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

First of all, the Australian Greens would like to acknowledge and thank the disabled people and disabled-led organisations who have contributed to this important inquiry and also to thank the secretariat of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS who were, once again, superb in their support of the committee's work.

This inquiry into the cultural capability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme covered significant topics that impact the lives of disabled people. It is, I have to say, deeply concerning that in some instances the NDIA has failed to fulfill its promises under the NDIS Act or Australia's international commitments. The Australian Greens, in submitting additional comments in relation to this report are pretty concerned to say and pretty disappointed to observe that the Australian government has failed to make recommendations on key areas that were asked of the committee by disabled people.

One of those areas is in relation to guardianship and financial administration. It was deeply moving and at times quite infuriating to hear of the unjust experiences disabled people are subjected to while under guardianship or public trustee orders. It is clear that the NDIA could do better in its support of participants who are under guardianship and trustee orders. Of great concern to us is the number of NDIS participants who are subject to guardianship and financial administration orders. Let's be really clear. The evidence we heard as a committee is that we now face a reality in Australia where the majority of Australians who are subject to financial trusteeship and public guardianship orders are either NDIS participants or disabled people. Yet the way in which guardianship and public trustee orders are regulated and monitored in Australia differs from state to state, often vastly disempowering disabled people as a result of their processes and practices. There is an urgent need for a nationally consistent approach to guardianship and financial trusteeship orders in Australia, one which enables people who are subject to these orders, some 50,000 Australians, to be able to retain their right to speak about their experience, and one which supports the right and role of journalists to report on that experience. The gag laws must end. They have no place in a modern-day Australian society. And those elements of legislation that so deeply entrench substitutive decision-making, which robs people of their agency and often violates their rights—these rules, procedures, pieces of legislation—must be replaced by structures that enable proper supported decision-making.

The Australian Greens, in responding to this report of the joint standing committee, are making a commonsense recommendation, and that is that the issue of guardianship and public trustee orders and the arrangements subsequent to them be referred to the Standing Council of Attorneys-General to enable the Commonwealth to play a leadership role in the national standardisation of these processes. This is a commonsense recommendation which unfortunately was rejected by the government.

Another recommendation that the Australian Greens have made in our additional comments is that the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building program, commonly known as ILC, be returned to the NDIA to manage. ILC is the critical third plank of the NDIS, designed and conceived to be a funding program to enable the provision of Commonwealth funding to specific programs of advocacy, support, capacity and linkage building, which would enable disabled people to connect with each other, to build our capacity to advocate and to navigate the systems we use.

This program should always have remained within the NDIA's control to be coordinated with other NDIA policies and approaches. The previous government made the decision to remove ILC from within the management of the NDIA and to place it within DSS, with disastrous consequences. I do understand that who gets to sign the cheques of these programs and announce them in media releases is often a subject of internal political debate. Ministers do like to be able to announce things. But this should not come at the expense of disabled people and the advocacy and information programs we need. ILC needs to go back within the NDIS, and I'm proud to make that recommendation in the committee, alongside a recommendation that calls on the government to make clear that all automated algorithmic practices, so far as they exist within the NDIS, be ceased. We cannot see—we must not see—a repeat of robodebt within our NDIS. We must do these things as we ensure that there are properly coordinated programs and policy supports in place for women, non-binary people and the LGBTQIA+ community, and programs and policies that ensure the creation of an NDIS that works for First Nations people.

Finally, I want to tackle the issue that we got to right at the end of the inquiry process, that being the need for a full and comprehensive sex and relationships and sexual expression policy within the NDIA. Let's be really clear; let's say something that often goes unsaid in this place: sex and sexuality—sexual expression—is a good thing, and it is a right to be celebrated, a right of all human beings. Whether you are a person who is proudly a member of the asexual community, whether you are a queer disabled person—wherever you occupy on the spectrum of sexual expression—the reality that as a human being sexual expression is a right must not be denied. As a legislative space invested with real power when it comes to shaping the supports and services and information accessible to the community, particularly to disabled people, we cannot let our community down by failing to engage in conversations which sometimes make some people in this place feel a bit weird. There is nothing odd about the sexuality of disabled people. There is nothing inherently taboo. They should be nothing inherently taboo about sex or sexuality ever.

The reality is that disabled people are sexual beings. When it comes to the NDIS and the reasonable and necessary supports that may be considered to be provided to an NDIS participant, sex based supports should be the types of supports that are able to be applied for, in addition to educative services, in addition to supports. There shouldn't be limitations placed on disabled people's sexuality or sexual expression simply because ministers think that it might be too tough to talk about. That is not okay.

What we need to do is have a fully formed and codesigned sexual expression policy within the NDIA so that planners making decisions have the information they need to engage with participants at different stages of their lives, depending on their goals, empowering and enabling them to have conversations and to navigate what supports would be necessary and reasonable in which situations. That information doesn't currently exist, leaving people to make judgements on a case-by-case basis. This is inappropriate. (Time expired)