Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every senator knows that the system of support for Australians with disability is broken. The Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, ably chaired by Senator Claire Moore, received more than 1,600 submissions, each of which made this point. The evidence received from witnesses again reinforced that the level of support a person with a disability receives depends on a number of factors, including the state they live in, whether the disability is congenital or acquired and, if it was acquired, whether it was acquired in the workplace, a motor vehicle accident or some other context. Workers compensation and motor vehicle accident insurance provide coverage in some jurisdictions, but if you are born with a disability or acquire a disability later in life it can be a different story with waiting lists and queues.

The result is, as we all know, that many people with a disability are left without the assistance that they need. That is something that I discovered when I took on this portfolio over three years ago. I had been operating under the assumption that I think many Australians operate under, which is that, if you have a disability in Australia, you receive the care and support you need. That is not the case. It is something that people who do not have a friend or family member with a significant disability often do not realise. I must say that when I took on the portfolio the scales did literally fall from my eyes.

In the words of the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, 'the NDIS is an idea whose time has come'. The coalition agrees that Australia needs a new system of support based on need rather than rationing, with the entitlement for support going to the individual. The individual needs to be at the centre and in charge, able to pick the supports, equipment and service providers they choose. This is the vision of the Productivity Commission's landmark report into long-term care and support for people with disability. This is the vision of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The coalition has enthusiastically supported each and every milestone on the road to the NDIS. The coalition supported the work of the Productivity Commission. The coalition supported the $1 billion in the last budget. The coalition supported the five launch sites. The coalition supported the agreement between the Commonwealth and New South Wales for a full state-wide rollout after the Hunter launch. The coalition supports this legislation: the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2013.

The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, has demonstrated his personal commitment to Australians with disability and those who care for them by dedicating the $540,000 raised by the 2012 Pollie Pedal charity bike ride to Carers Australia. Along the 1,000 kilometre route Mr Abbott met with people with disability, carers and disability organisations. Mr Abbott has committed that the next two Pollie Pedals will also be in partnership with, and raise funds for, Carers Australia.

Any comments the coalition makes about the NDIS in this debate are offered in a constructive spirit to help make the NDIS the best it can be. The coalition stands ready to work with the government to see an NDIS delivered as soon as possible. The coalition believes an NDIS can be delivered within the time frame recommended by the Productivity Commission by a prudent government that manages well.

The NDIS is a person-centred and self-directed funding model. It is aligned to the objectives of empowering the individual, removing government from people's lives and reducing red tape. The coalition believes that the full implementation of an NDIS would be nothing short of a new deal for people with disabilities and their carers. We have to get this right. Because the NDIS is a once in a generation reform that will unfold over the life of several parliaments, it should be the property of the parliament as a whole on behalf of the Australian people rather than the property of any particular political party. To get this right will require a very high level of consultation and attention to detail, not just now and not just in the launch sites but from now until full implementation.

The NDIS should be beyond partisan politics. The coalition has on occasion been a little disappointed when some members of the government have claimed that the NDIS represents quintessentially Labor values. It does not. The NDIS represents Australian values. It represents a fair go. It represents helping those who face extra challenges for reasons beyond their control. I do not think any side of politics has a mortgage on these things.

The coalition has called for the establishment of a joint parliamentary committee to be chaired by both sides of politics to oversee the establishment and implementation of the NDIS. The parliamentary oversight committee would lock in all parties and provide a non-partisan environment where issues of design and eligibility could be worked through cooperatively. I think the Senate inquiry into the legislation chaired by Senator Moore gave a bit of an insight as to how such a committee, an oversight body on an ongoing basis, would operate.

Mr George Christensen, the member for Dawson, has had a motion in the House to establish this committee for some time. Regrettably, the motion has not been brought forward for a vote. I and Senator Boyce moved a similar motion to establish the oversight committee on 27 June last year in this place, but the government and the Australian Greens together declined to support that motion. Mr Abbott reiterated the offer to join in establishing a parliamentary oversight committee in his Press Club speech on 31 January this year, saying:

The Coalition is so committed to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, for instance, that we’ve offered to co-chair a bi-partisan parliamentary committee so that support for it doesn’t flag across the three terms of parliament and among the nine different governments needed to make it work.

When the government has been offered the opportunity to embrace this genuinely bipartisan offer, it has to date declined to do so. This legislation gives the government another opportunity to correct this. An amendment was moved by Mr Andrews in the other place to give effect to this committee, which was not successful. I will be moving a similar amendment in the committee stage to give effect, hopefully, to the establishment of a bipartisan oversight committee, and we urge the government to accept this offer.

It is important to note that every government in Australia and every opposition in Australia supports and wants to see an NDIS. It was a little disappointing that the Prime Minister did not treat all jurisdictions as partners at the COAG meeting in July last year, and it was to the credit of the Victorian and New South Wales governments that they continued to negotiate in the face of some misrepresentation and reached agreement to host launch sites. I mention this because a cooperative approach is essential. There cannot be a full NDIS without the states and territories. They are partners, and the fruits of a constructive approach were evident when Premier O'Farrell of New South Wales and the Prime Minister signed an intergovernmental agreement in December last year for a full state-wide roll out after the Hunter launch project. The government should continue in a constructive approach in discussions with the other jurisdictions to conclude further bilateral agreements. As I say, there cannot be a full NDIS without an intergovernmental agreement with each state and territory.

It is worth making comment in relation to those states that are not hosting launch sites. The Productivity Commission never envisaged every state hosting a launch site and never saw the absence of a launch site as a bar to taking part in a full national rollout. Indeed, Premier Newman of Queensland has written to the Prime Minister with a proposal to be part of a full national rollout. Premier Barnett of Western Australia has written to the Prime Minister proposing a joint Western Australia-Commonwealth NDIS.

Questions of funding also need to be cooperatively worked through with the states and territories. Legitimate questions and due diligence should not be portrayed as a lack of commitment to the NDIS. For instance, while the coalition emphatically supported the government's commitment of $1 billion to the NDIS in the last federal budget, there was some difficulty in reconciling that figure with the $3.9 billion the Productivity Commission said would be necessary over the forward estimates for the first phase of the NDIS. We assume that the government will explain and account for this and make appropriate provision in the coming budget. The coalition will continue to place the NDIS above politics and is prepared to work with state and Commonwealth governments towards a better deal for people with disability.

The bill itself establishes the framework for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the National Disability Insurance Scheme Launch Transition Agency. This will enable the scheme to be launched, and the agency to operate the launch, in four sites across Australia from July 2013 and five sites from July 2014. The first stage of the scheme will benefit more than 20,000 people with disability and their families and carers living in South Australia, Tasmania, the Hunter in New South Wales, the Barwon area of Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. The scheme will provide funding to individuals or organisations to help people with disability participate more fully in economic and social life though the provision of an entitlement enabling things such as equipment, supported accommodation or personal attendant care.

The mechanics of the agency will be established by way of legislative instruments called the NDIS rules. These regulations, the NDIS rules, will further detail areas such as eligibility. The government released a discussion paper about the rules on 1 February 2013. However, rather than containing a draft set of rules, the discussion paper was a series of questions. This is significant as the bill itself is essentially a framework. It establishes the agency, the board, the chief executive and a general definition of eligibility. But the mechanics of the scheme will be established by the rules. A recurrent theme in the evidence which was presented by witnesses to the Senate committee was that it was hard to offer advice, to pose questions or to plan fully for the launch sites in the absence of the rules.

The government released seven sets of draft rules on the final day of the hearings of the Senate committee on Tuesday, 5 March. These included draft rules for becoming a participant, draft rules for children, draft rules for privacy, draft rules for nominees, draft rules for supports, draft rules for registered providers and draft rules for plan management. These draft rules are still the subject of consultation with the states and territories and disability stakeholders, and the coalition is studying them carefully. The government has also indicated that there are potentially dozens of batches of draft rules still to be released. These need to be released quickly to enable proper scrutiny and consultation.

