Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will make my comments in continuation of my speech on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Improving Supports for At Risk Participants) Bill 2021, which had to be interrupted with the adjournment last night.

Last night, I raised the case of 18-year-old Shelby from Jesmond. Today, I'd like to speak about another case which I want to bring to the attention of the House—the case of Rodney Fisher. Rodney was contacted by the NDIS in August of last year and was informed that they would be reassessing his eligibility. Rodney attended the NDIS office numerous times—in September, October and again in January of this year—seeking an update on the assessment of his eligibility and whether there was anything he could do to try to resolve the matter. He was told that it would be fine, but nobody provided him with any information about the progress of the assessment.

Rodney has psychosocial issues, and the increased anxiety and stress of waiting for a response were really taking a very significant toll on his health. In April this year, after intervention from my office, Rodney was finally informed that he could remain as an NDIS participant. That was six months later. When my office made further inquiries as to why it took so long, I was told, 'Every time Rodney Fisher contacted the NDIS they referred his engagement to the delivery team, which is not the team responsible, so it never went anywhere.' Without intervention from my office, Rodney's concerns were never going to be addressed.

Similar to Rodney's story is that of 11-year-old Tayla Porter, who has been waiting far too long for the help she needs. Tayla was assessed and assigned a power-assisted wheelchair that was inappropriate to her needs and is now already too small for her. Because of this, Tayla was unable to enter her home independently. Tayla's parents, Matthew and Courtney, now have to lift her in and out and around the home, causing great physical and mental strain on both of them. Tayla's mother, Courtney, has advised me that this wrongly-scripted chair has greatly limited Tayla's lifestyle, her mental and physical health and her independence. Tayla requires a new chair that is fully powered and is capable of moving across multiple terrains. But, despite every effort, Tayla and her family are still waiting for a response from the NDIS. Will Tayla ever receive the correct chair she needs? What sort of government treats families so poorly?

Australians with disability and the families who love and care for them deserve so much better than this. People with disability already face so many obstacles that they don't need any more. That's why I was devastated to hear the news last Friday that the only dedicated vaccination hub for NDIS participants in our region was going to shut up shop. If you ever had any doubts about how bad the vaccine rollout was going, you need look no further than that case. By close of business on Friday, people had no idea where they would be able to go in order to get the vaccine or whether the appointments they had already made were going to be honoured at any potential new site. That left vulnerable people in my community feeling distressed and anxious about where they would be able to get a COVID vaccine in a safe, accessible and secure location.

After scrambling all weekend to find answers for my constituents, I understand that, under the direction of the Commonwealth government, the contracted company is now setting up a co-located clinic for not just people with disability anymore; this is a clinic that's also going to have to cater for aged-care workers. Of course, these are the two cohorts that this government has utterly failed, on each and every occasion, to ensure are vaccinated. These are the people who were in categories 1a and 1b, who were all meant to have been vaccinated by Easter but who are not vaccinated. It also means that the disability sector in Newcastle have lost their dedicated disability vaccination site, which was meeting their specific needs, and will need to share it now with aged-care workers. I am truly hopeful that that model of co-location will work, but I do question it, because the dedicated disability vaccination centre was a phenomenal success, vaccinating 5,000 people in a period of 10 weeks. It's an absolutely stand-out model that probably should be rolled out across the state. In light of recent reports of the very poor vaccination rates amongst NDIS participants, I think the decision to close the disability dedicated site was reckless. Indeed, as I said, it should be rolled out across New South Wales.

There were many questions that I put to the contractor, but, as I said, they told me that it was done under the direction of this government, which I think hit the panic button when it realised how poor its vaccination rates were for people with disability and, indeed, aged-care workers. Unfortunately, the contractors are now having to mop up the mess of the Prime Minister's botched vaccine rollout, and they've been sent out to do the PM's dirty work on the messaging front. As I said, they've had to transition to a co-location model and pick up the government slack on the vaccine rollout for aged-care workers, and there is now no disability-specific vaccination clinic in my community.

