Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Streamlined Governance) Bill 2019. I'd like to state this up-front, to acknowledge and thank my colleague Senator Jordon Steele-John for how passionate and strong an advocate he has been for disability in this country. I'm very proud to be in the same party room as Senator Steele-John.

I'll start by being really clear that the Greens don't support this bill. This bill changes the process of appointments and terminations to the National Disability Insurance Agency, the NDIA, board and the NDIS Independent Advisory Council, the NDIS IAC, from one that requires unanimous support from the states and territories to a process where the minister can override the states and appoint his or her own picks—in other words, thereby allowing the minister to stack the board and the IAC. This has been the subject of an ongoing Senate inquiry. The evidence given in hearings and in submissions has overwhelmingly recommended against the passage of this bill, due primarily to the concerns about the ability of the government to influence the independence of the NDIS and how the NDIS operates.

At this point, I would also like to acknowledge that the committee came to Tasmania recently and there were a number of hearings—the joint parliamentary committee came to Tasmania recently and looked at disability services. The issue was raised about a Tasmania man, Tim Rubenach, and it's a heartbreaking story. I know Tim's family in Tasmania, and Tim's sister, Hannah, was deputy mayor of Break O'Day Council in north-eastern Tasmania. Tim died a tragic death in May 2018, ultimately from pneumonia, but his family described the process that they went through with the NDIS as a form of abuse.

Tim contracted bacterial meningitis when he was a baby and he suffered a whole life of severe epilepsy. As a point of interest, his sister, Hannah, campaigned for many years for the use of medicinal cannabis for her brother. In fact, she even grew the cannabis herself and made the oil herself. She wrote to the police, letting them know what she was doing and where the cannabis was. I'm just making very clear that she was a very public campaigner because she saw the importance of medicinal cannabis and its application to her brother Tim, and how it helped with his epilepsy. The police didn't arrest her. In fact, they said: 'For now, you're fine. We understand the application.' I actually looked at both of those letters. I just think it's an important side thing about Hannah, who campaigned for so many years to try to help her brother.

Ultimately, Tim's mother, Beverly Rubenach, was very clear that the delivery of the bed that was approved by the NDIS for her son was delayed for many months. In the end, it didn't arrive in time. Indeed, the bed was delivered on the Friday but they buried their son on the Saturday. They had to take him to Launceston General Hospital where a special bed was made for their son. It was highly traumatic for the whole family. Tim died ultimately of bleeding stomach ulcers, and the tilting bed that he needed for many months just wasn't delivered. A whole series of mistakes and errors were made, and, of course, apologies.

It was a really good case study of how the NDIS wasn't working for those who needed it, and there are a whole range of processes that are being looked at as to why these failings occurred, but, in the end, what that family had to endure was torture. It was simply not good enough. They have recently spoken, only a couple of weeks ago, about the state of disability services in Australia. Indeed, they called for a specific inquiry, nearly two years ago, into Tim's death and how the NDIS had failed them. At least they've been able to have their say now publicly in the inquiry, and I'm proud to also be putting this on Hansard today. But many of the issues that have been raised in relation to this legislation go to the failings in the NDIS, and that is actually listening to the people on the ground and what they need and those disabled people who need the services.

The government hasn't consulted with any disabled people or the representative peak organisations in writing this bill. They have heard from the disability community and their peak organisations throughout the inquiry, and there was overwhelming opposition to the passing of this legislation. Both Labor, as has just been expressed, and the Greens have contributed dissenting reports to this inquiry. Nothing substantive has changed about this bill following that inquiry and all the evidence that was heard. The deeply concerning provisions remain, and the sector continue to express their concern.

As Senator Steele-John has so eloquently put in his speech, as have a number of my colleagues: we are strongly opposed to the passage of this bill and we implore the opposition to stick to their dissenting position. Having listened to their contributions this morning, I imagine that they will do so. We urge the other members of the crossbench to support the wishes of the disability community, who are so avidly working to approve the NDIA.

What is it? Is it privatisation? Is it continued outsourcing and privatisation? Is it penny pinching? Where's the obsession with wanting to run a budget surplus coming from, and how is that impacting what we do in this place? This is giving the government the ability to stack the board of the NDIA with their corporate mates. There have been a number of appointments that have been raised in regard to this. This is the key point: the NDIA board and the Independent Advisory Council should be just that, independent, totally independent from the government to allow them to act in the best interests of disabled people who are participating in the NDIS.

