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 this motion. We do, however, acknowledge the interest in this chamber in continuing to reform the NDIS to get it back on track and ensure its sustainability for future generations of Australians. 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. 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 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 ensure this annual growth target is achieved. Our government will continue to make changes to improve the NDIS by making sure that it delivers better and fairer decisions and protects the safety and upholds the rights of participants and that every dollar allocated to the NDIS participants reaches them and is spent in a meaningful way that makes a difference in their lives.

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. Ministers representing the Treasurer have already tabled key documents for the benefit of the Senate, in addition to the aforementioned review.

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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

Here we are again, at the start of a new parliamentary year, and we have had 18 months worth of the minister defying the will of the Senate and not providing the documents that the Senate requires on the NDIS. If only Labor had put in a fraction of the effort that they used to hide all of these documents from not only the Senate but Australians and NDIS participants, we may have got a much better outcome for the NDIS than what those opposite have delivered in the last 2½ years.

They're a complete failure in this area, in terms of not just transparency but the mismanaging of this scheme. They're just trying to eke out their time after this terrible legislation was passed and after the hiding of the budget figures and all of these figures. They have just one strategy. It is a strategy to get them through to the next election. Then, surprise, surprise, whoever is the minister, whoever is in government, shock, horror, will have access to the documents they've hidden and will find out just what a farce they've been perpetrating.

So now we've got a new minister, and have we got something new? Nope. We've still got the same old Redbridge research marketing lines that Bill Shorten, with his half-a-million-dollar speechwriter, was trotting out. What are we hearing again? We're hearing: 'We're cracking down on fraud. There are "green shoots". We're working with states and territories to deliver foundational supports.' Well, what a joke. What a joke, coming out here and repeating these lines yet again. I'll tell you what: this debacle that those opposite have perpetrated on NDIS participants and their families is so emblematic of the complete systemic failure of those opposite to govern and their complete lack of standards of effective governance. When it comes to real action on the NDIS, those opposite have done nothing.

Remember, before the last election, when I was the NDIS minister, I came to this place and publicly said: 'This is a scheme in trouble. We have a sustainability issue. We have to tackle it.' I talked to the states and territories, and they were well on the journey to agreeing to having to do more. But Bill Shorten—'No, there's not a problem here. There's no sustainability problem. It's all Liberal lies.' And, three years ago, he refused to support proper legislative reform to put this scheme on a financially sustainable track for the future.

Then he comes into government: 'Oh, my goodness me. I didn't understand what the budget documents said. I didn't understand any of this, and we've got a problem. We've got a sustainability problem.' Then what did he do? He did what Labor always does. They don't get in there and tackle the problem. He didn't say, 'Oops, I got it wrong.' He then had an 18 month-to-nearly-two-year review—another review—to tell us exactly what we already knew: this is a scheme in trouble.

Now what have they done? They haven't come to an agreement with the states and territories, not a single one of them; yet they have pushed off billions of dollars worth of NDIS supports to states and territories in foundational supports. But guess what? The states and territories have not agreed to fund them. The states and territories haven't agreed to this at all. They haven't spent the last 2½ years doing new intergovernmental agreements with the states and territories. Now we hear—revealed on the weekend by the new minister, trotting out the same old lines—that they're now seeking a one-year pre-election bailout from states and territories to pay for the foundational supports that they should have been discussing with them!

So this is it. We know from the figures that, despite all their talk of 'green shoots', this is still a scheme that is running out of control and well over the budget forecast. Total payments continue to increase due to two drivers of costs: participant numbers are still skyrocketing, despite everything those opposite have done, and the average payment per participant is still going up. Total payments are on track to exceed last year's total payments.

Despite all of the rhetoric and all of the budget fudging that they have done, they're now coming to states and territories, saying: 'We 've stuffed this up. We couldn't get your agreement, but can you please give us enough money to get us through the next election?' Shame on you. (Time expired)

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

Here we are in 2025. The Senate, on behalf of the disability community, on behalf of disabled people and our families, is once again asking this government to provide the community with the truth, with the documentation, with the actual agreement that this Labor government made with states and territories to cut our NDIS, and once again this Labor government refuses to come clean. Once again, they hide behind ridiculous arguments that have been disproven and which they have failed to back up with evidence.

The Senate can now see, in real time, that the community is experiencing, in real time, the impact of this government, supported by the Liberals, cutting our NDIS. In the last estimates session—the last opportunity the Senate had to question the government directly—we were able to extract from them a couple of pieces of information. The government admitted that in the months of July, August and September of 2024 they performed no fewer than 11,500 eligibility reassessments upon NDIS participants. To place that in context, during the financial year 2023-24 a total of 8,000 eligibility reassessments were performed. Then there were 11,500 in three months!

What was the result of those eligibility reassessments? The result was that 52 per cent of the disabled people who were reassessed were kicked off the scheme. How much money was ripped away from them? It was $125 million in three months. That is $125 million of support hours, of the ability to get out of bed, to go to the shops, to go and see your friends. Think of the pieces of assistive technology, think of the therapies, think of the supports that have been taken away from people because they have been kicked off the scheme by this government.

