Claire Clutterham (Sturt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The National Disability Insurance Agency released its annual pricing review earlier this year, making recommendations designed to help refocus the NDIS on its primary purpose, which is to provide funding and support services to Australians with a permanent and significant disability. The provision of funding and support services is targeted towards helping those with disability live as independently and as autonomously as possible, helping them to be able to spend more time with family and friends. It is directed at helping people with a permanent and significant disability access new skills, access meaningful work or access community volunteering opportunities. It is firmly aimed at delivering an improved quality of life.

The NDIS currently supports over 700,000 Australians with disability to access the services and support they need. The services and support facilitated by the scheme are directed at persons with a permanent and significant disability. That is the purpose of the NDIS, that is the entire point and the Albanese Labor government is focused on making the NDIS the best it can be so that dedicated and skilled providers like Lauren from Achieving Abilities and Chelsea from Flipper Academy, both of whom are based in my electorate of Sturt, can continue to provide critical support services to their clients.

The day I met Chelsea from Flipper Academy, I was privileged to witness a water based physiotherapy session that she was running with her young client Lucas. During the session on that day, Lucas—who is non-verbal, with significant limitations—achieved a milestone. It was a small milestone but a milestone nonetheless that he would not have been able to achieve without the care and skill he receives from Chelsea. Lucas's mum was in tears at her son's progress. Children like Lucas are exactly the kinds of Australians the NDIS was designed to support. But the scheme must be sustainable to allow highly qualified practitioners like Chelsea to continue to support young Australians like Lucas and to allow highly qualified exercise physiologists like Lauren help her clients, many of whom have cerebral palsy, develop strength and confidence.

The NDIA's annual price review contained new recommendations with respect to the way travel is charged by those providing support and services to persons with a permanent and significant disability. The updated travel-claiming rules create clear cost expectations for those persons, helping them to get increased value and efficiency from the funding provided to them. The new rules also encourage providers to implement more efficient scheduling and to seek to ensure that travel costs are proportionate to the services being provided. Travel costs must be itemised separately on invoices so that participants, the beneficiaries of the scheme, can clearly understand where the funding provided to them pursuant to the NDIS is being used. The NDIS and the NDIA learned during the annual price review that participants were finding that therapy travel costs were exhausting their funding faster than expected. In this respect, the needs of participants the NDIS is designed to fulfill were listened to and heard. The updated travel-claiming rules do encourage more efficient scheduling by providers and provide clear cost expectations.

A similar motivation exists for the change to increment recording by providers. Displaying therapy price limits in 10-minute increments is intended to increase flexibility in billing and service delivery. It aims to clarify that one hour is not a default or expected service length and that the length of service can vary depending on the agreement between the participant—the beneficiary of the scheme—and the provider based on individual needs and circumstances, which, of course, may evolve. Other travel rules did not change, which means all providers may continue to claim non-Labor travel costs, such as vehicle running costs, parking costs and road tolls. It is also open to providers to negotiate with participants to include costs and accommodation associated with travel to remote or very remote and regional locations. Additionally, remote loadings of 40 and 50 per cent remain unchanged, and this government will continue to work with regional, remote and rural communities to trial different and better ways of delivering essential services to Australians who need them.

See this speech in context