Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I want to express serious concern about the recent changes to the NDIS pricing arrangements and price limits, which came into effect on 1 July with less-than-three-weeks notice on providers. The reduction in our price limits, freezes on core services and cuts to travel reimbursements have placed significant pressure on small businesses and sole traders. These providers are not large corporations; they are local, community based businesses, including speech pathologists, physiotherapists and psychologists—many of them women led, mobile and deeply embedded in the care economy. These businesses have been under increasing pressure from persistent inflation, rising costs and industrial relations reform.

Last month I convened a roundtable with local NDIS providers in Warringah and heard about the impact of these changes on the viability of their businesses. One mobile speech pathologist specialising in brain injury rehabilitation told me about how he may well need to reduce the service area, limiting access to care for vulnerable clients across the Greater Sydney area, due to these cuts. I urge government that any changes that impact providers has to have meaningful engagement with these small providers to ensure that any impacts can be well understood and provided for in advance. If we want a productive, sustainable NDIS, we must ensure our policies support, not squeeze, the small businesses that make it work.

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