Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens have significant concerns about this legislation and do not support the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Streamlined Governance) Bill 2019. This bill proposes to change the process of appointments and terminations to the National Disability Insurance Agency board and the Independent Advisory Council from one that requires unanimous support from the states and territories to a process where the minister can override states and territories and appoint his or her own picks. Basically, it's allowing the minister to stack the board of the National Disability Insurance Agency and the Independent Advisory Council.

In the context of this concern held by the Greens, it's worth colleagues considering the rampant way that the government has, over the last two terms, stacked members, mates and failed LNP politicians into the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. This government has a shameful track record of stacking people onto boards and into cushy appointments. I accept that the Labor Party, when it was in government, did the same at the AAT. However, this LNP government has taken it to an absolutely new level.

Ministers in the current government simply cannot be trusted to make good appointments. They cannot be trusted to make appointments based on merit. But what they can be trusted to do is to look after their mates and to look after failed LNP politicians who have been appointed in recent years not just to the AAT but, for example, to administer territories and provinces of Australia. I want to be very clear: we are predicting, should this legislation pass, a stacking of the National Disability Insurance Agency, the NDIA, and the Independent Advisory Council.

As previous speakers have referenced, there was a Senate inquiry into this bill. The evidence given in the hearing and in the submissions overwhelmingly recommended against the passage of this legislation due to concerns about the ability of government to influence the independence of the NDIS.

This government has made an art form of not consulting with people with disabilities, and that's not only the case in the context of this current legislation but also the case in the way that the government has developed its draft legislation which is colloquially known as the religious freedom legislation. Religious freedom hasn't been broadly commented on in the media or in the public conversation, but the proposed legislation would have a significant impact on people with disability.

I want to go a little bit into the detail about that, because I think it's important that senators understand how the draft legislation that the government is currently considering would impact on people with disability. Basically, what that draft legislation provides for is that a statement of belief will be largely exempt from federal, state and territory discrimination law, including the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act and also the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act in my home state—might I add, the best anti-discrimination act in the country by a long way. As I said, a statement of belief will be largely exempt from antidiscrimination law, and the onus to prove that a statement of belief is not legitimate will fall largely on the person alleging that they have been discriminated against. So, for example, someone will be able to say, 'You're in a wheelchair because God's punishing you for sins in your past life,' and the onus of proof will fall on the person who is in the wheelchair and to whom that was said to prove that that statement of belief is not legitimate. It will make it harder for businesses, government agencies and non-government organisations to build workplaces that are inclusive for people with disabilities. Another example is that an employee of a business or a government agency could state that a colleague who's got mental health challenges has been possessed by the devil, a terribly discriminatory comment. But this government thinks that the onus should be on that person to show that that statement of belief was not reasonable.

The government's got that piece of legislation completely wrong. It's important that everyone in this place and those around Australia who are interested in these issues, including the rights of people with disability, understand that, in fact, that legislation will impinge grossly on the rights of people with disability. It's worth pointing out, in the Tasmanian context, that overwhelmingly the largest number of complaints made to the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission have been made by people with disabilities. In some years, the total number of complaints made under the Tasmanian act by people with disabilities exceeds the combined total of complaints made on the basis of race and sexuality. That's how significant that particular reform is for people with disabilities, and it shows that this government is actually not serious about ensuring that people with disabilities are not discriminated against and it's not serious about delivering what is in the best interests of people with disabilities in other legislation, including this bill that we're debating today.

During that Senate inquiry, as I said, the evidence and the submissions overwhelmingly recommended against the passage of this legislation. Labor and the Australian Greens both contributed dissenting reports to that inquiry. Nothing substantive has changed in this bill from the bill that was examined in the inquiry. The deeply concerning provisions in this legislation remain, and the sector representing people with disabilities continues to express its concern. As I said, the Greens are strongly opposed to the passage of this legislation. We implore the Labor Party to stick to their dissenting position following the Senate inquiry, and we really urge the crossbench to fall in behind the disability community and the peak bodies that represent people with disability and who are so avidly working to improve the NDIA.

In the broader context, this is a government obsessed with a budget surplus, and that is entirely driven by political considerations. In terms of public policy, that is a ludicrous position to take. Let's not forget that this is a government, a very conservative government, that believes a budget surplus must come before all else and that everything else will need to fall into line behind that ideologically driven desire for a budget surplus.

But what should be in the government's mind that's far more important than delivering a budget surplus is the lived experience of people with disabilities. That lived experience should be crucial for the board of the National Disability Insurance Agency so that it can function in the best interests of disabled people, and yet this is not the case. The board has been largely filled with former corporate CEOs from the banking and finance sector—people who are great at balancing budgets, but they're not necessarily that good at actually improving the lives of people with disabilities in our community. One example is Mr De Luca, who was the CEO of the NDIA until earlier this year, and previously the CEO of Bankwest. I can't see the relevance there to the lived experience of people with disabilities. If the minister is able to educate me on that, I'd be very happy to accept the lesson.

