Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that the President has received the following letter, dated 12 September 2023, from Senator McKim:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today the Australian Greens propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

It is in the public interest for the government to release all information related to the NDIS Financial Sustainability Framework and commit to making publicly available all recommendations from the review of the NDIS, with both critical in guiding the decision-making of government as to the future of the NDIS."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

At the request of Senator McKim, I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

It is in the public interest for the government to release all information related to the NDIS Financial Sustainability Framework and commit to making publicly available all recommendations from the review of the NDIS, with both critical in guiding the decision-making of government as to the future of the NDIS.

Today, I am proud to bring to the Senate a matter of significant importance to the disability community: the future of the NDIS. Let me provide some context for the Senate this afternoon.

Right now, as we sit here, the disability community is attempting to get from the government an answer to a simple question: what did premiers, chief ministers and the Prime Minister sign up to at the April National Cabinet meeting in relation to our NDIS? All we know is that those powerful people got into a room and made a decision on something called the financial sustainability framework for the NDIS. This was behind closed doors and we know that subsequently, in the budget, it was confirmed that it would constrain the expected projected funding pathway for the NDIS to about eight per cent annually, and that the government, on the back of that, would book $59 billion in savings. That's the single-largest so-called 'saving' in its budget. There was no detail on what the framework includes and no detail on how the government will achieve the reduction in the predicted spending trajectory.

The lack of transparency and detail was, from the moment it was announced—blindsiding as it was to the disability community—a source of extreme concern among that community. We here in the Greens have been calling on the government to own up and to release the detail of that framework from the moment it was announced. We want made clear what the impact of this framework will be, not only on the plans of the nearly 600,000 participants of the NDIS but also on their friends and family members—the people who they love—and on the support workers who work with them. What will it mean for them also?

And what have we had in response from this government? We have had gaslighting. We have had dismissal. We have had derogatory commentary from those running the NDIS. We have had an attempt from this government to convince disabled people that there's nothing to see here, folks; there's absolutely nothing to worry about, because efficiencies and more-effective administration will achieve $59 billion in spending reduction—nonsense! You are treating us as mugs and we are done with it, absolutely done with it.

The minister continues to express that the NDIS has become a 'life raft in an ocean'. Yet in recent weeks it has become clear that the Labor government's plan is not to build a bigger boat; their plan is to kick us into the sea. And we will not sit by and take it. We will not sit by while you plunge neurodivergent children back into the ocean. We will not sit by while you force disabled people with psychosocial disabilities back into the institutions, back into the absolute abyss from which we collectively liberated ourselves through the establishment of the NDIS. We will not go back. We will not go back to a time when our supports were defined by what people in government thought we should be given—what was convenient for them, what was efficient and effective for them. We will not go back to a time when disabled women and children were locked in institutions, unable to access their rights as human beings. We will not go back to a time when we fought day after day for basics like the wheelchair that we sit in. We will not go back to the time when we rationed the number of showers that we took per week, just so we could balance somebody's budget in Treasury. We will not. If you believe for a second that the disability community will sit by and let you take our NDIS from us, then we will see you at the ballot box.

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

The government will be opposing this motion in relation to the NDIS. I'm aware that the Minister representing the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme has outlined that the government has claimed public interest immunity over the document requested by the Greens political party, as disclosure would prejudice relations between the Commonwealth and the states and territories. I do thank Senator McKim for this matter of urgency motion, because the NDIS is something that, as a Labor senator, I am so incredibly proud of. Of course, this is the 10th year that the NDIS has been in existence. It started I think on 1 July, with four trial sites, under a Labor government.

Back in 2022 this government began a large-scale independent review of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The review came about after the coalition neglected the scheme for nine years when they occupied government. The NDIS is a transformational scheme. We know that. It's a scheme that has increased freedom and control for more than 600,000 participants across the country. It is a scheme we should all be deeply proud of and a scheme we should all fight to protect and advance. The NDIS is a life-changing piece of economic and social policy, and it is our duty to make sure it is here for generations to come.

The review of the NDIS had one underlying purpose: to ensure that the scheme is viable and relevant for many more years to come. Through the review, 2,000 Australians shared their experience with the scheme, from access issues to issues that they face daily. Through the review, this government has listened to the concerns of the community and participants and recognised that genuine change is required to deliver a scheme that works for people with disability. The 2023-24 budget invested a total of $910 million over four years to improve the NDIS and support and safeguard people with a disability and the scheme. This includes investing in the capacity of the NDIA, improving the agency's capability and systems to improve the experience of participants. I know Senator Steele-John, who spoke just before me, knows through his work in the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS that this was an issue that was constantly part of submissions about participants being able to work with the NDIA access the scheme. It was about the experience participants were having under the former government.

