Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS is a committee that generally works in a bipartisan way, making recommendations constructively together after a series of inquiries. These inquiries looking into the NDIS and how it can be improved happen every year. We hear from participants and their families carers and loved ones and providers and people working with the service. Each of those inquiries makes a series of recommendations. This year marks 10 years since this committee started, and we're still compiling and then we will be releasing a retrospective on the recommendations that have been made and which of them have been adopted by the agency. This process is really concerning because I can think of a number of recommendations that we have made multiple times that still have not been acted on.

These are things like the way that participants' plans are modelled. The government at the moment is putting in these ridiculous buckets of money. I remember asking someone, 'Can you tell me whether teaching someone to cross the road and use money is community participation or a daily living skill, and which bucket of money does that go in?' This is the ludicrous nature of it, but unfortunately the NDIA has not taken on board these recommendations that come with a bipartisan spirit and are usually fully endorsed with every little dissenting comment. So far the agency has refused to act on the advice it has been given. This is coupled with the fact that this Labor government is now hiding behind the financials of the agency and the NDIS. The NDIS is a very important scheme for millions of Australians and their families, and we need to ensure that it remains sustainable. Yet this government will not release the figures and consistently moves the dates for when figures are being released. The government specifically did not release the latest figures until after the last joint standing committee report was submitted. We know that they cannot meet the targets they want to meet and that they are going to cut this program.