Gladys Liu (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Improving Supports for At Risk Participants) Bill 2021. This bill responds to a number of recommendations of the Independent Review of the Adequacy of the Regulation of the Supports and Services Provided to Ms Ann-Marie Smith, an NDIS Participant, Who Died on 6 April 2020, known as the Robertson review. The remaining recommendations relate to policy options, which are still being progressed through joint work with states and territories, on strengthening supports and protections for people with disability who are at risk of harm. They include outreach and the future approach to community visitor schemes. The Morrison government is committed to continuing to consider ways to improve the NDIS to make it the best it can be.

This bill makes important technical amendments to better support the operations of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, based on the early implementation experience of the commission. These amendments build on the operational changes already made by the NDIS commission and the National Disability Insurance Agency to better support at-risk people with disability—changes which include better outreach and working with providers to ensure a participant is not cared for unsupervised by a single worker.

The NDIS commission and the NDIA have already taken available action to improve information sharing, including agreeing to a memorandum of understanding and a set of operational protocols to govern information exchange. This bill supports improved information-sharing arrangements between these two agencies to better protect people with disability. Significantly, it enacts a threshold for information sharing that is less restrictive than the current one. The current threshold establishes that disclosure must be necessary to prevent or lessen a serious threat to an individual's life, health or safety. The relevant amendment removes qualifiers like 'serious' or 'necessary' to ensure that any threat to life, health or safety is significant grounds for the recording, use or disclosure of protected NDIS commission information. The bill also amends provisions for disclosing information in a number of specific situations and provides for greater clarity around reportable incidents. Importantly, these changes to information sharing do not undermine or reduce the significant protections for personal information under the NDIS Act. Personal information held by the NDIA or the NDIS commission will continue to be considered protected information.

Further important changes provided for in this bill relate to the need to ensure consistency and procedural fairness in the application of the NDIS commission's regulatory responses. The NDIS market is diverse. It includes non-profit organisations, large private companies and individuals running their own businesses. Accordingly, the NDIS Act places obligations on providers, workers and anyone who is otherwise engaged by the provider. For the avoidance of doubt that the act covers the range of potential governance arrangements, this bill ensures that obligations and regulatory responses also fall on the key personnel of the provider. They can include the CEO, the board of directors and any other relevant personnel. These and a range of other technical amendments provided for in this bill will strengthen the existing supports and protections for NDIS participants and ensure their wellbeing. They are designed to ensure the safety of participants at risk of harm and will strengthen the operational effectiveness of the NDIS commission.

The government will continue to remember the tragic circumstances of each NDIS participant who has suffered abuse, neglect and exploitation. We cannot state more clearly and sincerely our commitment to taking the required action to better protect participants and to make this scheme and this system as good as they can be.

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