The risk, as always with this government, is in their capacity to competently implement. The interaction of three components—the NDIS Bill, the NDIS rules and the operating guidelines for the NDIS Launch Transition Agency—will determine how, and how well, the NDIS operates. The work of the Senate committee was critical and it should have been afforded the benefit of the full NDIS rules and the operating guidelines for the agency before concluding its work. It is difficult at the moment to develop a complete picture of how the NDIS will unfold because of insufficient information. I must say I was a little bemused today to read of the proposal to change the name of the NDIS to Disability Care Australia. I think the focus at this time should be on scheme design rather than graphic design, but it is not a point over which the opposition seeks to make a capital case.

This legislation is not perfect. The NDIS is a complex venture. Amendments, after the introduction of the legislation into the parliament, were inevitable and to some extent reflect that the government has heeded the work of the Senate committee. The Senate committee process has again proven its worth through the inquiry which has taken place and the government has undertaken to fully consider the work of the committee. However, in the time available neither the committee nor the coalition, for that matter, were ever going to be able to address all design issues; the onus remains on the government. The prime function in the time available was to ventilate as many issues as possible.

While the coalition supports the NDIS and the broad architecture of the scheme as outlined by the Productivity Commission, the detailed design of the scheme, the legislative drafting and the launch site implementation are, and remain, the responsibility of the government. The coalition had offered to be partners with the government in the design of the scheme and the drafting of the legislation through the establishment of a joint parliamentary committee to oversee the design and implementation of the NDIS. This offer was not accepted; therefore the coalition has not had the benefit of the information and opportunity such an ongoing parliamentary committee would have provided to work with the government on these issues.

More needs to be done. There are questions that stakeholder groups have, and I will cite one as a representative example of the many. It is in relation to polio survivors—people with delayed effects of polio. There are questions that many stakeholder groups are asking about how they will fit into the NDIS and, if they do not, what the arrangements for them will be. This is and will remain a work in progress. The legislation to give effect to the NDIS is in the parliament due to a grassroots campaign by carers, Australians with disability and the organisations that support them. They came together, decided enough was enough, spoke with one voice and declared, in effect: 'We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.'

I want to acknowledge the support that campaign has had from the Every Australian Counts organisation and the work of the campaign chair, Mr John Della Bosca, and of Kirsten Dean, who was the deputy campaign manager for much of that time. I also acknowledge my good friend Ms Milly Parker, who always keeps me up to the mark and who I know has had a significant impact on Mr Abbott. It is important to acknowledge the two main intellectual drivers of the NDIS: Mr John Walsh AM, partner at PwC, and Mr Bruce Bonyhady AM, Chairman of Yooralla and President of Philanthropy Australia. Without the determination, professional expertise and personal knowledge of these two men it is unlikely this legislation would be before the parliament.

I am very pleased that the legislation is here before the Senate and that it is at this stage. The coalition want the NDIS to be a success, the launch sites to run smoothly and this legislation to achieve the objectives laid out by the Productivity Commission. The coalition stands ready, and I stand ready, to work with the government and all jurisdictions to make the NDIS a reality. Australians with disability, their families, their carers and the organisations that support them have had to wait far too long for a better deal and this legislation is a step on the road to making sure they receive the deal they so very much deserve.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with pleasure that I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012. The Australian Greens welcome the National Disability Insurance Scheme package, which will help ensure that people living with a disability will receive more comprehensive support in their everyday lives.

This reform is not simply about improving the ability to fund disability services or increasing the total amount of funding available to deliver services and ensuring national consistency and availability of these services. All these things are absolutely critical but they are not enough. For me, nobody sums this up better than Monica McGhie, a person living with disability in my home state of Western Australia. She made this comment to the Senate committee inquiry when we were in Perth:

I will be 50 this year. For five decades I have been subjected to every theory and fashion in disability, from the medical model of institutionalisation and segregation to hostel living, day centres, special schools, imposed independence training, normalisations, $1 an hour sheltered workshops and the corporatisation of support and risk aversions. They are five decades with one overarching theme: powerlessness.

This legislation provides a once in a lifetime opportunity to confront powerlessness and move towards transformative change by giving much greater choice and control to the individual and providing packages of support that focus on meeting the aspirations of the individual by providing the necessary supports to help them live, work and participate in their own communities.

This legislation demonstrates our community commitment to implementing our obligations under international conventions such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. These reforms will ensure people with a disability can exercise genuine choice, which includes being able to experience and learn from risky choices, and make sure their goals and aspirations guide the delivery of services rather than what blocks of funding have been allocated or which programs have openings. This is why the Australian Greens are so strongly behind this reform and want to see it pass through this parliament in time to allow the anticipated launch sites to start on 1 July. We have heard clearly how powerful this legislation will be for so many people and want to see it live up to the expectation and the commitment that we are caring for people. I believe the passage of such reforming legislation with strong multipartisan support also demonstrates something about us as a country—about our commitment to inclusion and quality of life for people living with disability.

A catchcry for people with disability, as the momentum of this reform has grown, has been: 'Nothing about us without us.' So before I continue my remarks I would like to share some direct quotes about the legislation from people who have lived with and experienced disability and who came to the committee inquiry. I must say I am being a bit one-eyed here—I am again quoting people from my home state of Western Australia. Sam Jenkinson, who lives with a disability in WA and is well known across Australia but particularly in Western Australia, said:

I think that flexibility cannot be understated. There is a diversity of people with disability and many different types of support needed by people with different needs and different circumstances. What may be seen as protection in legislation could actually end up limiting choice, control and actually the potential for growth for many people with disability …

I think the legislation has an opportunity to show people with disability as active participants and decision makers at all levels.

She says the legislation needs to provide:

… capacity-building support for people with disabilities to self-direct their plans and service, and to self-manage their funding. This is actually the biggest change for most people and the opportunity to break free from being a passive recipient.

Mrs Guilfoile, who is the mother of a person living with disability, said:

I understand that the task of writing the legislation and rules is a complex one—way beyond my capabilities. However, I remind you that what people with disability need is simple: they need power; they need control; and they need independent advocacy in their lives.

A well-functioning NDIS can deliver the flexibility, the control and the independence that these quotes so strongly emphasise.

The legislation has been highly anticipated and provides a good framework from which to begin the scheme. But, given that this scheme sets out an entirely new agency with substantially different powers to anything we have seen before, it is not unexpected that there are still some amendments and some clarifications that need to be made to the scheme. A number of the amendments that I was intending to introduce have been adopted by the government, and I take this opportunity to congratulate the government for the way they have looked at the amendments and have been open to taking those on board.

The example that I note is that the compensation scheme, which was quite contentious, has already been addressed through amendments in the House of Representatives. Briefly on that point, it has been made clear that the NDIS is not intended to replace existing entitlements to compensation, but some of the most contentious clauses in the original bill are those which allow the CEO to make it a requirement that individuals lodge a claim for compensation prior to receiving supports under the NDIS. Many people who gave evidence on this requirement expressed their concern regarding the potential impact on persons with a disability of being forced to undertake legal action to claim compensation. For example, Professor Luntz noted that litigation is always stressful and argued that vulnerable people in the position of those receiving benefits under the scheme should never be required to take action to recover those benefits from the Commonwealth.

Similarly, Avant Mutual Group pointed out that those seeking support under the scheme may well be the least able to take on either the financial risk of claiming unsuccessfully or the emotional stress of conducting a litigation. The Australian Greens are sensitive to these risks, but recognise the importance of having a mechanism to trigger compensation claims. As a result, we were supportive of the additional power introduced in the House of Representatives for the agency to be able to subrogate claims on behalf of people with a disability. However, during the Committee of the Whole stage I will seek further detailed information from the government on how these powers will operate. This particular amendment will resolve one of the 29 recommendations of the majority report by the Community Affairs Legislation Committee. While I strongly support these recommendations, the Greens also made five additional recommendations in our additional comments to that process.

