Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the amendment moved by Labor to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Improving Supports for At Risk Participants) Bill 2021. The tragic death of Ann-Marie Smith on 6 April 2020 should never have happened. It exposed a disgraceful lack of oversight and indifference from several individuals and private agencies. Even more concerningly, it also exposed a systematic failure in oversight of vulnerable people both by the federal and state government agencies that should have been alerted following: firstly, the Oakden affair, and the chief psychiatrist report into that and the ICAC report into Oakden; the events that precipitated the aged-care royal commission and the disability royal commission; and the countless aged-care reports which painted a clear picture of the risks and poor treatment of all vulnerable people as well as the failings of government agencies.

Just as disturbing is that, despite all the revelations, all the publicity and all the community outcry, the incompetence, neglect and abuse continues. I believe it is far more widespread than generally acknowledged. In recent months I have had family members raise with me their concerns about neglect and about substandard care being provided to their elderly family members, who are people with serious disability but are in aged-care facilities. Almost every person in an aged-care facility has a disability. If they didn't have one, they'd more than likely still be living at home rather than in an aged-care facility.

In June this year, at a South Australian government owned rehabilitation facility run by the South Australian Department of Human Services, a vulnerable man was rushed to the Royal Adelaide Hospital in a serious state of neglect. This facility is not far from the now infamous Oakden facility, and the case comes in the wake of inquiries and media reports into the Ann-Marie Smith neglect. I understand that that case has been referred to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission whom, it is reported, have said that the commission cannot investigate a state run facility—and so the buck-passing begins. Subsequently the South Australian government has launched its own investigation by the Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner. Adding to the buck-passing, some services at the facility are outsourced to private providers.

The recommendations in this legislation are an acknowledgement that the current oversight of vulnerable people is failing them. My concern is that the measures proposed, although welcome, do not go far enough and that they continue to be heavily dependent on those entrusted with oversight of vulnerable people doing what is right and what is expected of them. Nor does the legislation adopt all of the recommendations of the Robertson review of the Ann-Marie Smith death. Indeed, recommendations 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 of that review have not been adopted. The member for Fraser, in his remarks earlier, pointed to some of those recommendations and quite properly highlighted why they should have been included, yet they have not been. I won't cover the same ground that he covered on that topic, but I concur with his remarks in their entirety, because, if the commissioner did not believe they were important, he would not have included them in the 10 recommendations. Yet we have no explanation as to why they were not included. And they would make a difference. In particular, the issue of the community visitor scheme—which I believe is recommendation No. 4—was raised also within the South Australian parliament at the time because a community visitor scheme could have made a difference in the Ann-Marie Smith case and, possibly, in many other cases where people have been improperly cared for.

Referring the bill to a Senate inquiry would allow stakeholders time to scrutinise the bill and provide feedback, and I think that's important. My understanding is that stakeholders are the people who understand what happens in the real world for a person with a disability who, every day, has to live with the disability and the support services that are available and who society has, shamefully, failed for too long. It's also my understanding that the disability rights organisations and advocates have asked for more time to consider this legislation. Again, I believe that they should be provided with that time. They are the people who, on a daily basis, have to deal with the issues that we in this parliament are discussing with respect to this very legislation.

I also note that, earlier this year, the Morrison government conducted independent assessment trials. Whilst I had some personal feedback with respect to those trials, I also am aware that the trials were not supported by many of the stakeholders out there. And, whilst I also accept that the government has, for the time being at least, withdrawn from those trials and put them on the backburner, it's clear in my mind that the intent of those trials was, ultimately, to cut costs and cut services. That would have been the objective of them, and the government was trying to find a way of doing that.

If the government wants to cut costs, it could start by reviewing the amount of funding that goes to service providers and the services that they provide. I make this qualification: I accept that there are many good service providers out there, but there are also many who are overcharging for the services they provide and where much of the funding is going into what we would term their administrative costs rather than going into client services. Indeed, it would be interesting to know just how much of the total amount of money expended under the NDIS actually goes to services for the people who need those services as opposed to going into administrative costs for the organisations that are providing the services. I don't know those figures, but perhaps one day we might be able to get them and some real savings might be made. Also, there have been allegations of rorting of the scheme by unethical providers, with several cases of alleged fraud having been reported. In one case, it was alleged that something like $10 million over a four-year period was defrauded from the NDIS. I have little doubt that fraudulent acts and unethical behaviour or rorting of the scheme is much more widespread than reported. But there are also a lot of very good service providers who are doing an excellent job.

Finally, I want to refer to the campaign currently underway that is run under the banner of Disability Doesn't Discriminate. The campaign, in my view, raises some legitimate anomalies relating to access to NDIS support, with particular reference to people aged 65 years and over. Currently, NDIS support is only available to people up to 65 years of age, and that support is not means tested, unlike aged-care support. The pension age is now 66½ years, so there seems to be some discrepancy in the logic of cutting NDIS support at 65 years of age when the pension only cuts in at 66½ years. That's another issue that needs to be addressed. All of those anomalies raise valid grievances and they must be addressed. I accept that, at the time that the scheme was put in place, it was done in good faith and in a way that would at least address the issues that appeared to be outstanding, and services for people under 65 years were simply not addressed. However, given that those matters have now been raised, it is time that they were properly addressed.

The other issue associated with all of that is that navigating the NDIS system is not easy. It is very, very difficult. I wonder how many people have actually given up on trying to apply for the services and support that they would be entitled to, but, because the process is too difficult, they were unable to apply. Particularly if the person already has a disability that affects trying to navigate through the process, it would have to be a nightmare. The process has to be simplified so that all people who have a disability and are entitled to support are able to get the support that they should be getting. If that's one of the objectives that we should be looking at in making changes to the NDIS, then we should be doing that. In my office, and I'm sure it's the same in the offices of all other MPs in this place, one of the issues that is most commonly referred to us is the issue of assisting people who have run into stumbling blocks with respect to their NDIS applications.

The NDIS was an important Labor initiative. However, at the time, it was not enthusiastically supported by coalition members. Today it provides an invaluable service to people with a disability. As the member for Fisher quite rightly said, it has changed lives. That's exactly what it was intended to do: change lives. It was intended to do that because the parliament at the time accepted that additional funding would be put into the services available to people with a disability. That was the whole intent of the scheme, and of course it has done that. If it had not, it would have been a complete failure. The scheme can be improved, and we should look to the experience to date of the people who have been participants in the scheme and those who have been service providers in the scheme. We should use their experience as the basis upon which we can improve the system. That's what the review was partly all about, that's what this parliament should be doing on a regular basis, and that's why Labor has moved some amendments to the legislation, because our view is that we should learn from what's happened in recent years and make the scheme even better for more people.

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