Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm speaking up today on behalf of Caddie Whitehead and her son, Xabian Paterson, a gorgeous young child who has severe cerebral palsy. Caddie drives an hour and 20 minutes each way so that she and Xabian can attend the Cerebral Palsy Education Centre in my electorate, because CPEC's flagship transdisciplinary group program, which has been operating for decades, is the best thing Caddie has found for her son. Yet, shockingly, this brilliant program will have to stop if the government fails to act quickly to fix the NDIS pricing structure, which is now making it unviable. After trying other early interventions, Caddie quickly realised that this program was going to make Xabian into the best person that he could be. The family had actually moved from New South Wales to Melbourne as Caddie's husband had a work contract. Xabian was born shortly after. When Grant's contract for work was up they decided to stay in Melbourne instead of returning to the comfort and help of their family in New South Wales, because they wanted to continue on with CPEC, as they could see the benefits for Xabian and their family.

The class is eight children and four instructors—a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist, a speech pathologist and an aide—plus the parents and carers. Learning from the transdisciplinary team of instructors is important, but having other families present is a key part of its magic. I visited a few weeks ago and saw this firsthand. To work, however, this program requires a one-to-two funding ratio. The program has been evaluated formally for over 20 years—individual outcomes have been evaluated, video recorded and annual assessments. It's evidence based.

So, what's the problem? It's not a lifelong program; it's early intervention for kids between 0 and 6 years old to moderate the severity of their condition, giving them skills for life and saving costs to governments later in life. The problem is that the government is making a growing mess of Labor's visionary NDIS. The NDIS pricing structure is still one-size-fits-all and requires a ratio of one-to-three for group programs, which means for every therapist you need three kids for it to be financially viable. This simply doesn't work with the severity of CPEC's participants.

The NDIA also won't fund the critical planning, preparation, resource development and support activities for this cohort, which take about 10 hours a week. So, right now, CPEC is limping along with bandaids and sticky tape trying to hold it together while cutting back places and seeing their waiting lists grow. Ridiculously, they're now covering the costs for this critical program through fundraising and higher fees. But it can't be sustained. I've written to the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services asking her to act. We may be on opposite sides but she's a wonderful colleague and a credit to you mob. She actually cares about what she's doing. It's shameful how you've just knocked her off in preselection. I still figure it's better to approach her than the hapless Minister for Social Services.

I call on the government and the NDIA to intervene urgently to save this program. There is no time for your normal dithering with correspondence and do-nothing approach. This flagship program will die if changes aren't made urgently. This is not an isolated problem. I've been told that due to the NDIS pricing structure therapeutic group programs have been phased out by providers across the disability sector nationwide.

We hear a lot about bipartisanship. When it's convenient, it gets thrown at us—bipartisanship on the NDIS. Let me be clear: bipartisanship is not a slogan; it's not a sticker; it's not a gag on us; it's not a leave pass for scrutiny for you; it's not an excuse for inaction or bastardisation of Labor's visionary scheme. Bipartisanship is a conditional offer on the government being competent, honest and faithful to the intent of the NDIS and doing the right thing.

Unfortunately, this group-pricing saga is one of many growing problems of the NDIS under the Liberals—not placing the patient at the centre of the scheme, as was intended. There's cultural problems at the NDIA. They've got thousands of contractors and expensive consultants and not enough staff, because of the government's fake staffing cap. We heard news just today of secret plans to kick thousands of people with autism off the NDIS nationwide. The draft plans are not available for review. The IT system is a debacle—the myplace portal. The workforce challenges are a joke. The Productivity Commission says one in five new jobs in the next few years in this country will be disability-related, such is the scale of this change. Yet there's no workforce strategy. There's no national advertising campaign to try to get the workforce we need—nothing. So, we are watching.

The truth is, of course, that in their DNA the Liberals hate universal services, and they hate these universal entitlement programs. They oppose them at every step. If you look through Australian political history, Medicare was scrapped by the Liberals after Whitlam introduced it and was brought back by the Hawke government. It's always under attack by this mob. There are public schools and the NDIS: we build it, you cut it. Every groundbreaking reform, since 1908 with the invalid pension, since 1991 with the disability support pension and the NDIS— (Time expired)

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