Ali France (Dickson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

FRANCE () (): The NDIS is a lifeline for so many. It can be the difference between isolation, loneliness and intermittent human contact and regular time in the community with people and with support at home. It has also enabled carers to work and re-engage with community and take care of their mental health. Many participants and carers remember what it was like before the NDIS. I stayed in the house all day—just awful. I don't know how we survived. Every time we in this place talk about making change to the NDIS, their fears rise up. They struggle to sleep at night. I struggle. It is a reasonable reaction to the trauma of a severe lack of support before the NDIS. That is why Labor established the NDIS and why we will always work to protect it and ensure it delivers for those it was set up to support: people with significant and permanent care and support needs. It is also why we are making structural changes to the system—changes that must be made to ensure the system is equitable, safe and sustainable.

The NDIS is a lifeline for many and has been a cash cow for many others. Participants know this, providers know this and the general public knows this. Despite knowing this we still fear the change. Most participants and carers are genuinely distressed by the rorting and fraud that was allowed to enter the system by the previous coalition government. They have tainted our lifeline. We feel the scepticism from others. We see the buzzards circling. A few weeks ago a local mum, Carol, who has an adult child with cerebral palsy, came to the office distressed and upset over the bill a new service provider had sent them for two trips down the road to and from the Endeavour Foundation. The trip was no more than five minutes; their car had broken down. The bill was $1,000. She was embarrassed and angry and didn't know what to do with it. I seek leave to table a copy of Carol's bill and her email.

Leave granted.

We know, those opposite know and good providers, which are the majority, know that many bad actors were rorting the travel subsidy. We are listening to the vast majority of providers, who do the right thing, particularly those who travel to areas with no local services. But let's be clear: we need pricing discipline. People on the NDIS should not be paying a cent more than those in the aged care and health sectors. Change is needed not just because of bad actors but because the NDIS is not doing what it set out to do. It has left many with no support while others are overserviced. The other side talk about recent changes to rectify some of this, but they often talk knowing that nine years of turning a blind eye and a general lack of interest in the lives of disabled people allowed the problems of today to fester, run rampant and set in.

As soon as we came into government in 2022 we ordered a review, and what I heard was worse than I had ever anticipated. There were no basic fraud or compliance controls in the nine long years the coalition were running the NDIS—zero. That's on the coalition; that's your record. The fact that the vast majority of providers, 15 out of 16, are unregistered and unregulated is a disgrace. We are fixing it. The fact that the states and territories were given the green light to step away, under the coalition, from being the provider of last resort and delivering support where no other provider was willing to set up in a country town has left a deep hole in our mainstream systems of support. We are throwing the sink at that.

We also know that children with autism wait too long for diagnosis and early intervention and that while kids in our cities can mostly get access to early intervention supports, kids in regional and remote areas and those from disadvantaged backgrounds really struggle for the basics. That is why foundational supports and Thriving Kids is so important. We cannot have a system for our kids where the biggest spender wins.

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