Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

It is with the experiences of Canberrans in mind that I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Quality and Safeguards Commission and Other Measures) Bill 2017. Labor supports the development of a strong quality and safeguards framework for the National Disability Insurance Scheme so that we can protect and prevent people with disability from experiencing harm from poor quality or unsafe supports or services under the NDIS. It is vitally important that we protect those who are vulnerable and living with disability from dodgy practitioners and people who are out to exploit them.

We know that this bill is extensive and complex. It is very important legislation for the Australian community not just for those living with disability but also for those who are carers. We need to have this discussion about frameworks and protecting those with disability because one of the drivers behind the NDIS is the fact that it will empower those with disability. It will give them the opportunity to have choice in the services and supports that they need. It will give them the opportunity to tailor those supports and services to the needs of their lifestyle. Rather than just receiving an institutional approach, it is a broad based approach that will allow them to pick and choose what they need that will best benefit their specific needs. That is the beauty of the NDIS.

The NDIS will allow people living with disability to have choice. It will give them autonomy. It will give them independence. It will provide them that opportunity they have never had before to tailor the supports and services to what they need rather than to what is being provided or what an institution deems is appropriate—it is what they need. Through that process, it will empower those living with disability. That said, that can be threatening. When you are brand new to having to make a choice—you have always had choices made for you or the system made the choices for you—having the opportunity to tailor those supports and services and choose those supports and services can be threatening. It can be scary.

In the early days here in Canberra we were at the vanguard of the rollout of the NDIS; we were a trial site. I met with a number of parents who embraced the spirit of the NDIS and that sense of empowerment. They saw it for the opportunities that it would provide for their children. I met with parents who relished the fact that they could get a carer for their teenage daughter or son, or their daughter or son in their 20s, and take them out to the movies on a Saturday night or to the bowling club on a Saturday night, or take them out for a nice meal so they had a companion. It meant that the parents could go out on a date for the first time in a very long time. Some marriages and relationships were rekindled, so to speak, because their son or daughter had the opportunity to go out and do their own thing rather than having to go out with mum and dad. Mum and dad could then go out and do their own thing and be with their friends or be with each other and have a lovely time together on a date. There were those parents who really relished the liberation—in many ways, the empowerment—that the NDIS provided.

That said, I also spoke to parents who felt overwhelmed by it. They were overwhelmed by the options and the choice. They did not know how to navigate their way through the system. One of them had a profoundly intellectually disabled daughter and felt, and rightly so, that that was enough. Their life was focused on their daughter, and rightly so. They did not have the energy to choose what services and support they needed. They were just exhausted. This is why it is so important that we provide the supports and services to those parents, particularly the carers, who do feel overwhelmed by the NDIS. The whole idea is empowerment, liberation and choice. They are tailor-made systems. We do not want people being overwhelmed by this; we want people being empowered and freed up by this program. With choice and options comes a need for quality control, quality standards and quality frameworks.

As I said, the ACT was one of the eight initial trial sites for the NDIS and the first state or territory to be fully operational under the NDIS rollout. We have had our fair share of experiences and in particular where the client, the person with a disability, was not being listened to. I will give some examples. I spoke back in February about Elise's experience with the NDIA. Unfortunately, four months on, the issue with her plan still has not been resolved. In February Elise had been waiting months for approval from the NDIA's technical advisory committee for a medical bed. She needed a very specific bed. It was not a cheap bed. Since then the funding provided has been insufficient to meet her needs, as identified by her occupational therapist, and other services have been removed from her plan without consultation.

I am sure there are many in this chamber who are getting the same feedback from their electorates. There are real problems getting management plans approved. Unilateral decisions are being made on what is included and what is excluded from the plan. There is no consultation on what is being included and what is being excluded. As I said, I am sure I as a member of parliament or senator am not alone in having constituents come and discuss these challenges.

The other example I have had is from Wayne. Wayne is an exceptional man. He is exceptional in many ways, and I will explain why in just a moment. Wayne came to me late last year I think it was. Wayne has cerebral palsy. He was updating his management plan and was told that he needed only one pair of shoes for a whole year. There were some restrictions and there was only one pair of shoes per individual. Why? He did not know. He said: 'Why is it that I can have only one pair of shoes for an entire year? I do wear out my shoes.' He was told it is essentially one pair of shoes or no shoes. Wayne came to me basically to discuss a range of issues relating to the NDIS and his plan and also to explain to me that he was a man who needed more than one pair of shoes. I do not think that that is a huge ask.

