Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator O'Sullivan for his question on this really important issue. I can assure this chamber that the Morrison government is absolutely committed to finalising the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and making sure that we set it up for an absolutely successful future from now on.

I am really pleased to be able to advise the chamber that nearly 339,000 Australians who live with disability are now benefiting from a plan with the National Disability Insurance Scheme. But, most importantly, of that number nearly 135,000 of those people are actually receiving disability supports for the first time. These are people who have never received supports before, and that's nearly 40 per cent of the number of the people who are on the scheme.

Also of particular importance is that the scheme continues to increase the number of children that it's supporting. Thirty five per cent of new participants onto the NDIS in the last quarter of 2019 were in the age group of zero to six years of age. That means that more than 50,000 young Australians aged between birth and six years old are now in the NDIS. Earlier this month Minister Robert released the new data that showed the backlog of accessing early childhood interventions had been significantly slashed over the last six months. On 31 December last year for children aged zero to six to meet NDIS access requirements, on average, was down to less than three days. That's down from 43 days earlier in the year. For children currently awaiting a plan it's now 44 days, down from 104. Children meeting NDIS access to receiving an NDIS approved plan is now 54 days instead of 129. So the backlog of children— (Time expired)