Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have to take a moment! I'm speaking to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024, which is quite a misnomer. I'm a little bit confused by Senator Polley's speech which talked about not politicising, when the entirety of the speech was a politicisation of what we are talking about. Discussions about former governments are irrelevant when the current government is presenting a bill on which they chose not to adequately consult. I think we need to stop and reflect on that.

As a member of the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, I have spent the past few months scrutinising this legislation. We have hardly got through the tip of the iceberg in terms of what this bill will do to NDIS participants. It is, after all, as Senator Polley said, the participants of the NDIS that we need to keep in mind throughout this debate. But, while we keep them in mind, we don't engage with them and we don't let them participate in discussions around the bill; we just keep them in mind and think about them. That's extraordinary! This should be about the people who need the services. That's what this should be about. I'm sure that many of us in this chamber have had our inboxes filled with messages from participants and their families asking us not to support this flawed piece of legislation. What it is doing is focusing on making it harder for participants rather than looking at those that are exploiting the system. Why? Why is that what we're doing?

We all want a sustainable scheme. It's a universally held belief that the scheme needs to be arranged so that the right supports reach the right people. We need a sustainable scheme that brings the lived experience of the participants with them, and that is what this government is not allowing to happen. This is not a scare campaign. It's not knocking the government of the day, contrary to what Senator Polley said. This is what is actually happening. I sat on the committee. I have seen what has happened. This is the reality of how this government is attempting to push through this legislation. I am bitterly disappointed that this government chose to reject the coalition's and the Greens' calls to extend the committee's inquiry into this bill. Were we being unreasonable? Did we want a lot of extra time? We wanted an extra four to six weeks to get information from key stakeholders and participants so that we could ensure that this legislation and the changes would properly reflect their needs. And the answer was a resounding no. But we could keep them in our mind, as Senator Polley said; we just won't give them a voice. As long as we keep them in our mind, that's fine. That's excellent.

The other thing we need to remember is that they did not allow us an extra four to six weeks, despite new amendments to the bill being dropped on the first day of hearings and inquiry. So not only did we not have the full picture of what we were inquiring into but participants didn't know what the rules were until the day the inquiry began and they'd already made submissions. That's a classic case of changing the rules while you're playing the game. How is that transparent? How is that fair? How is that about getting the NDIS back on track and ensuring that it meets the needs of participants? The answer is that it doesn't. Let's not pretend that it does. It's disrespectful to all of us who have spent so much time working on this to ensure that there is a proper outcome. It's much like the order for the production of documents for the sustainability framework, which Senator Steele-John has been after. The government does not want us seeing the detail. They do not want us to scrutinise their work. They want to ram through legislation without the scrutiny of this chamber. That is unacceptable.

The NDIS is not a scheme that can be altered in the dark of the night or behind closed doors, no matter how hard they try, and consultation should not be shrouded by NDAs. How extraordinary! 'Come and talk to us about this bill, but we want you to sign this document that will have legal ramifications for you if you speak about it to anybody.' How is that consultation? How is that transparency? We need to actually have a think about the fact that we have a government that has asked key stakeholders in the disability sector to sign non-disclosure agreements in conversations about changes to legislation. That's not governing; that's wielding a big stick.

The NDIS is a significant part of our system for caring for people with disability. It needs to be dealt with transparently. That is what participants want. So what are participants asking for? They're asking for more consultation, more time and more consideration of detail to understand how these changes will impact them. We're not scaremongering. We're not knocking the government of the day. We're not trying to be difficult. We would like to understand the legislation and how it will impact participants. We are trying to do our job—absolutely. I can't understand why the government does not want us to do our job. We have a shared desire to make this scheme the best it possibly can be. Why not work with us to do that?

I recently received a letter from the sister of a participant who articulated the concerns of participants and their families and the impact these changes will have. I'm going to share that with you. The letter is headlined, 'Please do not pass the NDIS Amendment Bill'. It reads:

My sister is 32 and has a great life. She rides horses competitively, works doing accessibility audits and training, and has her own small business. She cried from happiness at the Taylor Swift concert. She loves living independently with support in her own house.

However, her current life and prospects for a normal and happy future are at risk of disappearing before our eyes, due to the proposed changes in the NDIS Amendment Bill and the delegated legislation that will be made under it.

My sister has a severe physical disability and is in a wheelchair, her speech is impaired, and she's almost blind, as she has a rare metabolic disorder that is degenerative. She has 24/7 support, with one support worker with her at all times. Her support workers are all from the local community, and mostly people she knows organically—almost none of them have ever worked in disability before working with her.

The Government has said that under the Bill, housing and living supports for participants with 24/7 care will be required to be shared supports, with one support worker to three participants. This would be devastating for—

my sister—

because:

My sister will be living in a mini-institution, a life chosen for her and controlled by others. But she is a real person, and not that different from you. You, your partner, your child, or your sister may one day find themselves in a situation where they need full-time support. Is this a life that you would want for them?

The Bill has been pushed through quickly and quietly, with limited consultation and clarity on how it will impact people with disabilities. What is clear, though, is that the Minister will have huge powers to make rules down the road, without proper scrutiny or protections in place, for life-altering decisions like what needs assessment tools are used, and what funding can be spent on. These rules can be made by the Minister without proper co-design, transparency, or protections in place. These types of powers are typically found in things like customs regulations—not rules that impact the minute details of the everyday lives of people with disabilities.

Giving the Minister these unbridled powers mean living with the fear that everything can be taken away, a constant pit in your stomach. Having a sister with a disability is not a burden, but living in limbo, waiting for the next rule to be made that upends her life is.

We must legislate co-design, transparency, and constraints on the Minister's power, which this Bill does not. The Bill cannot be passed.

We know that this Bill is being introduced to reduce costs, and I'm all about making the NDIS sustainable. However, we also know that there's a huge price gouging for services and fraud committed by suppliers to the NDIS. Instead of focusing on these areas, the Bill looks to recoup money by taking it from the participants—it's easy to take from the most vulnerable Australians. However, by doing so, we're attacking the fundamental principles of choice and control that the NDIS was meant to enshrine. We can do better than this.

To pass this Bill is to put into law that people with disabilities are second-class citizens. They don't deserve the same life, rights, or decency we would want for any other Australians.

According to the letter, the NDIS participant's life:

… is now a testament to the success and promise of the NDIS, and it should be a model for others, not a casualty of cost-cutting measures. It's not too late to get the NDIS back on track with what it was set out to do—to provide people with disabilities choice and control over their lives.

That's the letter from the sister of an NDIS participant. If that does not move us to consider why we are trying to ram something through, I don't know what will.

This story is shared with the other 660,000 Australians who are on this scheme, many of whom are concerned about what the changes will mean for them. It is entirely unacceptable for a government to treat some of our most vulnerable in this way. And doing so, in the face of multipartisan support for reform, just shows how immature and careless this bill is. I say it again: the name of the bill is actually a misnomer.

Senator Polley said three things were key Labor values: empathy, respect and compassion. How does this bill in any way demonstrate empathy, respect or compassion for people living with disability? It doesn't. Labor was elected to government on the back of their promises of transparency and empathy. Where are those things today?