Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is one of the greatest social policies constructed and now delivered in this country's history. I would like to acknowledge the bipartisan commitment to the NDIS and congratulate the parliament for its support of the scheme that helps people with disabilities live their lives to the fullest. I would like to acknowledge the member for Maribyrnong and his commitment over the history of this very important scheme. But, of course, with any new and innovative scheme, there are adjustments that need to be made to ensure it works properly. I rise today to speak on two improvements the Morrison government has made to the NDIS, including for the 1,545 NDIS participants in my electorate of Higgins.

In November 2019, Minister Robert announced the government's plan to construct a runway to deliver the world-leading NDIS for an estimated 500,000 participants—an incredible number of participants to get on board the scheme in an effective and efficient way. These participants are from very diverse backgrounds. The September 2020 NDIS quarterly report has recently shown that 37 per cent of new participants this quarter were children aged from zero to six years. As a paediatrician, I really welcome this. An additional 8,639 children in the Early Childhood Early Intervention gateway are receiving their initial support. Nine per cent of participants in the quarter identified as Indigenous, and this is compared to 6.4 per cent in previous quarters combined. Ten per cent of the new active participants in this quarter were culturally and linguistically diverse, and this compares to 9.2 per cent in the previous quarter.

At the last election, the Morrison government made a commitment to implement a participant service guarantee which sets out clear time frames for key NDIS processes. The guarantee establishes new time frames for the NDIA to make decisions about access, plan approvals and plan reviews to provide clarity and certainty to participants, their families and carers. Ensuring timeliness of service delivery for such an unprecedented and large number of government recipients is a challenge that the minister set himself, and he's already delivering on this challenge. Building on this momentum, in August 2020 the government released its response to the Tune review of the NDIS Act. Significant improvements have been made to reduce wait times—and we heard about that in the previous speech, by the minister himself—and bring people with disability, particularly children, into the scheme quicker so they can get the crucial disability supports they need.

This year has been an extraordinary year in so many ways. The COVID pandemic has delivered an unprecedented dual crisis—not just a health crisis but also an economic one. Despite the twin crisis, the government has remained committed to fully funding the NDIS and ensuring that people with disability remain safe and continue to receive service throughout the COVID pandemic. In March 2020, Minister Robert acted quickly to provide assistance to NDIS participants and providers through COVID to ensure the viability of this program. This included a one-month advance payment for NDIS providers, which saw $666 million of advanced payments made to 5,161 eligible NDIS providers to provide immediate cashflow relief. Despite the pandemic, the amount paid each quarter for NDIS continues to increase. It's up to $5.4 billion this quarter, in September, compared to $5 billion in June 2020 and $4.3 billion in the March quarter. The government also announced a range of temporary measures to support NDIS participants during the pandemic, to ensure continued access. Importantly, there are currently zero reported cases of COVID in the NDIS sector, across both participants and workers. This is something to be celebrated and a testament to the commitment of the disability sector to ensure both workers and those they serve are kept safe.

While legislating the participant service guarantee has been delayed to July 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the NDIA have commenced implementation administratively from July 2020. I'd also like to recognise that we are introducing independent assessments in 2021, to ensure we have new and existing participants receiving, in a fair and consistent way, flexibility and greater choice. My question to the minister is: can the minister explain how the introduction of independent assessments as part of the government's NDIS reform agenda will help create equity and consistency for participants?

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