The committee has conducted a very substantial inquiry into the bill. We visited four launch sites, went to seven capital cities and we used teleconferencing facilities to link up with rural and remote communities. We received 1,597 submissions. As I mentioned, the committee report made 29 recommendations, which I am sure Senator Moore will address some of those in her remarks to the chamber, and I included in my additional comments in the report another five on where we think further reform is needed. As I said, I am pleased to see that the government has already taken on board some of these amendments and I understand that we will be debating some more in this place. It was very important, because this bill was of such a complex nature, that we had an extensive inquiry process so that we could thrash out those issues. Some of those issues, when they were thrashed out, turned out to be non-issues but others highlighted important areas for reform.

I do not have the time to go into all of the detail of the many important issues that the committee reported on in this particular set of remarks. In the Committee of the Whole stage for this legislation we will be addressing some of the other issues, such as residency and portability, which came up during the committee inquiry and I will be circulating amendments concerning those particular issues.

One of the substantial issues raised during the committee inquiry was the issue of risk. This was a significant issue because the inquiry heard that enabling people with a disability to take risks the same as everybody else was very important. The importance of providing choice in control is undermined if we fail to recognise the dignity of risk. The government has now moved an amendment to ensure that the word 'risk' appears in the bill, but I want to reiterate the benefits of being able to make mistakes. These benefits tend to outweigh the negatives of the mistakes themselves, and this was put best by a person living with disability who said:

I think that there is often a concern that we need to make sure that bad things do not happen, but the real world is what it is … We do not want to live in a world that is made up of hundreds of thousands of rules that prevent us from taking any risks. Sometimes risk leads to good outcomes and sometimes it leads to bad things happening—but we feel that the benefits definitely outweigh the risks.

I am glad that the government has now adopted the language of risk and the principles which were previously missing and has further amended the objects of the bill to emphasise the critical role of choice, control and independence. However, as this scheme unfolds we must avoid the temptation to continually introduce new rules which, by their very nature, restrict the choice and control that we are establishing under this legislation.

Another very important issue that came up was advocacy. We recognise and strongly support the role that advocacy plays. I do not think there could have been anybody in this chamber over the last period of time that the Greens have been in here—and certainly that I have been in here—who could have spoken out so strongly about the need for advocacy and the critical role it plays in achieving change. We need to make sure that there is provision in securing equitable access to services for individuals and also for promoting systemic change. We want to ensure that both individual and systemic advocacy is recognised and that there are resources for advocacy support agent services.

The principles of advocacy absolutely must be recognised in the principles of the bill, and we will be seeking to strengthen the bill by recognising advocacy within the principles. However, most participants in the inquiry—in particular people with disability—were clear in saying that they wanted individual advocacy services to sit outside the agency. This requires the government to make an ongoing commitment to fund advocacy and legal aid, and I will be following this up again in the Committee of the Whole debate. It is one of the reasons that we were not supportive of Mr Wilkie's proposed amendments in the House of Representatives. While there was a strong push for advocacy to be funded within the NDIS, I took the trouble to ask during the committee inquiry if people living with disability supported advocacy being funded out of the scheme by the agency. Overwhelmingly the answer was no. Overwhelmingly the answer was, yes, absolutely we need advocacy—but not funded out of the scheme. I have taken that as the direction for how we should be pursuing this issue. That is from people living with disability themselves.

I see an important role for the agency to play in ensuring greater community participation and full integration for people living with disability, using its role as an insurance scheme to push for systemic change in these areas along the lines that the Disability Commissioner, Mr Graeme Innes, articulated to the committee and has articulated in several forums. If this is not a key role for the agency, the Australian Greens share the concern of the National People with Disabilities and Carer Council that an NDIS could inadvertently end up expanding segregated services and paying for provision that should come from mainstream services. I will be looking at amendments to ensure that part of the insurance approach includes pushing for greater services across the board—in other words, that mainstream services are held accountable for the services they should be providing to every Australian, not simply ignoring the provision of services to those living with disability. These amendments will make reference to the need for a strong interface between the NDIS and other services in the objectives and make explicit that a function of the agency is to help ensure that people living with a disability have access to mainstream services and funding.

One of the issues that I have said came up during the committee inquiry that a lot of people were concerned about was that it turns out, once we looked at the rules, talked to the agency and got advice on it, that registered providers caused a lot of concern for people. A lot of that concern has been annulled to a certain extent or is not as intense as it was because of the rules coming out and people reading them. I must add my voice to that of Senator Fifield on this. The concern throughout the inquiry was about not having access to the draft rules. We got them on the last day, and I must say it was handy to get them on the last day so we could actually have them when we were talking to the agency, but it did hamper us to a certain extent. I do understand the time constraints, but we need to have a much more detailed look at the rules. My office and I have been focused on the bill itself rather than all the detail of the rules—and of course there are still more rules to come.

One of the other issues that I would like to talk about is the access to the NDIS by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and CALD communities. There are barriers faced by people from both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The scheme must ensure equitable access for these groups and recognise their specific needs within the context of accessing and using the NDIS. We had strong representation from both of these groups about the concerns of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and CALD communities. The Aboriginal Disability Justice Campaign and the First People's Disability Network both provided compelling evidence to the committee inquiry, and it will be important to ensure that the concerns that they raised are addressed if we are to ensure that Aboriginal people living with a disability are able to access culturally appropriate supports. These groups also raised their concerns about access for people in custody; and, having spent a significant amount of my time in this place trying to ensure that there is access to hearing services in prisons, I am acutely aware that this is an area where it is often difficult to reach people and ensure that they get the care and support they need. There are also unique challenges faced by people living in rural and remote communities which need to be addressed. I particularly hope that launch sites which focuses on learning the lessons of remote communities do become a reality.

Another issue I need to address is the cut-off line of 65. We had a great deal of evidence from people expressing concern that they are being discriminated against because they will not be able to access the scheme over the age of 65. I believe there was compelling evidence that showed that there are already differing supports between those in some states in particular who receive higher levels of support through disability and then the aged-care system. We were given some graphic examples of that through the committee inquiry. We got a lot of evidence about degenerative illnesses and people being able to access the scheme after 65. I acknowledge that the government has moved to address that issue, particularly around degenerative illnesses and enabling access through early interventions, but there are groups such as Post-Polio that quite graphically illustrated the difference between obtaining support through a disability support system and through the aged-care system. I believe this group in particular will be caught up and will potentially not get access to sufficient services to support their disability, which is directly related to the polio they had earlier in life. We will be moving some amendments to address that.

I will make some more specific remarks about the amendments when I introduce them. However, I reiterate, this is an important reform, and the amendments demonstrate how much work has gone into trying to get this legislation right. It is important that we do get this legislation right, and for that reason I welcome the review after two years because we have a lot to learn from the launch sites. I look forward to seeing the launch sites in action and I will be watching them with a great degree of intensity. Hopefully, we can all learn something from those launch sites. It will be good to see this scheme eventually rolled out nationally, but it does mean that we need to ensure ongoing funding.

People with a disability have waited long enough. I am glad that I am a member of the parliament that starts to put this scheme in place. I can tell you: every Australian counts. People living with a disability, their carers, their families and their service providers are overwhelmingly supportive of this legislation and want it passed now—in fact, they would prefer if it were passed yesterday—so that these launch sites can start. The Greens will be supporting this legislation.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2013. We had a real opportunity in our committee to talk with many people who told us why they wanted this scheme to work. I start by putting my thanks on record to all of the people who gave up their time and their lives to come and talk to us, because the efforts they made were extraordinary. They did not have to come; they chose to come and talk to a committee of this parliament that was looking at this packet of bills for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. They had so many messages for us—and I acknowledge Senator Fifield's comments about the role of the committee process in what we do—and I believe that once again, through the opportunity we had to listen to the people of Australia, we have been able to reinforce the need for the scheme, to listen to why it was important and to come up with suggestions that make this parliament come up with better legislation.

