Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

The government thinks that this is a very good amendment. In recent times it hasn't been uncommon to include a requirement to review legislation after a set period of time.

A part of the reason that we're agreeing to this is that the NDIS doesn't belong to any political party or to any particular point of view. It belongs to Australia. The NDIS is a universal scheme which is based on the proposition that any of us or anyone that we love could have a disability.

The scheme is remarkable. It is very difficult necessarily to please everyone, not because that's the motivation but rather that for people who've fought hard to get a set of supports, the talk of any change is legitimately anxious making. But the alternative of doing nothing as opposed to changing the scheme would be disastrous. The alternative views that it's too hard or that we should be suspicious of anything, provide the shadows in which some service providers continue to exploit participants and we don't get the best outcomes.

I do compare the NDIS to Medicare, but Medicare is now 40-plus years old, and it's taken its time to develop, and it's had its ups and its downs. What is pleasing in Australia at the moment is that Medicare used to be a contested political item over a series of elections. The NDIS has this opportunity to move from being a contested issue into one where people of all political persuasions just want to make sure it works as well as it can, but there's no questioning that it should exist, and I think we've reached that point so far. I say to those who are worried about this legislation: we'll certainly listen to opposition amendments in the Senate—to amendments from the Greens political party and, indeed, from crossbenchers there—but the argument that somehow everything is too hard and we should delay things and keep delaying them sells short the future of the scheme and people with disability.

Disability advocates have a lot of muscle memory about previous policy changes, which disturbs them and makes them legitimately concerned about any proposals. But these proposals are not out of the blue. That is not a fair characterisation. I want to be very clear that we have had a one-year review by Bruce Bonyhady and Lisa Paul. There was a lot of consultation. It was independent—despite the odd snide attempt to say it wasn't. It was an honest endeavour to look at how we could improve the scheme.

I think what the review did and what the legislation assumes is that the NDIS is a giant chapter in the history of people with disability in this country. There had been work done before the NDIS, in human rights legislation and a range of areas, but the NDIS is indisputably a giant chapter because it provides economic agency and empowerment to people with disability and the people who love them. It is an endeavour to relieve aging carers' midnight anxiety about who will look after their adult family member when they no longer can. It is also a view that impairment is just one attribute of a human being and that the barriers society puts in people's path are what truly disables people. This scheme sees people in the whole. This legislation proposes that our processes to assess them should be in the whole.

This is not the only measure we're taking, as I've said previously in the House and elsewhere, but this legislation is another necessary step on the journey to creating a more inclusive Australia. The government have no hubris about it. We will continue listening to the contributions and continue to take seriously the views of others. That's why we're happy to support this amendment, in that spirit. I congratulate the member for Kooyong for working on this issue.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

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