Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No.1) Bill 2024. The NDIS is another great Labor reform that has become embedded in the Australian consciousness, like Medicare. The Albanese government was elected on a promise to put people back at the centre of the scheme and get the NDIS back on track. We're determined to deliver on that and make sure it stays true to its purpose. The changes in the NDIS referred to in this bill will deliver for those who need it most and will contribute towards the NDIS once again being delivered in accordance with its original intent. In introducing this legislation, the government is keeping its promise to legislate in the first half of 2024 as agreed at the National Cabinet in December 2023. The bill will usher in a new era of NDIS reforms that ensure the scheme can continue to provide life-changing benefits and outcomes for future generations of Australians living with disability and will make sure every dollar given by the taxpayer to the scheme goes to the participants for whom the scheme was originally intended and designed. It will bolster the powers of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to protect participants from illegal and unethical conduct. There wouldn't be a member in this House that wouldn't have had complaints in relation to those issues in their constituency office and taken them to the minister's office.

This legislation follows the joint commissioned independent review of the NDIS, its final report and extensive consultation with states and territories at the Disability Reform Ministerial Council. The bill addresses priority recommendations from the review and represents the first tranche of amendments to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 to improve participant experience. The priority reforms for the government in this bill are focused on access, plans and budgetary settings, and quality and safety.

There are around 7,000 NDIS participants in my electorate, and we have a healthy ecosystem of NDIS disability service providers in Ipswich and the surrounds. One of them is ALARA, which was formed in June 1991 to address the need for urgent respite care for people with disabilities and their families. It was actually renamed ALARA in 2000; initially it was not called that at all. It provides daily living, aged-care and disability support services, lifestyle support, accommodation support, respite and other activities as well as group and centre based activities, not just in my electorate in Ipswich and Somerset but also in your electorate, Deputy Speaker Buchholz, in the Lockyer Valley, which used to be in my electorate. There are 250 dedicated staff and volunteers on top of that who provide great support.

We have providers like Focal Community Services, which has about 200 staff and 600 clients and a proud history of caring for people living with disabilities in the Ipswich community. It started off as the Friends of Challinor Aid League. Tragically and shamefully, in those olden days, we called places like the Challinor Centre, where the USQ Ipswich campus is now, lunatic asylums. That was simply a disgrace in our history. People were put back in community with their families and of course provided with support, but not enough, and that's why the NDIS came into being. It was great to catch up with Focal CEO, Tanya Miller, and Chairperson, Zane Ali, last month to celebrate the organisation's 50th birthday—an amazing milestone. They've seen a lot of changes in the NDIS. You talk to Tanya, and she'll tell you that the NDIS has been the biggest change in disability services during Focal's and ALARA's many years of service to Ipswich and the surrounds.

It's generally accepted that, before the NDIS, disability services in my home state of Queensland were not up to the same standard as in most other states. In fact, I remember having discussions on numerous occasions with the then Queensland Treasurer and member for Ipswich David Hamill about the need for improved services. Before him, of course, the former Liberal member for Ipswich Sir Llew Edwards took it as a great passion to work in areas of disability. They were two great Ipswich residents who worked very hard for the people of Ipswich and to care for people with disability in my local community and provide extra funding in their various capacities as treasurers.

The introduction of the NDIS has been an absolute game changer, a step change for people with disability in my home state. It's truly a life-changing economic and social policy and a major structural reform. The reality is that the Labor government has taken it upon itself to make these changes. We saw headlines of the previous coalition government, term after term, whinging and whining and wailing about the growth in the NDIS but doing almost nothing about it. Like the Minister for the NDIS, I firmly believe the scheme is the best change politics could do in the 21st century. It's really important to change, and we're in this place to make change. Making change to the NDIS is really, really critical for its integrity, operation, efficiency and effectiveness in the future. Major structural changes and reform are absolutely critical, and I think this will be a legacy of this government.

We can do better. We can always improve, and this is what this bill is about. It's about improving the NDIS for the local community. I want to stress to NDIS participants and their families in my electorate and to the local disability community more widely that reforms will not happen overnight. The review recommendations can take years to implement, and many will need to be co-designed with your participation, as they should be. This bill is just the next step on the journey, albeit a very important one.

The Minister for the NDIS has certainly been out travelling Australia and talking to people with disability in the sector. This included a very successful NDIS forum I hosted with him at the Ipswich Jets League Club last year. It was a completely packed out room, attended by local NDIS clients, carers and providers, and disability advocates. A key piece of feedback from these consultations, including in my electorate, was that we need to build and improve services outside the NDIS. The NDIS can't be the only lifeboat in the ocean. It's not the only game in town.

The Commonwealth is having important conversations with the states and territories about different levels of government working together to make a disability ecosystem that supports all Australians. Not everyone qualifies for the NDIS, and there are people living with some form of disability that need help. The National Cabinet agreed in December last year that states and territories play an important role in developing foundational supports outside the NDIS, and to contribute more to the NDIS from 1 July 2028. I call on states and territories, Labor and coalition, to do better and to do more.