To support these changes, the government is investing significantly into capability, better planning and flexibility, something that was also called for. To ensure the NDIA can help deliver the best outcomes for participants and to allow for the systems which will result in better consistency and equity in decision-making, the government is providing a $429.5 million investment to the scheme, with a $73.4 million investment to better support participants to manage their plan within budget, including assistance from the NDIA during the year and holding plan managers, support coordinators and providers to account. In acknowledging that participants are dealing with lifelong disabilities, the government is providing $63.8 million to ensure the scheme takes a lifetime approach to ensuring plans are more transferable and flexible for life events. The government is providing $56.4 million to strengthen supported independent living decisions, including by introducing a home-and-living panel with highly trained staff to improve consistency across decisions. The funding will allow for updated guidelines for planners to improve participants' ability to live independently. To support the quality and effectiveness of services provided to participants, the government is providing $29.3 million. This funding will improve— (Time expired)

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on this urgency motion by the Australian Greens. I say first of all to my colleague Senator Steele-John: bravo. One of the things that, as minister, I always sought to do when dealing with everybody across both chambers was to make sure that we told the truth. We didn't politically play games with this scheme—certainly on this side of the chamber—but I guarantee nobody on that side of the chamber ever thought they would hear the Australian Greens talking about the NDIS minister in terms of gaslighting and perpetrating a cruel fraud. That is absolutely the case, and I endorse everything that Senator Steele-John has said—not wanting to damage his reputation irreparably, mind you!

But it is time for some truth-telling, and the truth on the NDIS is this: it was created in the spirit of bipartisanship—in fact, multipartisanship. It should be one of the best social programs in this nation's history, but mistakes were made at its creation which are rebounding and causing significant problems today. Those mistakes were made by both sides of the chamber at the time. Before the 2013 election, it was implemented too quickly, so the largest social policy reform since Medicare was rushed, the agency literally had no staff members and there were no procedures or policies. That was the first mistake. The second mistake was embedded in the legislation, which didn't provide the federal government of the day with the ability to control either lever of cost: the number of participants or the cost per participant. That was deliberately implemented by Labor. We didn't pick it up at the time, but that was clearly designed so that we couldn't change their scheme. Well, guess what? It has reverberated badly on Minister Shorten and the Labor Party now, because they can't either. A bit more truth-telling—that's the second thing.

The third is that the intergovernmental agreements are fundamentally flawed. Yes, my side of politics implemented most of them, but the clear intent of all states and territories and the federal government in the federated scheme was that it was to be a fifty-fifty cost split. It is now, I believe, a split of somewhere over 70 per cent to the Commonwealth government and 30 per cent to the states and territories. And that four per cent cap for states and territories was a big mistake.

Before the election, when I was minister, I offered the hand of bipartisanship yet again to Bill Shorten. I was very grateful for his support for the two pieces of legislation—which I don't think any other minister achieved, and I did that in the time Bill Shorten has been in government—for protections for participants and the Participant Service Guarantee and safeguards. I'm grateful for his support—which was very quiet, but support nonetheless—but he chose to politicise this scheme relentlessly. When blind Freddy could have read the budget papers over many years to know what I said and what my predecessors had said—that this was a scheme in trouble and it needed bipartisan support to change the legislation in this place so that the federal government could control the scheme—Bill Shorten did what he did best. He had the rhetorical flourish. He used great invective, saying that I was lying, that it wasn't the truth, and that there was no sustainability issue for this. Well, guess what? There was. He knew it, I knew it, and the Australian Greens knew it.

Instead of dealing with the issue, he has had this 18-month review, which will not solve the problem. In fact, it sounds like so far it's finding the same problems that the previous 30 reviews found. At the moment, from Professor Bonyhady's statements, it sounds like they're really not going to solve the problem, which is changing the intergovernmental agreements, getting the states to pay their way and giving the federal government the ability to control the levers. By doing that, they've implemented—this is the subject of the Greens urgency motion—a sustainability framework which they are being completely non-transparent on, although they have admitted it doesn't actually exist yet.