I acknowledge, at this stage, the fact that already, through the process in the other place, we have been able to have some of the evidence that we heard in our committee process already be a part of amendments being put to the bill. To all those people who actually came and took part in the committee: this reinforces that, again, you have the right and you have the voice to impact on legislation in our country. At our first hearing in Townsville we heard evidence from a person who had been working in the community up there, and they said:

I have been waiting for an NDIS to happen for many years. Although what is proposed is not perfect, it is a start and all journeys start with a first step.

The legislation that we have before us is a step, and it is a step in a journey that has been taking place for a long time in our community.

There has always been an acknowledgement that government has a role to play in providing services for people with disabilities. In fact, since 1991, there has been a strategy in place, brought in by previous governments, to work together between states and federal government to cooperatively respond to the needs of their community. Consistently, the core to that has been the operation for COAG process. We know that that is not perfect, but the key of the NDIS's effectiveness will be the way that states and federal government work together to respond to the need to effectively finance those needs and to ensure that there is the confidence given to the community that we will work together to make this work.

I really encourage people to read the Hansard, to read the evidence, to hear the demands. This was not a compliant and passive group of people that came to talk to our committee; they came because they had need, their need was identified and they were demanding that their government respond to that need. Amidst the range of enthusiasm, commitment and excitement, for me the most telling features of the evidence we received were vulnerability and fear, because they did not want to be disappointed again. They were fearful that commitments and promises made by this government—this COAG process—would, again, not fulfil the needs that they had. They have been disappointed before. One of the saddest elements of what we heard was the number of times people, families and community groups had been disappointed and let down.

In fact, the focus of this legislation that we have the honour to be discussing in our parliament at this time is to say that no matter where you are and no matter what your disability is, in our community, if you have a significant and permanent disability which will impact on your life, you will be able to have that respect and that support through a range of mechanisms that will be able to work with you to come up with the result that you need in your life. It will not be somebody else telling you what is right for you; it will not be someone else telling you the time frame for the supports that you are able to get. In fact, at much the same time our committee has also been working on a process around the social determinants of health, and so much of the evidence came together when we were looking at these issues. One of the most important elements was this awful raffle that people have in this country. How they will be served, what opportunities they will have and how they are going to be living is determined by a raffle of where they are, what their environment is like, what their support networks are like and how rich they are.

If you go back to the original aims of the legislation as it is set out, it talks about taking away that raffle. It is actually enshrining a rights based process in this legislation. Many of the people who came to us understood this so clearly. Again, these are not people who are unaware of their rights; they know, they understand what has happened and they celebrated when Australia became a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Again, they demanded that that took place. It was not a government that made the decision that we would sign up to those conventions; it was our community telling us that we had to—it was our government, I am proud to say. In fact, the NDIS process evolved through that to ensure that we were able to identify the inequities of the system, which have been clearly identified.

Over a number of years the community affairs committee has been party to a number of committee processes which have led to the recommendation around the need for national schemes to take away this uncanny and unfair raffle approach to entitlement; to be able to have people working on an assessment base which is transparent, professional and understood. That is the basis of the assessment process that is in this package of bills.

Again, it is important to reinforce what has been said by both Senator Fifield and Senator Siewert about the availability of the rules which complement the primary legislation as a package so that people can see exactly how the process is going to work. I was made much more confident by the way that the people who are working on this process were able to come to us and talk to us about the responsive nature in which the rules are being created. Through the launch sites we will be able to see the legislation with the rules and guidelines being put in place operationally so that we will be able to test them. Through the range of launch sites that have been agreed we will be able to see people with disabilities in their own environment and how the legislation we are discussing will operate for them and include them as the centre of the whole process.

In moving forward, I think we have the opportunity through the launch site process—and I was joking through the interactions with the people who gave evidence that the current term seems to be 'the learnings' of the process—to add the learnings to our knowledge. That is the intent of the structure on which we will be voting. We have the core legislation, which I see clearly as enabling legislation, to put in process the outline and the framework on which we will be able to move forward. The range of the different guidelines, as Senator Fifield pointed out, looks at key components of need and will be able to be put in place and work with communities through the range of organisations which will have their funding processes in place, to see exactly how they work.

A core component of how this process must work is the advocacy about which Senator Siewert spoke, and also the rights of people to ask questions, to take control and to appeal against judgements or situations which will impact on them. There are a number of issues which have already been identified and which were highlighted and put in the report about discussions that must be had over the next 12 months as we lead to the full rollout of the program. Both of the previous speakers have highlighted a few, but I want to touch again on the ability to question and appeal.

I am an ex-public servant, so I am very into that process of having the right to appeal. There was a lot of debate about how we ask questions when something is happening in the process: how do we question what is going on? The reason for that concern is the fact that it is an abject failure at the moment. That kind of vulnerability and fear about which I spoke has been caused by the fact that the system is not working now, and I do not think it has ever worked effectively. The disjointed nature of the system has actually put people at a disadvantage, so they do not have the confidence or the power to question and to say, 'We don't think this is right and we think it should be done in a different way.'

So much of the evidence showed that forced, submissive nature, and the fear people had that if they did ask questions they would be punished and they would lose services. We had evidence that it did occur; this is not an unjust fear. The process for people being able to effectively appeal the process was one about which there was great evidence. In some of the amendments that have come forward from the other place we see that the department and the government have listened to some of those concerns. There was a fear that people would be forced into a very formalised appeal process where, again, they would be powerless and would not be able to access the same degree of questioning rights that you and I have, Mr Acting Deputy President. If we do not like something we have the ability to say, 'No, I want to do it differently. I am not being treated fairly.'

There was a significant amount in the report that talked about the process that has come through and the way the current system operates through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which is being identified in this place. It will be amended to have specialist knowledge and power to work with people in the disability area; to understand their needs and to take the time to work with them so that they will not be intimidated and so they will have the power to appeal decisions that impact on them.

Consistently, the major message that I received—and I am speaking for myself rather than for the whole committee—is that people want the right to own their own lives and their own futures. 'The dignity of risk' was the term that was consistently brought out. People have the right to take risks, but somehow over the last few generations there has been the view that we need to put into compact areas people with disabilities so that there is no right in that way. They are the subject of services being foisted upon them. They have services given to them when they are available, and whatever can be afforded. Again, they do not have the right to make decisions about themselves, about what they can do or about who will work with them.

One of the most touching pieces of evidence we had was from a mum in Western Australia who talked about her young son, who is an adolescent. She was talking about the fact that he wanted to do things that other young men could do: go out, go partying and go clubbing. She told the story that he was completely at the risk of whether his paid carer under the system was available at that time to provide the service for him. If that carer was not available, he was unable to leave his bed.

That is not the kind of life that the NDIS wants for the people in our community who identify with disabilities. That is not the kind of life that the people of Every Australian Counts has demanded will be in place for people with disabilities in our community. What we need to do, as a parliament, is look at the legislation that is put before us, work together effectively to ensure that we can put things in place which will enable the NDIS to move forward. Then have the courage to evaluate it effectively and come back into this place, and make a change if things are not working well and if the people for whom this legislation has been designed are not happy and are not receiving the services they should. That is the commitment that I have had from the minister and from the parliamentary secretary, when we took forward the concerns that were raised during our hearings.

That is what the parliament is about. You do not set legislation in stone and say, 'This is how it must be'. That is how it has been in the past and that is why it has not worked. We have seen a wide range of acceptance and excitement about this legislation. In fact, as the committee report says, 'We did not find anyone who did not support the legislation.' What we have now is the opportunity to work effectively to see that it is put in place, that agreements are openly discussed and, most importantly, that the people for whom the legislation is designed who own this legislation have the right to question and the right to come back and make sure that it is working. We need to make a strong financial commitment.

I am not sure how you actually assess the process where people looked us in the eye and said, 'We don't believe that it's going to happen.' It is a very telling point that after all the effort that has gone into getting this legislation out there and arranging committee hearings and having it all running, witnesses sit there and tell you, 'We want it, but we don't quite believe that it's going to happen.' They say that because they have been let down so often, so many times. So as governments—state governments, territory governments and the federal government—we need to ensure that that fear and that anger is not real. We have got to make a commitment together that we will ensure that this is appropriately funded and that there will not be that desperation and disappointment that we have built up the hopes of people.

