Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Before commenting on the nature of the amendment put forward by the government, I have a series of questions to put to the minister about the bill in its generality. In doing that, I think it may benefit the chamber to contextualise my line of inquiry generally.

As the minister would be aware, the NDIS is rightly described, if you like, as a significant social services reform. It is often likened to the most significant reform to our social services system since Medicare. One of the critical elements of the reform is a shift in the responsibility in relation to disability policy from what was previously described, in the 2010 Productivity Commission report, as a kind of state based postcode lottery to a policy which is intended to be marked by a broad national system which enables a continuity of services and supports, regardless of where an individual lives in Australia.

It has not been a seamless transition between state and federal responsibility in this space, and one of the particular challenges has been the sharing of data between state and federal governments. Another challenge has been cultural, which is to say that states finding themselves under the NDIS framework have taken different responses in terms of what role they subsequently play in the funding of disability supports, particularly around disability advocacy services, resulting in many instances in gaps between funding cycles but also in what has been termed legislative or procedural or administrative gaps, through which certain disabled individuals, particularly those journeying with psychosocial disability, have fallen. It's resulted in a lot of distress and often a lot of harm to individuals, and it has been characterised by both state and federal government confusion and at times—particularly in Victoria—by a multilayered confusion, culturally, in relation to local government, where some services are provided through different local government frameworks.

In some areas, progress has been made after continued and very diligent advocacy on behalf of disabled people, their families, their supporters and their funded organisations, which sometimes perform their roles in a context where they are also losing funding. We've seen some successes around the alignment of the health system in different state and territory jurisdictions with what the NDIS will provide so that, for instance, disabled people entering the health system don't end up in the middle of a bureaucratic stand-off between state, territory and federal governments, who haven't in the past been able to make up their mind as to who should most rightly and fittingly cover individual participants at different times.

I'm aware that these are issues that have been raised with the minister and with previous social services ministers, and they have no doubt made their way into the briefing pack that the minister was handed when he took up his position. What strikes me—and what has struck many other advocacy organisations that I've worked with on this issue—is that, when it comes to the question of public service function and Commonwealth, state or local government responsibility as defined by various pieces of state and territory legislation, process is important but culture is often king. To set culture there is a need for a clear view, on behalf of the Commonwealth, as to the end point we are seeking to achieve. Before you can change the culture of an organisation you've got to understand where you are and where you want to be, and I must say that it isn't a totally one-sided argument.

I think since the inception of the NDIS there's been confusion on behalf of state and territory and federal government levels as to who was now going to take leadership in a certain areas. And those questions—some of them created by unfortunate vagaries within the relevant NDIS implementing legislation—have not been helped by a desire, on behalf of those levels of government, to make sure that they don't end up footing the bill. It speaks to, I think, the unfortunate reality that, when we think about disability in Australia, when we think about the potential roles that we all collectively play in removing the barriers that disabled people face, we often bring it back to questions of dollars and cents and a desperate urge, on behalf of all levels of government, not to be left with what they see as an expensive impost on themselves.

There are examples where this has been overcome at the state level. I think in some ways states like Victoria have done a better job than others in managing that cultural shift and have recognised pretty early on that, although the Commonwealth now takes responsibility for certain aspects of disability funding for disability support services, there is still a vital role to play at their level of government in making sure that they do what they can to break those barriers down.

On the other side of that ledger, we have seen New South Wales has a lot of challenges. I have worked a lot with Senator Brown on the question of disability advocacy funding in New South Wales, which has been a disaster under the Liberal government, with different ministers wishing to push it all off onto the Commonwealth without understanding the types of advocacy that the states and territories and federal government are now obliged and, in fact, eligible to fund.

In Tasmania we've also seen a similar kind of 'get out as quick as we can' mentality. 'It's the Commonwealth's job now, folks. We can finally get these very expensive disabled people off our ledger.' Of course, that's completely the wrong way to think about it, because, when we make modifications to our society in relation to making it more accessible for disabled people, making it more inclusive to disabled people, we, of course, increase accessibility and inclusion for all of our society. And that's clear when we talk about funding disability advocacy, which often a disabled person might be eligible for at the same time as they are also a person of colour or somebody journeying with issues of poverty. And so supporting advocacy for a disabled person is also helping somebody who's financially struggling make it through their tough time that they're in.

So I would like to ask the minister to outline for me how the minister and the relevant Minister Robert view this question of responsibility. How does the government go about articulating the role that is played by local, state and federal governments in relation to the funding of disability services and supports, as covered by the NDIS, and advocacy funding and supports that are also, in other ways, funded by the NDIS?

Just to be really clear, I'm asking: what kind of cultural leadership role does the Commonwealth play in talking about the issues of co-responsibility, or does the government take a view that the Commonwealth should be solely responsible for these areas? I would be very grateful if the minister could outline the government's position on this first question.