Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As speakers in this place have said, the proposal that is before us, introducing a quality and safeguarding framework, is necessary. Like many on my side, I am disappointed that it has taken the government so long to bring this in. We have the NDIS rolling out as we speak. In my part of the world, we hit the go button on the NDIS back in May and, like other parts of the world, it has not been without its problems. What is disappointing is that the government knew that, when you go from a patchwork of government not-for-profit services being delivered by different agencies and different organisations to a market based system without quality and safeguarding frameworks in place, it is open to exploitation and abuse. Just as in other sectors when we have gone from predominantly public delivery, not-for-profit delivery or community delivery to one based upon a market system, we have seen exploitation and abuse. My fear is that the same could happen under the NDIS model if we do not get the framework, the quality and the safeguards right.

I welcome what the government has put forward but echo the comments that have been made by people on this side of the House that we want to look at the legislation carefully to make sure that it is a genuine safeguard and that it does ensure quality. We want to look at the impact that it is having on delivery of services. We want to make sure that if somebody does the wrong thing that they are out, that they cannot phoenix and set themselves up as another provider. We want to make sure that there are safeguards in place for training, quality training, to ensure that we have the highest skills possible for people working in the NDIS space. We want to know the impact on staff. We want to know the impact on jobs. We want to ensure that the quality and safeguards are there to protect some of the most vulnerable in our community.

We want to refer the bill to the Senate for an inquiry to allow full consideration and scrutiny. We want to work with the government to get this right. We want to make sure that it is right because for us this is about the people in our community. This is about the most vulnerable. This is about their families. It is also about the people who work in the sector. There are a number of concerns that have been raised and these have been played in the media. In my part of the world, just before we rolled out the NDIS we had one very popular organisation go into voluntary administration and then close down: Radius Disability Enterprises. There was a lot of heartbreak and a lot of tears when this happened, not just for the staff directly employed; also for their supported employees and many involved in their day programs. They delivered services, support and advocacy for people with a disability in our community for many decades. One of the reasons they gave for going into voluntary administration was that under NDIS it would have made it that much harder for them. This is the problem when we introduce market-driven systems without appropriate safeguards and protections in place.

We know that people with a disability experience higher levels of violence than the rest of the community. The statistics have been outlined by Labor during this debate. Ninety per cent of women with an intellectual disability have been sexually assaulted in their lives; sixty per cent before the age of 18. Children with a disability are three times more likely to experience abuse than other children. Tragically, however, people with a disability are often treated as unreliable witnesses and are not permitted by the law to provide testimony at all. It is for these reason that Labor are saying that we cannot just introduce a Quality and Safeguards Commission; we must also have a royal commission into what is going on.

We want to be able to look at what has happened in the past, so we can get justice for people who have been victims of abuse. We want to be able to work out what to do where all three levels of government intersect. We want to be able to work out what to do in relation to the term 'unreliable witness' to ensure that people get their day in court and can be heard. We want to be able to look at people's situations beyond those covered by the NDIS. As has been highlighted, only 10 per cent of people with a disability are actually NDIS participants. What about the other 90 per cent? We want to be able to look at schools. That is something that the government has not looked at yet. We have seen that where schools have not been resourced properly, there has been some shocking treatment of children with a disability. There have been cases of children being locked in cages, which is wrong and should be condemned. These are the kinds of things that we can look at and have thoroughly investigated with a royal commission, where recommendations can be implemented at the local, state and federal level.

We also know from reports that, unfortunately, abuse occurs in the workplace, whether it involves a supported employee or a directly employed employee. People take advantage of people with a disability because they believe that they will not be able to testify to their own abuse. The abuse of people with disability is shocking and alarming, and it is something that all of us do stand united to condemn. However, the action that we take to address it is different.

That is why Labor is calling for royal commission which can compel witnesses, evidence and testimony where other forms of inquiry cannot. It can make recommendations for local, state and federal governments to introduce to ensure that we end the level of abuse occurring for people with a disability. This is not what this bill does. This bill talks about a Quality and Safeguards Commission for the NDIS program, but it does not talk about ending abuse. The Prime Minister and the government say, 'We do not have to have a royal commission because we are introducing the Quality and Safeguards Commission.' The two are related, but they are also very different because one talks about the systematic ongoing abuse of people with a disability, and the other talks about how to manage the NDIS system.

