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

It is fitting that we are discussing the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS's final report on planning on this day. Today is the International Day of People with a Disability, an annual event which was started in 1992 by the United Nations. It's a day which is about promoting the dignity, the wellbeing and the rights of people with disability, and awareness. I said earlier, at an event in the Mural Hall, that there is much that we can celebrate about disability in Australia, and that includes the formation and creation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. But we can't merely assume that, because the NDIS has been created, that is sufficient in and of itself. It is not.

I take issue with the coalition's management of disability in the Labor-created National Disability Insurance Scheme across a range of areas. It is a great achievement. I want us to be the best in the world at disability, and the NDIS should be the best scheme in the world and proof of Australian exceptionalism. People with disability have been making the best of the NDIS that they possibly can. It was the result of a grassroots campaign by those in the Australian disability movement and their carers and the people who love them. It was a demand for a greater slice of resources and, indeed, of power. In the last number of years, disability has continued to further emerge from the shadows of invisibility. So, today, there is much to support, but more can be done.

We have to take stock today—and this report is also an opportunity—of the unfinished business that remains to improve the lives of people with disability. One in five Australians reports as having a disability. The situation isn't as good as it should be. There are the deaths of NDIS participants by neglect in their own homes, and that is not good enough. Treating the NDIS as an automatic teller machine and ripping billions out of the scheme is not good enough. The failure to properly listen and consult with the disability community about the proposed rollout of independent assessments is not good enough. Omitting people with disability entirely from COVID-19 planning is not good enough. Australians with disability being, in the words of the royal commission, '"neglected" and "left feeling invisible and ignored" during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic' is not good enough. The management of plans by the NDIS within the NDIS, my focus today, is not good enough.

Might I just pause, though, as I say that on these fundamental issues the government's performance is not good enough. I should acknowledge members of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS from both the government and the opposition. Those individuals are taking their responsibility as legislators rather than servants of the executive very conscientiously. With 42 recommendations for improvement on plans, this report is a good report which puts the executive of the government on notice from all sides of the parliament of Australia that the NDIS's plan administration is not good enough at this point. The report states, correctly, that 'planning, when it works, changes lives for the better', but it also confirms what has been felt by too many of the 400,000 and their families in the scheme, that the planning process is broken.

Under the current Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Stuart Robert, the NDIS, which has had $4.6 billion ripped out of it, is too dysfunctional and too chaotic on too many occasions. Plans and planning are no exception. I make no criticism of many of the staff of the National Disability Insurance Agency—they're conscientious—but the sum of the parts which is the National Disability Insurance Agency is less than the contribution of everyone in the world of disability. Something is not working. There is a pathology of maladministration, of chaos, and that is seen all too often in plans. Planning is the process which defines a person's relationship and life on the NDIS. Once someone is granted access to the scheme, a planner decides how much funding is needed for the person to live a life of choice and control as set out in their goals.

This 319-page report finalises evidence gathered over 18 months since the inquiry was established in July 2019. It makes no fewer than 42 recommendations following the publication of 157 submissions to the inquiry from individuals and organisations. It echoes the findings of the 2019 review of the NDIS Act and Rules by David Tune AO PSM. Mr Tune concluded:

Consultation feedback suggests the NDIA is not making consistent decisions during planning. Some participants with similar disability support needs reported they received very different types and values of supports in their plans, where the differences did not appear to be linked to their goals and aspirations or their informal supports. This was particularly evident in cases of young siblings with the same disability and similar levels of functional capacity.

Planning determines the support provided under the scheme. It determines the quality of life for those profoundly impaired Australians who rely upon the NDIS. Their life is effectively in the hands of a planner making these momentous decisions. One submission to the report stated:

Planning determines so many things about my life and NDIS has absolutely control. This can never not be terrifying for anybody who is severely disabled.

The consequences of the dysfunctional planning process have been well documented. Who can forget the story of brothers Jordan and Logan Weir? They suffer exactly the same rare genetic condition, but one of them received $100,000 more in support than the other.

It's a tough thing for Labor to have to watch on as the world-class and vital NDIS is left to fall into levels of disrepair after seven years of government absentee management. The planning report details these issues, including that in some cases planners listed a person's disability incorrectly or incorrectly reported the goals or what other support was available to them. Planners were sometimes unaware of participants' disabilities and relying on internet search engines for their information—NDIS by Google! Planners may be ignoring or changing expert recommendations provided by treating allied health practitioners about the supports which are appropriate for the particular participant who they have been treating for years.