Where are they meant to go? Labor says, 'Don't worry: there'll be something called a foundational support.' They've been saying that for years. What is a foundational support? The government still can't answer. Who will pay for it? Labor doesn't know. How will you get it? Labor doesn't know. What safeguards will there be? Labor doesn't know. None of these questions that keep disabled people and our families up at night have been answered by this Labor government, yet they continue to cut supports; they continue to kick people off their NDIS packages and supports. Then they have the audacity, whilst celebrating the establishment of the National Autism Strategy—something that has been called for, for many years, by advocates and experts—to say, 'Wow, look at us; we're so great for implementing this strategy and we are very excited about the good it will do for the community,' while at the same time kicking autistic kids off the scheme. How are we meant to implement the National Autism Strategy if, at the same time, thousands upon thousands of autistic kids are having their supports removed?

Every single dollar that Labor, with the help of the Liberals, rips away from a disabled person or from their family member will be repaid to you in kind after election day, through the ballot box. A vote for the Greens is a vote to protect and save our NDIS.

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

Senator Steele-John, I think we are at almost 18 months since this motion first came up, when we first asked for an explanation when it came to foundational supports. So we start our first day here in 2025 yet again—it's normally NDIS Monday, but we never miss an opportunity, so we'll do it on a Tuesday and we'll be here next Monday—looking for an explanation as to what the financial arrangement between the states and the federal government looks like when it comes to reform of the NDIS.

Some people may have missed today's announcement on the NDIS with regard to eligibility criteria. When people were coming up for eligibility assessments, they were being given 28 days to put together documentation to prove that they still had a disability. Today, that has changed to 90 days, because someone in the NDIA has realised that it is nigh on impossible to get to your specialist and to those that they consider worthy to provide documentation that you still have a disability—a disability you may have been born with or that first gave you entry into the scheme because it was a permanent and lifelong disability. I love when people have to re-prove they have Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, or that they are a quadriplegic—these things occur. But it has now been accepted that 90 days is perhaps a slightly more workable timeframe to prepare those documents.

Why is this important? Because it falls into every single part of the NDIS. We have worker shortages across the board. We have shortages when it comes to allied health professionals. In New South Wales we have just had almost all psychiatrists in the public health system walk away from the job. So we have a mental health crisis and a shortage of allied health providers and professionals, yet the NDIA is making it harder and harder for participants to continue with their plans, to continue improving their lives and to continue making their lives and their families' lives better.

Senator Steele-John, you may also enjoy this: my son is currently up for review, and I am currently running around to paediatricians, occupational therapists, behavioural therapists and exercise physiologists to put together all of the reports. This isn't just about the meeting that we have with those specialists; we then have to pay them for their time to write the reports.

My son has level 3 autism. Senator Steele-John, you talked about the National Autism Strategy, which is something my committee actually recommended—you were a participating member when we did a Senate select committee into the whole of life of autism and recommended a national autism strategy. But we didn't recommend a national autism is awesome strategy, a strategy to ignore people with severe and profound autism, or a strategy to ignore that it has a complete disabling effect on their lives.

Unfortunately, we have seen a little bit of whitewashing with regard to how autism can be a superpower—how it's a different way of thinking and should be celebrated at all times. For people with severe and profound autism, it is actually very challenging for them. There are communication challenges, there is rigidity of thought and there is difficulty with all daily living skills. Things you and I take for granted are well beyond the capacity of these people. But these people are being let down, they are being excluded and they are not being part of the conversation.

As I prepare for my son's review, I am feeling very anxious. I am very stressed about it. I am very uncertain as to what the future holds—and I am the deputy chair of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. So you can only imagine how the families of participants feel who don't have the same committee meetings, the mobile number of the CEO or the ability to just walk over to the ministerial wing and knock on the new minister's door. My heart absolutely breaks for those families that are going through this period of uncertainty, because this Labor government has refused to provide any transparency.

There is no transparency to what the reforms of the NDIS should look like in full. We don't know what the foundational supports are, we don't know who is going to pay for them and we don't know how they are going to be rolled out. Now, we have a list of banned therapies. If you had told me equine therapy was a cure for autism, I would have told you that was rubbish, but riding for the disabled, and the associated programs that go with that, is incredibly helpful to people with intellectual disabilities and autism. Yet it is now on the banned list of therapies from the NDIS.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we are, nearly 18 months after this came forward in this chamber. We are still here because this government, which stood to be open and transparent when it got in—I notice even the Guardian is questioning that, with claims this government has been more secretive than the previous government—would rather give a vocal piece for people to point out the errors in the NDIS and what's going on than to actually be honest with what it's doing. When the government chooses to put up with the punishment of people saying how bad this is rather than putting in a piece of paper, you know something is wrong. It is a sham that they won't put up the information demanded by the Senate. It just shows—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator; the time has expired.

Question agreed to.

It is now 1.30 pm, so we will go to two-minute statements.