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

Our 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 for 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 the royal assent on 5 September 2024 and commenced operation 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 a 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 in response to the 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 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 have previously outlined that we have claimed public interest immunity over the requested document, 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 explanation.

In this budget week, I am reminded of the budget just two years ago that slashed billions from the NDIS. This was the Labor government's very first full budget, and the first thing that they did was cut the agency responsible for disability support. They did all of this under the guise of the message headlined 'We'll fix the NDIS'. I asked for the financial sustainability framework in May 2023, only to be told by this government that it did not exist and then that it did exist but we still couldn't have it. Two years later, this is the 19th time that I am again asking Labor to disclose the financial sustainability framework that underpinned, and still underpins, the government's cuts to the scheme.

Why is this so important? It's because that sustainability framework was the reason for the existence of the legislation passed by this government against the express wishes of the disability community, our families and our allies in July of last year and that legislation has resulted in over 26,000 reassessments of participants' eligibility. Following these reassessments, over 10,200 participant have lost access to the scheme. These cuts have seen participants and their families thrown unceremoniously into absolute chaos.

I'll give you one example: a participant was kicked off the scheme because the NDIS did not believe they had enough evidence of a permanent disability, despite the agency having received 25 pieces of evidence from the participant's file to make that decision. That was 25 pieces of individual reporting, including from psychiatrists, clinical psychs, behavioural support practitioners, occupational therapists, clinical nurses and social workers. It was not good enough, though, for this Labor government. This participant was kicked off the scheme with no supports available, even though the state and territory supports that they're now meant to access do not exist yet. In fact, there isn't even a definition, an agreed idea between the states and territories and the Commonwealth, as to what those supports should be. Without supports, disabled people and our families face very real, very significant risks to our safety, our health and our quality of life.

So we have this situation where the states, the territories and the Commonwealth have teamed up to cut the NDIS to save themselves some money. This Labor government refuses to be transparent about that decision. Disabled people lose supports, and there is nothing for us to turn to. While we're at it, let's just recap Labor's track record since being in government in these last few years. Billions of dollars have been cut from the NDIS. They have refused to disclose basic documentation to justify their decisions. There has been no transparency in relation to legislative changes and there has been a completely botched IT system that is creating so much havoc in the lives of so many people. And now, of course, we see coming down the track towards us the implementation of a so-called 'supports needs assessment' that sounds a heck of a lot like the failed independent assessments that the Liberals tried to force on us. And this is just the shortened version of the betrayal, of the underhanded gaslighting from this Labor government that they have perpetrated upon so many disabled people and their families.

Well, we're not going to take it anymore. We have tried 19 times to get this information out of you. You're not going to give it to us, so the next thing that we do together is go out to the ballot box and vote for a parliament that will deliver the actual information that is demanded and the transparency and support needed for disabled people and our families.

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

This might actually be the last time I rise in this place to speak about the NDIS, and I do acknowledge Senator Steele-John, the work that we have done over the past six years on the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, work that we have done through the community affairs committee and the work that we have done on every occasion in here demanding this information. With the chamber's indulgence and the chair's indulgence, I'm going to go through what the lack of clarity means for families and means for families like mine. I leave here in great trepidation for what will happen to the NDIS as the parent of a participant who is someone who actually needs the scheme to be sustainable because, when I'm no longer around, when his father is no longer around, my son will need lifelong supports. He has a significant, permanent, lifelong disability, so I need it to be sustainable. I am frightened beyond words that, when I leave this place, no-one will care about that. People will not care because, if you are not part of the NDIS, it's just something that's overblown; it's just something that's costing too much money. But if you, or a loved one, are relying on it to have a quality of life, this is one of the most important issues you and your family face.

I had my son's plan meeting a couple of months ago. It took us over three weeks to get the new plan. His plan was due to expire when I sent a message to someone at the agency to say: 'Hey; his plan expires tomorrow. I still haven't got the new one. What happens?' Then it miraculously arrived that afternoon in the new PACE system. It arrived with a cut. So, for everyone playing along at home, just know that it doesn't matter if you're the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS, it doesn't matter if you're the shadow assistant minister for the NDIS, it doesn't matter if you've been an advocate for your son for in excess of 13 years and an advocate in the space of children with profound autism and it doesn't matter how well you know the scheme and understand the scheme; participants who need support, participants with permanent and significant and lifelong disabilities, are having their supports cut. We were told by Minister Shorten that there would not be cuts to plans. That was a lie because I can tell you that my son's plan was cut.

