Jamie Chaffey (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. There are 5,505 people in my electorate of Parkes who are participating in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Let me introduce you to one of them. His name is Joe Barnes. Joe, from Dubbo, is 26—a fun, busy and social guy, I'm told, who has his own microbusiness, Barnsey's Bakes. He is studying hospitality at TAFE and works in a kitchen of a hotel and at a local forklift business. Joe has Down syndrome. Joe's mother, Maree, says he is 'happier, healthier and more independent' since the NDIS changed his life. He lives independently through supported independent living.

Unfortunately, Joe is likely to be one of the people whose lives could be about to change through the cuts to the NDIS. Reduced funding would mean Joe could no longer work and would spend a lot of his time alone, leading him back down the path of isolation. Joe's mum says:

By radically reducing people's social and community participation funding, we will end up with a cookie-cutter approach and more day care centres for people with disability because that will be the only way to make people's reduced funding last.

The concept of choice and control will go out the window and we'll go back to the bad old days!

Maree Barnes is also concerned about decisions about vulnerable people being made by machines, rather than by people. Computers can't replace human understanding, human compassion and good old common sense.

I have raised this issue before on behalf of Katherine McDowell of Dubbo, who presented a petition to this parliament called 'Harley's Law: National Safeguards for Terminal, Degenerative and High-Complexity Disabilities'. Katherine's son, Harley, has juvenile Huntington's disease, and she well understands the human cost of anonymous decision-making. Her petition sought a ban on automated tool-reducing support without human sign-off. It sought transparency for any automated tool used in disability assessment and enforceable rights for people and families to choose home, community or residential care. It called for the creation of an independent dignity-in-care commission. The petition had more than 2,000 signatures, and Katherine has yet to receive a well overdue formal response from this government.

In September last year, I spoke about a 16-year-old girl who asked to be known as Maddie and was facing the consequences of the last changes to the NDIS made by this Labor government. The changes to section 33 of the NDIS Act that came in last year meant funding could no longer be used as needed and had to be staggered equally across the year. Obviously, life doesn't work that way. We all know that all of your bills, and sometimes your troubles, come at once. For Maddie from Dubbo, who has cerebral palsy, this meant she was not able to get the support she needed to transition to her new school. She could not access half of her sessions until she'd started, with no timely training for support staff.

I've heard from providers who were devastated that they could no longer offer services to remote clients, because their travel allowance had been cut. Again, these changes hurt our most vulnerable community members, people in remote areas living with a disability. These cuts will add to the minefield of changes that service providers are already negotiating.

The Elephant in the Room service has been helping children and families in the Parkes electorate for more than 10 years. It employs allied health professionals such as behaviour support practitioners, support coordinators and early intervention workers in Coonamble, Coonabarabran, Gilgandra, Dubbo, Wee Waa and Walgett. But this service is fighting a battle on a number of fronts, including the eligibility criteria for the New South Wales government's Thriving Kids program. The service says this structure will mean no services for Coonamble, Coonabarabran, Gilgandra, Walgett and Wee Waa. It means the entire service may no longer be viable after operating for more than 10 years. It's another example of a flawed NDIS arrangement and another massive hurdle that service providers have to overcome. It is yet more evidence of just how difficult a Labor government can make living in regional areas.

I repeat that there are 5,505 people on the NDIS in the Parkes electorate. I've spoken about the stories of just three of those people. There are 5,502 other stories, many of which are likely to be impacted by the cuts to NDIS funding. There will be people who can't get medical appointments, who will no longer be able to see friends or family or who will go without services that make their lives so much easier. This, of course, includes parents who will have to see their children living with a disability, who already have so many challenges, lose even more.

The NDIS plays a huge role in helping Australians with significant and permanent disabilities to live with dignity, independence and greater choice. That's what it was established for. I fully support this scheme and have seen so much evidence of the good it does when I'm at work, driving around my electorate. When it works well, it helps with medical attention and allows human contacts that are important to all of us. It has the capacity to greatly improve lives. It is part of our responsibility as human beings to care for each other, to assist those who are in need, to share the good fortune we have and to make all our lives richer for it. The NDIS can do that, but, yes, the need is far greater than anyone could foresee.

The scheme has grown to 760,000 participants at a cost of almost $50 billion. Labor has failed to meet the commitment to reduce the annual growth rate of the scheme to eight per cent. Something does need to be done to ensure the NDIS is sustainable. The costs continue to rise, and we must make sure that the scheme is around for a long time to come to support people with disabilities, but I am deeply concerned about the way in which this is being done. Instead of targeting scammers, these changes will impact people like Joe from Dubbo or a child in Walgett, who will no longer get the support that they need. Instead of shutting down shonky operators, these changes will mean people with a disability in remote areas will not be able to access services. Instead of becoming more efficient, the NDIS services will just be cut, hurting some of the most vulnerable people in my electorate of Parkes and across Australia. For people who are suddenly not eligible, who are told that their challenges are not big enough, what options will there be?

We will always support measures that improve the integrity of the NDIS. We will always support measures that ensure there are safeguards in place to protect participants, and we will always support ways to prevent fraud and rorting, which, of course, do take place. Every day, there are reports of fraud and misuse. We know it happens and we know it's a problem, but neither this Labor government nor the National Disability Insurance Agency has been able to get a handle on it.

The Australian National Audit Office reports that six to 10 per cent of claims might be incorrect, fraudulent or non-compliant. The General Manager of the Fraud Fusion Taskforce and Integrity Capability told a Senate inquiry that every day they identify about 50,000 claims that might be risky. The most rotten cogs in the wheels are shonky providers who are not doing the right thing. Some providers are taking advantage of participants with their pricing. Some are doing substandard jobs or not doing the job at all. It is the scammers and the reporters who need to be targeted, not the people who depend on these services, not Joe in Dubbo.

There are many people in Australia right now who are deeply worried that the help they so desperately need will be taken away. There is confusion about the lack of detail in these changes. How will people be assessed? Where will they go to be assessed when our health system is already buckling under the pressure? Are their families, who will be waiting so patiently for support, going to be forced to go right back to the beginning again, waiting for specialists, waiting for diagnosis, waiting for assessment? And when all of this is navigated, will the service be there to support them? What will help here is consultation. What will help here is talking to the people whose lives this will impact, and what will make a difference is listening. When the consultation has been completed and when families and services who will be affected have been heard, communication of the end result is desperately needed. The families who have struggled through this system and these changes need to know exactly how it will affect them and what they can do about it. They have suffered enough uncertainty and weathered enough storms.

There is no capacity to get this wrong, and we need to ensure the structure is there for all of the health professionals who make the big difference in our regions in order for them to continue. The quality services and the caring people need to stay. We need solutions that support the people who need it when they need it. That is absolutely crucial for both participants and for providers. As Joe's mum Maree puts it, the NDIS is about people doing their best to live their lives as all of us should have the opportunity to do.

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