As I said earlier in my remarks, the NDIS is basically a market-based system. It allows the individual with a disability and a disability package to choose the services and the supports they would like. However, as I said, as it starts to roll out, the experience of NDIS within our communities is quite different. Someone who might have a physical disability might be quite supportive of the system. They have been able to get the fit-outs they need in their homes, able to purchase their own car with specialist equipment so they can drive. It is wonderful for these people to finally have management and control so they can fully participate in life and in our community. However, for people with an intellectual disability, for people with autism or people who have more complex disability issues—sometimes it is physical and intellectual—the experience with NDIS has not been the same.

My office now has somebody working on this full-time to support people in their advocacy with our local NDIA office to ensure they get a fair package and their package is being spent in their best interests. We know from the rollout of the Living Longer Living Better and the My Aged Care packages that, if you do not have proper safeguards in place, you do get situations where people may lose 80 per cent of their package in administration fees—and that is just not on. We have situations as well where the workforce is , made to be casual because it is a demand-driven system. We have heard of situations where people who might have worked in disability their entire working lives, for 20 or 30 years, are being asked to go out and get ABNs. We have heard that some people with the skills to work in NDIS are not only asked to get ABNs, but they are having to register with three or four different agencies to try and make up a job.

This is not what we envisaged with NDIS. This was not our promise. Our promise was: a well-funded, quality service with the skills and supports for people with a disability. That means investing in the people who deliver the services—the people who do the work and who support people. Many of the people who work in the disability sector are heroes. They have chosen not to make money—they are not out millionaires. Many of them earn somewhere between $40,000 and $60,000, if they are full-time. They do this out of compassion and respect for their clients. They do it because they are people with big hearts and they care.

That brings me to the final point I wish to make about the NDIS, the NDIA and the rollout under this government. This government has basically got the pricing of some of the units wrong. They have pegged the unit price for core support items to the award for social and community services employee at level 2, pay point 3. For those who may not know what that means, that is an entry-level pay level for somebody who is not required to provide complex support and care. That is what most of the care is. Because it is pegged at the award level, the government is saying to state government and not-for-profit employees, 'You may be on a collective agreement above the minimum,' but it is now saying to those organisations that they have to renegotiate their agreements, cut the wages of their staff or look to cut back on services or slowly go broke. That is a fear that I have.

Within this quality safeguards and framework, if we are genuine about ensuring that people have access to the best quality and ensuring that they have access to the best trained staff, then we need to fund it properly and pay the proper wages. This government has got this wrong. We will see lots of people with the skills and qualifications in disability either have to take pay cuts, look for work elsewhere or cut back the level of service that they provide. We have heard from employers in the sector that, under the current pricing unit, somebody working in this area will only get three minutes of non-face-to-face time with their clients—three minutes to do everything from singing on to training, completing paperwork and handing over to the next shift. It is just not practical. It demonstrates how out of touch those in the government are with how disability care and support is rolled out. It is not putting the client at the centre. It is putting the price at the centre.

This government has screamed that Labor did not fund it. That is wrong. The money has always been there. It is their priorities—that they chose not to use consolidated revenue to help fund the NDIS. When Labor has chosen, we have said that we would do that. For example, $65 billion worth of tax cuts for big business is the priority of this government. Therefore, they are asking working people—people who may only earn $20,000 a year—to pay extra in tax to help fund NDIS at the same time as giving millionaires and big business a tax cut. Labor says: that is wrong; fund NDIS properly; look at the pricing unit; and do not expect working people to fund it. Stop giving your mates in big business a tax cut; stop giving millionaires a tax cut. If you were genuine about having a quality NDIS, then look to get businesses to pay their fair share of tax. Then we will have the resources to pay people properly. These are some of the concerns that people in my electorate are raising.

We know that there are going to be some heartbreak moments coming up as more and more not-for-profit community-based fund services look to see how they can continue. We have already found out that the Castlemaine Copy Centre will close at the end of the year. Under NDIS, they cannot continue to deliver the supported employee opportunities for the people that work there. It is heartbreaking for all of those supported employees. We have lost Radius. We worry who is next. Without a strong, quality safeguards and framework in place, without funding and without looking at how we fund people who work in the sector to have good-quality wages, we may see more and more really good organisations go to the wall.

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