The NDIS Minister Robert has responded to the inquiry's report by spruiking the government's latest reforms. The reality is that the reforms so far announced are based on shaky evidence and do not necessarily promise a fix for the problems with consistency and fairness in planning that are outlined and required by this report. Most significant of these, independent assessments have sparked outrage, anxiety and fear amongst participants when they were blindsided by the surprise announcement in September. Only last week did a little bit of the pressure start to bleed out, when the government backflipped on the announcement to introduce them from the start of 2021, to defer implementation until the midyear. The pressure is mounting on the government but the fight is not over.

It is understandable that vulnerable Australians have trust issues with a government that unleashed the $1.2 billion unlawful robodebt scandal on 400,000 vulnerable Australians who relied on the social security safety net. Many fear that the government is really using independent assessments to lower the bottom line of the NDIS by controlling eligibility and plan size. This is a familiar tune from a government who went after the vulnerable on robodebt. The government has also failed to test independent assessments in the planning process. They had a pilot of 500 people, self-selecting, opt in of only some disabilities, and only 140 replied to the survey on the pilot, and only 100 of the 140 liked it. This government is rushing to change a system based upon the reports of a self-selecting sample of 100 out of 400,000.

This report is a valuable addition to the knowledge of the government. It is a valuable contribution. This report, in my opinion, shows that the parliament can work. What we see on the committee are legislators, regardless of their political affiliations, thinking about the parliament and its responsibilities to the parliament rather than simply going cap in hand, meekly serving the executive. The recommendations on planning are good recommendations. They do deserve serious consultation and listening. Today, International Day of People with Disability, is a fine day to restart the process of reform, but reform based on that eternal principle of the disability movement—'nothing about us without us'.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on the report by the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and I commend the work that they're doing in a bipartisan way to address the significant issues that people are facing with the scheme. When it's working, the NDIS is working really well. When it's not, it is taking an horrific toll on people—participants and carers alike. I do note that a bit over a decade ago we wouldn't have been having these sorts of discussions, because the NDIS didn't exist. Its existence does give us hope that we can make things better, not just for some people with a disability but for every person with a disability.

I want to preface my remarks on the report today by acknowledging that it is the International Day of People With Disability, and that is really a day about 20 per cent of the population, because one in five Australians identify as having a disability. The theme of this year's Day of People with Disability is 'build back better'. Having just come from the morning tea in Parliament House organised by the shadow disability minister, Bill Shorten, and by the chair of the committee on whose report we are speaking today, Kevin Andrews, it was really terrific to be able to acknowledge the contribution that people with a disability and their carers make, the role they have, the respect they deserve and the dignity that they should be receiving. I think this report does go to that ensuring that people are treated with dignity as we, hopefully, build back better from what we have seen in 2020.

At the event, the point was made that things did get tougher for people with disabilities and their carers during COVID, but Canberra disability advocate Dougie Herd actually voiced thoughts in the room when he said that the restrictions that we had experienced during COVID were something that many people with a disability routinely experience—the separation, the restriction of lifestyle—which is why it is so important that we do heed the words of the theme of this year's International Day of People With Disability and do strive to build back better. What the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability raised about the serious failure of the government to consult with the disability community during COVID-19 and their response to it gives us even more reason to address those concerns.

The commission found that there was a lack of consideration for people with a disability, including the absence of a plan for testing and the availability and delivery of personal protective equipment to them and their support staff. They recognised how much extreme stress that, among a whole lot of other issues, caused people. It's very clear: people with a disability don't want things to go back to where they were pre-COVID. They want and they deserve things to be better, and that's what this report is about. It's about looking at where the NDIS has come from, where it is now, the problems that it has, the things that are broken within it—the things that are simply not working for far too many people.

The evidence given to the inquiry matches much of what I hear in my own electorate of Macquarie. I'm told that my office continues to be one of the most active in raising issues with the National Disability Insurance Agency. That's because not only do I have a deep commitment to making sure the NDIS works; my team has that commitment. Kim in particular in my office is the person that people speak to first about the problems they're facing, and she hears firsthand the distress and the experiences that they're going through. We don't want to get those phone calls. We want to make sure that everybody is experiencing the NDIS the way it was intended—as a just and fair process, where they're treated with respect and dignity.

The key theme of this report is around planning, and I have to say that that is one of the biggest issues that is raised with us. In a survey that I've commenced to identify what people are finding are the biggest issues right now, to which I've had dozens and dozens of responses, planning is right up there. I'm seeing people at breaking point. In the lead-up to their plans or their child's plan being redetermined, they are beside themselves trying to get together the paperwork and the documentation. Then they're asked for more documentation. This matches the evidence that this inquiry heard, and it matches some of the recommendations that have been made. I welcome the 42 recommendations in this report, plus the 14 from the interim report. The number of recommendations from a bipartisan committee shows that there are serious things to be addressed.

