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 it cannot agree with the assertions made in this motion. We do, however, acknowledge the interest in the chamber in continuing to reform the NDIS to get it back on track and to ensure its sustainability for future generations of Australians. I also acknowledge the support from 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. The NDIS bill received royal assent on 5 September 2024 and commenced 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 be achieved. Following the passage of the NDIS bill, discussions will continue with senators across this chamber, as well as members of the other place, to address questions about the government's NDIS reform agenda that 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.

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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

Well, here we are again—NDIS Monday. It's like The NeverEnding Story. I think it's been 13 or 14 months now, and poor Senator Farrell gets sent in every week to deliver a statement that is quite simply an insult to this chamber. We've just had motions about respecting the institution. Then they turn around with complete disdain for the Senate, because it has now been 13 or 14 months since the government have been required to provide this documentation to the Senate, and, yet again, that documentation is not being provided.

Remember when the now Prime Minister was campaigning? He was going to be all about transparency. It was going to be an open government. It was doing things differently. Instead, this is the most opaque administration that I think we've ever seen. Their consistent refusal to provide documents in this place that the Senate demanded from them is now being backed up by the behaviour we've recently seen at estimates. We see it through the way they are conducting legislation committees and through each of the committee processes. We see it in their shutting down of any inquiry and limiting the number of hearings. We know what happened with the NDIS reforms and how they were trying to push them through, so much so that we saw billboards driven around. But then, lo and behold, the government themselves had something like 50-plus amendments that they wanted to push through. That's stuff we would have been able to get to the bottom of had we been able to have a proper inquiry and series of hearings.

We now see at estimates that, all of a sudden, the agency is not available. No-one can attend. Conveniently, everyone seems to get sick on the day of estimates. Estimates are in the diary almost 12 months out, but, every time, the NDIA schedule a board meeting or some form of report to be released within a week of estimates concluding. It is the ongoing situation from this government that we are seeing and which they are hiding. They are hiding every piece of data that they can, not only from participants but also from providers and everyone that works in this sector. What we do know is that we're still seeing an increase in the costs of the NDIS.

I'm getting hundreds if not thousands of people coming by my office. Particularly, as most people know, I have a very strong interest in the autism and early intervention spheres, because I know that, if you get good quality, intensive, early intervention, you can change the trajectory of the life of a child with autism. This is a disability that reflects the intent of the scheme: invest early, have lower costs later. But we know that families are having their plans slashed, particularly for children with level 3 autism and an intellectual disability. If some of these documents could be provided, I would love to work with the government, because there are too many kids on the scheme. Eleven per cent of kids with a disability—seven- to nine-year-old boys in this country—do not have permanent, lifelong disability. I would love to work constructively with the government to get some of these kids off the NDIS.

For the people that need it, we need that scheme to be there. We need the scheme to be sustainable. We need it to be affordable. We need it to have the support of the broader Australian population, because the NDIS is there for everybody. Nobody knows whether they will need it through the birth of a child or via an accident, so we need the Australian population to be behind it. Instead, all we hear are these stories, particularly about participants being at fault. There's very little discussion about the providers that are rorting the system or the price guide that pushes up the cost of each therapy session for an NDIS participant higher than for anyone else with a healthcare or veterans card. The NDIS pays best!

I would love to work with government to see how we can get one, two or a couple of blocks of speech therapy sessions for some of these kids who have a global developmental delay. How could the states better provide community health speech therapy and occupational therapy, like they used to? But the government is continually refusing to release these agreements with the states, and the states are saying, 'Please don't bring on these foundational supports yet, because we're not ready.'

We know there are kids who will fall through the cracks, and there are kids who shouldn't be on the NDIS who will fall through the cracks. But, more frighteningly, this would appear likely. I know the minister has visited two early intervention centres. One I was supposed to go to with him, but I was ill, and he went without me. I took him to one in Melbourne myself to show him level 3 kids with intellectual disability who require substantial plans to get that effective early intervention. But they are having their plans cut. They are dragged through the AAT process only to have the original amount agreed to in the steps, wasting more money through administration and legal costs.

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

In April 2023, the so-called leaders of the Australian nation—the Prime Minister, the premiers and the chief ministers of this country—met to conduct a national cabinet, and at that National Cabinet they discussed how they were going to cut billions of dollars from our NDIS. In response, and immediately, the Greens, together with the rest of the Senate, demanded to know precisely what had been discussed at that meeting. They demanded to know the documentation, the records, kept of that meeting. In response to those demands, this Labor government refused, so the Greens and the Senate took the unprecedented step of demanding that one of the most senior cabinet ministers in the government attend the Senate at the beginning of every single sitting period to either disclose the documents requested or provide us with a satisfactory response. Month after month, for nearly a year, the government has refused to do either. We've no documents and no satisfactory answers.

