Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill creates exceptions to the provisions that prevent disclosure of spent, quashed and pardoned conviction for persons who work or seek to work with people with disability in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

This bill aims to help protect and prevent people with disability from harm from the people working closely with them. It will provide transparency for providers, people with a disability and their families.

The NDIS is one of the largest social and economic policy reforms in Australian history.

At full scheme, the NDIS will be supporting around 460,000 Australians with disability.

At that time, the NDIS will be injecting over $20 billion each year into the Australian economy.

This requires a new, nationally consistent approach to quality and safeguards for the disability sector that ensure the NDIS supports and services are of an appropriate standard and are delivered in a way that promotes choice, control and dignity, and upholds basic human rights.

The protection of people with disability from violence, abuse and neglect is a key priority for all Australian governments.

In December 2016, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) endorsed the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework, setting out a new approach to regulation for the NDIS to protect NDIS participants. The framework is the result of over three years of consultation with people with disability, carers, and providers.

A nationally consistent approach to worker screening is an important element of this framework that will help create a safe and trusted workforce in the NDIS, and minimise the risk of harm to people with disability.

All Australian governments are working together to deliver a new NDIS Worker Screening Check.

The new check is intended to become available in New South Wales and South Australia from July 2018, in Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory from July 2019, and in Western Australia from July 2020.

Workers engaged by registered NDIS providers to deliver higher risk supports and services or supports or services that entail more than incidental contact with an NDIS participant would be required to have an NDIS Worker Screening Check clearance.

Worker screening will provide employers with an important tool for their recruitment, selection and screening processes and help ensure people chosen to work in the NDIS are safe to work with people with disability.

It also provides self-managing NDIS participants and their families important information to help them make informed choices about workers providing their supports.

And, importantly, worker screening will deter predatory individuals from seeking work in this sector.

The NDIS Worker Screening Check represents a major step forward from the existing fragmented arrangements operating in each state and territory.

Worker clearances will be portable across jurisdictions and employers, reducing duplication and complexity for workers and providers moving between, or operating across, jurisdictions.

Improved information sharing will mean there is visibility of workers' national criminal history records and consistent decisions across all jurisdictions.

Workers who hold an NDIS Worker Screening Check clearance will be subject to ongoing monitoring at a national level for relevant criminal history or commission records.

A national approach eliminates the opportunity for people to make multiple attempts at gaining a worker screening clearance. It prevents people with adverse records in one state or territory from attempting to gain a clearance to work in the NDIS in another.

This bill is a major step forward in removing legislative barriers to implementing nationally consistent worker screening and realising these benefits.

This bill is consistent with arrangements already in place for working with children checks and the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

These amendments will assist worker screening units to make a more accurate and informed assessment of the risk that a person may pose to people with disability in the NDIS.

Recent inquiries and reports have documented the weaknesses of the current safeguards arrangements for disability services, and found that reports of abuse and neglect perpetrated against people with disability may not be pursued for a variety of reasons. This includes difficulties experienced in securing a conviction where the victim is a person with disability, and the challenges faced by people with disability who are victims of crime.

For these reasons, governments have agreed that it is appropriate to consider a person's full criminal history, including spent, quashed and pardoned conviction information, to assess the risk they may pose in working with a person with disability in the NDIS.

This bill has been informed by the arrangements already in place for working with children checks, and builds on best practice among states and territories, and learnings from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

This bill strikes a balance between the risk to people with disability with the rights of individual workers to privacy and employment.

The exchange of information permitted by the bill is subject to the same stringent safeguards in place for Working with Children Checks. Information will only be disclosed to prescribed worker screening units for the purpose of enabling a more accurate and informed decision about whether a person poses a risk to vulnerable people.

The bill requires the minister to be satisfied that certain criteria are met before a person or body can be prescribed to deal with Commonwealth criminal history information about persons who work, or seek to work, with a person with a disability. The minister responsible for prescribing persons or bodies for this purpose will be the Attorney-General.

A person or body will not be able to be prescribed unless the minister is satisfied that the screening unit has a legislative basis for doing so and complies with applicable privacy, human rights and records management legislation.

Furthermore, the minister must be satisfied that the person or body complies with the principles of natural justice, and has risk assessment frameworks and appropriately skilled staff to assess risks to the safety of a person with a disability. This item acts as an important safeguard against the misuse of criminal history information.

In addition to this, based on advice provided by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to the department, the bill contains staged reviews of its operation. The department will also conduct a privacy impact assessment of the measures proposed in the bill.

The NDIS Worker Screening Check will be proportionate, risk based and fair. The government is fully committed to delivering a quality NDIS.

This is why this government has taken strong, decisive action by establishing a national independent body, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, to protect and prevent people with disability from experiencing harm. The government has provided $209 million over four years to support the commission.

The commission will lead the overall design and broad policy settings for nationally consistent NDIS worker screening. It will also have responsibility for registering NDIS providers, responding to complaints, managing reportable incidents notifications, and providing leadership to reduce and eliminate the use of restrictive practices in the NDIS.

The commission will be able to pass on substantiated misconduct and disciplinary findings from its reportable incidents and complaints systems to worker screening units to support NDIS worker screening.

Operating as an independent statutory body with integrated functions and powers, the commission will be a fit-for-purpose, evidence-based, responsive regulator.

In recognising that NDIS participants are amongst the most vulnerable people in the community and that people with disability have the right to be protected from exploitation, violence and abuse, the implementation of the NDIS worker screening policy will:

The government will continue to consult with stakeholders to establish nationally consistent expectations for the conduct of providers, the training and screening of their workers and the quality of supports and services that they deliver under the NDIS. This bill represents a significant step forward in protections for people with disability, their families and carers.

Debate adjourned.

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