Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability, I present the committee's report incorporating some dissenting comments entitled No Child Left Behind: Report into Thriving Kids Initiative together with the minutes of proceedings.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—On behalf of the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability, the committee's report on the inquiry into the Thriving Kids Initiative, I think, was a very important one. The National Disability Insurance Scheme, the NDIS, was introduced in 2013 by then prime minister Julia Gillard. It has transformed the lives of Australians living with disability and remains one of the most significant social reforms in our nation's history. As a paediatrician, I had discussed prior to Julia Gillard's ascension to the prime ministership the importance of support for families of children who have severe disabilities, and this was really the culmination of what has been a transformative social project.

As a paediatrician, I saw the NDIS really change the lives of many of the families that I had looked after for a long period of time. It meant that they had certainty of support for their children when they were no longer able to care for them or had passed away, and that was the one thing that many of those families were worried about. It really was transformative.

The NDIS now supports over 750,000 people, with an average plan budget of around $82,000. The NDIS, as I've said, has been absolutely life changing and something that I will support forever. As a paediatrician, I've seen firsthand how it has provided certainty for those families and it must continue. However, the scheme faces significant challenges. In a way, it's become all things to all people. It has become the only boat in the ocean or the only port in a storm. While the principles of independence, choice, dignity and equity inclusion remain vital, there have been significant structural flaws—the necessity of a diagnosis. The up diagnosis was happening so that people with relatively mild disabilities could become eligible for the NDIS. I've seen that myself in the process where kids with learning difficulties are being diagnosed with other things so that they could qualify for the scheme. Supports have not been evidence based.

We've had an explosion of support organisations, many of whom are unregistered, many of whom were providing services of poor quality. I've been approached by a number of different organisations, including those in the legal profession, who are very concerned about NDIS supports being provided for people with, for example, intellectual disability ending up in the legal system inappropriately. Data collection has been very poor, so we often don't know what supports are being provided to whom and where. Transparency and accountability have not occurred, and it is really way over time for the scheme to be overhauled.

We also need to make sure that children who have developmental concerns can get access to early intervention and that early intervention happens early, it's not diagnosis dependent and the families can feel supported themselves. And we need to make sure that organisations that provide those social supports for families and for kids with disabilities are appropriately funded and are appropriately available in an equitable manner around the country. In particular, rural and regional areas have really struggled to get the supports they need for kids and adults with developmental disabilities, hence the Thriving Kids initiative announced by Mark Butler, the Minister for Health and Ageing.

It was a really eye-opening inquiry that we did, and I would like to thank so much all my committee members—in particular, the member for Kooyong, the deputy chair, who gave us her time and her expertise as a paediatric neurologist and was incredibly supportive. But so was everyone else on the committee. I've been really overwhelmed by the support I've had from all my committee members. I thank them so much, and I hope that they will get the opportunity to talk about their experiences as well. It has really been an informative process. The chair of the Thriving Kids committee that Mark Butler put together, Frank Oberklaid, has been a doyen of paediatric developmental medicine for the last half a century in Australia and overseas as well, and his advice and his support has also been vital.

I'd like to thank the secretariat for the work that they've done. It was a high-time-pressure inquiry. We did a lot of interviews and a lot of public meetings, and I really am very grateful for the expertise of the secretariat. But, most of all, I'd like to thank my committee members. I appreciated all their input from all sides of parliament, including the opposition members. They've all been highly engaged, very supportive and interested in making the lives of families and their members who have disabilities better.

I commend this report to the House.

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