Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to continue my contribution from earlier today on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024. After the initial comments that I made just before lunchtime today about the need for the Senate to properly scrutinise this bill, for the Senate to be able to consult with the community that is impacted by this bill and to consult fully with NDIS participants to understand the impact on them, I do stand here tonight knowing that the coalition will support some of the sensible measures in this bill because some of them were measures which the coalition itself sought to implement but which the government at the time actively campaigned against. It is very clear—and even this Labor Albanese government has finally been forced to admit—that the NDIS is not on a sustainable path. Huge amounts of taxpayer money are not being spent responsibly and the result of that is that there is less money available in the NDIS to those who need it most and to those who most need the support that the NDIS is able to provide.

Those on the government benches for a long time refused to admit that this was a reality. In opposition, Labor stood in the way of the coalition's attempts to put the NDIS on a more sustainable footing. The now minister, Mr Shorten, when he was in opposition accused the coalition of 'pearl clutching Kabuki theatre', claiming the NDIS was 'tracking just as predicted' and that the coalition was 'hyping fictional cost blowouts'. While he was the shadow minister for the NDIS, Mr Shorten said:

You can't move around the corridors of parliament in Canberra without tripping over a coalition minister whispering the scheme is unsustainable. I'm here to tell you today that is a lie.

In reality, as this government has now been forced to concede, the scheme is absolutely not on sustainable footing.

Mr Shorten and those on the government benches and the Prime Minister went to the election promising that no plans would go backwards and that the scheme was sustainable as it is. Now we have the claim from the government that the scheme is growing its cost base too quickly. But, like I say, there is absolutely no doubt that the NDIS needs sensible reform. As the ABC recently reported, this financial year alone 'at least $8 billion worth of funding intended for people with disability is allegedly being abused by crime syndicates'. That is a disgraceful situation. I don't think any taxpayer in this country would be happy to hear that taxpayer money that should be rightly going towards supporting those in our community with disabilities is ending up in the hands of crime syndicates. Australians and those on the NDIS have every right to be angry about that.

Recently we have seen countless media reports highlighting stories where serial sexual abusers, rapists and paedophiles are receiving substantial support from the NDIS—sometimes worth more than a million dollars—to live under supervision in the community after their release from detention. Urgent review is needed to disclose how many individuals with serious criminal convictions are receiving NDIS funding and how many of those are on self managed plans. During a Senate estimates hearing in March we heard that 2½ thousand NDIA participants have interacted with the justice system. The minister needs to come clean about just how many NDIS participants have serious criminal convictions and how many of them are on self managed plans. This is vitally important to not only protect the safety of carers and providers but to also preserve the integrity of the scheme. This isn't a standalone case, it's not an isolated occurrence and Australians have every right to be concerned.

Sadly, this legislation we are debating this evening goes nowhere near addressing this incredibly important issue. At the appropriate stage the coalition will move amendments that we believe will improve the scheme, preserve the scheme's integrity and ensure the sustainability of the scheme to allow it to continue improving the lives of some of the most vulnerable individuals within our community.

But, as I said in my initial remarks earlier today, insufficient time has been provided for proper consultation with the sector and the community on this bill that we're debating here this evening, and we know that there are those within the sector and within the broader community who have expressed widespread misgivings about the current legislation. The opportunity for a thorough consultation is important in bringing the NDIS back onto a sustainable footing in a manner that does not disadvantage or impact negatively on participants most in need, and, as I said earlier, it is incredibly concerning that the Community Affairs Legislation Committee wasn't given the opportunity to consult the sector as fully as committee members would have liked on government amendments which were tabled on the day of a public hearing. This in itself shows the need for further consultation on this legislation that we are debating here this evening.

The coalition notes that legislative instruments and rules are still under development and that the Senate and the disability community have not been provided with substantial detail on these instruments and rules to date. The 2½ days of hearings that were conducted by the Community Affairs Legislation Committee pointed to significant concerns from the disability community about the lack of detail and potential unintended consequences of the current legislation without significant amendment.

I don't mean to bang on about this, but we have to remember that we are a chamber of scrutiny. When those in the broader community, through that Senate committee process, are raising concerns with a piece of legislation that is before this chamber, I think that we all need to do a bit of due diligence here and ask ourselves whether it is right for us to be passing this legislation through this place in a situation where those concerns are still being raised and where a more extensive committee inquiry process could have given the opportunity for that committee to report to this place, say, 'Concerns are being raised,' and request that the government go back to the drawing board, look at some potential amendments or think about how those concerns raised by members of the community might have been allayed.

Given the broad consensus on the need for greater consideration and the coalition's willingness to work constructively with the government, it is, frankly, disappointing that this government has opted to object to a reasonable request for an extension to the reporting date for this legislation and for a meaningful hearing day with the NDIA. Frankly, without further time for proper consultation, at this stage my hope would be that this bill would be referred back to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for further inquiry.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to endorse the work of my colleague Senator Steele-John in opposing the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024 for the reasons that were explored at length in the Senate inquiry, which exposed just what a significant change to the scheme has been proposed by the government with this bill—not a tweaking or a little tuck and trim but some fundamental changes to some of the most important core elements of the scheme. These are changes that have been rushed through and that the government have been so embarrassed about that they tried to consult with parts of the sector and disability advocates under confidentiality agreements, and we're here today after this government, the Albanese Labor government, shut down the Senate inquiry, which still had more essential work to do to explore the real ramifications of this bill. Is it any wonder that the Greens will be opposing this bill?