Lived experience of disability should be crucial for the board of the National Disability Insurance Agency to function in the best interests of disabled people, yet the evidence shows throughout the inquiry this is not the case. The board has been largely filled with former corporate CEOs from the banking and financial sector. It may be perfectly valid that these people are good at managing financial agencies—they're good at balancing budgets—but that doesn't mean they are the right qualified individuals for improving the lives of disabled people in our community. An example, Robert De Luca, who was CEO of the NDIA until earlier this year, was previously the CEO of Bankwest. He may have been very good at his job at Bankwest, but there's not much relevance to disability.

A couple of broader critical points have come out of the inquiry into the NDIS. There are not enough staff. Staff have been capped at 3,300, even though the Productivity Commission recommended the scheme needed at least 10,000 staff. The government could come out and say that the scheme is underspending and, therefore, they need to take away $4 billion plus to put somewhere else, but clearly the indications are that this scheme needs to be much better staffed than it already is. We've seen inadequate training. Planners are asking participants inappropriate questions, for example, about their disability, because they don't understand. There are not enough services in our regional areas, as can be taken from the very sad story of Tim Rubenach. People can't access the services they have been funded to get, because they don't exist yet.

There is the inability to utilise services properly. There is a massive bottleneck of services, meaning some participants can't utilise their plans properly, which leads to extra money in their plans. This usually leads to a review where participants' plans are cut because they didn't spend it. The IT system is not fit for purpose. This system was borrowed from Centrelink and is so confusing that service providers have trouble with it, let alone disabled people who are trying to use the system to access their funding. This government is literally looking to balance its overall budget on the fact that there is an underspend to the tune of $4.6 billion already in the NDIS. This is money that participants haven't been able to spend, because the system is fundamentally broken. We want more disabled people on the board of the NDIS—people with lived experience who understand the complex nature of disability and who are committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure that every single participant has a positive experience, enabling them to access all the supports and services they need to live a good life. I don't think anyone in this chamber would disagree with that proposition.

I said a few months ago that I thought the biggest piece of legislation that we were going to pass in this parliament was tax cuts to Australians. This government have unashamedly rolled that out as their premier piece of legislation, the policy they took to the election. But let's not forget that over the forward estimates we have to come up with $180 billion to fund tax cuts. Primarily, and you can't dispute this fact, that will be for the benefit of wealthy Australians. The Greens didn't vote for these tax cuts, because we knew this would hamstring future governments. We knew that the thumbscrews were going to be tightened at some stage. Some of us who've been in this chamber for a few years remember the zombie budget cuts of 2013-14, which didn't end well for the Liberal-National government. We know what strategy is at play here: promise tax cuts to your mates and to your base and then find the money and move towards small government, which is very much the philosophy of the LNP. Where are we going to find $180 billion over the forward estimates? Well, here's $4.6 billion we can take away from the disability sector!

There would potentially be an argument in tough economic times if these tax cuts had actually helped Australians and had actually helped the economy, but all the evidence so far is that they haven't. If anything, they may have gone to paying off some people's mortgages and reducing mortgage stress, but there has been no evidence at all that it has flowed through to higher wages. There has been no evidence that it has flowed through to consumer spending. It has potentially increased investment in the housing market, but that is unproductive investment when we desperately need businesses to increase their investment in this nation going forward. The Greens, over this parliament and the next, are going to continually remind whoever is in government that we've had to come up with $180 billion to fund these tax cuts, which I think just about every economist in the country disagreed with.

We understand that the current governance arrangements have created issues in the process of efficient and effective decision-making and acknowledge that the motivation of this bill is to remedy this. We support in principle the proposed consultation time lines for certain decisions and actions: 28 days for an initial response, with the possibility of an extension of 90 days upon request. We do note however that the consultation processes for states and territories on matters which require agreement proposed in the bill are already administrative arrangements for intergovernmental consultation. The COAG Reform Council agreed to a 28-day consultation period in November 2017, which would see the Commonwealth seek agreement from the states and territories. Once this period has elapsed, failure to respond would be taken as agreement. Further, the intergovernmental agreements between the Commonwealth, states and territories, with the exception of Western Australia, now capture this process.

