Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government continues to reiterate its view that we cannot agree with the assertion made in this motion. We do, however, acknowledge the interest in the chamber in continuing to reform the National Disability Insurance Scheme to get it back on track and ensure its sustainability for future generations of Australians. I also acknowledge the support of the opposition in working together with the government to this end and for voting in support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024, which passed the parliament on 22 August 2024.

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

Shame to you for that.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, you voted for it. The NDIS bill received royal assent on 5 September 2024, which means the new laws will come into effect on 3 October 2024.

On 8 February 2024, the government tabled the final report of the Independent Review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which was publicly released on 7 December 2023. In producing this report, the independent NDIS review panel travelled to every state and territory, including regional and remote communities. It heard directly from more than 10,000 Australians, worked with disability organisations to reach out and listen to more than 1,000 people with disability and their families, recorded more than 2,000 personal stories and received almost 4,000 submissions. The review delivered 26 recommendations and 139 supporting actions to respond to its terms of reference. In delivering its recommendations, the review provided exhaustive analysis and proposals to improve the operation, effectiveness and sustainability of the NDIS. The independent NDIS review panel has said its reforms can improve the scheme and meet National Cabinet's annual growth target of no more than eight per cent growth by 1 July 2026.

The NDIS bill was the first legislative step by this government to ensuring this annual growth target is achieved. Following the passage of the NDIS bill, discussions will continue with senators across this chamber, as well as members in the other place, to address questions about the government's NDIS reform agenda, which it is pursuing together with the disability community. We look forward to continuing to work with senators in this place to get the NDIS back on track and ensure its sustainability for future generations of Australians.

In relation to the order being discussed, the government has previously outlined that we have claimed public interest immunity over the requested documents as disclosure would prejudice relations between the Commonwealth and the states and territories. The minister representing the Treasurer has already tabled key documents for the benefit of the Senate, in addition to the aforementioned review.

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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

Labor's NDIS bill has passed, $14.4 billion has been cut from the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Labor's NDIS minister has resigned. For a year, the Senate has been attempting to get basic answers for the Australian disability community about exactly what that minister and that government agreed with state and territory leaders behind closed doors almost a year ago when they made a deal which locked in these cuts as the goal they would together seek to achieve.

One of the critical pieces of information we have been seeking is exactly how many people that, a year ago, the government knew would be forced off the scheme by these cuts. And one of the communities that are the most concerned by what the answer to that question actually is is the Australian autistic community, along with their families, their allies and their organisations. The reason they are particularly concerned and justifiably fearful about what these cuts mean for them is that, in the course of the last, I would say, five or six years—but, really, across the decade—we have seen two phenomena develop. One is a growth in the understanding of what autism actually is and what it actually looks like in different types of people. Traditionally, there had been a view in the medical community and a kind of meme in overall society that to be autistic looked like one particular thing, often characterised or presented in culture and media as somebody who is a man and somebody who has certain, what we would now understand as, stereotypical characteristics.

Over that 10 years of advocacy and work, often excellently led by those with lived experience, the medical community and some policymakers have come to an understanding that those stereotypes of what it means to be autistic are just simply that: stereotypes that bear no reality to what it means to be autistic if you are a woman, if you are nonbinary, if you're a queer person or if you're a person of colour—if you literally are anybody but a man in their early 20s who is usually a white person. Through that growth of knowledge, there have been better diagnostic tools and more willingness for people to explore whether or not their experiences in life may in some way lead them to understand that they are, in fact, autistic. We've seen an increase in the number of diagnoses of autism in the overall population. This is a good thing. This is to be celebrated because it represents people, by and large, getting a clearer, better understanding of why they experience the world around them in the way that they do.

An unfortunate aspect of this growth in understanding is that some policymakers and politicians—and the minister who has flagged their resignation, Mr Shorten, is very guilty of this—have played into an idea that there are large numbers of people who are faking their diagnosis. That is extraordinarily harmful to the community. In response to that, people have reached out and said very clearly, and demanded very clearly, that they wish to set the record straight. I will read a quote that really stuck with me. Somebody reached out and said, 'To suggest that somebody later in life seeking diagnosis doesn't deserve support is to ignore the very real struggles that they may have gone through unrecognised for years. People aren't pretending to be autistic just because they don't behave or look similar to the autistic people you may be aware of in your life.' This needs to be recognised; this clarity must be given to the Senate.