There has been significant community backlash to this bill, with organisations and disabled people and their families trying to tell this chamber, the Albanese Labor government and the coalition opposition about the harms this bill will do, but nobody seems to be listening. The government has not even pretended to make the kind of effort needed to address those criticisms and instead has engaged in what can only be described as a bad-faith, amateurish campaign to attack the scheme—its own scheme. As recently as tonight, it whacked out a media release suggesting that some random committee is going off to Brazil, not attached to this inquiry. Does nobody in the Labor Senate team talk to the minister's office about how the Senate works? Before the minister's office whacked out the media release tonight, apparently attacking the committee that reviewed this bill and saying they want to go off on a jaunt to Brazil, did nobody check and find that it wasn't that committee? Has nobody got the minister's phone number to say: 'Hang on, mate. You got it wrong—wrong committee, wrong country. What are you doing?' No, because they're so keen to trash-talk the scheme—so keen to trash-talk anybody who's not willing to just buckle under the government's agenda here—that they're even putting out these farcical amateur media releases as we're speaking. I mean, who's in charge on this stuff?

We know why the government's so keen to do the trash-talking and talk down the scheme. It's because they want to cut $14.4 billion from the scheme. That's what we saw in the budget: $14.4 billion cut from people who most need it in this country, in a cost-of-living crisis—choosing to take $14.4 billion from the NDIS that will lead to disabled people not getting the support they need. That was one of the most significant measures in the Albanese budget. Instead, they're committing to $368 billion on nuclear submarines—and a $14.4 billion cut to people with disability. They're proposing $45 billion plus on a bunch of Hunter frigates, a bunch of warships that people think might even capsize because they're so badly designed—if they ever get launched. So, $45 billion for frigates, and a $14.4 billion cut for people with disability. And $5 billion on a bunch of attack class helicopters that nobody thinks will survive 15 minutes—15 seconds, probably, even on a modern battlefield—to their mates in US arms manufacturing—and a $14.4 billion cut to people with disability. There's $5 billion for US jobs for their nuclear submarine industry, and $5 billion for UK jobs, for those struggling people at Rolls-Royce, for their nuclear submarine industry—and a $14.4 billion cut for people with disability.

Those are the Albanese government's priorities. That's what we saw in this budget—and shame on you for doing that. And then to run this disingenuous attack against the scheme, through highly paid spin doctors, including a $600,000 per annum salary, I think it was, for Shorten's chief spin doctor, his speechwriter? And a—

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, if you could please refer to members of the other place by their appropriate titles—

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister Shorten—a $600,000 salary for a PR spinner in Minister Shorten's office and a $14.4 billion cut to people with disability. And $400,000 was spent on RedBridge commissioned focus groups by Minister Shorten's office—and a $14.4 billion cut to the budget for people with a disability. And what did RedBridge come out with? They came out with this ugly smear campaign. They actually put it in writing. This is what they said to the government. They said there was a bit of a problem trying to sell a $14.4 billion cut to support for people with disability; that might not pass the pub test. So they decided they'd spin it, and they said:

When we presented rorts, fraud, and unreasonable pricing as posing an existential threat to the NDIS, we were able to create an environment in which respondents were amenable to reforms designed to counter these things—

and make a $14.4 billion cut. So, when you highlighted a tiny, tiny minority of spending being potentially misapplied—some of it clearly misapplied—and when you made it about that and not about the essential needs of people with disability, the spinners in the minister's office thought they could sell this cut.

Well, the disability community aren't fooled, because they know what it means to them, their friends and their families. They know what a $14.4 billion cut looks like. It looks like some pretty tough, brutal years of not having the support you need, of your carers being utterly exhausted, of people not getting a break, of people not getting essential medical and other support needs. They know that's what it means, that it's not just a media release.

Then, when you look into the detail of the bill, this government wants to set up some sort of framework for pushing people off the NDIS into some supports that it thinks that, at some point, the states and territories might provide. There's no pathway identified for the government to have these state and territory supports in place in any reasonable time and no identifiable funding arrangement, so what will Labor do? It'll kick people off the scheme and push them towards services that don't even exist, leaving them with nothing.

The bill will also make it easier for bureaucrats to put up walls and barriers to prevent people—people who desperately need help—from getting onto the scheme in the first place. The bill is also going to allow bureaucrats to force disabled people to undergo mandatory psychiatric or physical examinations in order to make a decision about whether or not they will take them off the scheme. That is unquestionably going to traumatise and retraumatise many participants, and many won't be willing to do that. Many who won't be willing to go through that further traumatising review by some hatchet doctor chosen by the scheme are then going to find themselves kicked off the scheme.

What about the practical reality of somebody who can't get a psychiatrist's assessment or the specialist's assessment within 90 days? The practical reality is that thousands and thousands of people with disability won't be able to, and the government's quite comfortable with them just being kicked off the scheme by a bureaucrat who has chosen to given them that requirement. There are so many things in this bill that were not properly explored. They were not properly explored in the inquiry because the government wanted to shut it down when it got too hot.