This is typical behaviour for the Prime Minister. We know his track record of ducking, weaving and denying any responsibility every time that something goes wrong. In times of crisis, our communities need leadership. We have known for some time now that the situation for vaccination rates in both the disability sector—that's people with disability, their carers and their disability support workers—is appalling. We also know, given what the government has now directed the new contractor to do, that the vaccination rates in our aged-care facilities are diabolical.

I have mentioned in this House before that I'm aware of one not-for-profit facility that has phenomenally good vaccination coverage across its staff but only because the CEO made it her business to ensure that all her staff were vaccinated. She hired a bus and drove everybody to Sydney, which is more than a two-hour drive, to ensure that her workers were protected. That has not been the case for every aged-care facility in my electorate. When I looked on the government's health website, I saw reports of some facilities with less than 10 per cent of their staff having received even one does. That is completely unacceptable. That is a matter of grave concern for my community, and it should be for this government.

So, I'm not surprised that the government has asked the people who knew and who were doing so well in the disability sector to now go and mop up their mess over in aged care. Having promised aged-care workers, firstly, that they were going to do these programs onsite, at their workplaces, they backpedalled a thousand miles an hour away from that promise. Then they promised they'd be vaccinated by Easter—a massive retreat from that one. Here we are in August, and still some places have less than 10 per cent of staff having been vaccinated according to the government's own website. That is not okay.

This is a big, big problem, and this Prime Minister cannot just keep blaming other people. Too many people are falling through the cracks. There's no point in just announcing vaccine rates; you've got to drill down to the detail. It's about time the Prime Minister did his job. (Time expired)

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor supports the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Improving Supports for At Risk Participants) Bill 2021, which implements some of the recommendations of the Robertson review affecting the quality and safeguards around the NDIS. But it has taken 12 months for the government to respond to the report handed down by Judge Alan Robertson, and it comes 16 months after the death of Ms Ann-Marie Smith, whose tragic death was the reason we have looked into this—where this bill had its beginnings.

Labor also notes the lack of consultation and the continuing failure of the Morrison government to consult people with disability on changes that impact them directly. We believe that everything possible should be done to protect people with disability from neglect and abuse. But this bill doesn't go far enough, and it is just another reflection of the Morrison government's approach to the NDIS—too little, too late; not enough consultation and, frankly, not enough priority put on this incredibly important scheme for people with disability; not enough trust put in those people to know what's right for them; and not enough priority to deliver those services, those supports, as they should be delivered and as was promised when the NDIS was created.

Ann-Marie Smith was a 54-year-old woman living in Adelaide with cerebral palsy. She died last year in absolutely tragic, unthinkable and unforgiveable circumstances of neglect. She was failed by a system that she trusted to care for her, failed by a system that her loved ones trusted would keep her safe and healthy. She has lost her life because of a lack of care, because of a system that hasn't provided the necessary protections to ensure that the care she was given was appropriate and sufficient. Many questions remain about this. That is why Labor called, at the time, for an independent inquiry into that situation. We're pleased that an inquiry happened, but, again, it didn't go far enough into that situation, and the response has not been strong enough.

This bill seeks to make a range of changes to the NDIS Act in response to recommendations 1, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the Independent review of the adequacy of the regulation of the supports and services provided to Ms Ann-Marie Smith. The independent review of the adequacy of the regulation of the supports and services, the Robertson review, was handed to the government on 31 August 2020. It made a number of recommendations for legislative change to improve the protections for participants at risk of harm. These recommendations included facilitating better exchange of information between the agency and the commission and the disclosure of information to relevant state and territory bodies. They also included clarification around the scope of reportable incidents and the strengthening of banning orders, which was addressed in a legislative change in November 2020. The bill amends provisions in the NDIS Act to support the implementation of changes in response to these recommendations and improves supports and protections provided to NDIS participants. It also includes amendments to clarify the commissioner's powers to support the effective operations of the commission based on the early implementation experience of the commission.

