Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

Every day, thousands of Australian families rely on the NDIS. For Australians living with significant and permanent disability, it provides not just support but opportunity. It is a therapy session that can change a child's trajectory. It is a support that keeps a loved one safe at home. It is the difference between coping and not. For these families, the NDIS is not a line item in a budget. It is deeply personal. It is what holds their world together. It is a lifeline. It is the difference between a life of isolation and a life of choice. That is exactly why the coalition's support for the NDIS remains steadfast. We understand that the NDIS is about more than service delivery. It is about dignity, independence and the right to choose. It is one of the most significant reforms in our nation's history.

But the NDIS is now at a crossroads. Built to support around 410,000 people, it is now supporting more than 760,000. This growth raises a serious question: how do we ensure the system keeps pace without falling over? For the NDIS to continue delivering support, it must be sustainable. If the scheme is not sustainable, it cannot be there for the people who rely on it most, not just today but into the future. All this points to the urgent need for a clear government plan to bring the exploding costs of the NDIS back under control before the system becomes entirely unsustainable.

Despite this urgency, the government's own targets have remained elusive. In April 2023, the Albanese government pledged to bring annual growth down to eight per cent. By August 2025, the Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme suggested even tighter limits, aiming for a range of five to six per cent. With current growth still sitting at around 10 per cent, a significant gap remains between the government's promises and reality on the ground.

This brings us to the elephant in the room. How exactly does the government plan to bridge that gap? What we have seen is costs being shifted around, like with the Thriving Kids program. Shifting numbers on a page and in a spreadsheet is not the same as fixing the problem. For a scheme of this size, now approaching $50 billion a year and forecast to be $60 billion a year by 2028, Australians deserve more than just promises. They deserve a clear road map, evidence based policy and transparent reporting. Above all, they deserve a timeline that is realistic and holds up under the weight of practice.

Let me be clear, the coalition supports the intent of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2026. We support stronger protections for NDIS participants. We support tougher civil and criminal penalties for providers who do the wrong thing—including penalties of up to 10,000 penalty units, equivalent to around $3.3 million—because any provider who exploits a person with disability or misuses taxpayer funds must face serious consequences. There is no excuse for that kind of behaviour, and there is no place for it in the NDIS. We also support the introduction of antipromotion orders because providers should not be advertising or selling services outside the purpose of the scheme.

We support giving the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission stronger powers, including banning powers, to act against providers delivering poor-quality or unsafe products, because participant safety must always come first. But powers on paper mean little without boots on the ground. The commission must be properly resourced so participants and workers are not left exposed while enforcement is delayed. We support the introduction of a 90-day cooling-off period, because participants should have greater choice and control.

During the Senate inquiry into this bill, the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations pointed to a loophole in schedule 2 section 29A. In practice, this loophole would have allowed a correspondence nominee to withdraw a participant from the scheme or cancel a withdrawal, even against the participant's wishes. That goes too far. A correspondence nominee is there to assist not decide. If that line is blurred, it risks removing agency from the very people the NDIS is meant to empower. People who put trusted supporters around them should not lose their voice because of unclear drafting. Decisions as fundamental as whether someone remains in the scheme must stay with the participant. That principle matters.

That is why the coalition moved an amendment in the Senate to make it clear that these decisions must remain with a participant or their plan nominee. I thank the government for supporting this practical and important amendment to protect participants. At the end of the day, this is about a person's agency, dignity and choice, and that broader point goes to the heart of this debate. The coalition will always support measures that strengthen the integrity of the NDIS and protect participants.

But what we see now is deeply concerning. A report by the ACCC earlier this year found that providers are advertising services clearly not covered by the NDIS—all-inclusive holidays, flights, cruises, dining out and even the cost of ingredients for meals. We are seeing participants being sold equipment that does not match what they were promised, with wheelchairs, beds and mobility aids arriving faulty or unsuitable to their needs, leaving participants fighting for refunds or repairs. Some contracts are stacked against participants from the start, with excessive exit fees, cancellation penalties and long lock-in periods. These practices cause real harm—financial harm, emotional harm. Too often, families are left carrying crushing debt because someone chose to exploit them for profit. This sort of conduct is completely unacceptable.

Supporting the intent of this bill does not mean ignoring its gaps—and there are serious gaps. With around 94 per cent of providers operating unregistered, there is a massive regulatory blind spot. This bill fails to establish direct fraud controls for the majority of the market, and we see the consequences of this every day. Participants are quoted one price for basic services—cleaning, gardening or everyday supports—then, the moment they mention they are using an NDIS plan, the price jumps. Sometimes, it quadruples. It's the same service, the same job, for a higher price because it's the NDIS. That is unacceptable and an affront to the integrity of the scheme. These providers are exploiting vulnerable participants and the taxpayers who fund their support, and they're getting away with it because weak checks and inconsistent oversight have opened the door to bad actors. That has to change.

The NDIS must detect fraud early and stop exploitation before it harms participants, because, when the system fails, it is participants and their families who pay the price. We cannot pretend this is a small problem. Fraud within the scheme is happening every day. The Australian National Audit Office estimates that six to 10 per cent of payments could be noncompliant, incorrect or fraudulent. The system is identifying around 50,000 potentially risky claims every single day. In 2025, $48.83 billion was spent through the NDIS. If six to 10 per cent is going astray, we are looking at a staggering loss of between $2.9 million and $4.8 billion every single year. If nothing changes, that could rise to as much as $8 billion annually by the end of the decade.

These losses are driven by systemic misconduct, fraud, overservicing, false claims and claims for services never delivered. Law enforcement has warned that organised crime is now targeting the scheme. The examples are right in front of us. In March this year, the Federal Police raided a Sydney home linked to a suspected $3.5 million NDIS fraud syndicate. Days earlier, a man was jailed after misusing the details of 90 NDIS participants to generate fraudulent claims of more than $190,000. In February, a Darwin NDIA employee was charged over an alleged $5 million fraud. In New South Wales, three people were jailed for defrauding the system of $5.8 million in 2024. Another case involved an alleged $14½ million scheme tied to major provider networks, and, in Western Sydney, a $10 million NDIS fraud syndicate was uncovered in 2022. These are just some examples of the systemic exploitation occurring within the NDIS. Every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar taken away from someone who needs support and from taxpayers.

Let me be clear—this bill is a step in the right direction, but tougher penalties alone will not fix the problem. If the system itself is weak, bad behaviour and bad actors will continue to infiltrate it. The NDIS is at a critical juncture. It risks sliding into an unsustainable free-for-all or hardening into a soulless bureaucracy that stifles dignity under the weight of processes. We cannot allow either outcome.

The coalition's goal is to deliver a stronger NDIS, delivering better outcomes for participants, providers and the taxpayers who fund it. The NDIS is one of Australia's great reforms, but right now it is drifting under poor stewardship. Getting this right really matters. Every dollar matters; every participant matters. The future of the NDIS depends on it. I commend the bill to the House and move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) the Government and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) have been unable to clearly quantify the scale of fraud within the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS);

(2) the NDIA Fraud Fusion Taskforce estimates that up to 10 per cent of NDIS claims are inappropriate, mischievous or outright criminal;

(3) the Government must do more to prevent the fraud and rorting that is rife within the NDIS;

(4) the changes in the bill will do little to remove bad actors from defrauding participants and taxpayers;

(5) the changes in the bill provide no direct regulation or fraud controls for the 94 per cent of NDIS providers who are not registered; and

(6) robust integrity systems are critical to not only protect taxpayer funds but also to protect NDIS participants from exploitation by unscrupulous providers".

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