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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

We are here today discussing this issue because of Labor's broken promises. Let's be really clear. The Australian Labor Party went to the election promising the disability community that they would prevent any cut to the NDIS. They went to the election promising transparency, promising accountability, promising genuine co-design with disabled people, yet, when in government, they got together with the states and territories—behind closed doors—and signed an agreement to cap the NDIS. Caps have consequences.

The decision to artificially restrict the amount of money available to disabled people to meet our individualised support needs has real impacts on our lives. The government's complete and total ignorance and lack of care in relation to these impacts are causing people real harm, right now. I and my team hear from constituents across the country every single day, bringing to us the latest examples of plans that have been cut, slashed and almost burned to the ground. People's disability supports, their vital supports that keep them alive, are being absolutely trashed and taken away because this government is already trying—desperately—to cut the funding of the scheme, to cut the amount spent to meet the requirements of the cap signed up to behind closed doors.

I want to read to the Senate just a couple of examples of what we are hearing from people who are participants of the NDIS and are being directly impacted by this Labor government's cuts to the scheme. One person in WA reached out to us having experienced a 50 per cent cut to their plan. There was no consultation on the decision. The agency simply informed them that they had been directed to slash and burn. The consequence of that approach is that this person is having to, right now, re-prove a condition they have had for 30 years to be able to continue to receive the therapies they require in the community.

Another participant shared with our team that their plan has been cut by 71 per cent. It was, they said, 'a cookie-cutter rationale given with no warning'. They rightly described the devastation that this has brought into their life and have shared that now they clearly do not know how they are going to make it. The government has clearly indicated that it is willing to stop at nothing to implement its agenda of cutting the NDIS. The government has had opportunity after opportunity to come clean, to give to the Senate the information we demand: How many participants will be affected by these cuts? How many people will lose supports because of Labor's decision to do this deal? How many people will be harmed by what they have agreed to without us, deliberately blocking us out of the spaces where we could have contributed?

The agency recently heard from a young person whose only remaining parent had just passed away. A change-of-circumstances request was submitted to reflect the loss of this immediate support, and the response of the agency, the response of this government, was to cut their plan by 77 per cent. What was the reason? The death of a parent, who was their primary support, does not mean they require, in the view of the agency, additional funding. So not only did they not get the additional funding; the funding was cut by 77 per cent. This is a broken promise, a betrayal of disabled people, and no amendment to this bill done behind closed doors, without disabled people, will meet the needs of the community.