We have made a commitment to people and we must ensure that the appropriate funding is provided. That means at the state level, the territory level and the federal level, we need to appropriately evaluate what the funding is going to be, look at the modelling that is done and then ensure that the money is there not just for one, or for two, or for three years. This is a commitment for life and it must be a commitment for life because we are talking about lives. We need to ensure that the financial commitment is put in place. For me, that was the greatest message that I received in the committee.

I do want to put on record my complete respect and appreciation for the secretariat of the Standing Committee on Community Affairs. I cannot tell you the extra work that our committee put on these people over the last couple of weeks to get this report written. They did it, they did it well, they did it professionally and they did it in an engaging way with the range of people who came and talked to our committee. It is not always easy to work with people who have such high expectations, to ensure that their needs are met and to make sure that every witness who came to see us knew that their words were going to be effectively heard, and that their evidence was going to be treated with absolute respect. I believe that our secretariat made that happen. I do believe that over the last couple of weeks, their work has made this whole process work as well as it possibly could have. We have a very high bar; we expect the work to be good. They deliver and they deliver every time, and we could not do our job without them. I really wanted to put that on the record.

On 1 July this year, the world will not completely change. But for some people across our country, there will be hope that was not there a few months ago. We have a job to ensure that that hope is not misplaced. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is something that has engaged people across the community in a very special way. I think now that we can continue that engagement by making sure that we, in this place, do our job to get the best possible outcome. In terms of where we go, the process we have in place with the various advisory committees that have been established through the legislation ensure that people with the lived experience of disability are involved who know what it is like to have the restrictions and the restraints that I have never had, and that I do not really understand. I congratulate and I thank the people who came to see us because they have helped me to understand a little bit of their lives and what they must have. I want to thank all of the people who have been involved. This is not some kind of contest as to who has the naming rights or who is the person who happens to be in government at the time. This is something that we can do together and I think that we have got the opportunity to do that.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Fifield, I do think that while you say that these are values for everybody, I am very proud to say that the NDIS does reflect Labor values. I think they reflect other people's values as well, but they strongly reflect Labor values and it is an opportunity that we have, as a government, to work to put this in place.

Thank you again to the people across Australia who brought their knowledge, their concerns, their fear and their encouragement to make sure that the NDIS will work.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to endorse one of the most significant and eagerly anticipated pieces of legislation to come before this chamber in recent years: the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012. I would also like to place on record my appreciation for the contribution of the Standing Committee on Community Affairs, in particular, the contribution that Senator Moore has made tonight to this debate.

The bill establishes a framework for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the body that will manage the launch of this groundbreaking scheme, the NDIS Launch Transition Agency. The agency will initially operate in five sites across Australia from July this year and I am very pleased that one of those sites will be located in Tasmania. Initially, some 20,000 people with a disability, their families and carers, will benefit from the NDIS before the scheme expands nationwide.

It could not have come soon enough. For many people in Australia disabilities can mean isolation, poverty, pain, indignity and a sense of futility. The scheme that has emerged after numerous agreements were signed between the Commonwealth and states and territories shares the cost of disability services and supports across the country. NDIS will adopt a self-directed approach so that those with a disability can take control of their own lives and make informed decisions that they think will suit them.

The scheme is desperately needed, particularly when one considers how much improvement is required in how we support those with a disability. One area that I want to focus on particularly tonight and where Australia lags in global standards is employment participation for people with a disability. It is also alarming that Australia, currently the 12th largest economy in the world, ranks 21st out of 29 OECD countries in employment participation rates for those with a disability. This is one of the reasons why close to 45 per cent of those with a disability in this country are living either near or below the poverty line, and this area dealing with disability and employment is something that is close to my family's heart.

In Australia, a person with a disability has a poverty risk of around 2.7 times higher than a person who does not have a disability. This puts Australia last out of all the OECD countries on this measure. Not one of the bottom few, not trending downwards—we are dead last! We are at the bottom! Currently in Australia, only half of the 2.2 million Australians with disabilities who are of working age are actually employed. It is shameful.

Closing this gap is more than achievable. Many nations, including New Zealand, have already substantially improved their own employment participation rates for people who have disabilities and are currently reaping the social and economic rewards. To demonstrate the personal and economic cost of Australia's current approach, I would like to draw everyone's attention to Milly Parker, a disability advocate who became a person with a disability at the age of 21. After acquiring a serious brain injury in a horrendous car accident, Milly was not expected to live and spent a full year undergoing rehabilitation as an outpatient in a nursing home. Today Milly is not only an energetic advocate for people with disabilities; she runs her own successful small business from home.

Since she had resources available to her—and I will return to that point in a moment—she was able to get on with her life and thrive. We should all listen closely to Milly when she says:

I am living proof that if you invest in people with disability, that investment pays off.

So what is stopping us from allowing more people with disabilities to flourish like Milly? Perhaps the most glaringly obvious problem with the current system is that services have quite simply not met demand. Care and support can prove inflexible, unpredictable and insufficient and this has a dramatic impact on the lives of people with disabilities. This shortfall means that many heartbreaking stories have emerged from around Australia, and I just want to share just one story from my home state of Tasmania.

I would like to tell you about Linda from the north-west coast of Tasmania. Linda is a 32-year-old woman with cerebral palsy who requires personal care and support each morning to shower and prepare for work. After getting married she moved, with her husband, from the city to a smaller town 20 kilometres away. Unfortunately, Linda has had a number of issues over the past 12 months with inadequate service provision. The most recent was when she was told that her service provider could not provide support that very week as they did not have the staff available. Linda spoke to her usual staff who said they had no idea why they had been moved from Linda to work for another person. They were more than happy working with Linda and were quite upset that she had been left without support. Linda was actually told it was her fault because she had moved to a town in Tasmania where there were very few workers available to draw upon. The service told her that the only option was to have a support person shower her at 5 am. Linda considered this unacceptable as it would have consequences for her disability, increasing her spasms due to such a long day. She could not attend work for two days until an advocate was engaged to assist her in resolving this issue.

If Linda had access to her own funds through the NDIS, she could engage the services of her workers directly. This would ensure consistency and choice of workers who are not at the mercy of services who moved them around. The NDIS will ensure that Linda has a real and meaningful say in her support. The scheme will give people who have a disability not only sufficient care and support but also greater choice and autonomy in the care they receive, and this is so terribly important. Right now, many Australians with disabilities like Linda are clearly not receiving the support they require. We need to ask ourselves: why is this the case? Well, as I alluded to earlier, unlike our social security and universal healthcare systems, entitlement to disability care and support have not been based on need.

One of the key problems is that those who have acquired a disability through a workplace or motor vehicle accident have been treated preferentially to those who have acquired disabilities in other ways such as at birth. Disability advocate and writer Stella Young has spoken about this dilemma on numerous occasions. She has described how her friend and fellow advocate Milly Parker, whom I spoke about a moment ago, received better care and support because she acquired her disability in a car accident. If Milly had acquired her disability through birth, by falling off a roof or being the victim of domestic violence, this would not have been the case, but because the Transport Accident Commission exists, Stella notes that in relative terms Milly has actually, and I quote here, 'won the lottery'. Stella has had the courage to admit publicly that at times she has felt a consuming jealousy towards the Millys in her life. She asks, 'Why do they get it so easy? Why couldn't I just have had a bloody car accident?' It simply is not fair, and it is distressing to think that a person who acquired a lifelong brain injury at the age of 21 has 'won the lottery'. But we need to understand that that is exactly how it appears to people such as Stella.

Thankfully, the opposition appears willing, for the moment, to put aside partisan wrangling and support the NDIS. This is a great relief for those in the community advocating for the scheme, because the shadow Treasurer has certainly wavered at times. In May last year, he qualified his support for the NDIS by stating:

...at the end of the day the money has to come from somewhere and there is only one pot of money and that is the hard earned taxpayer's money.

