Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) approach is an evidence-based, best practice approach to early childhood intervention for children aged zero to six years with developmental delay or disability, and there have been some challenges with rolling out the ECEI approach;

(2) welcomes the Government's announcement to reduce delays and backlogs in delivering early childhood early intervention supports through the NDIS; and

(3) notes that:

(a) a six-month recovery plan to be implemented by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) will include working with ECEI partners to secure additional resources to ensure children are able to receive early childhood supports in a more timely manner;

(b) the NDIA will provide a standardised interim six-month plan for children who have been found eligible for the NDIS, but who are experiencing significant waiting periods for a plan (that is, where the period between an access decision and getting a plan is greater than 50 days) and that these interim plans will be replaced by a full NDIS plan no later than six months after being issued;

(c) new participants who are not categorised as complex and who are not transferring from an existing Commonwealth, state or territory disability program will be given a standardised interim plan for $10,000;

(d) participants who are transferring from an existing Commonwealth, state or territory disability program, their interim NDIS plan and funding package will reflect their existing support levels, however, if that amount is lower than $10,000 they will also receive the $10,000 standardised interim plan for up to six months; and

(e) participants with complex support needs, will immediately be streamed to an NDIA early childhood specialist to develop their plan and appropriate funding package.

The Early Childhood Early Intervention approach, which is called the ECEI approach, is part of our National Disability Insurance Scheme. It supports children from birth to six years of age who have a developmental delay or a disability, as well as their families and carers. I emphasise family and carers, because it's very important that we give them support as well. Often the best way that we can help Australians with disabilities is to make sure we are supporting their families and their carers, because they are, ultimately, the ones who give people with disabilities the most support.

The NDIS is engaged with early childhood partners around Australia to deliver this approach, as the early childhood partners are experienced in providing early childhood intervention. However, we must be honest: there have been some challenges rolling it out. If we are going to fix things in this parliament, we have to admit where there are problems, so we can tackle them. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is probably one of the largest projects undertaken by governments in our nation. We want to give those with disabilities—which they are, unfortunately, either born with or which they have acquired through some injury or catastrophic event—the support that they deserve. This is a massive scheme. There's a lot involved in it, and there are teething problems. As the government, we admit that. But we also say 'We're going to get those problems fixed. We acknowledge them, and we're going to get them fixed.'

Therefore, this motion welcomes the government announcement to reduce delays and backlogs in delivering the Early Childhood Early Intervention supports to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We note four specific things. Firstly, a six-month recovery plan, to be implemented by the NDIA, will include working with the Early Childhood Early Intervention partners to secure additional resources to ensure children are able to receive early childhood supports in a more timely manner.

Secondly, the NDIA will provide a standardised interim six-month plan for children who have been found eligible for the NDIS but who are experiencing significant waiting periods for the plan—that is, where the period between an access decision and getting a plan is greater than 50 days. These interim plans will be replaced by a full NDIS plan no later than six months after being issued. We do that because we have to also understand that every single child is different and, therefore, every single plan has to be individualised.

Thirdly, new participants who are not categorised as complex and who are not transferring from an existing Commonwealth, state or territory disability program will be given a standardised interim plan for $10,000.

Fourthly, for participants who are transferring from an existing Commonwealth state or territory disability program, their interim NDIS plan and funding package will reflect their existing support levels. However, if the amount is lower than the $10,000, they will also receive the $10,000 standardised interim plan for up to six months.

We've looked at this and we've acted. We understand participants with complex support needs. We want to make sure that they will be immediately streamed to an NDIA early childhood specialist to develop the plan and make sure that they receive appropriate funding.

The first way to fix the problem is to acknowledge it exists. Many of my constituents have come to me with issues with their NDIS plans and delays. We acknowledge their concerns. We acknowledge that more work has to be done. This is an example of the coalition getting on and doing the job. But we must remember that, ultimately, the only way we can continue to finance this into the future is if we have a strong and robust economy that can underwrite the NDIS plans and can underwrite what we are doing in early childhood early intervention. We can have all these programs, but unless we have a strong, vibrant economy we simply cannot have these programs in our nation. That is why I commend this motion to the House.

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