We are nearly at the end of the parliamentary year. There are but two weeks left before the government and the opposition go away for their Christmas break. I had hoped that today we might get something more substantial—that we might get answers, that we might get documents—but no. Yet again, there's refusal from this government to provide the basic information as to what was agreed a year ago when politicians got in a room behind closed doors and talked about how to cut billions from our NDIS.

Although the silence by this government continues, their actions are now speaking far more loudly than their words ever could. Recently it has been revealed that, in the last six or so weeks of Labor's NDIS, this Labor government has conducted over 7,000 reassessments of eligibility of NDIS participants. Eighty per cent of those reassessments have been of children. 'What is the outcome of those reassessments?' people may indeed wonder. Well, 50 per cent of these reassessments result in kids or participants of other ages getting kicked off. And there is more data that the agency is yet to reveal.

These approaches, these decisions and these massive cuts are often what are driving the perverse glee that is on the faces of so many Treasury department bean-counters and ministers in this Labor government. The cuts that we are seeing—the kids being kicked off the scheme—are why the government has recently been able to update by a billion dollars their forecast of how much they will cut from the NDIS by 2028. They're now so proud to share with the community that by 2028 they will have cut $20 billion worth of funding and supports from disabled people and their families.

This is a disgrace. It is causing so much fear. This Labor government is sending over a thousand letters out to disabled people and their families informing them that they are being reassessed and that, if people wish to provide additional evidence, they have but 28 days to do so. There is so much fear. It's totally unacceptable.

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

I, too, rise to speak on the Greens' motion, in continued support of what I think history will record is the greatest financial fraud on Australian taxpayers in our nation's history. It's the cruellest financial fraud on Australians.

The lack of transparency, which other senators have again reminded those in this place and all Australians of, is shocking. Not only has the minister, for over 12 months, come in here and flouted the direction of the Senate to provide that information; but we had the farce at the last Senate estimates, the budget estimates, where we got this letter from the NDIA. It said that the NDIA had all the data that we want, but because it was going to be put in two different documents—the first quarterly report and the AFSR, the annual financial sustainability report, which are two of the most critical documents for transparency for this place on that $11 billion per quarter scheme—they said, 'The agency will therefore not be able to answer questions regarding these documents at its appearance.'

We'd made it very clear that we didn't want to talk about the documents, even though they were late. We wanted to talk about the data that sits behind them. But, of course, yet again, those opposite hid. I went of the Clerk for advice, and this is what the Clerk said: 'Officers do not have an independent discretion to withhold this information, and this requirement is not overridden by the existence of a statutory obligation to provide the information to another entity.' So that was very clear, and all in this place know that to be. But they still did not provide that information, and now those opposite and the NDIA are ducking and weaving and trying to do everything they can to not have a spillover so that those in this place can get transparency on the numbers that sit behind them.

Of course, the first quarterly report was published after estimates. It is very clear why they waited until after estimates to publish this quarterly report: it gives lie to everything those opposite have been saying about this scheme. Bill Shorten's been out there in the media saying, 'This scheme is now being moderated.' But, despite all the cuts that they are initiating to participants' plans—remember Minister Shorten promised, 'I won't cut a single plan; there will be no cuts under the government that I'm a minister in.' That was so not true.

These are the numbers. Total payments have continued to increase due to both drivers of cost: participant numbers and the higher average annual cost per participant. In the last quarter alone, total expenses were $11.5 billion. No wonder they tried to hide that at estimates and hide the data that sits behind that. As I've said, they're now ducking and weaving about having any transparency so that we can unpack the numbers. Annualised, on the first quarter alone, that will mean the scheme will increase from about $42 billion last year to between $45 billion and $46 billion. With all of the blunt cuts that are now being enforced on scheme members, it is a complete disgrace.

Let's have a look at how those two drivers of cost have been increasing. Planned inflation continues to rise with an annualised level now of 12.8 per cent. So much for those opposite and the budget; it was budgeted for 8.5 per cent. In quarter 1 alone, there were over 50,000 requests for participant plan reviews; there are now 4,000 a week.

How did those opposite cook the books? They made it seem, when the legislation went through, that they were fixing the budget. Well, they were not. What did they do? They held over tens of thousands of applications to get into the scheme, and they made sure people waited months and months to get their payments once they were accepted into the scheme. We're now seeing that flow through in the first quarter. Worse than that, when people applied for plan increases because of inflation, they sat on them—over 50,000 of them. That number has now gone up to 61,767. Now, because they need the money, they are not just waiting for people to ask for plan reassessments but also initiating tens of thousands of these.

Question agreed to.