Somehow, this mythical sustainability framework for the NDIS is supposed to reach eight per cent cuts, and that is what they are trying to hide—how this framework that they've agreed with the states and territories will make the eight per cent cuts and nearly $60 billion cuts to this scheme. There is only one way this government can possibly cut $60 billion in the growth of the NDIS budget, and that is by either cutting participant numbers or cutting their plans. There is no other way, and shame on you for not being honest and dealing with the problems that you helped create. (Time expired)

Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise here in support of Senator McKim's urgency motion. Senator McKim and I obviously have vastly different political views, but there is one thing that we can always agree on, and that is transparency. Why is that? It's because transparency—what does it do?—builds trust. All the Australians that are suffering disability desperately need support via the NDIS. I am not doubting that. But, unfortunately, the Albanese government's inability to constrain the cost and restrict the rorts surrounding this scheme is threatening its viability. This is bad news. It's obviously bad news for Australians, but it's bad news for those that are reliant on the scheme as well. There's obviously one other group that it's bad news for—it's bad news for everyone who is paying their taxes. Why is that? Because it's a massive cost.

The NDIS minister, Mr Bill Shorten, in April said that the NDIS had 'lost its way'. Minister Shorten, that is nothing short of mastery. He is a master of understatement. That's what he is. The NDIS is estimated to cost taxpayers a staggering $41.9 billion this financial year. Astonishingly, though, that number is tipped to skyrocket to $89.4 billion a year within the next decade. What does this scheme do? I'll tell you what it does: it puts pink batts to shame. It is an uncapped, demand-driven program that, if left unchecked, will drive our nation into the ground financially. Obviously, $89 billion is not a small sum.

In my office I have been contacted—inundated, actually—by whistleblowers calling out dangerous and unqualified providers who every single day are milking the cash cow that is the NDIS. Where are the checks and balances? Where are they? It is estimated that unscrupulous providers are defrauding the scheme to the tune of $300 million a year. You know what? That's probably an underestimation.

With so many people reliant on the NDIS and with so much taxpayer money involved—it's going to be close to a hundred billion dollars this decade—it is essential that the recommendations of the independent review be made public. Mr Shorten must not keep the review secret and only drip-feed his favourite recommendations. That's not the way to do it. He must not bury the things he deems to be just too hard. If the NDIS has lost its way, as the minister has said before—and I agree with him; I think clearly it has lost its way—then obviously $41.9 billion of public funding has also lost its way. The NDIS review, along with all of its recommendations, do not belong to the government. I'll tell you who it belongs to, Mr Deputy President: it belongs to the Australian taxpayer.

I keep calling for transparency in this place, but we're yet to receive it. With transparency we can ensure the long-term viability of the NDIS. This issue is too important for the government to deal with it in the dark. It's just too important. People need this service. This service needs to be here long into the future, and we need to make sure that it's sustainable. That's what we need: sustainability. I probably won't say this often but I'm going to say it today: I thank Senator McKim for this motion. There is one thing that he and the Greens and I will always agree on, and that thing is transparency. It is a question of holding the government to account and of making sure Australian taxpayers get looked after and get what they are paying for.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to begin by thanking my colleague Senator Steele-John for his passionate advocacy for disabled people. In this instance, I thank him for campaigning against the government's plan to limit the budget of, and hence access to, the NDIS, and against their sneaky unwillingness to be upfront about the rationale behind their cap on spending. What this matter of urgency is calling for is pretty basic, and essential if you are serious about treating disabled people with dignity. It calls on the government to release all the information related to the NDIS Financial Sustainability Framework and commit to making publicly available all the recommendations from the review of the NDIS. This information is critical in the decision-making of government as to the future of the NDIS and critical for the community, in particular the disabled community, to know the basis on which decisions are being made.

The Greens, of course, want to see an increase in funding for the NDIS. Right now, too many disabled people are unable to get the support they need to live a decent life. But, as Senator Steele-John has said, Labor's announcement to have a target for spending growth is sounding a lot like a cap on the NDIS. The notion of a cap is a broken promise from the Albanese government, and it is causing tremendous concern in the disabled community. If the federal government continues to limit growth to eight per cent, this announcement will see over $50 billion less allocated to the NDIS over the decade, and defunding the NDIS by this amount is completely unacceptable. The NDIS is succeeding. It's providing disabled people with the opportunity to participate in the community, to go to work and to enjoy the basics in life, like having a shower. There are social and economic benefits to the NDIS. Money invested has a positive return for the economy and, importantly, for the community.

