Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Over the next few weeks, members of this place will be cheering on our representatives in the Paralympics. We've had a wonderful period of enormous success cheering on our athletes at the Olympics, and we've got another two weeks where we'll get the opportunity to do the very same. I want to give a shout-out to some local athletes from the Illawarra and South Coast, including my very good mate Brett Stibners, who will be attending his fourth Paralympics in the wheelchair basketball. He has been a linchpin of the Roller Hawks in the Illawarra, who are ranked third-best wheelchair basketball team in the world. They are a force to be reckoned with. Brett Stibners is an absolute champion and will be a critical part of that team as well.

I want to give a shout-out to Jonathan Goerlach, who's competing in the triathlon, and Jasmine Greenwood from the South Coast, who's competing in the swimming. The next athlete is not from my area, but if you can't give a shout-out to your cousin then it's a pretty ordinary sort of place, so I want to give a shout-out to Ashley Van Rijswijk, who will be competing in the 100-metre breaststroke and the 2 x 100 metre medley. There will be hordes of Van Rijswijks and Joneses who will be cheering on from back here in Australia to see Ashley do her very, very best. We wish you well. All the best, Ash.

This is all important. I think, politics aside, every single person in this place will be cheering genuinely for our Paralympic representatives. But the absolute best thing that we could do for people who are living with disabilities and their families and carers would be to provide stability and some certainty in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Before somebody hastens to say that not everyone who's representing Australia in the Paralympics is a recipient of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, that is true. It is equally true that not everybody who is a recipient of the National Disability Insurance Scheme benefits gets the recognition that our representatives do at the Paralympics, and we need to ensure that they are at the forefront of our minds when we're debating bills such as this.

I've got to say the NDIS is a piece of social reform introduced by the Labor government in 2013 which has a very thin vestige of bipartisan support. When you peel below that vestige, you see actions and initiatives which belie the talk of bipartisan support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I could talk of a range of things that have occurred over the last three years which speak of a very different attitude from the Morrison government and coalition governments before them. For example, in 2019 alone, the coalition government ripped out $4.6 billion from the National Disability Insurance Scheme to prop up a budget in a vainglorious hope to bring that budget back into surplus. At the very time that that money was being withdrawn from the National Disability Insurance Scheme, there were people living with disabilities who were struggling, with their carers and planners, to put together plans based on the funds that were allocated to them to meet their very basic needs. Time and time again, the struggle to get recognition for transport costs comes up as something that is simply not recognised properly in the NDIS. There wouldn't be a member in this place who has not had representations from their constituents on that particular issue. If it were just that, Deputy Speaker, you'd say, 'They got that wrong, but we've got the opportunity in debates such as this to turn the ship around.' Unfortunately, it has not. The massive underspend has resulted in those that really, really do rely on the scheme having limited access to services, underfunded plans and excessive wait times.

In addition to the $4.6 billion worth of cuts, last year the government tried to ram through the independent review process, which had one purpose and one purpose alone, and that was to reduce the amount of funds made available to people living with disabilities through their plan. You can be guaranteed that the purpose of that independent review process was not to lift people up and ensure that they had sufficient funds to meet all the services that they were struggling to pay for.

The scheme is not perfect, and we understand that, when you introduce a scheme revolutionary in its design and extensive in its ambition, there are going to be teething problems. We don't deny that the government has had to deal with some of those teething problems. But too often they have gone down the wrong path. Last year, for example, we were made aware that, between July 2016 and September 2019, more than 1,200 Australians died while waiting for support through the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I'll say that number again: 1,200 Australians were assessed and qualified as eligible for services but died while waiting for support through the NDIS. It's not good enough—simply not good enough. I want people to remember that number: 1,200 Australians died before they accessed the scheme. We'll stand in this place over the next fortnight and give speeches about how well we are supporting our athletes at the Paralympics. Of course we should be doing that, but it's much more important that we're supporting everybody with a disability here at home.

I have a few words about the bill. Following pressure from Labor's shadow minister and the South Australian shadow minister, the Morrison government established an independent inquiry into the tragic death of an Adelaide NDIS participant, Ms Ann-Marie Smith, who died of severe septic shock, multiple organ failure and other issues connected, tragically, with her cerebral palsy. Ann-Marie's NDIS package included six hours of support per day. Reports are that she only ever received two hours of care per day and had not been seen outside of her home for over a year. Ann-Marie's terrible death is nothing short of a tragedy. She should be alive and thriving—perhaps cheering on the Olympics. Instead, she was neglected and abandoned and suffered a tragic death.

Labor was very relieved and welcomed the fact that the Morrison government heeded our calls for an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Ann-Marie Smith's death. Reviewer Alan Robertson made 10 recommendations aimed at addressing the broader system failures within the NDIS. The government didn't formally respond to the Robertson review. Without any formal public consultations or sector engagement, the government introduced the bill which is before the House today. We simply say: this is not the right way to introduce reform. To partially implement the recommendations of the Robertson review does no justice to that deliberative process.

The bill amends the provisions in the NDIS Act to support the implementation of changes in response to recommendations 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 and is aimed at improving supports and protections provided to NDIS participants. Labor welcomes these initiatives. However, proper consultation on these changes is needed before they can and should be passed, and disability advocates want to be consulted. Indeed, they deserve to be consulted.

I want to tell members of the House a story about a constituent of mine, Mr Rafal Oleszczuk. He's a local constituent from Mount Warrigal. Last year, he contacted my office. In 2009, he suffered a serious motorcycle accident and lost his leg in that accident. Since then, he has had to rely on a very basic, unsafe and incredibly painful prosthesis. He could only wear the prosthesis for one hour at a time, and it was so worn down that it was causing blood boils to form and ultimately burst. All of this restricted Rafal's range of movement and his access to the wider community. When the NDIS was first rolled out in 2017 in the Illawarra region, Rafal and his family only hoped—

Debate interrupted.

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