Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—Last week I visited Rod and Janette Mattingley, and their 25 year old son, Thomas, who live in my electorate of Jagajaga in the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Thomas has been severely disabled since birth. He has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and scoliosis. Rod and Janette have provided almost constant care for him since birth. Rod and Janette kindly opened their home to me and talked me through their days with Thomas and their experiences of the disability service system.

The Productivity Commission's final report into the long-term care and support of Australians with disability, which the Prime Minister released last Wednesday, judged the disability service system to be unfair, underfunded and fragmented. It is a judgment that sums up the daily frustrations and inconsistencies that the Mattingleys—and thousands like them—face each day. The system of disability services in Australia today is letting people down. This government asked the Productivity Commission to examine reform of disability support services because we believe that the system we have today is not delivering the kind of care and support Australians expect for people with disability.

The Productivity Commission has recommended a national disability insurance scheme that would entitle all Australians to support in the event of significant disability. The scheme would provide individually tailored care and support to around 410,000 people with significant disabilities. It would be accompanied by a national injury insurance scheme to provide no fault insurance for anyone who suffers a catastrophic injury.

The Australian government shares the vision of the Productivity Commission for a system that provides people with disability with the care and support they need over the course of their lifetime. We understand that the system needs more funding, and people with disability need more services and support. We also understand that the system needs a complete transformation to deliver the kind of care and support the community expects for people with disability. We are acting on both fronts, right away. We are already doubling Commonwealth funding to the states and territories, who deliver disability support services. We have more than tripled the rate of indexation from 1.8 per cent under the previous government to 6.3 per cent today so that our investment in services grows faster. We are investing in people with disabilities and those who care for them, by delivering record pension increases to people on the disability support pension and the carer payment. We have increased the maximum rate by around $128 a fortnight for single pensioners and $116 a fortnight for couples since September 2009. To improve access to services for people with disability and to drive reform, including in access to mainstream services like health and education, we have launched a National Disability Strategy, and to support carers and to shine a light on their work, we have recently released a National Carer Strategy.

We are making headway in overhauling key aspects of the disability support pension to better support people with disability into work wherever possible, because we know that many people with disability do want to do more. We are investing $3 billion over the next four years in uncapping access to Disability Employment Services, so people with disability know they can get help to give work a go. Under the previous government, people with disability could wait up to a year for help to get back into work.

We are helping parents of children with disabilities to access early intervention services through the Better Start for Children with Disability program. Under this program, around 9,000 children with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome, and sight or hearing impairments will be eligible for up to $12,000 of services under the program over four years. Since 1 July this year, when the Better Start program began, 725 Australian families have registered for funding for early intervention services for their children. Since 2008, more than 12,000 children with autism spectrum disorders have accessed early intervention services through the Helping Children with Autism package.

To meet the need for community based supported accommodation places for Australians with disability, we have established a new $60 million fund to build up to 150 innovative supported accommodation places. This builds on the $100 million capital injection we delivered in 2008 to build more than 300 places for people with disability. These are important investments, and they are being delivered to people with disabilities, their families and carers right now. But we know we need to do more. That is why this government asked the Productivity Commission to undertake this major inquiry. We know the disability service system will not be repaired by increases in funding or more services alone. Both are necessary, but not sufficient. People with disability, their families and carers have argued that the system needs a complete overhaul. The Productivity Commission has agreed. And so do we, the Australian government.

The disability service system needs a complete overhaul so that it, first and foremost, meets the needs of the individual. It needs to take an insurance approach that meets the care and support needs of a person with disability over their lifetime—and not the crisis-driven approach of the past. The Productivity Commission has set out a clear vision for change. The commission recommend work start right away, with the launch of a scheme in selected sites around the country in mid-2014 and they also recommend the progressive rollout of a national disability insurance scheme to full operation by 2018-19.