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

Well, happy anniversary. It's one year that this government has now refused to provide the sustainability framework. For one year this government has continued to hide behind the most ridiculous excuses—excuses that are now completely expired because we saw the passing of the NDIS legislation during the last sitting period.

Minister Farrell has had to come in here and we've heard him again say that they will not release the sustainability framework because they believe it may jeopardise their relationships with the states. Let me give a little bit of an overview of what your relationship with the states is like now. While we were in the committee inquiry stage of the NDIS bill, we had five-and-half days of hearings very generously allowed by the government—absolutely pathetic! The fact is they keep quoting the review. Yes, the review's been handed down, but there's no government response to it. There's no government response to the review of the NDIS. Anyway, the states were crying out for the legislation to be put on hold because they don't know what they're expected to do. They don't know what foundational supports are and they don't know what they're expected to provide to those people who will no longer be eligible for the NDIS. I would suggest there has been some damage to the relationship with the states.

This has probably been compounded—just a guess—by one of the amendments that we put through. The government asked the Senate to support the amendment that category A supports would no longer require unanimous support of the state, just majority support of the states. So states will now be at a higher risk of being bulldozed by the Commonwealth government to produce and provide foundational supports that the states, but the states will have no concept of what they are, how much they're going to cost and what they're required to do. It is an absolute furphy that this government continues to hide behind in its reluctance to reveal the financial sustainability model that they say they are working to.

I note Senator Steele-John talked about the autism community. I'm also going to talk about it a little bit today, but we might have some different views here. I want to apologise to those in the autism community, the parents and carers in particular, who had young children diagnosed with autism level 3 before the DSM-5 made almost every condition part of the autism spectrum. Kids that would have been diagnosed with classic autism, kids who also have an intellectual disability, are having their plans cut in the most dramatic of ways. It is absolutely appalling. This is an insurance scheme. The whole thing about an insurance scheme is investing early and getting better outcomes, yet we are seeing ideologically driven, anti-intensive, good-quality early intervention refused to be paid for by the NDIA via the NDIS, who are now stipulating they won't find programs and particular services at particular clinics. This is absolutely outrageous.

I would particularly like to congratulate those self-diagnosed autistic adults or the later-in-life diagnosed autistic adults—diagnosed in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and we saw them during the autism Senate select committee—who have had long careers. A lot of them were university professors in particular areas of interest. One of the traits for autism is having a very strong focus in a particular area. These were people who were in relationships, had families, owned property. There was zero acknowledgement of the impacts that profound autism has on some people and that their disability is significant, that their disability will impair their way of life.

So I just want to say well done to those autistic adults who've gone out on the 'autism is awesome' bandwagon and who, because they're diagnosed later in life, say that kids don't need intensive early intervention. Applied behaviour analysis, which is seen worldwide as best practice, is demonised in this country because these autistic adults have said autism is awesome and they don't need this therapy. Well, you are now putting at risk and jeopardising a whole generation of young children with profound autism and intellectual disability from achieving their potential because you've done what you wanted to do and you've demonised intensive early intervention, so the NDIS isn't funding it now.

On one hand, we've got parent groups out there with self-diagnosed parents, attacking people like me and Nicole Rogerson and referring to us as 'clearly autistic, rich white women'. I can tell you that I'm white; I can tell you that I'm a woman; I'm certainly not rich, and the fact that they have referred to me as clearly autistic—I don't know, maybe I am. Maybe I should go and get a diagnosis so I can stand here as an autistic person and say that kids with profound autism need intensive early intervention and should be funded properly, and the autistic adults who have demonised this early intervention have fed into the government's hands. Well done!

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

Here we are yet again on this most inauspicious and quite disgraceful of occasions today. Today marks 12 months that this government has shamefully hidden the most basic of information from not just senators in this place but also the entire NDIS community. We've just gone through the disgrace, and I have to correct something that Minister Farrell just said. He said that I voted for this legislation. I did not vote for this legislation. I worked with my colleagues on this side of the chamber and the Greens to try to make the most appalling of bills remotely tolerable, and, while we've improved it, it is still a disaster for those on the scheme and for those now in the endless queue of people who are not being accepted into the scheme and who should have been.