This government would never have brought in the NDIS. I acknowledge that it was introduced by the Australian Labor Party—in fact, it was one of the enduring reforms that were delivered during that politically contentious period of government. But it was a period of government that did deliver some good reform, and, in the view of the Australian Greens, the NDIS falls comfortably into that description. But this government—the current government—is already trying hard to break the NDIS.

Firstly, there are not enough staff. They've capped staff at 3,300, even though the Productivity Commission—usually much beloved of right-wing governments in this country—recommended the scheme needed at least 10,000 staff. They're not providing adequate training: planners are asking participants inappropriate questions about their disability. That's not out of a desire to hurt or harm, but simply because they don't understand the situation for people with disability because they have not had adequate training.

There are not enough services in regional areas and, in some cases, people can't access the services they've been funded to get because the services themselves actually don't exist yet. They have an IT system that's not fit for purpose. I'm advised that it was borrowed from Centrelink, and given the robo-debt scenario and the arcane and secret algorithms that have driven that terrible attempt at debt recovery, including in many cases people that never owed a debt in the first place, I personally wouldn't borrow any IT systems from Centrelink. I urge the government to reconsider that matter.

I mentioned earlier the ideological obsession with balancing the budget or delivering a surplus. This government is basically balancing their budget on the fact that there is an underspend to the tune of $4.6 billion already on the NDIS. This is money that participants haven't been able to spend, even though they're entitled to it, because the system is so badly broken.

In terms of the boards of the NDIS and associated agencies: what we need on these boards are actually people with the lived experience of having a disability. The whole NDIS framework is designed to be beneficial for people living with disability. It's not designed to be beneficial for the board members and it's not designed to be beneficial for the people working in it; it's designed to be beneficial and to improve the lives of people who live with a disability, and we're not going to get that to its maximum effect until we have people with lived experience of being disabled in positions of authority in those organisations. People who've got a lived experience of disability will understand the complex nature of disability and they will be committed to doing whatever is necessary to ensure that every single participant has a positive experience, enabling them to access the supports and services they need to live a good life. That's what this government should be focusing on.

The Australian Greens understand that the current governance arrangements have created issues in the delivery of services and the process of efficient and effective decision-making, and we acknowledge the motivation of this bill in seeking to remedy this. We support, in principle, the proposed consultation time frames for certain decisions and actions—28 days for an initial response, with the possibility of an extension of 90 days on request. We note, however, that the consultation process with states and territories on matters which require agreement proposed in the bill are already administrative arrangements for intergovernmental consultation.

In regard to the amendments around appointments to the NDIA board and the IAC, as I indicated earlier, we do not support the proposed amendments to seeking agreement on the appointments and terminations of NDIA board members and members of the IAC. We do not support the proposed amendment to section 127(d), which would, as I said earlier, give the Commonwealth minister the power to appoint board members without a majority agreement from states and territories. We do not support the proposed amendment to section 147(2) to (3A), which seeks to change the requirements of the minister when seeking agreement on the appointment of a board member to the IAC from unanimous agreement to consultation only. We do not support the proposed amendment to section 155(3) and 155(4), which seeks to change the requirements of the minister when seeking agreement on the termination of a member of the IAC from unanimous agreement to consultation only.

I think it's worth colleagues noting the submission of the Young People in Nursing Homes National Alliance. In my time in politics, particularly in Tasmania, I've visited a number of young people who are in supported accommodation, many of them in nursing homes, and I've heard directly from them about many of their concerns. The Young People in Nursing Homes National Alliance, in their submission to the inquiry, contended this:

… the NDIS Board, its advisory structures and its relationships with all participating governments must have a 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 services is critical to the eventual national success of the NDIS and must be retained in the selection process of these bodies.

The Greens absolutely agree with the sentiments in that submission.

We support the views of disability organisations and we very strongly assert that appointments to and terminations from the NDIA board and the IAC must remain in a majority decision model. Board members and IAC members play significant roles in shaping the strategic direction of the NDIS and the way that it functions and operates, and both of those matters are of crucial importance. Therefore, it's the Greens' position that these decisions must follow a majority decision-making model and, in fact, a majority decision-making model will enhance the prospects of a good strategic direction and also enhance the prospects of good operational decisions, which are the things that matter in the day-to-day lives of people with disability. Therefore, it is our position that these decisions should be made by 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 also had some concerns around the timing of this legislation in the context of current reviews looking into the NDIS Act and the National Disability Strategy. Time prevents me from going through all of those concerns, but I do want to place on the record that the majority committee report notes the concerns raised about the timing of this bill. Those concerns suggest that any legislative changes to the governance of the NDIS should be postponed until after the NDIS review being undertaken by Mr David Tune AO, PSM—that's the Tune review—and the review of the National Disability Strategy. The majority committee report also acknowledges there may be scope within the aforementioned reviews to consider issues with governance arrangements.

At the end of the day, when we're considering anything in regard to the NDIS and its governance arrangements, we ought to keep one thing front and centre in our minds—that is, how do we best support people with disability? How do we best support them to live the good life that they deserve to lead?