Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'll take the member's interjection. I didn't quite hear it but I'll take it and put it on Hansard. Labor proposes that the 0.5 per cent Medicare rise apply only to individuals earning more than $87,000 a year. And we will also seek to re-establish the framework that will allow the reintroduction of the deficit levy on individuals earning more than $180,000 a year. Independent research from the Australian National University shows that twice as many households will be worse off under the coalition's plan than under Labor's plan. The only winners will be the corporations and the banks.

Labor's measures are not only more fair; they are better for the budget bottom line, resulting in $4 billion more for the budget bottom line over the decade. The government claims this legislation is about funding the NDIS. We have established that it is not and that the NDIS is being used as a mask, a smoke screen, for corporate tax cuts. The government has, to its great discredit, claimed that Labor's opposition to these measures means we are somehow not fully committed to the NDIS and that is both laughable and obscene. Labor created the National Disability Insurance Scheme to meet the needs of nearly 500,000 Australians living with disability. It was created following extensive consultation with people with disability, families, advocates and sector stakeholders. We know how important a fully functioning, properly managed, properly rolled out NDIS is to improving lives.

The NDIS has been funded by both Labor and coalition governments, which have signed bilateral agreements with the states that contain the Commonwealth's commitment to full funding. As pleased as I am with the bipartisan support for the NDIS, I do take issue with the quality of the rollout under the government. My office deals often with constituents and stakeholders who are having trouble with issues such as packages being put in place without consulting with current services or carers to ensure that allocations match the client's needs, access to services, communication.

Earlier this year, the ABC reported—after a six-month freedom of information battle—that the NDIS had stopped processing thousands of applications, that critical staff were untrained and that NDIA staff were unable to access their own website to update information or keep clients informed. Of 550 local area coordinators put in place to roll the NDIS out, only 54 have done face-to-face training and another 150 have completed an online program. For the rest, it was learn as you go. This lack of training and experience has led to misunderstandings and changed plans with worse outcomes.

On top of this, the rollout has critically damaged smaller niche agencies that meet specific needs within the sector. They've neither had the financial resilience nor the staff to keep up with the constant changes in compliances, processes and IT. So for many smaller agencies with a smaller pool of clients, this has resulted in doors closed or services merged into larger, less personal and more corporate amalgamations. This loss of expertise is a gaping hole, and challenges ongoing options for people with disabilities and their carers. Last week was Carers Week, and the 75,000 carers in Tasmania deserve our thanks and our ongoing support for the tireless work they do for their loved ones, and we should be making life easier for them, not harder.

On top of this, we've seen a huge growth in church based community organisations. They often offer excellent services with committed staff, but they are limited in what they can offer. For example, CatholicCare, formerly known as Centacare, is not prepared to run sex education programs or to offer alternatives to pregnancy. It can have a significant impact on young people with disability in regional and rural areas if their only option is CatholicCare.

I recently attended a forum in Tasmania organised by the Health and Community Services Union, which represents members working in disability. At the forum a report was presented that had been prepared by the UNSW Social Policy Research Centre, following an extensive survey of workers in the disability sector. It's fair to say that workers' views about the NDIS under this government are underwhelming at best: 24.6 per cent agree that the NDIS is positive for participants, 14.6 per cent agree that families of participants are happy with the NDIS, 15.7 per cent agree that the NDIS is better than the previous system, 55.9 per cent report not having enough time to do their job, 72.2 per cent are worried about the future of their job and 52.6 per cent disagree that the NDIS has been a positive change for them as a worker. The most common concerns that workers reported to researchers were about the adequacy of resources being provided to people with disability under the NDIS and the impact of that on the quality of services. They conveyed the frustrations of clients and families about delays and inequitable and impersonal planning processes. Importantly, workers expressed deep concern about the effect on quality and safety of the use of casual and agency staff, and many were highly stressed about their pay and working conditions, including unsustainable workloads and time pressures, including unpaid work, and poor job security.

When clients are unhappy, when families are unhappy and when the workers who deliver services are unhappy, that should serve as a wake-up call to the government that the NDIS, while a vital program, is missing the mark. Complaints about the scheme have soared 700 per cent over the past year. Reports to the Ombudsman leapt from 62 in 2015-16 to 429 last financial year. The watchdog received 188 grievances in the three months to 30 June this year—more than it received during the scheme's first three years.

The tragedy is that the government was warned beforehand that this trouble was looming, but it did nothing. It should have listened to the member for Jagajaga, who knows more than perhaps anybody else in this place about social security and disability services. It should have heeded the warnings that she gave that the government was underprepared and wasn't approaching the NDIS nearly seriously enough.

The government's answer is to inflict a tax increase on the Australian people, saying that's the only way that the NDIS can be fully funded. But that's not true. The money is there. We know the money is there because the government wants to give that money and more to corporate Australia through a tax break. The resources exist. We just need a government that is prepared to put people with disability ahead of corporations and banks.

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