It has now become very clear with Minister Shorten's announcement that he is leaving this place why he tried so desperately to hide the information. There is still no government report on the review, even though he's squeezed this legislation through this place. We still have no detail of the assessment process. We haven't even got a plan to have a plan to develop it yet. We've got no idea of what foundational supports there will be. We have no agreement with the states and territories. As Senator Hughes just said, they are absolutely outraged with not only the lack of transparency by this government but also the lack of detail. We had national cabinet last week on Friday. I thought, right, let's have a look at the communique; there will be something about the NDIS, something about discussions and agreements with the states and territories on the future of the NDIS—how they are going to afford it, what the states and territories will have to provide in terms of foundational supports, what they are, how they are going to fund them, who is going to take those people with significant disabilities who have their services cut on the NDIS or don't get in at all. There were three pages of the national cabinet communique and not a single word about the NDIS.

Given the disaster that the minister is now leaving behind—the fact is, he has got his legislation through, but he has left an enormous mess after 2½ years. When we were in government, we offered to work with Bill Shorten who was then the shadow minister and the Labor Party to start addressing all of these problems that had become apparent in the scheme and that needed fixing three years ago. They said, 'No; there's no problem with the scheme,' and then they wasted the last two years doing a review that was entirely unnecessary because we knew what the problems were.

We needed a government that had the competency and the ability to be fully transparent, to work with the Greens, to work with us on this side of the chamber and to work with the sector to fix the scheme, to make it sustainable for those who needed this scheme the most, the most seriously and profoundly disabled in our communities, and to make sure that the states and territories lived up to their end of the bargain to support the remaining four million people in Australia with some form of disability and to provide that support in the community. They have done none of that.

What will Minister Shorten now do? He will be praying for an early election so none of this comes out and he doesn't have to release his government's response to the NDIS review, because that will show that this legislation does not implement the review. Despite Minister Farrell's claptrap, the legislation that this place passed does not implement a fraction of that review. If Minister Shorten had any decency, he would resign today as minister—he is leaving anyway—and the government, if they could find a single competent minister in their ranks, could start making the changes. Instead, they will keep spinning and spinning, and thousands—

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

Thank you, Senator Reynolds.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset, I want to address those who are listening to this debate or watching this debate here today and make a preliminary point. What we're discussing is that, just on 12 months ago, a majority of the senators in this place—across the Senate, from different parties and the crossbench—passed an order for the production of documents in relation to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, one of the most important government schemes that is administered by the Commonwealth. Since that point in time, the government has resolutely resisted responding to that order for the production of documents. It got to the stage where, at the last sitting of this Senate, some of the most profound and fundamental amendments to the NDIS were passed by this Senate without it having the benefit of those key financial sustainability documents that the government refused to provide.

That is the context of what we're discussing. A majority of the senators in this place, and through them a majority of the Australian people, sought the production of documents to provide information to the senators representing the Australian people to better understand the financial sustainability of the NDIS—one of the most important social programs administered by the Commonwealth government, impacting hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Australians. And that was refused.

I want to make three points in relation to this. First, those watching should consider the contributions of the three senators who preceded me in this debate, because each of them—Senator Steele-John, Senator Hughes and Senator Reynolds—has made a passionate contribution in relations to this debate, standing up and fighting, in good faith, for the most vulnerable people in our community. They should be truly congratulated for the work that they've done in that regard. You can see they are still passionate about the subject. That's the first point I want to make. The second point I want to make is that it is very, very disappointing that in the last session of parliament we passed—or had no choice but to vote against or vote for—legislation concerning the NDIS without the benefit of this information, which was denied to us by the government. That is entirely unsatisfactory. That is not best practice. This place is the house of review and, in order to discharge that obligation as the house of review, we need the documents and the data to review legislation and review changes in programs. That obligation—that necessity—is heightened when we're dealing with the most vulnerable people in our community. That's the second point I want to make.

The third point I want to make, in closing, is for those listening. Governments can make what's called a public interest immunity claim. When an order for the production of documents is made by the Senate, the government can claim public interest immunity—that it's in the public interest that the information's not disclosed. I've outlined the reasons why I think it was in the public interest for the documents to be disclosed. But one of the public interest immunity claims which has been raised by the government is prejudice in relations between the Commonwealth and the states. Again, I want to quote from Odgers'. This is our rulebook in terms of how this Senate conducts itself. This is what Odgers' says:

Again, raising this ground, on one basis, would seem to do the apprehended harm. This ground, however, has appeared frequently in recent times in the following form: the information concerned belongs to the states as well as to the Commonwealth, and therefore cannot be disclosed without the approval of the states. The obvious response to this is that the agreement of the states to disclose …

Did you ask the states whether or not the information could be disclosed?

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

No.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't know the answer, Senator Reynolds. I've raised this question over the last 12 months; we have no answer. It's far, far from best practice.

Question agreed to.