But it wasn't just in the inquiry where we saw this government trying to gag the community and silence advocates and silence people with disability. Did I mention that this is a bill that's proposing to make some of the most significant changes to the scheme in the 10 years that it's been up and running? I want to say this about the scheme: yes, we have the coalition talking about criminals and we have Labor talking about junkets to Brazil that don't exist and attacking the scheme. This scheme has fundamentally changed people's lives for the better. It has lifted people out of poverty, giving them the support that they've desperately needed, and made this country a fairer place. It's incredibly important. If you care about a society that treats people with genuine equality, then the NDIS is critical to that.

This government sought to ram these changes through without any kind of transparent consultation with the disability community. There was no attempt to build consensus or to understand whether there was a way of working together or of travelling together to find ways to hold down cost pressures but keep the core support and the core decency of giving people agency and power over the packages of support that they need. There was no effort at all to do that. Instead—this evidence was presented to the committee—groups and individuals were picked out one by one and invited to participate in consultations, but they were required to sign legally binding gag agreements, or non-disclosure agreements. There wasn't a single public consultation process for this bill before it was introduced. How bad must a change be for you to sign up the community to non-disclosure agreements before being willing to talk to them? It's this bad. It turns out that it's '$14.4 billion cut to people with disability' bad. That's the kind of bad it is.

Having consulted in secrecy and gagged the sector, they then didn't even put out a draft bill. There was no exposure draft. There was no opportunity for the community and disability groups to consult on an exposure draft. They just rammed in a bad piece of legislation downstairs. They rammed it in and tried to ram it through, and the bill as introduced does some pretty noxious things. It introduces so-called 'NDIS supports' to replace the core concept of the existing scheme, which is 'reasonable and necessary supports'.

Do you know one thing that gives people with some comfort about the NDIS? At the core of the NDIS is a promise that if you have a disability and you need help you will get reasonable and necessary support. That is such a fundamental promise that should be made—and kept—to people with disability, but this bill rips it away. It removes that fundamental pillar from the NDIS. Instead of that, it talks about 'NDIS supports', which will be defined by the government, put in neat categories, listed on a table and have no connection to a person's actual life and to what they need to live their life to the fullest. It totally removes that reference to somebody as a whole person with a complex set of needs and, instead, it chops and dices and slices people on the basis of that little disability there, this issue here and that issue there, and refuses to treat people as people. That's really what's at the core of this: this refusal to treat people with as whole people with real needs. They're going to be begging for individual NDIS supports instead of getting the reasonable and necessary support they need.

What does the sector say about it? The Disability Advocacy Network of Australia—and I want to commend them for the work that they do of bringing together so many groups and showing so much clarity about this bill—said:

Our organisations are deeply disappointed that the Senate Committee did not listen to the evidence and expertise of people with disability, our families, supporters and organisations, who made extensive, and detailed submissions about the flaws in the proposed legislation.

We have engaged with the Committee over three hearings and provided substantial evidence and lived experience. People with disability feel a loss of trust in the Parliamentary process that promises to listen to us, as we contemplate significant reform to the services and supports provided through the scheme.

And they said this, which I think is a telling summary:

The legislation as it stands will restrict support to some parts of a person's disability, instead of their whole person. People with disability told the Senate Committee about how we do not fit into neat little boxes that can be assessed separately. This is unfair, difficult to implement and will result in significant hardship and harm for people with disability.

That's the evidence. Don't do this. Don't rush this legislation through. Don't strip away these core supports. Act with some decency. Press pause, put it aside and work together with people with disability and their supports across this country.

I want to commend my colleague Senator Steele-John for the work he's done. We're up here in the bleachers of this chamber, and I'm proud to sit next to Senator Jordon Steele-John, but, after six years, surely my colleague should be able to sit anywhere in this chamber—surely he should. It's that mindset that keeps Senator Jordon Steele-John here and it's that mindset that's going to drive this bill through. Look to people as whole people.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024. As my colleagues have already indicated, the coalition will support sensible measures in this bill—measures the coalition sought to implement but Labor actively campaigned against—but we will work constructively with the government.

Before I go on, may I commend you, Madam Acting Deputy President Hughes, for the work that you have done in this space. Of course, the NDIS and the broader issues are something that you have extensive personal experience in. Your contribution earlier in this debate was outstanding. I want to acknowledge that tonight and thank you very much indeed for the work that you do. I appreciate it very much.

At an appropriate stage, the coalition is going to move some sensible amendments that will be necessary to improve this bill. We need to ensure that the integrity of this system is preserved. We all—I'm sure there's unanimity in this place—recognise and value the importance of the NDIS, and we need to preserve the scheme's integrity, so our amendments will seek to ensure the sustainability of the scheme to allow it to continue improving the lives of some of the most vulnerable people within our community.

But what we have seen—Senator Shoebridge was remarking on this throughout his contribution—is that the government is rushing this through. This is true to form with this government. They do this pretty much across every area of policy, whether it's industrial relations, matters of education, matters of energy or insurance related matters. And certainly, when it comes the NDIS, here they are again, rushing through legislation. The stakeholders have said, 'Just pause, suspend this for a moment, engage more with us, put in place the recommendations and the amendments that are necessary to ensure the sustainability of the system to ensure that it's actively and properly meeting its needs.' But, yet again, the government is rushing this through.

