Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The opportunity to talk about the NDIS is always a great opportunity for those in the coalition, as members of the government responsibility for bring it to fruition—an incredible responsibility. This is a life-changing program for many, many families and many, many Australians with disabilities, enabling them to have greater fulfilment in their endeavours and a greater chance of reaching their full potential. This is a program that really has had a life-changing impact on thousands and thousands of Australians. Yes, it has had many issues. We've had people given very poor plans. I believe that in the early stages of this program the planning quality wasn't up to speed; therefore families had to go back and appeal that they hadn't received an adequate plan compared with the program they'd been on under the old state model. But as the scheme has evolved we have continued to hone the individual cases within the NDIS, and we now have a program that over 530,000 participants are taking advantage of.

The other component to the NDIS is the impact it has had on the workforce in aged care. This new industry, the caring industry, has jumped up in Australia with such prominence that we now have a situation where the NDIS, in quite a few cases, is competing against aged care for workforce. We therefore have to look at that.

One thing the coalition can be very proud of is that we have funded the NDIS. I know the Labor Party like to say it was already funded, but it wasn't. We had to find many additional billions of dollars to get the NDIS funded. It is now funded, albeit there is always an incredible need to put more and more money into the NDIS. Between now and 2024, the aged-care sector and the disability sector will grow by 31 per cent and 20 per cent. That is going to be an incredible impost on the finances of this nation. But the coalition government are confident, having funded this scheme to date, that we are going to fund it into the future.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme should make every Australian incredibly proud. When I was a young kid, families that had children with disabilities were, effectively, given the role of raising that child, whether the child had profound or mild disabilities. That responsibility tended to fall nearly solely to the household. The state has now, effectively, taken full responsibility for the care, the upkeep and the support of children who are born with disabilities.

We will see this program give our participants even higher quality support, in terms of the different ways that we can assist and help. It's going to see an improved level of service. We believe it's going to give us a workforce that reflects the diversity of the NDIS participants—something that will be needed on an ongoing basis. Because the needs of participants within the NDIS are so wide and varied, the skills of the workforce will have to be able to match those needs. That's why we're also improving the entry-level pathway and providing greater opportunity for training and development. This offers a fantastic option for students who are studying as well as those working within the NDIS system. It gives them an 'in' to discover: what is a career in this care sector really like? Many students are then taking the opportunity to put further qualifications around their skill set so that they can make this their career.

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