Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The NDIS is a system that was built to provide dignity, fairness and support for Australians living with disabilities. But, across Australia, we're seeing the exact opposite. We're seeing this in my electorate on the southern Gold Coast. We're seeing a system where participants are losing support, honest providers are under pressure and fraudulent operators are thriving. This goes to the heart of the problem. We are targeting the wrong people.

Something is wrong when people who are doing the right thing—the physiotherapists I speak to, the OTs and various other professionals who are doing the right thing by working with and for participants—are not given the support that they need from this government, and those who are rorting the system are. There have been so many examples of this recently, but I'd say this: Australia is waking up, and Australians are waking up.

This motion calls on the government to restore transparency, consistency and accountability and calls for a renewed focus on fixing inefficiency and safeguarding the integrity of this scheme. Anybody who has social media in this country will really question the integrity of the NDIS at the moment, and they'll question it for good reason because, time and time again, we are seeing the hard earned money of Australian taxpayers being absolutely used and abused not by participants but by the people who are running some of these facilities and some of these services. The data in the motion is distressing and deeply alarming. We're seeing that eligibility reassessments have nearly doubled, revoked eligibility has skyrocketed from 389 to over 10,000 and $436 million has been cut from participant plans in just one quarter.

Everybody in this Chamber would have experiences of speaking to the parents, to families and to loved ones who have actually borne the brunt of these cuts. The government's own budget papers show that the NDIS is going to cost the Australian taxpayer $63.4 billion by 2028-29.

It's absolutely telling. It's telling where this government's priorities are. Recently we had a situation in the Senate where the government was presented with the opportunity to participate in a review of the NDIS. In particular, it was a review into fraudulent behaviour in the NDIS scheme. And what did they do? They voted against it. Can you imagine that?

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