The NDIS has been designed to be tailored to the specific needs of specific individuals living with a disability; therefore, we need to have some thinking that embraces that and actually acknowledges that tailoring means that there is not one size that fits all. That is vitally important for the NDIA, so that we do not get Elise's experience, where there is partial funding for the specific bed she needs according to an occupational therapist, or get the experience of dear Wayne, who can have only one pair of shoes a year to wear. I do want to discuss Wayne, because, as I said, he is a particularly exceptional individual. Even though Wayne is only allowed to have one pair of shoes funded by the NDIS, he is an extraordinary young man. I recently took part in the Share the Dignity campaign, where I did a call-out for people to provide sanitary napkins and tampons for homeless women. The evidence shows that homeless women, in particular, or those fleeing domestic violence, often forgo a meal once a month so that they can buy sanitary items. I did the call-out for people to take part in the Share the Dignity campaign and, as a result of the overwhelming—as always—generosity of Canberrans, it means that 140 homeless women, who are fleeing domestic violence, now do not have to make that monthly choice between a meal and sanitary items.

Wayne is a legend who actually donated $300 worth of items. He came along to my office with all these tubs, because he recently wrote a book called Anecdotes of a Disabled Gay. The book is partly tongue-in-cheek, but it also talks about the way he is treated in so many different ways because of his disability. The book went on sale earlier this year and has had a great response, and Wayne was able to donate $300 from the sale of his book to the Share the Dignity campaign. Wayne, as I said, is a legend, even though he is only allowed to buy one pair of shoes under the NDIS.

A number of recent inquiries and reports have documented the weaknesses of the current safeguarding arrangements for disability services, many of which result from a disconnect between quality assurance and oversight regulatory functions. This bill establishes an independent national commission that will essentially implement the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework and give effect to the government's regulatory responsibilities under the framework. This framework is vital to the success of the NDIS and it represents a significant shift in the way the NDIS operates. As the explanatory memorandum to the bill says, it means that the commission will be a fit-for-purpose, evidence based, risk-responsive regulator of the new and emerging NDIS provider market.

Concerns have been raised about this bill by states, unions and stakeholders, and they have suggested the bill provides too much discretionary power to the minister to make regulations relating to the framework, which will not require consensus from the states or territories and which will undermine the consistency of the national scheme. They have suggested it will only cover NDIS funded supports, leaving people using services outside the NDIS uncovered by the provisions of the bill. That is why we welcome the fact that this bill has been referred to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry, and I look forward to reviewing the submissions from 28 July and the report that is scheduled to be tabled in September.

We want the NDIS to work and we want the government to get it right. That is why, last month, Labor announced that, should we win the next election, we will establish a royal commission into violence and abuse against people with disability. The continued abuse of Australians with disability by people who are meant to care for them demands a royal commission. I do not know whether you have heard stories, Deputy Speaker Kelly, but since I have been the member for Canberra I have heard some absolutely horrific stories of abuse of people living with a disability.

People with disabilities are a marginalised group in Australia. People with disabilities experience 29 per cent less participation in the workforce; 2½ times the rate of poverty in the general population; lower levels of education; and stigma and stereotyping. They also experience isolation and social exclusion. They experience violence in all its shapes and forms, such as withholding essential disability aids or supports, or being pushed out of wheelchairs. I have heard of women being pushed out of wheelchairs and left stranded and defenceless in their own homes. People living with disability have their fears or their paranoia incited. People with disability are being left in uncomfortable or humiliating situations, being victims of chemical restraint and subject to sexual violence.

Seventy per cent of women with disabilities have experienced sexual violence; 90 per cent of women with intellectual disabilities have experienced rape or sexual assault; and 25 per cent of rapes are of women with disabilities. In Canberra, 46 per cent of women who reported violence were women with disabilities, and that is an alarming rate, given only 17 per cent of women in the ACT have disabilities.

That is why it is vital that for these reasons—the sexual abuse, the chemical restraint, the physical restraint, the withholding, the inciting of fear and paranoia—and many more, and there are many, many more stories, that we need a royal commission into the abuse and sexual assault of those Australians living with a disability.

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