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

I present the first report of the 47th Parliament of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme on general issues concerning the NDIS, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

What has always been a consistent theme of the NDIS committee is that it has generally tried to work in a very bipartisan way and come together in consensus over how issues need to be dealt with. That's because most of us appreciate—and most of us in this place and in the other place understand—that the NDIS is a scheme for the most vulnerable in our community. It's for Australians who will need support over their lifetime because they have permanent and lifelong disabilities. I must say that, while most of the committee's recommendations have been supported, there does seem to be an unwillingness by the majority of the committee—which is not opposition, Greens or crossbench run—to not acknowledge any shortfalls and to not outline in any way, shape or form concerns around the transparency, longevity and sustainability of the scheme and how it is going to best serve those Australians and their families who will require it into the future.

It is also important to note that this inquiry had a look back over the 10 years that this committee has been in place and the recommendations that this committee has made over the last 10 years, in terms of what has adopted and what has been ignored. I think Senator Steele-John would share with me the sentiment that there are so many recommendations that have been made time and time and time again, yet the NDIA in many, many instances—if not the minister themselves—have failed to take action on these. Many of these suggestions are actually not that earth-shattering. We're not talking about fundamental shifts in the NDIS. We're talking about things like working with participants to access a draft copy of their plan so that they can then make sure that what they actually need is in it and that the disabilities that they have are appropriately recognised. It would ensure that, if there are things in there that they are not going to use, those can come out. That might blow people's minds. There's a thing on my son's plan that I'm not going to use. There's a substantial amount of money over three years that is not going to get used. I don't need it. But, if I had seen a draft plan beforehand, I would have said to them: 'Take that part out. I don't need it. I'm not going to use it.'

This is a recommendation that has been made time and time and time again, yet it still seems impossible for the agency to comprehend that this is something participants are asking for and their families are asking for. This is even something that providers would be keen to see because it means that everyone has surety as they go forward over their NDIS scheme. But unfortunately, since we've seen this government come in, I have to say that I just don't get the sense that Minister Shorten is interested in it. I don't get the sense that his heart is in this. I sense that he is not really that keen. He missed out on being Prime Minister. This is the runner-up role. He's Minister Shorten, not Prime Minister Shorten. He didn't get the big prize. He ended up with the NDIS, and I feel like he is consistently expressing his disappointment in himself that he didn't quite get the gig he was actually going for.

The way Minister Shorten has changed his narrative almost seems bitter, in terms of comparing how he used to talk about the NDIS when he was in opposition with how he talks now when he is the minister responsible for it. He used to talk all the time about any discussion that the coalition in government tried to have with him about ensuring that the scheme was sustainable and targeted to the people who required it, about the scheme not being misconstrued or misused and about state governments not stepping up where they should. He accused the coalition of 'pearl-clutching kabuki theatre'—fortunately, my pearls are being restrung at the moment, so I can't give you a demonstration of that—claiming that the NDIS was tracking just as predicted. We knew when we were in government that it was not the case and that it was growing exponentially faster than anyone expected, so we wanted to have conversations. We wanted to talk both as an NDIS committee and from the government's perspective—when it was a coalition government—to ensure that we could shore up the scheme and make sure it was sustainable. But ever since this government came in there has been a complete change of tune from Minister Shorten, who is now saying that he's going to cap the growth of the scheme, but he won't tell us how he is planning to do that. This is causing extraordinary angst, and this is coupled by NDIS Monday every time we come in, because those opposite refuse to provide the documents around the financial sustainability mechanism.

While I am very proud to be part of this committee, to present the reports, and to acknowledge the importance of including people with a disability in the planning for their lives, ensuring that choice and control remains at the very heart of the NDIS, we need to be able to see how this financial sustainability model is going to work. But we know those opposite have very little interest in transparency. They will not be open and honest with the Australian people. This is causing unnecessary angst, and the work of our committee will continue as we seek answers to ensure that those people and their families who rely on the NDIS continue to be supported.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.