The NDIS Review has had input from very many people in the disabled community, and it is not fair on them—it is disrespectful to them—if the recommendations and all of that information are not released. People were hopeful that this review was going to end up with a clear trajectory for change, but instead they are deeply disappointed that big decisions that are going to impact the future of the scheme are being made without being upfront, transparent or accountable. Decisions are being made behind closed doors.

There are more than four million disabled people in Australia, and, just like everyone else, they have a right to be supported to live full and active lives. But there still so many significant barriers in our society. Disabled people are continuing to fall through the cracks and are being denied the same rights that other people have, and successive governments have perpetuated discrimination against disabled people, often denying them access to inclusive education, meaningful employment, adequate services and the support they need.

As well as what's going on here with the NDIS, we have another clear example of this, and that's the government's approach to income support. Right now, millions of people are barely scraping by on youth allowance, older people are increasingly becoming homeless, it's harder than ever for people who have a disability to access the disability support pension, and people with disabilities who are on JobSeeker are having to survive on payments way below the poverty line and cannot lead a decent life. They are people who are not able to go out and just get a full-time job. They are people who have particular needs that need to be catered for. They are often not able to access the NDIS, and they are living on poverty payments. Our social security system is broken. Over 43 per cent of JobSeeker recipients have only a partial capacity to work, meaning they are disabled and/or sick. We've heard countless stories from disabled people on JobSeeker who are being forced to fulfil mutual obligations or risk losing their payment, despite being limited in their ability to work and at times passed over by employers due to their disability.

We as Greens know that our social safety net is failing disabled people, so we have to call on the government to fully resource the NDIS so that it meets the needs of disabled people and their families and carers and to have an income support system that fully allows disabled people to be able to get by and flourish.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The alarm bells are ringing for the NDIS, and there are large numbers of disabled people in Australia who can hear them ringing loud and clear. One of the clangers that they and many others can hear is Labor's decision to cut about $59 billion out of the NDIS over the coming decade. That was the largest single so-called savings measure in the budget that the Labor Party handed down this year. We know that. We also know that at the April National Cabinet meeting a financial sustainability framework was agreed to and adopted by all state premiers and territory chief ministers and the Prime Minister. But what we don't know is exactly what is contained in the financial sustainability framework. That is the issue here, and that's why so many people are so worried about what Labor is proposing for the NDIS.

Of course, disabled Australians had no idea that this was coming down the line—no idea at all. People would expect cuts to the NDIS from a Liberal government, but they didn't expect them from a Labor government. I remind the Labor Party that they promised to co-design with disabled Australians. The four million Australians who are disabled have the same right to a good and dignified life as anyone else in the country. That's what they expect. That's what they demand, and rightly so. It's our job as policymakers to make sure that we deliver on that right.

The NDIS review had input from many disabled Australians, so people were hopeful that the scheme had a clear trajectory for positive change. Instead, it looks like big decisions—big budget decisions—that are going to impact on the future of the scheme are actually being made without considering the inputs into the review. That is simply not good enough, and it is particularly not good enough from a Labor government.

The NDIS provides large numbers of disabled Australians the opportunity to participate fully in the community—to go to work, to have basic supports that many of them need, to have their houses cleaned, to keep themselves clean. There are massive social and economic benefits to the NDIS. Money invested in the NDIS has a positive return for our economy, but more importantly, it actually supports people positively to maximise the potential of their lives and to be able to lead good and dignified lives. That is what is at risk here from a Labor Party who simply don't seem to understand.

We need some clarity out of the government about exactly what is going on here. It is not good enough to keep any Australian in the dark, but particularly when so many disabled Australians rely on the NDIS for critical supports in their lives. The government has to be upfront, and it could start by releasing the financial sustainability framework and all of the associated information and documentation around it so we can all understand the way the government is taking this issue forward and what the government's plans around this issue are. People are worried, and worry causes stress and ill-health. The NDIS wasn't designed to cause ill-health; it was actually designed to help people and support people. That's what it was designed to do.

So I say to the Labor Party: if you want to stay faithful to the principles of the NDIS, if you want to stay faithful to the fundamental rationale behind the NDIS, come clean. Take this stress and this worry away from the large numbers of disabled Australians who are worried—rightly and understandably so. We need transparency and we need a full commitment to supporting the NDIS.

Question agreed to.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I'd like it recorded in Hansard that Labor opposed the motion but don't require a division.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It will be recorded.