Well, yes, thank you, Mr Hockey, but people who have a disability, their families, friends and carers understand where the government's money comes from. As I have emphasised today, people who have a disability want to work, they want to contribute, they want their skills to be valued and they want to be a part of growing the economy.

At its core, the NDIS is about supporting people well enough and early enough so that the impact of disability on their life is as small as possible. Hearing or reading the stories about people who have suffered because of the current deficiencies in disability support in Australia can inspire strong feelings of guilt and, really, it should make us all feel guilty.

Every day that a person sits around in an unsuitable wheelchair that causes them pain and makes their impairment worse, we should feel guilty. Every day that a person rises out of a bed in a nursing home because the funds are not available for a carer at home, we should feel guilty. Every day that a person cannot enter the workforce because they do not have the support they need, we should feel guilty. We should indeed feel very guilty.

That is why the government is pressing ahead with this bill. It will change the way an often ignored and marginalised segment of our community live their lives. I am honoured to be in this chamber, to be supporting this bill and to be part of a government that has recognised this need that is long overdue. I commend the minister; the former parliamentary secretary, Bill Shorten; the committee; and the chamber for their support of this bill.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise, with a great degree of interest, to support this legislation, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012. My own vision, as a senator, is:

Towards an Australian community in which every member is safe, feels valued and contributes to a sustainable future.

I think the legislation before us points directly towards those principles. We are an Australian community. The objective is that every member within the community will feel safe, will be valued and will contribute to a sustainable future. I am very pleased to endorse the sentiments being expressed throughout the chamber by the government of the day, by the Greens and by members of the coalition for this particular principle. I quote the words of our parliamentary leader of the coalition, Mr Abbott:

The NDIS is an idea whose time has come.

And that is the case. I was interested in Senator Polley's comments in the last few moments that, at the moment, there are differences between the support that is available, the compensation and the financial wherewithal in different states and territories. Of course, the legislation determines largely the level of support whether, for example, a motor vehicle accident has occurred or whether the person has a hereditary condition or a congenital condition. If you are born with a disability, as we all know, or acquire one later in life, it can be a very different story. We are a wealthy nation; we are a nation of compassion; we are a nation capable of actually coming together in a bipartisan way to give effect to this legislation.

I would be remiss if I were not to point out the contribution by the coalition, along with that of the government, in advancing the principle of the NDIS and hopefully seeing it through to its conclusion and its inclusion in the Australian way of life. The coalition supported the initial work undertaken by the Productivity Commission; the $1 billion that was allocated in the last budget to be able to start the pilot schemes; the five launch sites as they are to be known when they commence in the middle of this year; and the agreement between the Commonwealth and the New South Wales government for a full statewide roll out after the launch in the Hunter Valley. As has been indicated by our shadow minister in this area, Senator Fifield, we support this legislation.

Nobody has actually given more physical or more obvious effect to his support and commitment in this area than Mr Abbott in the sense that last year in his well-publicised Pollie Pedal, in which he influences other parliamentarians to join him in a 1,000-kilometre ride, I believe they raised some $540,000, which was contributed to Carers Australia. Along the way, the party met with people with disability, their carers and their organisations. I understand the next two Pollie Pedals will be in partnership with and raise funds again for Carers Australia. I can only say how pleased I am that he does not do his Pollie Pedal on the west coast because I might be forced to participate. I do not know why you are shaking your head, Senator Brown. It is my understanding that is where—

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure that it is, but not once did they put the legislation forward themselves.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Expenditure has been undertaken, so there is very constructive support, and I look forward to you joining the Pollie Pedal at some time so that you can give effect to that support.

The comments that we make, and those that Senator Fifield has made, are offered in a constructive spirit in an endeavour to help make the NDIS the best it can be. Amongst other reasons, it speaks very much of Liberal and National values, and they are the fact that under the NDIS scheme, the person is at the centre. It is self-directed funding. It is aligned with the objectives of empowering the individual and removing government from people's lives and at the same time reducing red tape. I hope that everybody in this chamber would actually share those aspirations.

It is, as has been said, a once-in-a-generation reform that will unfold over the life of several parliaments, not just this one or the next one but over a number of parliaments. For that reason, it needs to have bipartisan support. It will have a high degree of consultation, and we need far more attention to detail than we have seen to date. Interestingly, Senator Polley reflected on the comments as she quoted Mr Hockey in terms of the expenditure for the NDIS. I am not sure whether she was being complimentary or critical when she said, as Mr Hockey indeed did, that this is a cost to the Australian taxpayer. Of course it is a cost to the Australian taxpayer. It behoves all of us in this chamber and in this place to make sure that the funds of Australian taxpayers are spent as wisely as they possibly can be.

I come back again to the bipartisanship. I recall Senator Fifield did move in this Senate to establish an oversight committee. I stand to be corrected but I do recall at that time the government and the Greens actually combining in the Senate to vote that particular oversight committee down. I am not sure why that would have happened.

Senator Carol Brown interjecting—

I return to the interjections that Senator Brown is persisting with. Mr Abbott said in a recent Press Club speech:

The Coalition is so committed to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, for instance, that we've offered to co-chair a bi-partisan parliamentary committee so that support for it doesn't flag across the three terms of parliament and among the nine different governments needed to make it work.

It is disappointing if we are going to have interjections to the extent that the government seems to believe the coalition is not interested in or committed to an NDIS, because I believe those statements made very publicly indicate that they are. The government knows very well that it is in everybody's interest, particularly those who are waiting for the success of this legislation—waiting for it to be funded and waiting for the outcome of the early programs to see what further changes need to be made. Every government and opposition in this country—state, territory and federal—needs to come together to make sure that these events can take place.

We have seen bipartisanship. We have seen, for example, Premier O'Farrell and Prime Minister Gillard sign an intergovernmental agreement in December last year for a full statewide NDIS rollout after the Hunter launch. We also saw the agreement within the federal government and Victorian coalition government to give that effect. I make that point again: there can be no full NDIS without an intergovernmental agreement with each state and territory.

There are those who have criticised my own state of Western Australia, for example, in not hosting a launch site. There is nothing unusual about that. The original Productivity Commission's findings did not recommend that there be a launch site in every state. Nevertheless, during the term of his last government Premier Barnett wrote to the Prime Minister proposing a joint WA-Commonwealth NDIS. I believe that Queensland Premier Newman wrote to the Prime Minister with a proposal to be part of a full national rollout.

The coalition supported the government's commitment of $1 billion to the NDIS in the federal budget in this current year but we are having some difficulty in reconciling that $1 billion with the $3.9 billion that the Productivity Commission said would be necessary over the forward estimates. So it remains for us to learn what that outcome will be. I am sure the government will explain it and make appropriate provisions. We will be watching in the budget session to see just what allocation has been made in this area.

If there is a concern—and it is a concern being expressed through the wider community as well—of course it is in the detail. One would hope that there will be more complete consultation and that there will be a wider area in which to engage and to come to a conclusion as to who is and who is not eligible. We have been learning, for example, in recent times that those over the age of 65 at the time the scheme is implemented may not be eligible whereas those who do reach that age after implementation may be eligible. So it is fair to say that more information is required, that there is scope for more questions to be asked and that we do need further information on the sets of rules that will govern this activity when it is underway.

I do want to turn to some of the personal impacts. Only today I read about a Sydney fireman in the media, a gentleman by the name of Mark McFarlane. He suffers from chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, a debilitating disease which has regrettably a relatively high mortality rate in younger children. This man is absolutely to be admired because right through the time since his diagnosis—and that has been some 14 years—Mr McFarlane has through great willpower mostly been able to ensure he does a day's work. He has rarely missed a day's work even when undergoing heavy doses of chemotherapy.

