Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Hansard source

We know what we've heard before: 'My word is my bond' and 'This will be a government based on transparency.' Yet, it's all words. We know it's got nothing to do with actions. We see it here again.

Senator Steele-John, I join you again today. It's 'NDIS Monday'. We're back and we'll be back every single sitting week demanding that these documents be provided. It's not for our benefit for a little bit of entertainment. This is for the 600,000 participants and their families, who don't know what this growth cap means and don't know what the sustainability framework looks like. They don't know what dirty deals have been done with the states, and how their plans, their families, their lives and their ability to live their best possible life will be affected.

What we know is that a number of ministers in different states who look after areas like health and education don't know what they've been signed up to. They don't know what additional programs and steps they're going to be asked—most of them—to step back up into, because they vacated the field thanks to the way the Gillard government developed the NDIS funding model. What are the states going to be asked to deliver? Are they going to have to put more aids in classrooms? Are they going to have to run early intervention programs? Are they going to be expected to rollout substantial changes to community health so that people with children who have a developmental delay but not a permanent, lifelong disability can access early intervention, when required? When kids having a little bit of trouble with their speech or fine motor skills—but don't require NDIS because they aren't being diagnosed with permanent, lifelong disabilities—will they be able to access community health services or an OT or a speech therapist to get the help? Will they be able to access assistance and therapy options in less than two or three years, because know that's what the waiting list is for with most community health providers, where they even exist at all.

This is important not only for the sustainability of the scheme and for the participants in it, and particularly those with permanent and lifelong and significant disabilities, but for the families that need to rely on the scheme to know that when they are no longer able to look after their children, they know their children will be supported in the way they best can be. They need to understand this.

Again, this is a demand driven scheme. There are two ways to cap growth. You either cut the number of participants or you cut the value of the plans. That's it. There's no other way this can be achieved. So, which is it? A bit of column A, a bit of column B or a bit of both? We don't know, because those opposite are doing cosy, dirty deals with a sea full of red Labor premiers to keep it a secret. Thank God there's still one beacon of blue. I look forward to that beacon of blue being returned on Saturday. I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to understand what they've committed to and that their constituencies know what they've been committed to.

Senator Steele-John, it was quite a good analogy about the homework. I like that you said it was a teenager being petulant. Having three teenagers, I understand that petulance. But I think this is worse. This is like a foot-stomping toddler that won't hand the cupcake back when they've already had six and dinner's on the table. It's absurd the way they behave here and that we get this same spiel week after week. Senator Steele-John is right. Bring in a letter from a premier saying it's going to damage relations, but you can't. Stand up and have the integrity to say to the families on the scheme that are impacted by this, 'This is how we're planning to cap the growth to eight per cent.' We know that's not happening at the moment. The growth is exponentially increasing and continuing to increase.

We've also heard Minister Shorten say that this is a demand driven scheme, so that's just an arbitrary figure that they've come up with anyway. What's worse is that they're baking $69 billion worth of savings from this expected cap growth into the budget. But it's a demand driven scheme. Minister Shorten's saying if they can't reach it: 'It's all good. Don't worry about it; we'll just keep going.' But there's a $69 billion black hole that we could all fall into in the budget, because they've already factored in that they've capped the growth.

The growth is currently double what they've said they will cap it at in around 18 months. They're saying they are going to have this down to eight per cent annually in just over 18 months. There is absolutely no way that that will happen unless they are planning on making fundamental shifts to eligibility requirements for the scheme. What are they going to do to the early childhood pathway? Are they going to start kicking people off? How will they work this through? Are they going to start putting age restrictions on people that are in the scheme already? What are the things that they are planning to do that are going to restrict the access of people with a disability and their families from being able to achieve the best possible outcomes in life?

Question agreed to.