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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

Well, here we are again—NDIS Monday. It's like The NeverEnding Story. I think it's been 13 or 14 months now, and poor Senator Farrell gets sent in every week to deliver a statement that is quite simply an insult to this chamber. We've just had motions about respecting the institution. Then they turn around with complete disdain for the Senate, because it has now been 13 or 14 months since the government have been required to provide this documentation to the Senate, and, yet again, that documentation is not being provided.

Remember when the now Prime Minister was campaigning? He was going to be all about transparency. It was going to be an open government. It was doing things differently. Instead, this is the most opaque administration that I think we've ever seen. Their consistent refusal to provide documents in this place that the Senate demanded from them is now being backed up by the behaviour we've recently seen at estimates. We see it through the way they are conducting legislation committees and through each of the committee processes. We see it in their shutting down of any inquiry and limiting the number of hearings. We know what happened with the NDIS reforms and how they were trying to push them through, so much so that we saw billboards driven around. But then, lo and behold, the government themselves had something like 50-plus amendments that they wanted to push through. That's stuff we would have been able to get to the bottom of had we been able to have a proper inquiry and series of hearings.

We now see at estimates that, all of a sudden, the agency is not available. No-one can attend. Conveniently, everyone seems to get sick on the day of estimates. Estimates are in the diary almost 12 months out, but, every time, the NDIA schedule a board meeting or some form of report to be released within a week of estimates concluding. It is the ongoing situation from this government that we are seeing and which they are hiding. They are hiding every piece of data that they can, not only from participants but also from providers and everyone that works in this sector. What we do know is that we're still seeing an increase in the costs of the NDIS.

I'm getting hundreds if not thousands of people coming by my office. Particularly, as most people know, I have a very strong interest in the autism and early intervention spheres, because I know that, if you get good quality, intensive, early intervention, you can change the trajectory of the life of a child with autism. This is a disability that reflects the intent of the scheme: invest early, have lower costs later. But we know that families are having their plans slashed, particularly for children with level 3 autism and an intellectual disability. If some of these documents could be provided, I would love to work with the government, because there are too many kids on the scheme. Eleven per cent of kids with a disability—seven- to nine-year-old boys in this country—do not have permanent, lifelong disability. I would love to work constructively with the government to get some of these kids off the NDIS.

For the people that need it, we need that scheme to be there. We need the scheme to be sustainable. We need it to be affordable. We need it to have the support of the broader Australian population, because the NDIS is there for everybody. Nobody knows whether they will need it through the birth of a child or via an accident, so we need the Australian population to be behind it. Instead, all we hear are these stories, particularly about participants being at fault. There's very little discussion about the providers that are rorting the system or the price guide that pushes up the cost of each therapy session for an NDIS participant higher than for anyone else with a healthcare or veterans card. The NDIS pays best!

I would love to work with government to see how we can get one, two or a couple of blocks of speech therapy sessions for some of these kids who have a global developmental delay. How could the states better provide community health speech therapy and occupational therapy, like they used to? But the government is continually refusing to release these agreements with the states, and the states are saying, 'Please don't bring on these foundational supports yet, because we're not ready.'

We know there are kids who will fall through the cracks, and there are kids who shouldn't be on the NDIS who will fall through the cracks. But, more frighteningly, this would appear likely. I know the minister has visited two early intervention centres. One I was supposed to go to with him, but I was ill, and he went without me. I took him to one in Melbourne myself to show him level 3 kids with intellectual disability who require substantial plans to get that effective early intervention. But they are having their plans cut. They are dragged through the AAT process only to have the original amount agreed to in the steps, wasting more money through administration and legal costs.