David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the unsustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It started off as a great scheme, in theory, created because the previous disability support scheme that was run state-by-state was failing. The Gillard government at the time put together a deal—an incredibly generous, open-ended deal—with the states to sign them on. It was a noble but very unsustainable financial model.

In 2011, when it was first proposed, there were going to be 460,000 participants and the sum cost was to be, at the top end, $13.5 billion, with contributions of state budgets into the pool and the Commonwealth topping that up. Today, the NDIS is way over those numbers, with 610,000 people. As to what it costs the taxpayers, it's not $13.5 billion. They got the numbers wrong. So, when you add another 200,000, you might get up to $26 billion if it's at that pay rate. But no—it costs $35 billion annually, and it's growing. And that's from the NDIS review figures. The amazing thing is: that same review identified that there are 145,000 children under nine who are now participants. I didn't know that we had that many children who are so severely disabled that they need to go on the NDIS. The same review sets out that, by 2032-33, if the current policy settings remain, it will cost $92 billion a year. At the moment, it costs more than Medicare rebates for 25½ million people; Medicare itself was in that same price range. There is something wrong here.

I know that the disability ministers have got together, even though the states have abandoned their historical and constitutional involvement in it. And the ministers have committed to getting more non-NDIS services—the traditional community support that states delivered, that they seem to have totally abandoned—or foundational supports available outside the NDIS.

Looking at the details in the report of the review and the recommendations, it's just moving the costs of an incredibly expensive, unsustainable system into a different column. Part of the reason it has run this far is that it is an open-ended system, a so-called demand-driven system. But there is a huge industry that's grown up around it. When you look at the NDIA charge out rates by NDIA providers, you can see why it's having huge effects on other care industries.

People in my electorate have come to me over this issue. I've had to visit day-care centres, newly built centres, that can't staff their childcare centres. They've actually got rooms in mothballs because their workers have gone to be personal-care workers, earning considerably more than what they get after having done a childcare certificate II, III or IV course. We've got a shortage of nurses and personal-care workers in the aged-care system. It's the same thing: a lot of them are going over to work in the new—they're popping up all the time—NDIS service providers. I have had people being brought out to Australia from the Pacific island labour scheme to work in abattoirs, and after a month—and all these people had done heaps of work to get them out and get them housed—most of the 20-odd workers had ended up getting jobs in the NDIA. So there are people that lose a lot of, or have a shortage of, workers in the semiskilled space. All this work is now costing more, but all the people in it have moved over to the NDIS, and clearly it's unsustainable.

They need to do more. They need to cap the cost of it now and then start working out a way to make it more efficient. There are way too many people applying to get on it. Yet, at the same time, there are too many on— (Time expired)