Trish Cook (Bullwinkel, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on a matter that's close to my heart, as a nurse, and to speak about the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This is very important to the people of Bullwinkel, who I represent. The electorate covers both an urban area and a regional area.

The NDIS is one of our country's greatest achievements, made possible through the Labor government. It's a scheme that helps well over 700,000 people with a disability, and it helps them to live a more independent life, to work, to study and to have genuine choice and control over how they wish to live. It's a scheme that fundamentally changes lives for the better, and our government is committed to ensuring it will be the best that it can be. At the heart of our commitment is a focus on fairness and transparency. We are making prices fairer for participants, for providers, for workers and for the Australian taxpayer. We need the NDIS to be sustainable to provide care for as many participants as we can.

Let me be absolutely clear about what this means. It means ensuring that NDIS participants are not being overcharged for the vital services that they rely upon. It means ensuring our significant national investment is going to frontline workers who provide critical support day in and day out. It means cracking down on inefficiencies and dodgy providers who seek to make a quick buck without delivering meaningful outcomes for people who most need them.

A recent independent analysis found that NDIS participants were paying more than other Australians for the same supports. Let me repeat that. Our most vulnerable citizens were paying more. For services like physiotherapy and podiatry, the data found that, in some cases, people with disability were being charged a staggering 68 per cent more. It's not fair, and it's not fair to ask people with disability to pay above the odds for therapies that are essential for their wellbeing and independence. High fees and unclear travel rules were draining their budgets and restricting access to the very support that they need. This is why the independent body, the National Disability Insurance Agency or NDIA, in its annual pricing review, has recommended changes to ensure participants are paying a fair price in line with what other Australians pay for the same services.

This decision also has another crucial outcome. It ensures that our frontline disability support workers receive the pay rise that they so rightly deserve. This reflects the increase to the minimum wage and superannuation in the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award. This is about fairness for everyone. Some have raised concerns, but let me assure the House that this decision is based on the most comprehensive data ever used. The agency—the NDIA—meticulously analysed over 10 million transactions, benchmarking against Medicare, private health insurance and 13 other government schemes, and this was not a decision made lightly but one informed by robust evidence that proves people with disability were being overcharged. I would also like to acknowledge the NDIS providers that have already reached out to me with their concerns, and I do acknowledge that some are struggling with the changes and the transition and acknowledge that providers will need to adapt. Our system needs to adapt to remain sustainable. However, to allow for more Australians from the disability community to benefit from the NDIS, these structural changes are necessary to improve accessibility for the disability community.

In conclusion, our government is committed to making the NDIS a fairer, more transparent and more sustainable scheme for the long term. This decision is not about cutting costs. It's about ensuring every dollar is spent on supporting the people the scheme was designed to help. It's about restoring integrity to the NDIS. It's about empowering people with disability to live their lives with choice, control and dignity.

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