It is disappointing to see that, yet again, they're doing this—for them to be rushing on a matter as important as the NDIS is doubly disappointing and is something that should be addressed. They have an opportunity to address that. They could and should send it back to the committee to get feedback and advice from the people who actually understand it and have skin in the game. They'll be able to make a solid contribution in recommending changes to improve the system and make it more sustainable. However, there has been insufficient time provided for proper consultation with the sector, and we have to make sure that we're addressing those concerns. There are widespread misgivings when it comes to this current legislation. It's important that we get it.

The opportunity for thorough consultation is absolutely vital, as I've been saying. Its vital that we get direct feedback from people that understand the system and understand the complexity of it. I met with a provider just last week who was expressing the frustration they find as a registered provider in the system working alongside all these unregistered providers. Matters like that need to be properly considered and addressed so that we can ensure sustainability.

The coalition notes that legislative instruments and rules are still under development, and the Senate and the disability committee have not been provided with substantial detail on this to date. The two-and-a-half days of hearings conducted by the committee pointed to significant concerns from the disability community about the 'lack of detail and the potential unintended consequences of the current legislation without significant amendment'. There is broad consensus. We can all agree in this place that there needs to be changes to improve the effectiveness of the NDIS and, importantly, to ensure its sustainability.

There is a unanimity when it comes to that first point of effectiveness. I would hope that there is unanimity when it comes to its sustainability, although some seem to advocate for a free-for-all, which, of course, would mean that it's not sustainable. We have to address these matters. Unfortunately, this bill has some deficiencies, which stem from a lack of real understanding of the impact. By pausing and allowing more time to look at it, the government can be confident, and this parliament can be more confident that the changes that are needed are, in fact, being put in place.

The coalition has always been fully committed to ensuring that the NDIS is fully funded and sustainable. Fully funded is a demand-driven scheme. It's always been clear that the NDIS has to be sustainable to ensure that it delivers not just for now but for many generations to come. It is quickly becoming unsustainable. It pretty much is now, but certainly, in years to come, it will become even more so. That puts the care and the need for that care at risk for all participants, particularly those most vulnerable. That would be an absolute travesty.

When Labor were last in power, they quite significantly underinvested in the NDIS. It was very poorly designed. We were able to make many changes in our time in government, but there was a lot that we wanted to do, but we couldn't get the support of the Labor opposition for the necessary changes, some of which are actually here in this bill. It's disappointing. I heard the Leader of the Opposition—I think it was in his first budget reply—offer to work constructively, in a bipartisan way, with the Minister for the NDIS, Mr Shorten, to reform the system to make it more sustainable. To date, there has been a stonewalling and a tin ear. It's unacceptable, because this matters to all Australians, and of course it matters most to those who are in receipt of and need the support of the NDIS—not just the individuals but their families. Those that care and those that are involved in the system need the changes. Labor stood in the way. I don't know why. Maybe they just like to play politics. This should not be a thing that you play politics with. As I said, Mr Dutton, the Leader of the Opposition, has offered to work constructively, in a bipartisan way, to take the politics out of it, to ensure that the system is sustainable, that it's able to be worked out.

Labor underinvested, as I said, in the NDIS. We in government continued to fund it, yet we heard in the election campaign complaints and campaigning slogans saying that the government at the time was not investing fully in the NDIS, was not providing the full funding. Well, that is ridiculous, because the budgets year after year increased funding into the scheme. The Labor mistruths that come out throughout their campaigns were certainly not missing when it comes to this program.

We heard lots of other mistruths throughout the campaign—things that they also said that they would do that we know that they haven't done, and we keep debating those points, particularly around matters of cost of living. They say one thing but don't actually deliver. When it comes to the NDIS, they claimed that we were underspending on the NDIS, but we continued to put money into it, significant investment—because we do see it as an investment— into the lives of people who are most vulnerable, people who need, who rely on, the system. We invested a record $157.8 billion over four years to support more than 550,000 Australians living with a disability.

The then shadow minister for the NDIS, the member for Maribyrnong, said:

…You can't move around the corridors of Parliament in Canberra without tripping over a Coalition Minister whispering the Scheme is unsustainable.

I'm here to tell you today that is a lie.

That's what Mr Shorten said in opposition.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Point of order, Acting Deputy President. Senator O'Sullivan, as you probably know, you can't say the word 'lie' in the chamber. I ask him to withdraw.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator O'Sullivan, for the ease of the chair.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. The quote from Mr Shorten insinuated that the government at the time was not telling the truth, and the direct quote was that it was a lie. That was not true. You can't cover up one mistruth with another. It's not true. In the lead-up to the 2022 election, as I said, we were providing significant investment into the NDIS system—$157.8 billion. But it was true that the system, if it were to continue with the design of scheme that it had, would become unsustainable. And that is exactly what the Minister for the NDIS is now saying. He says one thing in opposition, in the lead-up to an election—maybe to win votes from that particular sector—and now, in government, he is hiding. He won't even have a proper inquiry that will actually properly engage with the community to understand exactly how it can be fixed and how it can be made more sustainable because he doesn't want to reveal exactly what's going on. I'm sure that is the case. In government, mugged by the reality of the complex growing scheme, he now not only questions the sustainability of the NDIS but blames young people with autism and those with psychosocial conditions for the cost pressures. That is shameful. It is shameful to put the blame on those young people.