One of the other things that is touched on—and I know there will be more work for the committee to do on this—is independent assessments. My survey certainly shows that that is one of the greatest fears for the future that people have. There's been very poor consultation about it, and people have genuine concerns that the whole purpose of independent assessments is to reduce the amount of funding that they receive as a participant or that their child receives as a participant. They think it's going to be about taking away supports, and nothing they have been told has reassured them otherwise. They wonder how a conversation of between one and maybe four hours with one person they've never met before is going to paint the full picture of what they or their child needs and why the reports that they have been used to getting aren't sufficient evidence to show what their needs are.

I want to come to some of the recommendations. This inquiry and the report of the committee touched on so many issues. There's the inconsistency of plans. You only need to have two mums talking together about their children, each with different but not dissimilar needs, to see that there is massive inconsistency. What worries me the most, in some ways, is not the conversations I'm having with mums; it's the mums who aren't talking to me, the mums who have just walked away from the National Disability Insurance Scheme because it's too hard to navigate. I hope that the government will consider implementing some of these recommendations—in fact all of them—so that that doesn't occur.

Planner errors come up time and time again—simple things like the form having the wrong disability articulated on it. I get that planners have huge workloads. The workforce issue is another key area to be looked at, and I note that the committee is aware of that. Planners who go above and beyond are delivering terrific plans to children and adult participants in the scheme. But one of the things we've seen, for instance during COVID, is the concern that because money couldn't be spent during COVID that unspent money is going to be taken away. It really doesn't matter how often governments say that won't happen. When your review date comes up, when your plan is up for review, you don't have any transparency about why the decisions are being made. You don't always get reasons why a particular decision on a previous support is being taken away, even when it's been recommended.

It's clear that planners don't all understand every disability. How could they? How could planners understand every single disability? One of the recommendations is around having planners who are specialised in a number of ways around specific disabilities, but also specialised to help participants who have been hospitalised who are being transitioned out. That requires a different level of knowledge and understanding.

One of the things that I think will be really welcomed, and I urge the government to adopt this recommendation, is that where planners are rejecting the advice of a medical professional, and when the plan doesn't reflect that expert advice developed specifically for that participant, that the NDIA is required to provide written reasons for this decision at least one week prior to any joint planning meeting. That gives the participant and their advocates and supporters time to digest and get their head around it. I have constituents who talk to me about feeling they were smashed in their planning meeting because they were just blindsided by some of the decisions that were made. The recommendation No. 1 that participants and their nominees receive a draft plan at least one week prior to their meeting—how can that not be happening already? It's just a disgrace.

I really welcome these recommendations, but it is up to the government to implement them. That's the key. We need to see a government that doesn't just talk about its commitment to the NDIS, but demonstrates it. This provides a way for them to show they do actually care.

Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the NDIS planning report tabled on Tuesday by the parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I am proud to sit on that committee and I'm proud of this report. I would like to thank the chair, the deputy chair and the rest of the committee membership for their efforts and collegiality through this and other inquiries. I'd also like to thank the committee secretariat, who do a fantastic job keeping us all on track. Finally, I would like to recognise that ferocious advocate for the NDIS, the member for Maribyrnong, Bill Shorten. The shadow minister for NDIS and government services has made the health and wellbeing of Australians the focus of his considerable energy and formidable skill through his entire career. He was instrumental in the creation of the NDIS. It will come as little shock to anyone in this chamber that he worked closely and tirelessly with the committee members to best represent the interests of NDIS participants and stakeholders.

In this report the committee scrutinised the planning process of the NDIS. Planning is a defining process in the life of an NDIS participant. When someone is granted access to the scheme, a planner decides how much funding is needed for the participant to live a normal life as set out in their goals. The report accurately notes that planning, when it works well, changes lives for the better.

The report also confirms what my constituents tell me every day: the planning process is broken. The 319-page report finalises evidence gathered over the course of 18 months since the inquiry was established in July 2019. It makes 42 recommendations about the planning process, following the publication of 157 submissions to the inquiry from individuals and organisations. The evidence in this report supports the findings of the 2019 review of the NDIS Act and rules by David Tune AO. The findings of that review state:

Consultation feedback suggests the NDIA is not making consistent decisions during planning. Some participants with similar disability support needs reported they received very different types and values of supports in their plans, where the differences did not appear to be linked to their goals and aspirations or their informal supports. This was particularly evident in cases of young siblings with the same disability and similar levels of functional capacity.

