Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I don't have a strong record of supporting bills from the Albanese Labor government, but in this case I'm pleased to say that I will. The government has finally taken a big step towards securing the future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. That is exactly what's at stake here. We must rein in the cost of the scheme if it's going to survive and help to provide for the needs of Australians living with a disability. The Australian people believe in making reasonable and necessary disability support availability for people who need it. If we don't make it sustainable, if we don't stop the rorting, if we don't stop it paying for things that aren't direct disability care, the goodwill towards the scheme will disappear. One Nation supports a more sustainable NDIS, and that's why we'll support this bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024.

The NDIS is not remotely sustainable at the moment. It already costs taxpayers $45 billion a year, and, without substantial reform, this figure will double to $90 billion by the year 2030. NDIS spending has gotten out of control. That's what usually happens with every big government scheme flush with taxpayers' money: some people always find ways to take advantage of them and always disadvantage the people who really need them. There are many people on the NDIS who really need it, but it's also paying for many things that are completely unrelated to their disability care. I'm confident that most Australians do not support the NDIS paying for things like donations to political parties; rent; court fines; alcohol; cigarettes and vapes; jewellery; fuel; computer game consoles; takeaway food; home deposits and standard renovations; gambling; prostitutes; saunas; standard cars and motorbikes; sport, concert and movie tickets; luxury cruises and holiday packages; makeup and cosmetics; pet funerals; school and university fees; music lessons; sex toys; weddings and honeymoons; standard sports equipment; standard appliances; standard furniture; insurance; legal fees; child support; tarot card readings and clairvoyance; business costs; trampolines; IVF treatments; cuddle therapy; hypnotherapy; crystal therapy; aromatherapy; roleplay game therapy; nail salons; and hair appointments. These are exactly what the Greens want to keep and support. Can you believe it? They want you, the taxpayer, to be able to pay for this to give people with disability a better life. Forget about the people out there who are doing it tough and living on the streets. There's one rule for some and one rule for others.

None of these are related to genuine disability care, but the NDIS is paying for all of these things and a lot more. This is not the reasonable and necessary assistance Australians were told the NDIS was created for. There's absolutely nothing wrong with disabled people going to concerts, getting takeaway food delivered or even having crystal therapy, but Australian taxpayers should not be funding it through the NDIS. It will not be enough to simply write to providers and participants about these changes. They will need to be enforced with substantial penalties. I hope the Labor Party, this government, will actually follow that one up.

I'm pleased to say that this bill will make nearly all of these things ineligible for NDIS money. I say 'nearly all'. One Nation will be moving an amendment to add sex workers to the list of services no longer eligible for NDIS money. If a disabled adult wants to pay a sex worker where it's legal, that's their business, but Australian taxpayers should not be funding it through the NDIS. If we allow the NDIS to keep paying for these things, there soon won't be enough money to pay for the critical things disabled Australians really need. That's what we must prioritise.

When dealing with the NDIS, I often think back to the group of mothers who visited parliament to help secure support for its establishment. These were mothers with kids living with severe disabilities requiring constant around-the-clock care. I will never forget their desperate concern for the future of their children when they could no longer provide that care. They weren't asking for handouts. They weren't asking for luxury holiday packages, cuddle therapy or tarot card readings; they asked only that their country provide for their children's needs when they no longer could. For that, we need a sustainable NDIS.

Another important step we must take is to bring NDIS pay rates for various workers back into line with other health sectors. Aged care, for example, is desperate for workers. For relatively unqualified support workers, jobs in aged care are being advertised at around $30 an hour. Under the NDIS, the going rate is $67 an hour. It can go up to $218 an hour on weekends in rural and remote areas. This is for basic jobs like driving patients to appointments or even folding laundry or mowing a lawn. There are people who actually finance their new cars under this system. In June this year, the Australian newspaper said, 'An analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed one-third of all new jobs created in Australia over the past year were for the NDIS.' It's no wonder, with unsustainable pay rates like that.

