Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. What reforms has the Albanese Labor government made to the NDIS to get it back on track? What changes are being made, and what problems are being fixed to ensure that every dollar is supporting participants?

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

I thank the tenacious member for Adelaide, whose win-loss ratio since the 1998 election is 6-3. He never gives up!

I'm pleased to update the House and the people listening to question time about the progress of the NDIS, and I'm pleased to explain how Labor is building the NDIS's future. We're making sure that every dollar gets through to the participants for whom the scheme was designed. The NDIS is an important economic and social nation-building project, and it is helping people. Labor has been working to get the NDIS back on track every day since the last election. I acknowledge the work of people with disability and their supporters for their efforts too.

There are definitely still problems with the scheme, but I can update the House on signs of progress. Participants who've been on the scheme for longer than two years who are aged more than 15 are reporting that their community participation is up, and 15- to 24-year-olds report that their employment prospects or their jobs have increased from 10 per cent to 22 per cent. In fact, 51 per cent of their parents and carers are now able to get paid employment because of the NDIS.

I can also update the House on the financial green shoots of stabilisation. In the last year of the coalition, the scheme outlays grew by 23 per cent, and the number of people joining the scheme grew by 15 per cent. Now the scheme outlays in the last financial year have grown by 18 per cent and the number of people joining the scheme has stabilised at eight per cent. Next year, we're on track for 12 per cent and, the following year, eight per cent. I'm pleased to advise the House that, even from the May budget to now, the outlays have decreased by a billion dollars less than were expected in the May budget, which means that, over the next four years, the scheme will invest $210 billion in people but not $229 billion.

There are reasons why this is happening. Firstly, the states have agreed that the NDIS shouldn't be the only lifeboat in the ocean. We've also started the overdue process of registering providers, of whom 90 per cent in the scheme are unregistered. We've sorted out what you can and can't spend money on in the scheme. And we're sorting out a uniform assessment to make sure how you're eligible for the scheme is transparent. We've invested in the agency and the safeguards commission. And we've also put people with disability in top leadership positions in these organisations. Finally, we're chasing the crooks—519 investigations and 50 people before the courts, some of whom are now in jail, and over a billion dollars in payments investigated. More payments are being scrutinised than ever.

But I think the best news about the scheme is that Labor has led the reforms in this term but we couldn't have got them through without the bipartisan support of the coalition. What this tells people with disability is that at least two of the parties in this House are committed to actually seeing the scheme be there for the future. At the risk of embarrassing the member for Deakin, he did a great job wrangling the litigious and soon-to-be departed coalition senators to support us eventually. Under Labor, the NDIS is here to stay. I acknowledge the work of the parliament to this goal.