Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Herbert for this motion. I too have grave concerns about the reduction in professional fees and funding for travel costs outlined in NDIS pricing arrangements and price limits 2025-26. The issues I have are with the substance of the changes but also their timing. I've been told that providers were only given a few weeks notice, despite the significant impact these pricing changes will have.

In regional Australia, these providers are small businesses and, on the whole, they're striving to provide important services to NDIS participants. They're not in the big city, where services are abundant and delivery is a lot simpler. It's a theme of mine—coming into this place to explain that things in regional and rural Australia are quite different from things in the city. I've said this in relation to industrial relations. I've said it in relation to agriculture and business. I've said it in relation to transport. I've said it in relation to aged care. But sometimes you've got to put a different lens over things in relation to regional and rural Australia. The businesses that service clients in rural and remote areas—clients are not spoiled for choice, and the practitioners must travel to reach clients. The reality is that in the bush you often don't have the services you need where you live. Either you travel, or the service provider travels to you. Under these changes, the compensation that providers can claim for that necessary travel has been cut.

We all agree that the NDIS needs to be financially sustainable; however, we need to be cautious that changes do not have a disproportionate impact on regional Australians simply because of where they choose to live. The Albanese government has some form in this area with changes made to registered nurse minutes in aged care. Regional aged care does not have the same access to qualified nurses, and meeting the requirements has meant employing agency staff, which means labour costs have soared and the viability of services has decreased. Again, it's that lack of understanding that things are very different in regional Australia.

We're concerned that, with these NDIS changes, once again the Albanese government has failed to consult with the sector and failed to understand the needs of business and service recipients. It's a disappointing move. The member for Herbert has written to the Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, calling on the government to defer these changes for at least three months to allow for consultation and planning around changes to service delivery, and I support that deferral.

The NDIS supports independence and social and economic participation of people with a disability. It was developed so as to have a nationally consistent approach to access to, and the planning and funding of, supports for people with a disability. I think people all around this chamber agree with the intent of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and it received bipartisan support when it was brought to this parliament. But, if we make changes to it, we've got to carefully examine the impact of those changes—sometimes they might be unintended. This might affect the ability of rural and regional service practitioners to do what they do and therefore provide the service that is so sorely needed.

Providers are saying to us that cutting travel supports will reduce access for regional clients, and that's something that we've got to be really careful about analysing. Once again, it's the same old story: where you live dictates what support is available, and that's just not good enough. It's inconsistent with the goal of equitable access across Australia, and it should be reviewed. I hope that the Albanese government can look at this, take the three-month deferral, consult with the industry and see whether there are better ways that we can do this. If this is the way forward, at least inform providers and recipients that this is what's going to happen and how it will affect them into the future.

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