I held an inquiry with my colleagues into the rise of disruptive classroom behaviour last year because Western Australia now has some of the most disruptive classrooms in the country. One of the most significant contributing factors is the fact that children with neurodiverse disorders and learning difficulties, many of them with ASD, on the spectrum with autism, are not getting the support they need and it's actually impacting upon their learning and indeed upon the learning of the other students within the classrooms and the teachers, who are getting exasperated by the fact that they are not able to get the support that they need. It's little wonder we have teachers leaving the education system in droves.

The whole system is like a matrix and it has to come together. Of course, the NDIS is a major part of the solution. Students are now requiring assessments and reviews to take place, and we know that they take months and months. In the case of Western Australia, it can take up to two years to see a child psychologist. Until they get that diagnosis, they are not provided with the resources and the funding that they need that would come through the NDIS. Years ago, the states used to provide it and you would get it in a much more timely fashion, whereas now, under this system, there are delays. So it, of course, needs to change. For the minister to just put the blame at the feet of youth and people with autism or other learning difficulties is an absolute travesty.

My final point—and I have said it multiple times—is: pause, put it to a proper inquiry, get the feedback and come back to the table. (Time expired)

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to begin by acknowledging my colleague Senator Steele-John and the fact that he has been in this chamber all day today and, possibly, may be all day tomorrow and the day after. I would like to specifically acknowledge his wisdom in all matters of life, I think perhaps way beyond his age, but also his lived experience in the debate here tonight and, since he has been in the Senate, the fact that he has tirelessly fought as a disability advocate in the Australian parliament for so many people. I would say it's millions of people around this nation.

I had a couple of other personal reflections when I was thinking about this debate on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024. I remembered the words of the previous Clerk of the Senate, Dr Rosemary Laing. She was talking once about the committee system. I think this was going back to around 2014 or 2015. She was talking about the Senate committee system being so overloaded with work and the fact that we had inquiry after inquiry—references inquiries, mostly—and the Senate was having to bring in extra staff to cope with the workload. I remember her lamenting—she said this to me privately, but I'm sure she won't mind me saying this in the Senate—that perhaps the days of the great reform work that the Senate committees had done were over at that time because we were under so much pressure to do all these inquiries. She specifically talked about the work that was done through the Senate committee system to develop the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the years of hard work that had gone into that from senators across all political parties and what a great reform that was. I do believe that there have been many other reforms since then, but I want to acknowledge how important this is. We need to think about the importance of this reform and the legacy of the government at the time, the Labor government, who are in power now. We were talking tonight about the sustainability of the system, which is just a code for budget cuts for such a critical reform. What a shame that is for the legacy of this reform.

Senator Steele-John and many of my colleagues have made very strong contributions today about why this bill shouldn't be supported. It's a big deal. It will make huge changes to the scheme that will result in significant harm to people who rely on the NDIS. It's been in inquiry for three months and there were three hearings held and over 200 submissions made to this parliament. And there has been significant community backlash to the bill, with organisations and disabled people and their families sharing the harm it will do to them.

I also remember, as a new senator in 2012, going to a half-day forum on the NDIS out at Devonport. It was for decision-makers, and it was really to help us understand what was coming down the line with this significant reform. I remember sitting in this building in Devonport thinking, 'Wow, this is big and it's complicated and it's critically important.' Of course, like a lot of reforms, it hasn't been perfect. I know Senator Steele-John, as the Greens spokesperson, has talked about concerns around the NDIS over the years and has actually delivered significant improvements because of his work.

But the government in this case has not made a good enough effort to engage with these criticisms. It has instead undertaken a bad-faith campaign to undermine the scheme by talking about fraud and noncompliance. I want to go a little bit more into that. For those who weren't aware, it has been mentioned in here today that Mr Shorten in the other place has spent $600,000 on a speechwriter for himself as the NDIS minister. But the government commissioned RedBridge for $400,000 to pull together some focus groups and look at messaging and how to spin this or sell significant cuts to such a critical reform in this nation. The RedBridge work provided the government with the messaging they needed in order to reach a level of community acceptance that would allow this bill not to be questioned. They said:

… when we presented rorts, fraud, and unreasonable pricing as posing an existential threat to the NDIS, we were able to create an environment in which respondents were amenable to reforms designed to counter these things.

Informed by the RedBridge messaging work, the government has been talking about fraud, dodgy service providers and participants spending money on things like holidays and alcohol to distract the public from this terrible bill. Despite these claims of fraud being made by the NDIA, they were not able to provide any proof when questioned by my excellent colleague recently during Senate estimates.

Let's go back to the budget cuts because that's what we're dealing with here tonight. We're dealing with a government that needs to find money. Of course that's a reasonable operating constraint for any government at any time. But when you're spending half a trillion dollars on nuclear submarines that are arguably not needed—in fact, they are certainly not needed, in my opinion and the opinion of my party. That's half a trillion dollars, and here we are, trying to take $14 billion out of one of the most critical reforms this country has seen in generations. The budget included a cut of $14.4 billion from the NDIS, and that will be achieved by this legislation tonight. When Senator Steele-John talked about this when it was announced in the budget, he said:

In a cost-of-living crisis, the Labor government is choosing to remove $14.4 billion in funding from the NDIS that will lead to disabled people not getting the support they need when they need it.