We had an incident yesterday at his special needs school that absolutely demonstrates why he needs the supports that the OT wrote into the report that cost me a lot of money to have done. The CEO of the NDIA told us at estimates just a few weeks ago that they don't read the reports, so it was a waste of time, effort and money, and the people who are going to suffer the most from this are my son and his family because of the impacts that these changes are going to have on him. Now, I will make it work. I'll fund what I need to fund and do what I need to do to make it work because I know how hard it is for families to go to the tribunal to get appeals and to go through the review process. Quite frankly, after six years of advocacy in this place and, honestly, hitting my head against a brick wall, I don't have it in me to go to the tribunal. And it's not worth it; the cut is not worth doing that.

What I do know as well is that millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars are being spent on lawyers, on fighting families who are not getting the supports that they need, for only three per cent of cases to ever go to the tribunal or to not be settled beforehand to give these families exactly what they were asking for in the first place. So the agency is spending millions upon millions upon millions of dollars to fight families who are not getting the supports that they need only to ultimately give them what they want on the steps of the tribunal. It is a disgrace.

When we talk about efficiencies, which is part of the framework that we're looking at—how they are going to get to the growth—let me tell you that, when moving from the old system to the PACE system, something as simple as bank account details did not transfer over. So, when I went to put in the first of Fred's claims for his new plan, the bank account details didn't transfer. In the old system, you could just go in and update your bank details or change your bank details, but, no, now you have to call the agency and speak to them. They told me: 'We hope that works. Try again in 24 hours.' If that is an efficiency move, I am speechless.

I am afraid about what will happen to this scheme when I leave. Senator Steele-John, you and I don't agree on everything, but we do agree on sustainability. We need this to be for the people it was intended to be for, we need it to support the families that need it the most, and there needs to be transparency and support for this vital scheme.

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

It is with a great deal of sadness that I rise to speak on this motion for the 19th time. I rise with sadness because I reflect on the fact that, four years ago, as the Minister for the NDIS, I saw very, very clearly that this was a scheme that needed significant reform because the original legislation was deeply flawed. The federal government, who was responsible for all of the cost overruns, not the states and territories, had no way of impacting the levers of the insurance scheme—that is, the number of participants in the scheme and the average cost per participant. We also needed to fundamentally reform the intergovernmental agreements with each state and territory so that they had the financial incentive to ensure that this scheme was sustainable.

I reached out to Bill Shorten, the shadow minister at the time, and I said: 'These are the reforms that we need to do. Will you work with us?' He agreed to two tranches of reforms for participant protections, which were very important, as long as we didn't tell anyone that he'd actually agreed to them. I'm very proud that we got those pieces of legislation through, but I'm deeply saddened that Bill Shorten instead took the option that he always takes, and that is to play the basest of politics with the lives of the now nearly 700,000 people on the NDIS and their millions of family members. Had Bill Shorten and the Labor Party had the political courage and the decency to work with us to genuinely reform this scheme to ensure that it was sustainable, today, four years later, it would be a very different scheme. It would be a scheme for those it was designed for, the 350,000 or so Australians who had permanent and serious disabilities. They were treated appallingly, largely in state-run facilities, where they were abused. They weren't treated with dignity or respect, and they lived the most miserable of lives. The scheme was designed for those Australians.

I think both sides of the chamber have responsibility for the flawed design, but equally we both have a responsibility to fix this scheme. Instead, 19 times the minister has come to this place and said, 'We've run yet another review of this scheme.' There had already been thirty reviews before the government spent the last three years reviewing this scheme. So what have they done? Instead of reforming the scheme, they have made huge, extraordinary, arbitrary cuts to people's plans. They are no further along in dealing with the states and territories in terms of the intergovernmental agreements.

As this is likely my last speech on the NDIS, I implore those opposite: after this election, stop taking the easy and politically expedient way and actually work on a multipartisan basis on this scheme. We and the Greens have always been willing to work together with you. Do not allow the political pollution that Bill Shorten has brought into this scheme. Work with us to reform the scheme. Ensure that those who need the scheme the most have certainty for the rest of their lives and, as Senator Hughes so poignantly just said, that their families understand that their children will be taken care of. They are the most terrified people at the moment, as a result of the politics of those opposite. They are desperately concerned that this scheme will implode and they will be back where they started over a decade ago.

Yes, we need to make sure that the 12 per cent—in fact, closer to 15 per cent under those opposite—of young boys with autism are on the scheme. Those with the severest form of autism, of course, should be on the scheme, but, with so many other disability types, they should be getting the support in their communities from the state government. After this election, every level of government has to stand up and do the right thing together.

Question agreed to.