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

The Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme has been meeting for 10 years now, and in that time it has completed 20 inquiries into the scheme. I have loved being part of this committee and having the opportunity to work with its members and the secretariat to scrutinise the policies and processes of the NDIS to make sure that they work for my fellow members of the disability community. I give special thanks and send my deepest respect to the disabled community, who have added incredible amounts of value to the committee's work over 10 years. Your knowledge, your expertise, and your lived experience of how this scheme works and how often it does not work has been invaluable to our work as a committee and has improved the quality of reports that we've been able to make to the parliament in an unparalleled way. Thank you for consistently showing up to inform us.

In reflecting on what we have heard as a committee over the past 10 years, a few main points continue to emerge that still need to be genuinely addressed. It has become crystal clear to the committee that harnessing the lived experience of participants and their plan nominees—their intricate knowledge of how the NDIS operates in a critical context—is absolutely essential to being able to properly reflect in our reports and in our work the way in which the scheme needs to work for people. This means, to put it simply, that the agency needs to engage in genuine collaboration, or co-design, with participants in both defining the problems and designing the solutions, and in so doing avoiding harm to participants through policy failure which then ultimately results in additional costs to the scheme and negative impacts for participants. It is vital that participants are actually leading the co-design processes rather than just being consultants within it.

The independent-assessments debacle was a shining example of government failure to engage in genuine co-design. This harmful trial should be a lesson to any decision-makers about the future of assessment and access processes. The Productivity Commission specifically recommended a needs-and-aspirations-based assessment, rather than a purely functional assessment, to identify an individual's reasonable and necessary care and support needs across a broad range of life, including their aspirations and the outcomes that they wish to achieve. This has been echoed time and time again by participants themselves, because the absence of these processes causes great distress when required supports are not funded.

In 2020, the committee recommended that the NDIS:

… provide fully costed, detailed draft plans to participants and their nominees at least one week prior to their meeting with an official with the authority to approve the plan.

'Draft plans'—that is such a simple change that would make a transformational difference, giving each participant the guarantee that they would actually have the opportunity to see their plan, to read it in detail, to think about it and to consider it before it is approved. My God! Nobody in this space would buy a garden shed without having the opportunity to look at it properly first, yet the agency continues, to this day, to deny participants the uniform right to see a draft plan. We are still waiting for this recommendation to be implemented, and every member of the committee will continue to press the agency to make this change.

Disabled people have the right to choice and control over their lives and to be able, as necessary for them, to determine their goals. These rights are enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a convention to which Australia is a signatory and that the NDIS Act itself explicitly references, so any policies and any changes or modifications to regulations, rules or guidelines of the NDIS must be compliant and consistent with the UNCRPD. This also means making broader funding and budget changes in line with the UNCRPD.

We often hear in the media about the so-called cost of the scheme. We rarely hear about its incredible benefits for disabled people, our families and our communities. The committee has often heard of those positive impacts of the scheme, but the full extent is not well understood. We need comprehensive research about the full extent of the positive impacts of the NDIS, along with the negative impacts that would occur if funding to the scheme were to be capped or reduced. The only research conducted that gives us even half of the information that we might need was commissioned by National Disability Services in 2021. This concluded that in relation to the NDIS and NDIS funding—I will quote it, and I will quote it again and again during the course of future months as we debate incoming NDIS legislation—decisions must be:

… based on sound, transparent and publicly-available analysis, not made behind closed doors based on secret modelling.

Now we are back once again at a moment in time under another government where such documents are being withheld from this very Senate, despite those documents having been repeatedly requested. This is despite the government winning an election partly because they pledged to the disability community that they would not repeat the same practices of secrecy so modelled by the previous coalition government. Yet week after week, month after month, the Senate returns and requests those documents and the government refuses to cough them up.

The NDIS joint standing committee, its members and the disability community have a critical role in ensuring the transparency that participants and their family members need in relation to the NDIS. I will continue to play my role in this place, alongside colleagues, in ensuring that the committee plays that role and that those pieces of vital information are delivered to the public.

Question agreed to.