Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] The NDIS is such an important part of our country, and it should provide people with disability and the wider community with the certainty that they will have access to the support they need. But, under this government, the NDIS is not operating as it should to improve the lives of people with disability, their families and their carers. Under this government, it has become a bureaucratic labyrinth that leaves too many people and families despairing about decisions they don't understand. It has left participants exposed and at risk.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Improving Supports for At Risk Participants) Bill 2021 is being introduced after multiple cases of neglect and abuse of participants, including the disturbing failures that led to the death of Ann-Marie Smith 16 months ago. It's welcome that it will partially implement recommendations of the Robertson review, but I worry that, given this government's track record, it just won't be enough. I talked about people with disability being exposed to risk because of the neglect of this government, and, at the moment, they remain far too exposed because of this government's failures to get the COVID vaccine rollout right.

We know that people with disability are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19. In the UK, we've seen that it's estimated that up to two-thirds of all deaths from COVID are people with disability. With that knowledge, you would think that vaccinating people with disability and the people around them would be an absolute priority for this government. Yet figures that we saw on the weekend show that just 26.9 per cent of NDIS participants aged over 16 who were in phase 1a or phase 1b of the vaccine rollout are fully vaccinated. In comparison, 29.6 per cent of the general Australian adult population is now fully vaccinated. So the general population is more fully vaccinated than this vulnerable at-risk group that the federal government is responsible for.

Overall, 67.3 per cent of NDIS participants in group homes—that's about 22,000 people—have had one dose of their vaccine and 51.9 per cent have had two doses. These are people who are in phase 1a of the rollout. They are people living in group homes. The government know where they are living. They have access to that data. Why is it that they are not vaccinated yet? And, of course, this extends across to the workforce. Of the approximately 164,660 people in our country's disability workforce, 55.6 per cent have had their first vaccination and 36.7 per cent have had two doses. This is leaving people with disability dangerously exposed, both on a personal level where they are not vaccinated but also where the workers who come into their houses, who have to visit multiple houses, are also not vaccinated. At a time in our community here in Melbourne when once again we are seeing case numbers rise and we are worried about the spread of this virus, it is just not good enough. It is neglect.

We also see the Morrison government leaving disability providers to struggle through this pandemic. I have recently been in touch with providers in my electorate who are unsure if they will make it through to the other side of the COVID pandemic—particularly some of those who provide day services and so cannot operate during lockdowns. We have no national plan from the government to support these sorts of providers. These providers want to do the right thing by the people with disability and the families that they support, but they can't operate during lockdown. There's no plan from this government and no sense of how they will be supported to get to the other side. Of course, again, that leaves my community exposed not just at the moment but also in the future. Once again, once we get through lockdowns, we want these services to be there for people with disability to access and to use. These are services that are trying to do the right thing, but they are being left exposed, they are being left vulnerable, by this Morrison government. Because of a botched vaccine rollout, people with disability are not vaccinated and carers are not vaccinated, and people are at risk when they just should not be.

Of course, it didn't take a pandemic for this government to neglect people with disability. This bill seeks to implement changes to better support vulnerable or at-risk NDIS participants, after multiple incidents of abuse, neglect and death within the system. These deaths should have been preventable.

People like Ann-Marie Smith were victims of bureaucratic red tape and a bad culture within the NDIS. The case of Ann-Marie Smith is harrowing. Her story just should not have happened. Ann-Marie Smith, a 54-year-old Adelaide NDIS participant, died on 6 April 2020 from severe septic shock, multi-organ failure, severe pressure sores and malnutrition. Her NDIS package included six hours of support per day. It's since been reported that she received only two hours of care and was confined to a cane chair 24 hours a day for more than a year. These circumstances should not have occurred under this government's watch—under any government's watch. Her carer has now pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Since her death, the South Australian government has created a safeguarding task force to re-examine current gaps in oversight and safeguards for people with disability. And at a federal level we've had the Robertson review report, which has looked at the regulation of providers. It was handed down 12 months ago and made a number of recommendations. Disappointingly, that review did not have statutory powers, the submissions were not made public and there was no formal consultation or wider sector engagement.

