Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Worker Screening Database) Bill 2019. This bill establishes the legislative framework for the commencement of a national worker screening database for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the NDIS. In line with the nationally consistent way that NDIS workers are screened, this bill will establish a central database administered by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commissioner, with the assistance of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, in order to provide current and accurate information to registered providers providing support to NDIS participants, among others.

One of the principal purposes of the database for nationally consistent worker screening is to minimise the risk of harm to people with disability from those who work closely with them. The Council of Australian Governments Disability Reform Council agreed to establish a nationally consistent approach to worker screening in which states and territories would collect and analyse worker screening applications for the NDIS, and the Commonwealth would establish and maintain a national database. The national worker screening database will make it more difficult for workers with poor records in one jurisdiction to move to another jurisdiction and continue to work with people with disability.

Labor welcome this legislation because we know that people with disability are at a greater risk of abuse than others in our community. Too often this abuse comes at the hands of those who people with disability should be able to trust the most. There are many horrific cases of people with disability being abused and assaulted in institutions and in residential and educational settings. According to Disabled People's Organisations Australia, 92 per cent of women with an intellectual disability have been sexually assaulted, with 60 per cent of these assaults occurring before they turn 18. Children with disability are at least three times more likely to experience abuse than other children are.

The government says that the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework, including the national worker screening database, will be enough to protect people with disability. This is of course not true. While the national worker screening database will be an important tool to prevent abuse occurring in the future, it can never investigate the crimes of the past and will not cover other mainstream sectors, including health, education, mental health and justice. The voices of people who have been abused must be heard. That is why Labor campaigned for and welcomed the fact that there would be, finally, a royal commission—the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. This is a policy that Labor announced in May 2017. It is a critically important step for Australia. People will now, finally, be listened to and believed. It will be a difficult and traumatic process for many people and it will be shocking and confronting for us all, but the abuse of Australians with disability is a national shame. The royal commission must be a turning point for our country. It must lead to deep and lasting changes not just in the way governments and services work but in the way people with disability are regarded and included by society. Australians with disability deserve full and equal citizenship. That means equal opportunities in all parts of life, including education, employment, health, justice and civil society. We have a long, long way to go before we can claim that Australia is a genuinely inclusive and accessible place. This royal commission must play a critical role in leading the change people with disability and their families and carers have long campaigned for and deserve.

Of course, this legislation before us only covers people who are in the NDIS and receive services and support. While Labor welcomes this legislation for the protection it offers people, we know that this will not address the failings of the Liberal government and their management of the NDIS. The Liberals try to pretend their management of the NDIS is perfect. The reality is that the Liberals have ripped $1.6 billion out of the system, leaving people with disability and those who care for them without support they need. When the government's budget was released, the underspend of $1.6 billion was exposed. The underspend means that around 77,000 Australians will miss out on the NDIS because of delays in the rollout. The government are using the underspend on the NDIS so they can prop up their budget position. It's because of the government's incompetence in the rollout and their deliberate actions that we see this underspend, and they're doing it all at the expense of Australians with disability. The effect of this underspend is that NDIS participants are, on average, $20,000 worse off and that, because of the Liberals' maladministration and their lack of any leadership, people are falling through the cracks as the NDIS is rolled out. This is the consistent feedback of NDIS participants, providers, their families and states and territory governments. The very poor implementation of this scheme is clear from the state of the agency responsible for its implementation—without a CEO, with a mass exodus of its senior leadership in the past few months, a staffing cap that means longer waiting times and less access to services for NDIS participants, and a substantial lack of proper representation and understanding at the staff and board level of lived experience of disability.

