Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's not often that I pay homage to the member for Hughes, but today I rise to support the member for Hughes and to thank him for his advocacy in this particular space around early childhood education intervention and its relationship with the NDIS. The intervention, so to speak, is important, and I welcome the new approach. I say that, however, having seen over the last eight months, in the last area for the NDIA rollout in Victoria, that lessons learned five years ago were not addressed and that in the west of Melbourne, we have had to live the same experience as those who have gone before us in this rollout. This is particularly upsetting for me as an educator when I think about those children who have been getting intervention through state based programs who find themselves approaching school and find that everything is going to be ripped away from them and their families at the most important point—when they're accessing formal education in our school system.

So, as much as I welcome this new approach, it would be lax of me not to point out that this government is, to say the least, tardy. To say what I really think: they are absolutely cynical in their approach to the NDIS and in their lack of care, or their carelessness, about the intervention for our youngest Australians who are living with a disability and trying to transition into our education system. I say that because—and you've heard the stories—we're all living with the inconsistency of the rollout. We're all living with the inconsistency in the way people are being treated. To give you an example from my electorate, I sat recently with a family of an adult male who suffered a stroke. He is paralysed down one side and has major cognitive issues, obviously. Rehabilitation got him to a certain point. That has plateaued and is likely to degrade over time. He has been rejected on his NDIA claim. Even though his report clearly stated that there were short-term memory issues, it was rejected on the basis that he didn't answer a telephone call to his mobile phone. I sat with another family who have a child with cerebral palsy whose paperwork clearly says the child is non-verbal who were asked to present at the office. The man with the stroke was never asked to present—if he had been, people would have been able to see his incapacity—but the child with cerebral palsy, who is wheelchair-bound and non-verbal, is asked to present so that they can hear what she's got to say about her situation. This is appalling, and it is incumbent on this government to get their mind in this game and get this fixed.

In terms of the early childhood intervention, I met earlier this year with Noah's Ark. This is an independent organisation providing early childhood intervention services to children with disabilities, and other additional needs, and to their families and carers. It's the largest early childhood intervention service in Victoria, operating from 19 centres across metropolitan and regional Victoria. To say that they were enraged by the fact that the western suburbs of Melbourne were faced with exactly the replicated problems that they had seen across the rest of the state is putting it mildly.

I was pleased to be able to assist in that process to ensure that the solutions that have been found for other parts of the country were again found for the western suburbs of Melbourne. But we shouldn't have had to take that action. The lessons should have been learnt. If this area had had a minister with their mind on the job and across the detail, we would not be seeing this issue after issue after issue replicated time and time again, as we try and implement what can only be described as a life-changing policy.

This government has been careless. This government has been inconsistent. This government has been cynical. It has held the NDIS to ransom over budgetary processes. It has underfunded things. But worse than all of that, it has not allowed the NDIS rollout to deliver to the people in our communities to whom it was promised—promised by the former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, promised by the member for Maribyrnong and promised by the former member for Jagajaga. This government needs to get on and deliver it.

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