Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Streamlined Governance) Bill 2019. With this bill the government is seeking a lower bar for the appointment of board members of the National Disability Insurance Agency. The current standard in legislation is that the Commonwealth and all states and territories support the appointment of a board member other than the chair. This bill seeks to lower that standard to a majority of the group. This is not the way forward for this important national scheme.

We've recently had research out of the University of Western Australia, a report called Six years and counting: the NDIS and the Australian disability services system, a white paper. The study draws on 63 reports on the NDIS written since 2013. Amongst its disturbing conclusions are as follows:

In one conclusion the report states:

Importantly, these are not simply "transition problems" or "risks that will be solved as markets adjust". The current state of the system is the new system. It is a system that only works for some service users and for some service providers. It is increasingly evident that it leaves major gaps in terms of responsibility allocation and funding capacity between state/territory and the Commonwealth governments in critical service areas such as housing, health, education and employment. It also leaves states and territories to pick up the bill when people with disability are diverted to other health and welfare systems due to supply breakdown.

Whilst this is a good study out of the University of Western Australia, nearly anyone with experience of the NDIS in 2019 can tell you it has some major problems. As Bob Dylan said, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. We don't actually need a sixty-fourth academic study to tell us that the NDIS is not working anywhere near as it should be consistently for all people with disability in Australia. You only need to spend a little time talking and listening to people with a disability, their carers and loved ones to get a real sense of what's going on. Some success stories, but too many failures.

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