Alice Jordan-Baird (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm proud to rise in support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025. Former prime minister Julia Gillard put it best when her Labor government established the NDIS in 2013:

Disability can affect any of us and therefore it affects all of us.

The risk of disability is universal, so our response is universal. The introduction of our National Disability Insurance Scheme was a once-in-a-generation reform, and it has reshaped the lives and the futures of Australians living with disability, their families and their carers.

In Gorton, a number of my constituents receive life-changing support from the NDIS. For people with high needs, like a constituent of mine who suffers from motor neurone disease, the NDIS provides high-intensity supports like nursing and hospital equipment that is absolutely essential for her survival. For others, like my young constituent from Caroline Springs, the NDIS helps to fund supports like therapeutic swimming lessons and day care, which are indispensable to her quality of life. It was great to visit a local service provider in my own community recently, alongside the Minister for the NDIS. Steve and Jenny from NeuroRehab in Deer Park are doing fantastic work in my community providing wraparound support for NDIS participants. I'd like to thank them both for kindly sharing with us the challenges they're facing as they advocate for their participants who are constituents in my community.

The scheme has had its ups and downs, and our role here in parliament is to re-evaluate and to improve it, because that's what a Labor government does. Labor introduced the life-changing scheme we call the NDIS, and Labor is here to secure the future of the NDIS. We have service providers like NeuroRehab right across the country working hard to support NDIS participants and doing the right thing. But we also know there are service providers out there who are behaving fraudulently and that there are breaches of code and conduct in the system. Where we see fraud, too often we also see violence, abuse and neglect.

The bill makes practical changes to crack down on fraud and misconduct by dodgy NDIS providers. It means that providers who do the wrong thing will face harsher penalties. This will include new offences, stronger civil and criminal penalties for misconduct and giving the NDIS commissioner more powers to punish providers, because NDIS participants and their loved ones deserve quality care. This is about justice—justice for participants who have been taken advantage of. We are sending a clear message to fraudulent service providers: dodgy behaviour will not be tolerated.

Breaches to the NDIS Code of Conduct may include providers failing to safeguard a participant from harm or breaching a participant's privacy, and punishments for providers whose breach involves a significant failure or a systemic pattern of conduct will be increased. The code of conduct is central to ensuring that participants can access the quality care they deserve, so we are strengthening it. This comes after reports of dodgy NDIS providers intimidating participants to change service providers and reports of providers trying to attract participants with offers of alcohol, tobacco or cash. Providers then allegedly drained participants plans while not providing the standard of care that was expected. This conduct should outrage us all. For vulnerable Australians to be taken advantage of like this is absolutely disgusting.

Let me be clear: these reforms are being debated today because it is a Labor government who is addressing these issues and putting these changes forward. Under the previous coalition government, these sorts of behaviours went unchecked. When Labor came to government in 2022, we inherited a system that was not ready to meet the challenges of the future. We inherited a total mess. The NDIS lacked basic prevention controls for fraud and noncompliance. We acted fast, investing $550 million into tackling fraud and noncompliance and passing the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Act.

While those opposite put reform in the too-hard basket, we're doing the real work to secure the future of the NDIS and we're making sure the scheme works for the participants who it is designed for, not against them. Here we're continuing our work to crack down on fraud and noncompliance by dodgy providers. It will mean better outcomes for people with disabilities and their families. When Labor introduced the NDIS, it wasn't about providers taking advantage of vulnerable people. The NDIS is about dignity, and that's what this bill is here to protect. This bill is in essence about dignity, which is why I'm so proud to commend this bill to the House today.

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