Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the past 18 months I've conducted a number of forums in my electorate on aged care, health care, veterans affairs and child care, and, unsurprisingly, there's been a consistent theme from all of those organisations, and that is that they describe the NDIS as the biggest threat when it comes to their ability to provide these critical services to the community.

Deputy Speaker Young, as you would know, currently workers are leaving child care, aged care and nursing in droves due to the inflated and unsustainable fees in the NDIS, and you couldn't blame them. On the flip side, I hear stories every day from those currently using NDIS packages that their funds are being exhausted by the questionable practices of unskilled service providers, leaving them without adequate cover in the areas that they really need. The NDIS has outranked every other issue by at least two to one in the volume of commentary from my constituents.

With this in mind, I was pleased to be selected to be part of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS—to use this feedback from my own regional community and others around the country to plot a better pathway forward. The NDIS model has been allowed to go comparatively unregulated for far too long, and I look forward to taking a bipartisan approach to address it on the committee.