This brings me to a point which I know Senator Polley addressed in her contribution. It is that our objectives must be towards, as much as possible, returning people with disabilities who are able and want to work to the workplace. Mr McFarlane has said that what has kept him going has been pride in his work and the drive to want to be able to continue to present himself in the working environment. I, for one, am firmly of the view that, if the NDIS in some way can lead to an improved sense of wellbeing for people in their workplaces, this in itself will have been a tremendous benefit. I had the honour last year in October to address the Disability Employment Conference in Melbourne and to talk about some of the aspects that are relevant to this discussion. Of course, the NDIS came up for discussion.

There really is quite a positive story to be told in this area. If one has a look at the current circumstances in the overall Australian labour force, one will see there is about 2.2 per cent annual growth. I am pleased to record in my own state that figure is closer to three per cent. But nevertheless the Productivity Commission estimates that by 2020 that growth will have reduced from about two per cent to 0.5 per cent per annum, so clearly there is going to be a need and a demand for more people in the workplace. At the moment 67 per cent of the population are in the working age category. By 2045 that will reduce from 67 per cent down to 56 per cent. So, again, we will see fewer people in the workforce.

Participation for abled Australians of working age at the moment is 81 per cent, but it is only 53 per cent for disabled people: clearly we are again pointing at an opportunity. I also recall quoting in that speech from information made available to me that some 6,000 people ready to work are on an employment service program of some sort with the Commonwealth, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that some 17 per cent of working age Australians have a disability—about 2.2 million people have a disability of some sort, of whom more than 100,000 are ready for work but are unemployed.

We can see an extension beyond just the straight NDIS into the personal lives of people who may, through the agency and through the tools that will be made available to them through the NDIS, actually see themselves back in the workplace. Of course, we would all be looking for longer term employment, but disabled people, and I think that is what drew me so much to the activities of Mr McFarlane—as a fireman, this is an industry in which I have had the pleasure of being somewhat involved as the chief executive of a bushfires board in the past—need abled jobs. There are plenty of people who have disabilities that are not declared, but nevertheless they successfully undertake what we would regard as normal work activities. We need to recognise that disabled people may not be able to do the equivalent of an abled person in hours of work per day or the degree of stress of a job or the nature of certain jobs, but nevertheless this is where we need to be aiming. We need to examine the person's ability rather than their inability or their disability, and we need to accept limitations. In the workplace we need to build in flexibility.

I am very pleased to be able to record again the tremendous support of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in this area. They launched in 2011-12 the business case for employing people with disability referred to as 'Employ outside the box.' This was dual in its objectives: firstly, to be able to provide a better quality of life for disabled people and, secondly, to be able to address the declining number of people and declining productivity that we will see according to the numbers I quoted earlier. The capacity to be able to improve workforce skills, to improve employment participation, to better use unskilled and semiskilled workers to improve their skills level—of course we need to mount a case to do so.

In my concluding remarks, I simply want to go back to the earlier comments made—that is, strong support. As Mr Abbott has said, 'The NDIS is an idea whose time has come'. It really is the time now to put to one side those partisan comments. Be they from our side or be they from the government or be they from the Greens: we need to move forward in a more productive climate of consultation and we do need to know at the end of the day that we can fund this well into the future.

Lin Thorp (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is much to celebrate about life in Australia today. We consistently perform above international averages on a range of measures, including life expectancy, air and water quality, and employment. In fact, Australia is unsurpassed on scales used by the OECD to determine which countries offer their citizens a better life. This places us ahead of 35 other countries including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. It is something of which we should all be very proud and grateful.

But other OECD research tells a much more uncomfortable story: a story of those who have been limited in their capacity to share in the economic and social wealth of this country; a story of those who, through no fault of their own, have been marginalised and disempowered from participating fully in society. The reality is that in 2010 Australia ranked 21st out of 29 OECD countries in employment participation rates for those with a disability. In addition, around 45 per cent of Australians with a disability live close to, or below, the poverty line. This is more than double the OECD average, and over 2½ times the rate of poverty experienced in the general population.

In 2009, this government recognised that something had to change. We tasked the Productivity Commission with investigating ways the current system of disability services delivery could be improved. The resulting report was unequivocal, labelling Australia's disability support system as 'underfunded, unfair, fragmented and inefficient'. People living with a disability told the commission that they did not have enough say in their own care, that they were left on their own to navigate their way through a complex, fractured and inconsistent maze of bureaucracy, and that the support they received often did not match their needs. Participants also reported being under great stress and worrying about what may happen to them and their families in the future. Some talked of how poor care had led to isolation, loneliness and feelings of helplessness and despair.

The report left no doubt that the disability services system has been failing these individuals and their families day after day, year after year. This failure has also placed an unacceptable burden on what has been termed the 'shadow care economy'—the millions of people who work tirelessly and without pay to care for people living with a disability. But today is not a day for dwelling on those failings. It is a day for looking forward with hope to the future. It is a special moment in time when both sides of politics stand united in the belief that the situation is unacceptable and a moment when we are equally united in our determination to change it.

As part of its work the Productivity Commission outlined a coherent vision for Australian disability services. It recommended a national scheme, a scheme that would provide insurance cover for all Australians who have a significant and ongoing disability. In doing so it recognised the unfairness of the situation where the victim of a workplace accident or car accident will receive fair compensation, while people living with disabilities are forced to rely heavily on a broken system and informal, unpaid care arrangements.

The NDIS Bill, which establishes Disability Care Australia, is one step along the path to achieving a vision that was first proposed 40 years ago by Gough Whitlam. It represents a doubling of the funding for disability services. More than that, it represents fundamental and historic change. This is not an evolution; it is a revolution. It is not a series of incremental fixes intended to patch holes in the existing system; it is a complete rethink of what is needed and a complete rework of disability services from the ground up.

Disability Care Australia will bring dignity and support to millions of people living with a disability as well as their families and carers. One of the greatest strengths of this approach is the underlying philosophy of self-determination. The individual will be placed at the centre of decision making and family members will be recognised as partners. Psychologists have long known that people who feel they have autonomy and power over the direction their lives will take are also more likely to report high self-esteem and general life happiness. Similarly, they are more likely to participate more actively in their communities and the workforce. To my mind this is what sets Disability Care Australia apart from traditional welfare models.

Choice and control will be embedded in all stages. For the first time, participants will have an opportunity to be active contributors in decisions about the individual support services they need, where they get them from and how they receive them. In doing so, the scheme respects the capacity of individuals to make their own choices on the issues that affect them and recognises that this choice should no longer be a luxury afforded to the very few with the resources to pay for it. Underlying all of these decisions is the goal of more independent living, greater community participation and increased self-reliance.

To my mind, this bill embodies so many core beliefs that drew me to the Labor Party many years ago. It echoes the values of other equally ambitious and nation-changing Labor initiatives, like Medicare and compulsory superannuation. It is about fairness, equity, self-determination and inclusion. It is also about unwavering support for the most marginalised people in our community who, by dint of circumstance, have so many challenges to face. In doing so, it recognises that disability could strike any of us at any time in our lives. The Prime Minister captured it perfectly in her speech to the House last year when she said, 'Disability can affect any of us and therefore it affects all of us.'

In my home state of Tasmania, disability affects a vast number of people. According to a 2007 report by the state government, around one in five Tasmanians are living with a disability and a further 10 per cent of Tasmanians over 15 reported providing unpaid assistance to a person with a disability, long-term illness or problems relating to old age. I am very proud that Tasmania will be one of five launch sites for the NDIS. This pilot project will help around 1,000 young Tasmanians over its life span. As someone who has worked as a special education teacher for many years, I am especially heartened that the launch site will focus on young people between 15 and 24 years. This age range was chosen in recognition that it is a vital transition period, a time when the foundations are laid for adult life, as young people move from schooling into the workforce or further study. The goal of the launch site is to explore the supports that need to be in place for this transition to be as successful as possible.