I understand that states have raised some concerns, and that's appropriate. In my home state of Queensland, the Minister for Seniors and Disability Services, Charis Mullen, has talked about the need to get the design of foundational supports right so people can continue to access the supports they need. I agree with Charis, but our intention here is to work with the states and territories. At the same time, the peak body for disability providers, National Disability Services, has warned the number of NDIS registered disability providers in Queensland are struggling with the cost of meeting NDIS quality and care standards and wages, which has resulted in some laying-off of staff, reducing services and closing all together. We saw that. I saw that in my electorate in Kilcoy where Anglicare got out of that provision of disability services. Fortunately, the local people living with disability and their families decided to avail themselves of the tremendous services of ALARA, who were providing services in the Brisbane Valley. They took up that group, play-based, lifestyle support in that area. There are organisations that are opting out, and we need great organisations like ALARA and Focal Community Services to pick up the slack. I thank them for what they do my local community, particularly up in the Brisbane Valley, where areas of geographic isolation make it even more challenging for people with disability.

The NDIS pricing is currently being reviewed, and they have called for an immediate uplift in pricing for the sector to remain viable. I understand the Queensland government was concerned with some providers in regional areas providing complex care and potential NDIS funding shortfalls. In response to this, we have provided budgetary support: we've invested $5.3 million in the budget to undertake preliminary work on NDIS pricing reforms to strengthen transparency, predictability and alignment. Following this work, the government will consider an option for the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority—who have already been advising on pricing in hospitals and aged care—to provide advice on NDIS prices in response to recommendations from the independent review. Ultimately, we're going to work with stakeholders and ensure that people with disability have the best support.

The NDIS, I think, is a bit like Medicare: it's an important, essential safety net for people living with disability, so they can trust this government to protect the scheme and get it back on track. This legislation is about boosting the NDIS watchdog's ability to take compliance action, building on the comprehensive reforms that we've already made to crackdown on fraud, and safeguarding the scheme for participants. I agree with the member for Riverina; there is a need to crackdown on frauds, shysters and crooks in the area, and we are doing that. We have seen too much under the previous coalition government just let go without actually cracking down, and that came through in that forum I referred to earlier. But there is a need for integrity in the process. This is taxpayers' money. People who are living with disability need to get support. We can't have crooks and gangs and other people associated with criminal elements rorting the system to the detriment of people living with disability and to the detriment of taxpayers. I applaud the member for Maribyrnong for that crackdown that is associated with this government's initiatives in relation to these areas.

Following the introduction of the bill, the government initiated a co-design and consultation process with the disability community to make and update the rules and legislative instruments. In December 2023, as part of the initial response, the National Cabinet agreed that this legislation be instituted, and that's what we're doing today. At the core, it paves the way for improvements that put participants back at the heart of the NDIS, and that was the point of the scheme when we originally brought it in under a previous Labor government. The rules are about transforming the scheme and making sure that current and future participants and the perspectives of people living with disability are respected. I am pleased the budget backs in the reforms in the bill, with $468.7 million to better support people living with disability. These measures build on the $213.7 million that we announced earlier this year to fight fraud and co-design NDIS reforms for people living with disability. The budget will drive the implementation of key recommendations from the review, including reforms to the scheme in terms of transparency, participant support, sustainability and service delivery, to get the NDIS back on track. These investments will provide the architecture needed to bring people with disability and governments together to implement these reforms.

A major goal of the government's reform is to manage the scheme's growth and put the scheme on a more sustainable financial footing. Our work in this area is seeing positive green shoots, with the reforms forecast to moderate the growth of the scheme to the tune of $14.4 billion over the forward estimates, offsetting an increase that would have occurred in the absence of government action. That's thanks to the legislative reforms we're undertaking and the efforts we're making through this bill and elsewhere.

There are two practical changes that have helped realise 95 per cent of the projected $14.4 billion reduction. The first is that around two-thirds of these savings come from clamping down on intraplan inflation, which is when a participant's plan is spent sooner than the period for which was agreed, leading to a top-up. The remainder of the savings come from implementing the review's recommendation to change the way participant budgets are set. Instead of constructing a plan brick by brick, we'll look at a person's overall needs and give them a budget, which we expect will save money.

I can assure participants in my community that the government remains totally and utterly committed to the NDIS and no-one's going to be kicked off the scheme. The eligibility hasn't changed. The plans are set the same way and the NDIS funding is still based on your needs. The scheme will remain demand-driven and continue to grow in line with the NDIS Financial Sustainability Framework, which the National Cabinet agreed to in April last year. It will provide an annual growth target of up to eight per cent by 1 July 2026 and further moderation of growth as the scheme matures. Sustainable growth trajectory for the NDIS is critical for the long-term viability and integrity of the scheme, ensuring it will continue to provide life-changing outcomes for future generations of people with disability. The reality is that for much of the last 10 years under the coalition the NDIS was left to grow in a rapid, haphazard way with unchecked fraud and inadequate regulation and safeguards. That's why National Cabinet agreed to address the growing pressures on the scheme last year.

The bill addresses the priority recommendations of the independent review to improve participant experience and return the NDIS to its original intent. The NDIS was founded on the notion that people living with disability should get a fair go; that they should have choice and control over the supports they receive so their life—an abundant, happy, contented life—can be lived to the full. In summary, that's what this legislation is all about: making sure the NDIS goes back to what was intended in 2013. After the damage that was done through the unregulated, haphazard, hopeless approach of the previous government, we're making sure this scheme goes back to what it originally was intended to do.

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