We have seen countless examples of the real-world impact that the Liberals' cuts and neglect have had, including families who can only get a response from the NDIA or the government when they start a community campaign exposing the neglect, like Angus and his mum in Queensland, who rely on a wheelbarrow for transport on the family farm because Angus couldn't access a suitable wheelchair. That story appeared in the Courier-Mail on 1 July. A wheelchair-bound man in Brisbane with progressive spastic paraplegia was initially told that he 'wasn't disabled enough', despite being almost paralysed from the waist down. Again, that was a story in the media on 5 July. There are countless people with disability who end up in hospital because they don't have suitable NDIS plans. There are inconsistent and inadequate transport arrangements, like the cap on subsidies in Tasmania that will leave people with disability isolated. NDIS advocates and participants have voiced concerns as the NDIS is not equipped to replace the taxi subsidy in Tasmania. The transport subsidy, which the Tasmanian government will cap at $1,000 this year and then reduce to $350 from July 2020, was designed to complement the NDIS and to meet the transport needs of people with disability, especially in regional and isolated geographic areas. This has resulted in buck-passing between the Australian government and the state Liberal government, with the Tasmanian Liberal infrastructure minister, Jeremy Rockliff, telling the Launceston Examiner newspaper that his government 'stepped in to pick up the shortfall of the federally operated NDIA.' In response to that, a spokesperson for the NDIA, whose responsible minister is federal Liberal MP Stuart Robert, told the newspaper that 'NDIS supports were not intended to replace state and territory responsibilities for ensuring accessible public transport and community transport.' That shows how little regard both these governments have for people with disability and their families.

Labor wants to ensure that Australians with disabilities get the support they deserve. Labor wants to ensure that the NDIS delivers on the promise that so many Australians expect of it and that Labor intended, and that it improves the lives of Australians with disability.

We support this legislation because we recognise the importance of creating a central national database to store and disclose information as required on worker screening information, which is also, of course, about state and territory arrangements. We welcome this legislation because we know how important it is for people with disability to receive high-quality care. I commend the legislation to the Senate.

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

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Worker Screening Database) Bill 2019. The NDIS was started by Labor with very, very vague terms, extremely vague terms, and lofty goals put out there. Then the Liberals came along and decided to try to fill it. We had a wild, unplanned, grand vision with no substance. This is now open to abuse, while not supporting the very people it was meant to support. We must support, we need to support people with services and physical support for the vulnerable and the down-trodden in our society. One Nation is in favour of that. But instead of doing that, under the Liberal-Labor duopoly we have now created a monster, created an industry. At the core of this bill is the abuse of privacy because there seems to be open access to records.

As I said, as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to look after the taxpayers of our country while also making sure that the needy and the vulnerable are taken care of. We now have $2 billion per annum in providers—10,000 providers. Who audits this? Who controls it? Who oversees it? Who gives it direction? There seems to be a lack of direction. And yet the needy suffer. I know of the experience of a constituent in Toowoomba who took many years to sort out with the Queensland state government a scheme to look after her son and give her son proper care and to give herself a break as carer. That has failed to be replicated. It has just withered and died. They are not getting the care and the support that they need and to which they're entitled and that the Liberals and Labor promised.

Yet we also hear other stories of incredible wastage of money—people doing menial jobs, jobs without any real service being provided, people just getting money off the taxpayer for nothing. I'm not talking about the needy. I'm talking about the consultants. I'm talking about the labourers that feed off this growing empire. We are giving money in bucketloads to those who don't really need it while withholding it from those who do need it. It is becoming a huge extortion, and there is no accountability. We used to have, under competitive federalism, accountability from the various states competing to provide better services. Now we are seeing the opposite and we are seeing the state governments withdraw from providing disability protection and disability care and services.

One Nation proudly supports and stands for the vulnerable and needy—and for having a fair go for all Australians and for giving all Australians a fair go, including taxpayers. We will not be supporting this bill, because it just continues to magnify the industry that is growing like topsy and that has no accountability, leaving the taxpayers vulnerable while not supporting the needy. We want to see some real accountability come into this, not open slather on the privacy of many individuals.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill establishes the National Disability Insurance Scheme worker screening database. The database will keep an up-to-date national record of information about NDIS worker screening checks. A clearance recorded in the database means that the NDIS worker has undergone a background check and been found not to pose an unacceptable risk of harm to NDIS participants.