These rates not only contribute heavily to NDIS spending going up around 20 per cent every year but they also contribute to a shortage of workers in other sectors—not just critical health sectors but virtually every sector in the economy. A registered nurse can make about $50 an hour in public health but more than $190 an hour under the NDIS. Psychologists providing counselling to an NDIS patient receive a minimum rate of $214 an hour but only $153 an hour to counsel a veteran. We know that our veterans are having a lot of trouble accessing the mental health services and support that they need and richly deserve. One of the reasons is that those practitioners are prioritising NDIS patients due to the higher rate of pay. These unsustainable rates need to be brought into parity with other sectors or those sectors will run out of the workers they need. The government has acknowledged that this is a problem so I have to ask why it hasn't been addressed in this bill. It cannot come soon enough if we are to have a sustainable NDIS as well as sustainable workforces in other sectors.

Another flaw in the NDIS that must be addressed is the lack of means testing. Like pensions and other taxpayer supports, participation in the scheme should be means tested. It makes no sense for multimillionaires to be able to access NDIS participation, but they can because the scheme isn't means tested. I understand that neither of the major parties support means testing in the NDIS. Peter Dutton told me they don't support it because public health isn't means tested either and is available to everyone. If the coalition thinks the NDIS should also be available to everyone, why is eligibility for the NDIS denied to people over the age of 67? One Nation will be moving an amendment to introduce means-tested supports to take more pressure off the NDIS. Some participants' plans are getting out of hand, loaded with things they don't need or services provided at astronomical rates. In 2020 it was revealed that about 450 participants had NDIS plans costing more than a million dollars. Another 5,100 participants were on plans costing between $500,000 and $1 million. Who knows how many are on these expensive plans now? The government won't tell us.

Another major issue that we must deal with is NDIS fraud. We must recall the warning from Michael Fallon in 2022 when he was chief of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. He said that about 20 per cent of NDIS funding was being abused by organised crime groups. Mr Fallon is now acting head of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, and back in May he said he may have underestimated the involvement of organised crime. These criminals have made billions of dollars from the NDIS. I acknowledge the $160 million in this year's budget to improve the capabilities of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission so it can crack down on this abuse of taxpayers' money. There is no place for organised crime in the NDIS. Once again, this is another rushed policy that criminals have taken advantage of, and taxpayers are being ripped off.

One other major change needs to be implemented, and I hope to see it in the next tranche of reforms. Eligibility for participation in the scheme needs to be tightened to supporting those whose disability has a significant impact on their life. When NDIS was created, it was supposed to provide support for people with a disability, not mild autism or attention deficit disorder. I acknowledge that, in severe cases of autism, NDIS support may be necessary. We even hear about an autism diagnosis being used to access NDIS funding packages and that this could even be behind rising rates of autism in Australia. However, it's the real impact of autism on an individual, not just a diagnosis of autism, that should determine the support they receive.

In principle, One Nation supports the new scheme jointly funded by the Commonwealth and the states to support children with mild autism or development issues through schools and childcare centres. They shouldn't be on the NDIS. It remains our policy to establish specialist schools with qualified staff to provide parents with the opportunity to choose the care, support and education their children need.

I look forward to these first reforms being implemented as soon as possible. I say, again, they represent a substantial step on the path to a sustainable NDIS. It makes my blood boil to see the Greens with their grandstanding here, ripping over $14 billion from taxpayers in their true form of supporting issues that are unsustainable in the long run. Their actions are only, as I said, grandstanding, purely for the vote. That's what they're about. If they ever get control of the purse strings of this country, we will be a Third World country in no time, because, 'Everyone should receive this, get this, give that,' and who's going to pay for it all? If you want this NDIS to be sustainable, it has to be paid for, and you have to do it on the basis that it's true and fair to all Australians, not just hand over taxpayers' hard-earned dollars. One Nation will be supporting this bill, and I urge all senators to get on board so that we can make sure this scheme survives and supports Australians with a disability well into the future.