This followed pressure from Labor's shadow minister, Bill Shorten. I want to acknowledge his great work on the NDIS and his drawing attention to these issues. If he had not, would this government have done anything to even investigate what happened in this absolutely tragic and unacceptable situation? Labor's calls were for an independent inquiry into NDIS safeguarding, but the NDIS commission tasked former Federal Court Justice Alan Robertson specifically with reviewing the adequacy of the regulation of the supports and services provided to Ms Ann-Marie Smith.

It's important to point out that Ms Smith's tragic death is not the only death that we have seen of an NDIS participant that raises serious questions about the scheme and about safeguarding. Tim Rubenach from Tasmania, who had severe epilepsy, died while waiting for a wheelchair from the NDIS. David Harris from New South Wales was dead in his Parramatta unit for two months before his body was discovered by police. And Liam Danher, who was only 23 years old, died in his sleep waiting for a seizure mat that would have alerted his parents to his seizure in his sleep. These tragic events need a deep and thorough investigation and a strong response to prevent this ever happening again to anyone who is an NDIS participant. Unfortunately, this response does not go far enough to ensure that at all, and it's indicative of this government's approach to the NDIS more broadly.

The Morrison government have so far presided over $4.6 billion being ripped out of the NDIS, and 1,200 Australians with disability died while waiting to be funded by the scheme. We've also just seen the complete shambles as the government tried to ram through their plan for independent assessments, and their complete lack of consultation, or it was sham consultation, leading up to that. I'm really pleased that, because of the disability community's strong and tireless advocacy yet again to get this scheme right, eventually that was overturned. That is a win, but people are incredibly nervous. There is incredible lack of trust from the disability community that has been created by this government about what it might try to do next. You certainly don't get the impression that this government is doing the work that should be done to get the NDIS right and actually ensure that people live lives of choice and control that are better than the lives that they had before the NDIS was introduced.

I should say as well that many people say that the NDIS has been a success story for them. It has improved people's lives. That is why Labor introduced this scheme. That is what it's supposed to do. But for so many people it has not delivered that. It is absolutely infuriating and heartbreaking to hear the stories again and again as a local member and as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS, hearing about the battles that people have to get access to the seemingly most obvious and basic of supports that they need and seeing the absolutely dehumanising treatment of these people just seeking the supports that they need.

When the NDIS was introduced, it was supposed to be about thinking of a better future for people with disability, allowing them to think about the goals that they want to achieve and the lives that they want to live and enabling them to do that. It was supposed to be centred on the choice and control of each individual participant in that way. That was supposed to generate lots of innovative approaches in the market for provision of supports that would enable that. But too often we're seeing that failing to happen.

I have a constituent who has battled for years and years simply to live in accessible accommodation with their partner and child. This is not the only example of that that I've heard. It is just, as I say, completely dehumanising that that question is even raised. That's just one example, and I won't go into more of them, but the lack of importance that this government is putting on getting this right is just astounding. The fact that we have people dying in the most shocking—absolutely shocking—and disturbing situations of neglect and all that came out of them is a review that didn't look into the broader system but only into that particular case, having now waited 16 months since Ann-Marie Smith's tragic death and a year since the report was handed down to see any response from this government, is simply not good enough. It's simply not good enough at all.

Shortly after his appointment in 2018, the inaugural CEO of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Graeme Head, gave a speech in which he said:

We're able to take a range of actions including deregistration, banning orders or seeking the application of civil penalties so we really do have a comprehensive tool kit.

We have comprehensive regulatory powers and functions, and real regulatory teeth.

Incidents that must be reported to the commission include the death of a participant, serious injury, abuse or neglect and importantly also the unauthorised use of a restrictive practice in relation to a participant.

…   …   …

It does represent a significant step change in how we approach the delivery of quality services to people with disability and how we protect and prevent neglect and abuse of people with disability.

…   …   …

It represents a significant raising of the bar, in terms of how we think about quality and safeguards, in this sector.