The report from the Productivity Commission demonstrates that we do have a lot of work ahead of us. Under the recently signed National Health Reform Agreement, the states and territories have primary responsibility for the funding and delivery of disability support services. Reform of the disability service system must therefore be done with the states and territories. This Friday, the Prime Minister will ask the Council of Australian Governments to establish a select council of ministers from the Commonwealth, states and territories to drive disability reform. We are starting work right away, to lay the foundations for reform and get disability services, as we like to call it, NDIS-ready—ready for a national disability insurance scheme. This means working with the states and territories to develop common assessment tools, so that people's eligibility for support can be assessed fairly and consistently, based on their level of need. It means putting in place service and quality standards, so that people with disability can expect high quality support irrespective of what disability they have or how they acquired it. It means building workforce capacity so we have more trained staff to support people with disabilities. And it will also include developing rigorous timelines, milestones and benchmarks to support the delivery of these and other essential foundation reforms, and to hold governments accountable for progress.

Much of this work has commenced through the National Disability Agreement. But this work must now be accelerated and extended because these, and other matters, are essential foundations for a national disability insurance scheme. Consistent with the recommendations of the Productivity Commission, we have announced an immediate $10 million to support this technical work. This is in addition to our increased funding for the states and territories to deliver disability services through the National Disability Agreement. We have also announced an advisory group to work with the new select council on the design and oversight of activities to build the foundations for reform. This work will be led by Dr Jeff Harmer AO, supported by Mr Bruce Bonyhady AM and Dr Rhonda Galbally AO. Others will be added once further consultations have taken place.

And in response to the Productivity Commission's recommendations for the states and territories to harmonise their approach to catastrophic injury, the government will convene a working group led by the Assistant Treasurer to work with state and territory governments, lawyers and other stakeholders to progress this element of reform. Work is already underway. And it will continue as we lay those foundations which are essential for reform, and are necessary precursors to the launch of a national disability insurance scheme. Future reform of disability services will require investment from all levels of government and it will require our shared commitment to fundamental reform, a complete overhaul, so that it delivers the kind of care and support we expect for people with disability. The Australian government is committed to this reform. We believe that people like Thomas Mattingley deserve quality care and support and that people like his parents, Rod and Janette Mattingley, should be supported and have certainty in Thomas's continuing care.

I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the member for Menzies to speak for 11½ minutes.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Mr K. J. Andrews speaking in reply to the ministerial statement for a period not exceeding 11½ minutes.

Question agreed to.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Approximately 20 per cent of the Australian population have a disability—that is, some four million people have a disability—and there are some 2.6 million carers. The coalition believe that continuing support for these Australians is important. It is in this context that we have already indicated our in-principle support for the establishment of a national disability insurance scheme. The reality is that the current system is broken. It is inconsistent and lacks coordination. Support is determined not by need but by how a disability was acquired. Indeed, the Productivity Commission has found that the current system is 'underfunded, unfair, fragmented and inefficient' and 'gives people with disability little choice and no certainty of access to appropriate supports'. Currently support depends on a number of factors: what state you live in, whether the disability is congenital or was acquired, and, if acquired, whether it was acquired in the workplace, a motor vehicle accident or some other context.

There is a level of care which families and informal carers want to provide and should provide for their loved ones with a disability, but there is also a level of care which it is unreasonable to expect to be undertaken without some support, and in some cases some very considerable support, from the wider community. Importantly, any response to disabilities must be a combined federal, state and territory response. At present, total government expenditure is around $7 billion per annum. The Commonwealth contributes about $2.3 billion and the states and territories contribute around $4.7 billion.