This is again where we see a pattern from this government when it comes to its treatment of people with disability and the people who advocate for them. It does not consult with them. It does not ask them about what they want in their life and how they want to be safe and how best to achieve that. So, while obviously the measures in this bill are welcome, I share the concerns of disability advocates around how they will be implemented. I urge the government to consult with people with disability, disability advocates and the sector more broadly on how best to implement these changes and how to make sure people with disability are safe under the NDIS.

I talked about lack of consultation. The biggest example we've seen of that recently has been the government blindsiding Australians with disability with its plan for independent assessments. That plan has now, rightly, been scrapped. What a failure of this government! It goes to the heart of how they see people with disability and the NDIS, that they would consider implementing this sort of system without consulting with the people it is going to affect the most. I can tell you how much worry and severe concern it caused in my electorate, from people with disability to the families of young children with disability, who have fought so hard for their children to have the support they need and who were very worried about what this system would mean for what that would look like in the future. They raised their concerns and voices over a number of months, and for months and months this government just did not listen.

People with disability should not have to prove they have a disability. That's not the point of the NDIS. They should not have to go to a stranger and undergo a tick-a-box exercise to prove their disability. That is not the point of the NDIS. The Morrison government does not support the aims of the NDIS if that's what it thinks the NDIS is all about. It's not about that; it's about making sure people have the support they need to live the life they should.

It's positive that these assessments won't go ahead. But it is a failure of the government that they caused so much stress and heartache and that they took up so many hours on the part of people with disability and their advocates before they finally saw the light. Of course, we don't know where the government will go next on any of this, as they keep telling us, without providing the evidence, that the scheme is, as it is, unsustainable. I urge the government, if they're thinking of making further changes to the NDIS, to consult genuinely with people with disability and with their advocates across the country.

Another example of the government not meeting the needs of people with disability in my electorate has come to me recently, and that is the severe lack of affordable, accessible housing for people with disability and their families. Grace Dlabik lives in my electorate, and her son Elijah has a disability. Yet a lack of appropriate, affordable, accessible housing that meets her family's needs means she is currently bathing Elijah outdoors or in their kitchen. That should not be the case in this country. Grace is passionate about fixing this situation for her son and her family, and for other families, but this should not rely on Grace's passion and determination. I'm very proud that Labor has committed to a $10 billion fund to build more affordable housing—housing that will be accessible. But it is a massive failure of the Morrison government that they have not done more to provide affordable, accessible housing for people with disability and their families. In this country, in my electorate, that should not be an option for you—that you have to bathe your son in the kitchen or outside because you can't find an accessible affordable option to live in. It just should not be. I urge the Morrison government to do more to provide accessible, affordable housing for people with disability and their families.

The theme that runs through all this is of a tired government that does not care about genuine policy reform, a tired government that does not seem to care about delivering services for people—services that are safe, that safeguard vulnerable people, that are built on what people with disability and their families tell the government they need in their lives. This is a government that spent eight years cutting funding to vital services. They are trying to scare us around a black hole in the NDIS without providing the evidence for what they're talking about. It's another scare campaign on top of a scare campaign that they're running for people with disability and their families.

This government doesn't seem to care about the lives of people with disability. It doesn't seem to care about the lives of their families and their carers. In a pandemic, at a time when we are all on edge, feeling more stressed and more strung out and having to dig deeper than ever before, this government is not protecting people with disability. It has not ensured that Australians with disability are fully vaccinated. At a time when we're seeing outbreaks all over the country, people with disability are still vulnerable, people who work with people with disability are still vulnerable, and not vaccinated. It is a failure of the Morrison government that these people have been left in this dangerous, precarious situation at this time.

This bill is welcome. It does some of the things this government should do, but it by no mean does all of the things this government should do. I urge them to act. I urge the Morrison government to listen to people with disability, listen to their advocates, to make sure that people with disability are safeguarded both now during the pandemic with vaccines and more broadly through the NDIS. So that we know the safeguards are in place, so that we never ever see another tragic case like Ann-Marie Smith and more broadly: listen to people with disability, listen to their advocates about how you shape the NDIS going forward because they know what is best in their lives and it is not the cost-cutting, mean-spirited options put forward by this government.

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