While that sounds really good, these comments have not aged well. If this commission has real teeth, why then did Ann-Marie Smith's service provider only receive a fine of $12,600 after allowing her carer to neglect her so severely that she lost her life? She not only lost her life but suffered; she suffered dreadfully in the lead-up to that. If this commission has real regulatory powers, why wasn't it overseeing the care that she was supposed to be receiving? The government really needs to provide answers to these questions and, better than that, a plan to prevent this abuse and neglect happening in future.

The NDIS is a vital national service, but after eight years of this government it has been mismanaged and allowed to be really struggling to provide the most basic things to people. I also have constituents who have simply given up on trying to access the NDIS after the battles that they've had with it. This is a fundamental issue. We are talking about the safety of some of the most vulnerable people who are in the care of a government scheme and, in some of the most tragic of cases, have lost their lives, with little recourse or just a fine to providers who let it happen. You wonder what the response would be like if that had happened in some of our other sectors. We see the absolute neglect for people in aged care, and the government also fails to address this properly. We saw an announcement from them that failed to address in full the royal commission's recommendations on that sector or to provide the necessary funding linked to staffing and ratios, and things like that.

This is a government that simply does not care enough about Australians. We're not seeing the care, the seriousness, the urgency. Why is it that people with disability haven't been vaccinated as the absolute priority that they should have been? We are now seeing in my community here in Canberra an outbreak centred around people with disability and their support workers. It's simply not good enough, and I call on this government to get their act together and show respect, seriousness and care for people with disability and the management of the NDIS.

Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] As we have heard, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Improving Supports for At Risk Participants) Bill 2021 responds to five recommendations of the Robertson review into the adequacy of the regulation of supports and services provided to Ms Ann-Marie Smith, an NDIS participant who died last year in truly horrific circumstances. In the course of his review, Mr Robertson took the opportunity to consider wider issues of safeguarding of people with disability who are particularly vulnerable. It's almost inconceivable, then, that the Morrison government has utterly failed people with disability who are particularly vulnerable to the COVID pandemic. Professor Anne Kavanagh was right when she said just three days ago that the vaccine rollout for disabled Australians was 'negligent' and 'a failure', and the consequences could be dire amid a surging delta outbreak.

If we ever needed proof of the consequence of the Prime Minister's botched vaccine rollout, it was the news delivered to the disability sector last week by the Minister for the NDIS that only around a quarter of Australians in the scheme are fully vaccinated. The federal government's highest priority group is behind the national average. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of people with disability who have not had their jabs. Days ago we heard that only about 26.9 per cent of the 260,000-odd NDIS participants aged over 16 in phase 1a or 1b of the rollout were fully vaccinated. As for the workforce, with 164,000-odd people helping care for people with disability, 55.6 per cent have had their first jab and 36.7 per cent have had two doses. It is not good enough; it is not nearly good enough. Having just over a quarter of all Australians with disability vaccinated is a national shame. That fewer than 50 per cent of people with disability who are living in group homes are vaccinated is a crisis.

The Prime Minister is insisting this week on trying to treat Australians as if we're all goldfish—that we'll do one lap around the goldfish bowl and forget everything that he's previously said and everything that he's failed to do when it comes to the two huge priorities of this year: the vaccine rollout and fit-for-purpose quarantine. We're not goldfish though, are we? We will remember the failures, because they're failures for people with vulnerabilities, like people who are on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, like our First Nations Australians, for whom vaccine rates are far too low, and like many of the pockets of disadvantaged communities where the vaccination rates are much lower than the state and national averages.

There is a lot of work to be done to get all Australians in this country vaccinated. But if we can't get this priority group of people with disability vaccinated then we will continue to suffer from a national shame. As we all watch and celebrate the Paralympics and cheer on our local heroes and people from across this country who are absolute testaments to resilience and success, let's remember that people with disability need to be vaccinated and that the NDIS needs to reach all the potential of its introduction.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.