Importantly, setting up Disability Care Australia is not only the right thing for us to do but the most sensible, prudent thing for us to do. One thing that concerns me about some policy debate today is the false dichotomies that are constructed around social justice. Welfare issues are often presented as a question of moral responsibility versus fiscal responsibility; people versus dollars, if you like. Either we choose to care for marginalised people in our community or we look after the budgetary bottom line. However, if we take a wider perspective and a closer look at the research, we often find that these sorts of initiatives not only help individuals to lead fuller, happier lives but actually contribute positively to the bottom line.

In its report entitled Disability expectations: investing in a better life, a stronger Australia PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the NDIS, as part of a package of reforms, can also achieve strong economic gains. Its modelling found that the scheme could lead to an extra 450,000 people living with a disability and their carers participating in the workforce by 2050. To put this in perspective, this workforce boost is not too far short of the entire population of Tasmania. This extra employment is estimated to be able to return $50 billion to the nation's economy. The report summarised the situation by saying:

The NDIS is an economically responsible proposal, providing an investment in people with a disability and in the future of Australia. It pays for itself.

Quite simply, we cannot afford not to act and I, for one, am glad to be part of the government that is.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak also on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2013. I want to start off by going back to some words I spoke in my maiden speech in this place, about the fact that we live in a land that many people in the world can only dream of and that the vast majority of us who benefit from and enjoy all that this nation has to offer have a responsibility to give back where we can. First and foremost, we have a duty to defend and develop those things that preserve our democracy and freedom. But, secondly and importantly, we have an obligation to reach out to those amongst us—and, indeed, those beyond our shores—who for many reasons do not enjoy the same security or quality of life. In that speech I made the point that we stand here—certainly in my case I stand here—because there are things that we can do better. I recalled standing in the home of a sole parent who was in desperate need of respite and support for a disabled child. Her daughter was so physically strong and aggressive that they lived in a house remote from other people, with locked rooms and a fenced-in veranda. That is no way for a young family to live. We can do better than those conditions, and we can do better with the system that we put in place to care for those people with a disability.

That is not to say that everything governments of either persuasion have done in the past has been bad. There have been some good measures. I particularly recall, in my former life in the other place, working as the chair of Minister Brough's policy committee for families and communities, and I recall the money we put aside for respite for older carers of children with disabilities. That is an issue that is significant as people age and their children continue to need care. The additional funding that was put aside there made a real difference, particularly at Country North Community Services up in Clare. To see the difference that that funding made in a regional community was fantastic. Likewise, at the Elizabeth Special School, there was the package that Minister Brough announced: some $190 million for children with autism. Again, governments of both persuasions have done good things. The Howard government lost government soon after that announcement, but this current government continued with that program, and it has had benefits for people across the nation. Certainly the Elizabeth Special School is one place that is now a real focal point for young people with autism and their families.

But some things have not been so good. I remember the extensive debates around the Commonwealth, state and territory disability agreements between the Commonwealth government and the state governments on how the funding models would work, who would meet need and how to define need. The real shame of that whole process was that, whilst we sat and with very good intentions tried to work through funding programs, priorities, principles and partnerships and struggled to find agreement, families, carers and those with disabilities were not getting the support they needed. So, whilst there were offers of large amounts of money for that, the problem was that we did not get the partnership that was required. The people we have let down have been not so much us or the system as those who actually need the care. So one of the issues that I am very happy about with the National Disability Insurance Scheme is that, through the COAG process, we have already seen a number of partnerships signed up to between state and territory governments. I commend governments at both the federal level and the state level for achieving that.

All of us in this place know that the system is broken. Certainly in the Senate inquiry—I sat through one part of that in South Australia—more than 1,600 submissions made that point loud and clear: that the system needs reform. We know all too well that how somebody acquires a disability or where they live can make a marked difference in the level of support that they receive. There is a certain inequity about that, and I think that, in Australian in 2013, it is not before time that we are seeking to redress that. Whether you acquire an injury through the workplace and therefore have some form of compensation or insurance to cover it or whether you, through no fault of your own, are born with a disability and then your family is left, in some cases, largely to its own devices, it is remarkably inequitable to those people.

So, to quote Mr Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, it is a scheme whose time has come. I think it is important to recognise that this is a scheme that has had strong bipartisan support. I welcome the comments by Senator Thorp, who recognised that both sides of politics have recognised that this is a scheme whose time has come and that it needs to be implemented. The coalition has supported the scheme along each of the major parts of the process. We supported the work of the Productivity Commission, and we also supported the allocation of the $1 billion in the last budget to get the scheme on the road. We supported the five launch sites, and I am particularly pleased to see that South Australia has signed an agreement to be one of the launch sites. It is a fantastic opportunity. It starts in July this year for those people with children aged up to five years who will receive support, and over the next two years that will increase to include children aged up to 14. So it is not a silver bullet to fix all the demand all at once, but it is a start, and it is a start that has bipartisan support, which means that, for the families who need that support and that care, it is a program that hopefully will not be subject to the changing whims of politics and changing governments but will continue so that they can start planning the future of their families and the ones they care for. There is no definition at this stage for the move beyond 14 years old in South Australia, and I certainly look forward to working with members on both sides and in both houses as we articulate the funding models, the rules around the scheme and how the programs at these launch sites will be expanded so that everyone who has a disability and needs support can plan for the appropriate support that they need into the future in South Australia.

Any of the comments that we make as a coalition about the NDIS are offered in that spirit. We recognise that there are still things to be worked through. It will vary from country areas to city areas and from state to state. So there will be hurdles that we come across, and there will be unintended consequences. So the comments that are made are made with a view to and an intention of highlighting those unintended consequences and getting the best outcome for people with disability and those who care for them. I would encourage people in the government and the crossbenchers to receive any coalition comments in that spirit, in that we strongly support the scheme and seek to improve it as we can.

The NDIS is a person centred scheme. Something I found through the work I did in the other place when I was the member for Wakefield and supporting Minister Brough was one of the large failings with the current model: it is capacity constrained, there are frameworks in place that may or may not match people's need and to a large extent it disempowers people who have a disability and those who care for them. One of the real strengths of this scheme is that it seeks to empower people and, wherever the person with a disability has the capacity to have inputs into the planning and the decisions that are made, it provides and in fact requires that input, which is a really positive thing for that person. Where that is not the case, other arrangements will be made with the carers or an appointed person, but the bottom line is it will be about enabling a person to use a resource in the most practical and effective way possible that meets their priority needs. In working with communities in country areas where some of the more established forms of support are not so readily available, that flexibility is just crucial. There was nothing more heartbreaking than speaking with people who have a desperate need for respite but, living in a country area, find that when they finally get to breaking point at 11 or 12 o'clock at night the only respite they have is two to three hours drive away. By the time they get there, drop a child off at an emergency respite and have a couple of hours sleep in the back of a car, they have to pick them up the next morning and come back. So being able to use resources to find ways to have local solutions to local needs is one of the most powerful parts of the NDIS. It fits very comfortably with the coalition's philosophy of empowering individuals where we possibly can to take control over their lives. We welcome that as a key part of this scheme.

The other thing that the coalition has offered is the concept of having a bipartisan or in fact multiparty committee, co-chaired by the two major parties, to implement this scheme. I am disappointed that to date that concept has not been taken up by the parties, but the coalition's offer—restated by the leader, Mr Abbott—is that, should there be a change of government later this year, it would be the intention of an Abbott-led government to create such a committee so that we can harness the good ideas, passion and support of people from all parties in this parliament for the benefit of the community of Australia.

At the end of the day, if any party in this parliament seeks to make this scheme its own, the people we actually disempower are the Australian community and those with a disability. This of all areas is one where we need to recognise that true leadership is to serve and that by being here and being leaders of this nation we serve the interests of those who elected us and put us here. The coalition comes to this debate in a spirit of bipartisanship. We offer that now and, should there be a change of government later in the year, we extend that offer. I welcome the initiative of the NDIS. The coalition is pleased to support it, albeit with some comments and amendments along the way. I offer it our support.

Debate interrupted.