Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

In continuation from my remarks that were cut short last night, the coalition will be supporting this bill, but the member for Lindsay has put forward an amendment to outline some of the concerns that we have around the stewardship of the NDIS.

It is one of the great reforms that we've had in recent years, and there are so many within the communities represented in this place who benefit greatly from the NDIS. Unfortunately, we have had rather large growth in the scheme, to the point where it is on an unsustainable footing. We've now got annual scheme expenses growth sitting at 10.3 per cent. This legislation, which seeks to tighten up the system—lift up the hood and tinker with its engine—is welcome, but the coalition feels that more needs to be done in order to safeguard the scheme, make sure that it is helping those that it is designed to assist and make sure that the fraud and rorting that we have seen within the scheme is stamped out for good.

Of course, we have to maintain vigilance. It's not set and forget when it comes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. There will have to be reforms as we move along with the scheme's growth. It is reaching that point of maturity now. It's into its 13th year. It's a bit like a 13-year-old teenager. It's reaching that point in its life where it's deciding where it's going to go—whether it's going to be a bit of a free-for-all, Wild West sort of scenario where we see a lot of rorting or whether it's going to become some sort of bureaucratic maze that's soulless and tramples those that it's supposed to assist. Of course, we want to try to find that middle way, and I know the government is intending to do that as well.

When we've got scheme growth of 10.3 per cent and we've now got a National Cabinet target of five to six per cent, we've got to somehow find our way to getting that growth trajectory down to the target. And five to six per cent is still, by the nature of any government scheme, significant growth. So we want to see some real reform. This is relatively minor legislative tinkering. Unfortunately, an issue that a lot of my colleagues are highlighting with the NDIS is that, while we're seeing initiatives like Thriving Kids—which hopefully will kick off this year; it's been delayed a little bit, and obviously this will be a scheme that ramps up as we head towards 2028. Thriving Kids is an initiative that is seeking to put downward pressure on the growth of the NDIS. We're also seeing increased interest in cracking down on fraud, which is greatly welcome. But what a lot of my colleagues are seeing, and what I'm certainly seeing in relation to about 80 per cent of the casework that comes to my electorate office, is NDIS participants having their plans cut.

I'll give you one example. A constituent of mine, who lives only a stone's throw from my house, is unfortunately suffering from early onset dementia. She's in a position where she's in her early 60s and has a husband who's taking incredible care of her. She requires around-the-clock support because of the nature of her condition. She's reached the point where, every night, there are choking hazards and concerns about whether she'll make it through the evening. She requires around-the-clock support. She has a NDIS package which was providing that for her, and without any fanfare she had her plan cut by 43 per cent. That means a lot to her and her husband when it comes to the quality of life that they can enjoy. The safety and her longevity is of great concern, and unfortunately they've now reached the point where she's had to be admitted to a local hospital as a social admission.

That shouldn't be where we get to, and we don't want to see a point where a scheme that is designed to assist people like this constituent of mine has to make those sorts of clandestine cuts, if you like. I'm not saying that the government's got a specific policy of cutting care to those that actually need it. But that's ultimately the outcome if we have poor stewardship of the scheme and if we have inconsistent results like the ones we're getting through the NDIS. I have another example relating to biologically identical twin boys in my electorate. Both of them suffer from the same condition. Both of them put in an application for the NDIS and had completely different outcomes, even though it was the same experts providing their recommendations and diagnoses. Their applications were submitted on the exact same day, at the exact same minute, and they had completely different outcomes.

We shouldn't have a scheme of this level of maturity, into its 13th year, that is achieving those sorts of inconsistent outcomes. We're now seeing the government focusing on the introduction of the I-CAN tool, which will be—I don't want to misrepresent it—a digitised assessment tool that people are hoping will lead to greater consistency in decisions. That's a good thing, but there's a lot of concern from stakeholders within the NDIS. They are worried about whether a machine will be able to deliver the right outcomes for people and be able to assess the individual needs of people who need support through the NDIS. So the opposition is keeping a close eye on that. What we want to see the government truly focus on is fixing waste, red tape and fraud in the system. Unfortunately, this bill only goes part of the way to achieving that.

This bill introduces a range of new civil penalties and inserts definitions for criminal offences, such as serious contravention, significant failure and systemic pattern of conduct to support higher criminal penalties. It strengthens provisions for failure to comply with a banning order to include criminal penalties. It introduces a new regulatory framework for monitoring the provisions of the act and includes powers of entry and inspection, which are welcome. It introduces anti-promotion orders and provides new power to the commissioner to restrict providers from promoting products i.e. holidays, flights and cruises—which we've seen quite a bit of and quite a lot of media coverage of those sorts of promotions, which are not allowed under the scheme—including unfair terms of sale and increases the categories for banning orders. These are all incredibly welcome. The coalition supports them.

It also amends the commission's powers to request information from providers and other persons to be shorter than the existing minimum timeframes and introduces the ability for the commission to issue evidentiary certificates for use in civil and criminal proceedings. It introduces a 90-day cooling-off period, and I think this is actually one of the better elements of this bill. Many of our constituents have had the sort of frustration with the NDIS where they might want to exit the scheme, only to work out—after a cooling-off period or when they're a little bit further down from that moment of disappointment—that that wasn't the right decision for them. So a 90-day cooling-off period is a very sensible change.

These are all very sensible elements. They're great—but they're not great enough. We need to really get serious about how we are going to get this scheme down to a sustainable footing. We firmly think that fraud needs to be the first target. Second, we should be looking at red-tape reduction as well. I hear stories from participants, from providers, from families and even from external experts such as doctors and paediatricians about the amount of forms that they've got to fill out that are never going to be read.

I'd love to get an analysis done of the amount of time wasted across this country by people who are charging, at a great rate per hour, to write forms that are never read and are of limited value, particularly when asking for forms from people who have a degenerative disease or a condition that they're never going to be able to recover from—to have to go to a medical professional and get a certificate to say, as in the instance of the constituent I talked about earlier with early-onset dementia, 'Yes, she still has early-onset dementia. It's not going to get better.' These are the areas of concern that we see. If the government had a proactive approach to tackling red tape within the scheme, you'd be saving a lot more and be able to put a lid on the growth of the NDIS. It would save a lot of time and money for providers, for participants and for the taxpayer.

The government has done the right thing in setting up the Fraud Fusion Taskforce. However, they did report to Senate estimates a few weeks ago that they think that up to 10 per cent of NDIS claims are inappropriate, mischievous or outright criminal. That should be setting off alarm bells across the system. This bill will assist in tackling some of that. But when you've got 10 per cent of a $50 billion scheme that is potentially—what were the words—inappropriate, mischievous or outright criminal, the government needs to get very serious about this very quickly. As an opposition, we're going to be encouraging the government to do that. But we will be supporting the bill. I think the amendment from the member for Lindsay is entirely appropriate and sums up where the coalition thinks the government should be heading in this important area of public policy.

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