The reality is that the status quo is no longer an option. Australians with disability and their families deserve a better deal. Good economic management of course is key to providing a better deal, to providing real reform and real support. Expressions of goodwill and statements of good intent are no longer good enough. Every Australian should feel disappointed by what is initially a weak response on the part of the government to the Productivity Commission's report. This Labor-Green alliance has a history of overpromising and underdelivering. This government has a history of making announcements that are empty and tokenistic, announcements that are never actually acted upon. Expressions of goodwill and statements of good intent are simply no longer good enough. The government should provide a clear timetable for change and a clear and definite funding envelope. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot be keen to push the envelope on their great big new tax on everything but not push the envelope to repair a system that impacts on some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

The coalition remain concerned, with good cause, about the government's ability to deliver the complex reform needed in this critical area, so we will monitor its implementation closely because we have seen time and time again the disasters that the Labor-Green alliance has presided over. Anyone who has seen the detail of the government's announcement, seen the paltry $10 million commitment, knows that Labor could have done better. Imagine how much more they could have done without the waste and mismanagement—with no pink batts, no school hall rip-offs, no program failures and no NBN. Australians might not know that the Productivity Commission's final report found that the current unmet need for support for Australians with disability is some $6.5 billion. That is roughly equivalent to the Gillard government's current annual debt interest repayments.

Australians with disability, their carers and their families are not focused on funding options. They just want the system fixed. The government has raised the hopes of these families, so it is now up to the government to outline how it will deliver. That is why it is so disappointing that the government's response has not identified at this stage any funding envelope.

The government are, I fear, incapable of reforming anything. Their strength lies in waste, mismanagement, bungling programs and doing nothing. I suppose there is some hope that they at least have put $10 million up.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll send this around to people with disabilities. They'll be thrilled to get this.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Minister, you were heard in silence.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will respond to the interjection. People with disabilities have said to me over the last week that they are concerned that this government, given its history of mismanagement and incompetence, is not in a position to be able to deliver. If it were, then we might have seen more.

You cannot talk about reform without also talking about the disability support pension. About 800,000 people are on the DSP, at a cost of $10 billion to $13 billion per year. This represents about five per cent of all Australians of working age. The Prime Minister says she wants to tackle the issue; however, again you see Labor with a poor record on welfare reform. In the early years of the last decade attempts by the Howard government to reform welfare were stymied by the Labor Party. It was not until the coalition gained a majority in the Senate in 2004 that welfare reform actually occurred, in the face of Labor resistance.

Australians wish to be secure in the knowledge that a safety net and social support system will always be available to them if it is genuinely needed. However, at a time of strong jobs growth and emerging labour and skill shortages during the late 1990s and early 2000s the number of working age people in receipt of income support grew to over 20 per cent of all working age Australians, or more than 2.7 million people. Only a small percentage of this number had participation requirements tied to their income support. Seven hundred thousand were on disability support pension and 618,000 received at that stage the parenting payment. Both of these payments were more generous than Newstart allowance, which is received by the unemployed. There were more people receiving the DSP than there were on unemployment benefits.

This highlighted that people with disabilities in particular had a very low rate of participation in the workforce. Less than 10 per cent of people receiving DSP undertook any work, including many people who had significant work capacity. Approximately one-quarter of all DSP recipients in Australia suffer from psychological and psychiatric conditions. Such conditions are often episodic, and due regard has to be given to how we could more appropriately deal with the situations that many of these people find themselves in when they have an episode which leaves them unfit for work.

There are substantial barriers which prevent people with disabilities from participating both in the workforce and in everyday life. They include physical barriers, such as access to transport, and mental and psychological challenges. Whatever shape or form they come in, these barriers have been unfortunately reinforced by negative community attitudes and a low expectation of people with disabilities, and this has contributed to many people with disabilities feeling a sense of disempowerment. Governments, business and the disabled themselves must work together and set about removing these barriers and negative stereotypes. People with disabilities acknowledge that they want to be more economically active. The disability support pension should not be a dead-end payment, as unfortunately so many see it today.

The principal object of reform, therefore, should be to encourage and assist more and more people to contribute and participate positively. The Henry report, for example, laid out one approach to welfare reform. If the government deals only with funding a scheme and does not tackle the more important issue of getting people back into the workforce where that is appropriate and able to be achieved, then it will not resolve the problem. The Prime Minister talks about addressing the issue, just like she said in 2009 that getting people into work was her priority. It remains to be seen whether this is just another empty promise from the Labor government.

The coalition remain committed to supporting Australians with disability. We can only hope this government can actually deliver some of what it has promised.