This government has chosen to abandon disabled people. It has abandoned NDIS workers, and it is passing the buck to the millions of Australians who undertake informal carer roles.

The ALP have decided that it's more important to fund billions in handouts to weapons manufacturers than it is to support our community and the many disabled people that rely on the NDIS to live happy and healthy lives. Every single one of us should have that right. It's clear there is not an essential service that Labor won't cut to fund nuclear submarines and fossil fuel handouts—which, by the way, amount to roughly $46 billion—to companies that pay very little tax or no tax at all, who are polluting our planet, slowly cooking the oceans and so on. This government has betrayed the disability community and it should be ashamed of itself.

Let's talk a little bit about the process around this bill. Or, to be more specific, let's talk about the bad government process. This is a bill that has been created behind closed doors. It was rushed through the parliament to save money in a budget that could have been saved in other places. Disability organisations were required to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to be consulted on the bill. The government spent, as I mentioned before, $600,000 on a speechwriter. I think, Senator Steele-John, your contribution would be worth significantly more than that. There's a life after parliament writing speeches!

On the substance of the bill, this bill sets up the framework for pushing people off the NDIS into supports that the government reckons will be provided by states and territories. Well—reality check—there is no possible way that the states and territories can provide those supports in time in a way that is nationally consistent and that will guarantee no disabled person becomes worse off under Labor's NDIS plan. Removing people from the scheme to services that don't yet exist is outrageously poor planning with obviously harmful consequences. This bill will make it easier to prevent people from accessing the NDIS and it will make it easier for bureaucrats to remove people from the scheme.

The bill is set to prescribe specifics of what you can and what you can't get from the NDIS. This is a blatant attempt to control the choices that participants make. Choice and control is one of the central pillars of the NDIS, and removing it in this way makes it clear that the government prioritises its bottom line over the wellbeing of the disability community in this country. The bill will see a restriction of supports available through the scheme. It will limit our ability to have NDIS plans that are based on our individual needs, and it will replace 'reasonable and necessary' with a new single definition of NDIS supports. This new NDIS support list will only provide funding for supports that meet a new narrow definition, defined by politicians holding the NDIS purse strings.

This bill will also allow bureaucrats to demand that NDIS participants undergo mandatory psychiatric or physical examinations within 90 days in order to make a decision about whether their scheme access should be revoked. This will traumatise or retraumatise many participants and could result in getting unfairly kicked off the scheme. How is someone supposed to get an appointment with a psychiatrist to undergo an assessment within 90 days when waitlists are over a year? As we heard from Senator O'Sullivan, it's two years in some cases in Western Australia.

There are so many methods and processes mentioned in this bill that haven't been defined, including the method for turning an assessment of support needs into a budget. These vague references to methods that calculate budgets are a recipe for robodebt 2, and the Greens will not allow it. This bill will enable the minister to make significant changes to the scheme in the future without community consultation. So much for 'nothing about us without us'! There's room for talking about the need to restrict ministerial powers. Imagine if a minister could snap their fingers and remove a lifesaving service from your life?

As I mentioned earlier, and many other people have mentioned in this chamber tonight, there are significant community concerns about this bill. This bill should not pass the Senate; it should be sent back to inquiry to give the community more time to make their concerns known and to enable further parliamentary scrutiny. Disabled people, those that love them, and anyone who cares about the integrity of government social services should make their feelings known about this harmful bill.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024. It is important to start where Senator Whish-Wilson concluded—that is, with the committee process. Many in this place have heard me stand up and talk about the importance of the committee process. The committee process is what the Senate brings to the legislative framework of Australia. The committee process, at its finest, sees us deliver legislation on behalf of the Australian people that is better legislation. It doesn't always happen, because in the end governments have control and governments make deals, particularly with the crossbench. But the committee process at its finest gives us the chance as legislators to do our best work. And when we have truncated, shortened, very short committee processes that do not give particular issues the adequate consideration, review, a chance to weigh up the evidence or a chance to hear the evidence from a wide variety of sources then we as legislators may miss the mark. Governments, in their arrogance, in their belief that they are the font of all wisdom, can also severely miss the mark. That, I think, is what we are seeing in handling of this bill. We are seeing a particularly arrogant approach from this minister and this government towards a topic that is of great sensitivity.

To highlight some of the complexity in this area, I want to give an example of something I came across. It was very close to our family, some friends of ours. One of the children needed a little bit of help. They hadn't been diagnosed with any particular condition; the parents just wanted to get them a little bit of help, particularly with things like their handwriting and their fine motor skills. So they—privately—went to an occupational therapist. They were very happy with this relationship, and it was going along really well, until the point when the occupational therapist said to them: 'Look, I'm really sorry. I'm going out of this sort of practice. I'm going out of private practice altogether because, while I can charge $100-odd in this environment, I can do the same job within the NDIS and charge a multiple more.' The financial imperative for them became to step out of that space. So a parent who just wanted to get their child a little bit of help is suddenly priced out of the market by the settings put in place by government. Those parents, wanting to do the right thing by their child, wanting to get them the help they needed—not a lot of help, just a little bit of help to get over the hurdles they had—had to go and get a diagnosis for their child and, therefore, gain access to those services at a higher cost. There's something wrong with that system. There is something wrong with the interplay of that system with the wider health environment. There is something wrong with the settings we have in place, and that is why something like a Senate inquiry is so important, because these are terribly complex matters.