Planning defines the support people need, and supports inform the quality of life people with disability receive. Nothing could be more central. As one submission stated:

Planning determines so many things about my life and the NDIS has absolute control. This can never not be terrifying for anybody who is severely disabled

Like cases should be treated alike. This is a fundamental principle of justice. There have been a number of public failures against this objective, like the Weir brothers, who suffer exactly the same genetic condition but receive drastically different levels of support. This is unacceptable.

The planning report details aggravating issues, including, in some cases, planners listing people's disabilities incorrectly or incorrectly recording their goals or what other supports were available to them. Planners were sometimes unaware of participants' disabilities and were relying on internet search engines for their information. Planners may be ignoring or changing expert recommendations provided by allied health practitioners about the support that is appropriate for a given participant. It is gut-wrenching to watch as the world-beating scheme established by the Gillard government earns a reputation for inconsistency and dysfunction.

Minister Roberts's response to this report has been predictably lacklustre. The reality is that the reforms the minister is now relying on to fix these issues are simply not up to the task. The most significant of these independent assessments sparked outrage among participants and the sector when they were blindsided by the surprise announcement in September. This report highlights the forthcoming inclusion of independent assessments within the general issues report which the committee hopes to table before the end of the year. On page 139, the report states:

The committee also holds concerns about the compulsory nature of independent assessments, especially where an expert who has worked with a participant over a longer period of time may be better placed to make recommendations to benefit a participant. The committee will address broader concerns related to the independent functional assessments further in its forthcoming report into general issues around the implementation and performance of the NDIS.

I hope the general issues report can succeed where the government has failed and properly engage with the disability community on independent assessments. The proposed independent functional assessments are causing great fear and anxiety. The government must pause the rollout of independent assessments and engage in real consultation with NDIS participants and the workforce.

Now, it is important that we recognise that there are challenges to delivering the scheme fairly and consistently. This is why this report on planning is so important. Inconsistency is a problem, and the Labor Party stands ready to work collaboratively with the government to find solutions. But ramming through independent assessments with little community consultation is not the answer. The issue is that the government's chosen path to solving this problem is more harmful than the problem. Even though there has been a voluntary pilot program, we don't know much about it. We don't know much about it because evaluation and evaluation reporting has been weak and deficient. This is unacceptable. Even though extensive consultations have been undertaken on other areas of policy change following the Tune review, consultation on independent assessments has been near to non-existent. Even though there have been serious concerns raised by very many, including the Australian Association of Psychologists, Every Australian Counts, People with Disability Australia, Women With Disabilities Australia, the Rights Information and Advocacy Centre, and Synapse, the government has chosen regulation over legislation on independent assessments in order to avoid scrutiny. It does not surprise me that organisations have expressed serious concern with the government's plan.

Every day in my electorate I speak with people who have been mistreated as a result of this government's fixation on cutting the cost of disability support across the country. Rachel, a disability advocate in Geelong, told me it is shameful the NDIA has not consulted people with disabilities. She said that, if they had, they would hear what Rachel was hearing: anxiety, fear, and distrust. She said, 'Participants turn to our organisation feeling traumatised after receiving a robotic letter stating they have 28 days to provide more evidence of their disability, or they will be removed from the scheme. Participants fear independent assessments will be even worse.' Rachel said the NDIS is supposed to be about choice and control, but this process is taking all the control away. This is not the person-centred NDIA that we all fought for. This is heartbreaking, and it is heartbreakingly familiar. In my electorate of Corangamite, I've formed an NDIS reference group to help me in my work on the NDIS joint parliamentary standing committee. The group includes advocates, carers, members of the workforce and participants. And their message is clear: they fiercely oppose independent assessments.

Now, the Morrison government needs to immediately pause the rollout of independent assessments and engage in genuine transparent consultation with the sector. We need to build a pathway to meeting the challenges of inconsistency that isn't more poison than antidote. Unsurprisingly, this government does not hold the trust of NDIS participants. Since 2013, the coalition has viewed the scheme primarily as an expenditure line. What the government appears to really be chasing with independent assessments is its bottom line, by controlling eligibility and plan size. This is a familiar tune with a government that last year ripped $4.6 billion out of the scheme. This government is failing to run the NDIS, because it very often puts cash before care.

Labor stands for choice and empowerment for NDIS participants in the workforce. The very first step in that commitment is an open conversation about how the system works, not ramming through a flawed process without compassion and care for those the scheme should serve. Let me make my position crystal clear: I do support the NDIS, Labor supports the NDIS, but, on this International Day of People with Disability, there is so much work to be done to ensure the scheme best serves its participants. And I do question if the Morrison government is up for this task. I urge the government to act on every one of these recommendations, and I hope they do. Thank you.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Question agreed to.

Debate adjourned.