We have a number of other, broader issues with this bill. We have issues with the appointments to the NDIA board and the IAC, issues with 'host jurisdictions' and, of course, issues with the timing of this bill. The Greens don't support the proposed amendments for seeking an agreement on the appointments and determinations of NDIA board members and members of the IAC. We don't support the proposed amendment of section 127(4D), granting the Commonwealth minister the power to appoint board members without a majority agreement from the states and territories. We don't support the proposed amendment of section 147(2), which seeks to further change the requirements of the minister when seeking agreement on the appointment of a member to the IAC from 'unanimous agreement' to 'consultation' only. We don't support the proposed amendment of section 155(3), which seeks to change the requirements of the minister when seeking agreement on the termination of a member from the IAC from 'unanimous agreement' to 'consultation' only.

Young People in Nursing Homes National Alliance contended in their submission to the inquiry:

The NDIS board, its advisory structures and its relationships with all participating governments must have direct line of sight to the variety of communities and cohorts the NDIS must interact with. The States and Territories knowledge of their communities and their services is critical to the eventual national success of the NDIS and must be retained in the selection process for these bodies.

The Greens support the views of disability organisations and assert that appointments and terminations to the NDIA board and the IAC must remain in a majority-decision model. Board members and IAC members play a significant role in shaping the strategic direction of the NDIS and its functioning. Therefore, it is our position that these decisions follow a majority decision-making model in recognition of the fact that unanimous decisions are very difficult to achieve and can compromise the efficiency and effectiveness of the NDIS governance system.

We do not support the replacement of the term 'states and territories' with 'host jurisdictions'. All Australian states and territories are party to the intergovernmental agreement with the Commonwealth on the scheme. Changing this label serves only to confuse and convolute understanding. The Australian Federation of Disability Organisations highlighted this in its submission. This proposed change in language erodes the equal-partnership principle which acknowledges the integral role that both play in market stewardship, financial contribution and client-facing aspects, which fundamentally underpin the success of the NDIS.

Lastly, in relation to issues with the timing of the bill, we are concerned about the timing in the context of current reviews looking at the NDIS Act and the National Disability Strategy. The majority committee report notes the concerns raised about the timing of this bill, which suggest that any legislative changes to the governance of the NDIS be postponed until the outcomes of the NDIS Act review being undertaken by David Tune—the Tune review—and the review of the National Disability Strategy are known. The majority committee report also acknowledges that there may be scope within the aforementioned reviews to consider issues with governance arrangements for the NDIS as raised in the inquiry but recommends that the bill proceed, notwithstanding the review. We do not agree with the recommendation of the majority committee report to proceed with this bill. The Australian Greens acknowledge concerns raised in evidence around the timing of this bill and recommend that, in a broader policy review context, any such changes to governance of the NDIS be considered in the context of any changes which emerge from these reviews.

In summary, we do not support the passage of this bill. We are concerned that the amendments collectively diminish the role of the states and territories and grant the minister effective unilateral power in relation to hiring and firing members of the board and the IAC and making decisions about membership of the board and the IAC.

I went to the very first meetings on the NDIS in Tasmania. I went to three of them in various parts of the state and met with stakeholders while the NDIS was being planned and rolled out in trial form in Tasmania under the Labor government back in 2012-2013. It's very sad to see that, seven years later, these concerns linger and that many of these issues haven't been ironed out. Indeed, the changes that we can see here are just going to add more complexity and more difficulty to achieving the original aims.

This is a significant reform, and Labor should rightly be proud of what they brought in when in government. I understand the amount of work Senate committees did on this before my time. The evidence they collected around the country over many years in many places through a very long, detailed and thorough process led to a very significant reform in this country. We have an opportunity to continue to improve that, not to take money out of it, not to stack the board with people who don't have experience in this area, not to continue down this road of outsourcing and privatisation.

This is a very strong role for government. This is a very significant piece of legislation and a very significant reform, and the Greens will continue to do what we have done under the leadership of Jordon Steele-John and advocate for the disability sector.