This is a system that, as we acknowledge and support, changes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians. We have a very strong and proud track record of supporting the NDIS. Contrary to what those opposite said when they were in opposition, we did fully fund the NDIS as a demand driven scheme, but we said at the time that it had to be sustainable. We can't ever walk away from that, because, just as we have responsibilities to NDIS participants, we also have responsibilities to the taxpayers of Australia.

Yet, when in opposition, Labor stood in the way of putting the NDIS on a more sustainable footing. Bill Shorten, the current minister, accused the coalition of 'pearl-clutching kabuki theatre', claiming that the NDIS was 'tracking just as predicted' and that the coalition was 'hyping fictional cost blowouts'. When he was the shadow minister for the NDIS, the member for Maribyrnong said:

You can't move around the corridors of Parliament in Canberra without tripping over a Coalition Minister whispering the Scheme is unsustainable.

I'm here to tell you today that is a lie.

This is what those opposite said in opposition, so how can you trust a word they say now, particularly when, as has been highlighted by so many others in this debate this evening, they now wish to have a truncated, rushed Senate inquiry and to ignore the many serious concerns of many in the disability sector—participants and those who work and provide services in that sector, but also health professionals outside that sector whose roles are potentially affected by the sheer size and complexity of the NDIS?

So we have a situation where we need to make sure that this system is delivering what we all want it to deliver. It isn't a simple system. It is a complex system, and we have to acknowledge that and be willing to deal with that as legislators. The one way that we have to deal with the complexity is through the Senate committee process, so, in the first instance, that is where we should be looking in order to guide us in our deliberations—not, quite frankly, this minister, who has an amazing capacity to say one thing when in opposition and then something else when in government and to dance around issues as political playthings rather than dealing with the complexity in a mature way. We're seeing that from this government in other spheres at the moment—an inability to deal with serious topics in a mature way. But I'll stay on this bill.

I've agreed a bit with those so far on the crossbench, including Senator Steele-John and Senator Whish-Wilson, but where serious issues of abuse and serious implications of criminal activity are raised—use of NDIS money for things that were never intended under the NDIS and the potential, therefore, for coercion and criminal elements to be involved in the process—I think that is very worthy of consideration by governments and very worthy of a strong ray of sunshine being shone on the system and what is going on within it. We've seen countless media reports highlighting stories where serious sex abusers, rapists and paedophiles have been receiving substantial support through the NDIS—sometimes more than $1 million—to live under supervision in the community after they're released from detention. Urgent review is needed to disclose how many individuals with serious criminal convictions are receiving NDIS funding. During a Senate spillover hearing in March of this year, we learned that 2,500 NDIA participants have interacted with the justice system. This is something that does deserve serious examination.

We've got issues with transparency. I note once again that, when in opposition, the minister—the then shadow minister—repeatedly called for greater transparency about the NDIS. Yet, in government, Labor has sought to reduce transparency within the scheme. Under Bill Shorten's watch as minister, from April 2023 the NDIA has no longer been publishing monthly reports. They're moving to quarterly reports instead. These quarterly reports are also being published late. I'm not sure why that would be the case. Most of the information is collected electronically these days—not all, but most. So you'd wonder why we see such continually late reporting of this important information. Once again, it's important not just to participants but to our entire society for trust and confidence in the system to be maintained.

NDIA officials also refuse, when questioned at Senate estimates, to disclose data that the NDIA already holds for these reports. Personally, I don't think that is acceptable behaviour. I cannot see any commercial-in-confidence or other public interest immunity claim which would justify the withholding from a Senate committee of information that will become publicly available. That is the job of Senate committees. That is our job at estimates. Without consulting the NDIA or providing any modelling, Labor came to the conclusion that the annual growth cap on the total cost was to be no more than eight per cent by 1 July 2026, without any explanation on how these cuts to the growth of the scheme would be achieved.

Sadly, we also see in this bill just some really fundamental process mistakes, shall we say, such as the explanatory memorandum, as it was originally circulated, just having references to sections in the bill that didn't exist. This is a quite extraordinary lack of attention to detail from a government and, quite frankly, from a minister who claims to have the best interests of this system at heart, when simple things like that slip through the cracks and repeated and multiple references are made to proposed subsections in the bill that don't even exist.

It is not clear from the bill what a participant can do if they don't agree with the outcome of a needs assessment. The bill is silent on that. Again, that is something that a Senate committee could actually get to the bottom of. It could recommend some amendments to the bill. I would have thought that's pretty fundamental. If you do have a needs assessment undertaken and a participant disagrees with the outcome of that needs assessment, surely the bill should contain the provisions, the process and the pathway that the person with a disability can take following that reassessment of their needs. The NDIA, quite frankly, has a reputation for being notoriously inconsistent and highly variable in its treatment of relatively comparable individuals. That again highlights the need both for a proper Senate inquiry and for the complexity of this system to be under that ray of sunshine to make sure that clarity is provided, not just for those on the scheme but also for those who work with the scheme, those who support them and all others in Australia who take a deep interest in this policy area.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024. I wish to start by associating myself with the excellent comments made by Senator Steele-John on this bill. I also want to thank him for his incredible work alongside the community on this.

