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

It's important that we have got that clarity on the record going forward. Obviously, if you want to be a member of a union, that's your prerogative; but to have that as a compulsory part of being able to put an invoice into the agency would be very concerning. I obviously have some reservations around the language that's used in that, the fact there is no definition. 'Any documents' is very broad, but that's obviously something that will continue to require more clarity and something that will be looked at and watched as this new reform is implemented.

You mentioned the registration requirements. I know we haven't seen the government's response to either of the reviews that have been done, but it was very clearly stated that compulsory registration was not supported within the sector and was going to cause problems. This is my personal opinion: I have no problem with registration as long as it's scalable so that sole providers aren't pushed out of the market. I don't think there's anything wrong with a register of providers who have their working with children checks or their police checks or their qualifications and that's it—not requiring exhaustive and extensive audits that are required of the larger formally block-funded providers. The scale of the businesses is completely different, and quite often the services that are provided are completely different.

I would like to reiterate that I do support what you just said with regard to providers, in terms of making sure that they aren't taking the scheme for a ride. I do worry that the language, even in this entire reform package, is still focused on participants. It's always about the participants. When issues of fraud and mismanagement are brought up, they're always brought up in the context of participants, whereas any participant will tell you that it's actually the provider side that needs to be examined much more closely and particularly the plan management side when we talk about intraplan inflation. It's quite often the case that people with significant impairments are utilising a plan manager who just spends more money than is in the plan as it's gone through. It's not the participant misusing the plan. It's the plan manager not doing their job effectively and thinking that they can just go back and get more money that is causing these problems for participants. So we would very much like to see a greater focus on providers when it comes to the sustainability of the scheme. I know we are going to run out of time soon. Can you talk a little bit about whether or not this legislative reform will push towards compulsory registration? What is the status of registration across the scheme?