Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise today in the House to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Strengthening Banning Orders) Bill 2020. As we've heard from speakers today, the NDIS was introduced by the former Gillard government in response to the Productivity Commission recommendations, and it provides support to some of the marginalised people in our community: people with a disability, their families and their carers. It gives independence and social and economic participation to people with disability. It gives reasonable and necessary support, including early intervention. It gives people with disability a choice and control over the pursuit of their goals and planning for the delivery of their support and hopefully a nationally consistent approach. As members of parliament, we've all seen the power of the NDIS. But I think all members of parliament have also seen the difficulties in navigating and understanding the complexities and also the deficiencies of the NDIS. The bill being debated today seeks to expand the circumstances in which the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commissioner may make a banning order against a provider or person and clarifies the commissioner's powers.

I want to spend a little time today speaking about some local cases to bring to the parliament's attention some of the examples I have come across from the community I represent. I also want to focus, in my remarks today, on a pretty important second reading amendment moved by the member for Barton. I'm very glad the member for Barton has moved this amendment, because it enables me to highlight some of the issues that I certainly come across. In the first part of the amendment we've got:

take responsibility for all 'deaths by neglect' within the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which is a Federal Government program;

And then we've got:

immediately respond to the report to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commissioner by Alan Robertson SC into the adequacy of the regulation of the supports and services provided to Ms Ann-Marie Smith, who died on 6 April 2020.

The amendments are appropriate. However, they do not address the failure of the NDIS and the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework to prevent abuse. And I'm glad Minister Robert is at the table today because I want him to hear firsthand some of the examples from my community, where people have suffered and had a terrible experience with the NDIS.

One of the first things I did following the election in May 2019, within a matter of weeks of that election, was hold an NDIS roundtable. It was held in Goodna in my electorate, where I brought together a whole range of stakeholders, including service organisations and service providers, a number of churches that are involved with the disability sector, advocates, parents and carers. I wanted that to be the first thing I did on my re-election to this place, because the community, during the most recent federal election, made it clear to me that there were problems with the scheme, and they wanted them fixed, and I wanted to hit the ground running post that election. The shadow minister, Bill Shorten, attended that forum and heard firsthand. One of the outcomes from that roundtable was for me to write directly to the minister who's at the table now with the concerns. I requested a meeting with him and his office about those concerns, and that's what the community wanted me to raise. To this date, I've had no response to that correspondence.

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