The NDIS is a transformational social policy that's being delivered by this government. It requires a new, nationally consistent approach to quality and safeguards. Stakeholders have consistently supported robust risk based worker screening in the disability sector that is portable across all jurisdictions. We are committed to meeting this objective and ensuring people with disability are not exposed to harm from those who are there to support them.

We've established the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and provided $209 million over four years to support the integral work of the NDIS commission. The NDIS commission commenced operations in New South Wales and South Australia from 1 July 2018 and will be working in all states and territories by July 2020. The NDIS commission will lead the overall design and broad policy settings for nationally consistent NDIS worker screening.

Under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Worker Screening Database) Bill, the NDIS commission is responsible for establishing and maintaining the national database as an accurate, up-to-date source of information about decisions made on NDIS workers' clearances. This reflects the NDIS commission's role as the national leader in quality and safeguards. The cost of developing and maintaining the database over the next four years is $13.6 million. States and territories are expected to contribute $6.8 million of this, representing half of the total cost.

The measures in the bill were funded as part of the 2017-18 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook. The bill meets the government's responsibilities under the Intergovernmental Agreement on Nationally Consistent Worker Screening for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Disability ministers from all Australian governments have provided in principle support for the intergovernmental agreement, which establishes NDIS worker screening to help create a safe and trusted workforce in the NDIS and minimise the risk of harm to people with disability. To this end, all Australian governments are working together to establish the NDIS worker screening check.

The new check will be introduced in each state and territory progressively over the next year, with all states and territories having the check in place by 1 July 2020. Until the check becomes available in a jurisdiction, transitional arrangements provide recognition of current state based checks such as working with children or vulnerable persons check. Once the NDIS check is operational, state based checks for existing workers will continue to be recognised until they expire. This approach will provide for a gradual transition to the new system and provide continuity of service provision.

Under a nationally consistent approach, worker screening units in each state and territory will be responsible for conducting the NDIS worker screening checks. They will consider an applicant's criminal history information, any relevant disciplinary and misconduct information, and information taken from the NDIS commission's complaints and reportable incident system. Information about the status of the checks will be stored in a single national database managed by the NDIS commission and accessible for NDIS purposes. Worker clearances will be portable across jurisdictions and employers, reducing duplication and complexity for workers moving between or providers operating across jurisdictions. The database enables this portability, meaning workers only need one clearance. There will be one reference point for a worker who holds a current clearance. This represents a major step forward from the existing fragmented arrangements operating in each state and territory. It reduces duplication and complexity for workers and providers operating in more than one jurisdiction.

Although recruitment, selection and screening processes are an employer responsibility, the database will provide a tool to ensure people chosen to work in the NDIS are safe to work with people with disability. Employers and self-managed participants will be able to verify that workers hold a clearance using up-to-date accurate information in the database to be established under this bill. Participants and their families can be assured workers with clearances do not pose an unacceptable risk of harm. Nationally consistent worker screening will deter and prevent those who seek to do the wrong thing from entering the NDIS workforce. The national database eliminates the opportunity for people to make multiple attempts at gaining a clearance in different states or territories. It provides for the ongoing monitoring of clearance holders' criminal history information, meaning unsuitable individuals will not remain in the sector. This sends a clear message to those who pose an unacceptable risk of harm to NDIS participants that they are not welcome.

The Morrison government is committed to the rights of people with disability to live lives free from abuse, violence, neglect and exploitation. The central database to be established under this bill will support nationally consistent NDIS worker screening in pursuit of this objective. This is an important measure to ensure people with disability have access to quality and safe support and services under the NDIS, and are not at risk of harm from people who work closely with them. I commend the bill to the chamber.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.