Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National Disability Insurance Scheme was designed on the dream of greater flexibility, better quality of life and greater opportunity to have an input into your own expenditure, where packages were delivered for people for their betterment and we stopped treating people with disabilities like children and started giving them their full potential for what they have. It is not a place for governments to decide every aspect of somebody's life. It is not a place where we do not give the greatest flexibility we can possibly give. It is not a place where, once that package is designed and handed over, the person with the disability doesn't have responsibility for it. And it's not a place where politicians, departments and support workers all of a sudden have an influence directly on the lives and aspirations of those people with a disability.

We've got to chase the dream of the dream that was and not put our own inflection and desires onto the people with disabilities. We have to give them freedom—freedom even in their package. It's no good if you've got plenty of gardening money left over but you need physiotherapy. They should all be interacting by their choice, not by the government deciding what is right and what is wrong. Give people with disabilities freedom and a chance.