The Labor government seems determined to take disability policy back decades, back to a time when Australia was ranked as one of the worst amongst OECD countries for the wellbeing and prosperity of disabled people. The NDIS was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do better for disabled people, and the Labor government has utterly failed to realise this opportunity.

This bill only serves to take the scheme further from its roots, further from the vision outlined by disability activists who worked so hard for the NDIS to be realised. Its passage through parliament will mean fewer people will be able to access NDIS support and fewer people will be able to access sufficient, high-quality, personalised support. It will mean that disabled people are not empowered to live the lives that they deserve. It will mean that disabled people will continue to live in fear of when the next cuts are coming. It will reinforce to disabled people that the government does not want to listen to them. That is, of course, thoroughly disappointing, but it is not unsurprising to see the Albanese government turn their backs and betray yet another community.

The disability community engaged in the bill inquiry process in good faith, providing the committee with invaluable information, however short and truncated the inquiry was, even during a time of significant exhaustion for many following the NDIS review and the disability royal commission. Yet, despite the strength, resilience and continued advocacy across the country, which continues to provide input, advice and proposals for reform, the government has ignored them. Instead, the government chooses to listen to consultants and bureaucrats more concerned with News Corp reports of cost blowouts than with the lived experience of disabled people.

In drafting this bill, the Albanese government had the perfect opportunity to listen to what the community is asking for, to listen to practitioners, to listen to families, to listen to caregivers, to listen to representative bodies and then deliver what they're asking for. But they have ignored the demands of the community, rushed through the inquiry process and bowed to the demands of conservative politicians and media, more concerned with balanced budgets and tax cuts for the rich than with the safety and wellbeing of disabled people. Instead of listening, the Labor government has fostered an ill-informed narrative that focuses on fraud, criminality and cost rather than engaging with the real issues and listening to those whose lives are so deeply impacted by the NDIS. Not only has the Labor government failed to listen to disability communities; it has actively sought to manipulate community sentiment, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money on focus groups and messaging. This is a real rort.

The Labor government says this bill saves us billions, but what of the costs of cutting $14.4 billion of NDIS funding? Have they considered the cost to family members who would need to leave employment to care for relatives who are no longer covered by the NDIS? Have they considered the independent support workers who will no longer be able to provide care and who will be out of jobs? Most importantly, has the government considered how these individuals feel? They feel completely abandoned by a government that promised them so much and delivered so little.

The Labor government should be ashamed bringing this piece of legislation into the Senate. They can find billions in their budget for nuclear submarines and billions more to subsidise climate-wrecking fossil fuel companies, but they can't find the money to ensure the rights of disabled people are protected and to ensure that disabled people can access the care that they need and live a life that they deserve. This bill is a complete contradiction of the principles of choice and control that are so central to ensuring high-quality care. As the Greens stated in their dissenting report to the inquiry into this bill:

Removal of individualised reasonable and necessary supports …

…   …   …

… is a blatant attempt to control the choices that participants make. Choice and control is one of the central pillars of the NDIS and removing it in this way makes it clear that the Government prioritises their bottom line over the wellbeing of the disability community.

Yet here we are. This bill further removes power from the individuals on the NDIS, shifting power back to bureaucrats with no lived experience of disability and who may have minimal understanding of the individual before them.

As usual it is the people who face intersectional discrimination, who are disabled but who are also from First Nations communities, who are from communities of colour, who are living in poverty or who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, who will be worst hit by these changes. As the government strips back the NDIS, restricting access and restricting support, it is those with the most resources, those with the most social capital, who will continue to be able to access support, while those who are multiply marginalised will be left out in the cold.

In recent months I have heard from many constituents who are really scared. They are scared about the government taking away supports that they have worked so hard to have in place. They are scared about having to secure housing that might be taken away. They are scared that they will no longer be able to direct the support that they need and that they choose. They are scared by a government that backs further and further away from its promise of genuine, authentic co-design.

Disabled people deserve to live a life free from the fear of where the next government cuts are coming from. They deserve to be listened to and to have their voices heard. They deserve to have the same choice and control over their lives as everyone else in the community. This bill does the opposite of that and it should not be passed.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024 and support comments made in this chamber about having a much more sustainable NDIS system whereby the money goes to the people who need it but isn't wasted on people who don't need it. It is interesting. I actually read an article yesterday online in Brisbane's Sunday Mail about how the National Disability Insurance Scheme is now being gouged by private equity owners. Let me tell you that the moment you hear the words 'private equity' you really need to find yourself a very good proctologist, because these people gouge the system. It doesn't matter whether it's public or private. I am sure that the NDIS system wasn't set up so that we could make wealthy billionaires wealthier.

I have always been of the belief—and I have said this in regard to banking and everything like that—that the best system to have in any country or any particular part of the economy is a private sector that encourages efficiency and productivity et cetera but also a backstop with public competition as well. In the health system, we have public and private hospitals. In the education system, we have public and private schools. I, myself, am advocating for a public bank because I believe that since we privatised the Commonwealth Bank we've seen the private banks gouge the market. We haven't got greater competition; what we've got is greater market concentration. I think that, in the NDIS system, we must have a backstop in the public sector, as well, that can provide ethical, solid—

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Rennick. You will be in continuation.