in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba is not 1300, despite claims online.
The figure is based on a list that includes providers located across the country, online services, inactive businesses and duplicate listings.
Claims are being shared online following renewed government efforts to stem fraud in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which provides financial assistance to people with disabilities.
The NDIS enables recipients to use government funds to access services and support. However, there have been several instances of providers making fraudulent claims.
This has led to multiple social media users highlighting the supposedly large number of NDIS providers in Lakemba.
"Lakemba has 1,300 NDIS businesses alone," a March 13 Facebook video claims.
"That's one NDIS business for every 13 people in Lakemba."
"It would appear that the Muslim population pockets in Sydney ( e.g Lakemba) are - perhaps - over represented with NDIS funding," another post states. "1300 NDIS offices in that suburb alone."
The 1300 figure appears to be based on search results in the NDIS 'provider finder' tool for Lakemba's postcode - 2195 - which lists 1320 registered providers.
However, the results include all providers located within a five-kilometre radius of Lakemba, including the surrounding suburbs of Belmore, Wiley Park and Strathfield South.
It also lists all providers that NDIS participants living in Lakemba have used before, including throughout Sydney and also nationwide.
Among the 1320 providers are businesses in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.
These include online or remote services available to NDIS users anywhere in the country.
The search results also include inactive providers, which are businesses that haven't submitted an invoice to the NDIS for more than three months.
Jen Smith-Merry, a professor of health and social policy at the University of Sydney, told AAP FactCheck that inactive providers would likely have no current clients.
"Sometimes businesses are just one staff member and are set up to support one person only and when that participant no longer has a need for that service (or their plan changes so they no longer have funding for that service) then they do not provide support any longer," she explained.
When only including businesses with a physical office address in Lakemba - not those within a 5km radius - the number of providers is 44.
When narrowing this down further to active providers, the number is 16.
This equates to one provider for every 1068 Lakemba residents based on 2021 Census population data.
However, this search tool only lists registered NDIS providers, which are businesses that undergo audits and compliance checks with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.
There are certain services that only registered providers can deliver, like specialist behaviour support or restrictive practices.
But some NDIS participants can also seek support from unregistered providers, which are still regulated by the Commission but don't have mandatory audits.
In February, NDIS integrity chief John Dardo told a senate estimates hearing that unregistered providers include any business that an NDIS participant has used and subsequently filed a claim for reimbursement against.
In some instances, the business may be unaware they're a provider, he said.
"If a participant decides to use a lawn-mowing service once… and claims against that lawn-mowing service - and that lawn-mowing service does not even know that they've mowed the lawn of a participant - that will appear in an unregistered provider account," Mr Dardo said.
Unregistered providers are not publicly listed, but the NDIS collects this data internally through submitted invoices.
An NDIS spokesperson told AAP FactCheck there are 205 unregistered providers who have submitted an invoice in the last 12 months and whose Australian Business Number lists an address in the 2195 postcode, which includes both Lakemba and the neighbouring suburb of Wiley Park.
There are 22 registered providers located across Lakemba and Wiley Park, according to the provider finder search, making a combined 227 registered and unregistered active providers in the 2195 postcode.
This equates to one provider for every 120 people residing in the two suburbs.
During the senate hearing, Mr Dardo also said similar claims about the number of providers in Lakemba were misleading.
He noted that the highest concentration of providers per postcode is Port Macquarie, followed by Hervey Bay, Sunshine Coast, Frankston and Southport.
Lakemba was not "not anywhere near our top 40 suburbs for saturation [of providers]", he said.
AAP FactCheck previously debunked a fake quote attributed to Senator Fatima Payman about a crackdown on NDIS fraud harming Muslim Australians.
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