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

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 and I 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 notes that:

To the 761,426 participants and your families: I have heard you. That is why I fought so hard on behalf of the coalition for you to have your say at a Senate inquiry. I hope the government hears your anxiety, worries and concerns too. For Australians living with significant and permanent disability, the NDIS provides not just support but opportunity, and sometimes it is life and death. It is independence, it is dignity and it is the chance to work, to participate in community life, to live with greater freedom and confidence, and to access the support they need without feeling like a burden on the people they love. It is meant to provide hope for the future.

But, right now, too many people in the disability community feel like hope is slipping away. They feel invisible, they feel unheard and they feel like they are being reduced to nothing more than a line item in the Albanese government's budget papers. But behind every number in this debate is a real person, a real family and a real fear about what comes next. I want people in the disability community to know this: I have read your emails. My office and I have read your stories. We have listened to your fears and we have heard your frustrations. Your experiences matter, and I thank you for sharing them.

That is why the coalition has called for a Senate inquiry into this bill. Submissions close this Friday, and I encourage anyone who wishes to make a submission to do so. Public hearings will then be held in the week commencing 8 June. These changes are too significant and the consequences too serious for this parliament to simply wave them through without scrutiny. To every person with disability, every family, every carer and every provider watching this debate unfold: you deserve answers about what these changes mean and how they will affect you.

Australians still do not know exactly how the Albanese Labor government intends to deliver these savings or what the real impact will be on people with disability. Instead, while this government shuffles numbers around Treasury spreadsheets to make a near-trillion-dollar deficit look more manageable, Australians with disability, their families and their carers are left wondering why they are paying the price for Labor's inability to control spending.

There is no denying the NDIS has grown far beyond what was originally expected when it was established 13 years ago. A scheme designed to support around 410,000 Australians is now supporting more than 760,000 people and growing at 10.3 per cent a year. A scheme originally expected to cost $13.6 billion is now approaching $50 billion a year and projected to blow out to around $70 billion by the end of the decade. By the government's own figures, the cost of paid supports continues to surge. This is the NDIS Labor built. If this is what the government calls sustainability, Australians are right to ask whether anyone is truly in control, because the current trajectory of the scheme is simply not sustainable. We need to be honest about that, especially when this is now the Albanese government's third attempt to rein in the growth of the scheme.

In August 2023, the government promised growth would be reduced to eight per cent. They failed. Then in January this year, despite missing that target, they pledged to reduce growth even further to between five and six per cent. They failed again. Now, just four months later and with no achievements under their belt, the 2026-27 budget pledges to reduce growth in the NDIS to just two per cent.

I want to be very clear about this. The coalition's support for the scheme remains unwavering. We believe the scheme must be there for Australians with significant and permanent disability, exactly as it was intended, but the integrity of the scheme is weak, and Australians see this. Day after day we see shocking stories of criminals exploiting the NDIS for hundreds of thousands of dollars and in some cases millions. Just a few weeks ago, a Sydney man appeared before the courts, accused of fraudulently claiming NDIS payments as a registered provider. The man, who authorities allege has links to serious organised crime, is accused of claiming more than $1.5 million for services that were never provided.

But it is not just the theft of taxpayer money that should horrify this parliament. Behind the fraud statistics are vulnerable Australians being exploited, manipulated and abused by people entrusted with their care. Participants allegedly are being trafficked for their support packages, left without the essential care they need and deserve, coerced into approving invoices for services never delivered, having their identities stolen to drain the very funding meant to support their independence and their dignity. The list just goes on and on, and it is utterly horrific and a disgusting abuse of power against some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

The Australian National Audit Office estimated that up to 10 per cent of payments are noncompliant, incorrect or fraudulent. That's 10 per cent. That's up to $5 billion a year on today's expenditure. That's $5 billion of taxpayers' money just walking out the door. That's $5 billion that could otherwise help fund vulnerable people, our hospitals, our schools, our roads and our critical infrastructure. Criminals know it. They continue gaming the system because they know the guardrails are weak and the fences meant to protect are flimsy.

With Australians hearing these stories day in and day out, the NDIS has lost the social licence it once had. In Minister Butler's Press Club speech, he admitted seven in 10 Australians believe the NDIS is too large and struggles with dodgy providers. Worse still, six in 10 Australians think the NDIS is broken. What was once a beacon of pride for our country has become a national disgrace.

But it's not the criminals fleecing the NDIS nor the dodgy providers who are billing for services never delivered who are under attack; it's people with disability and the honest providers trying to do the right thing who are feeling the government's wrath on this. I've received thousands of emails since Minister Butler's speech just a month ago from participants, their families, their carers and providers, all desperately seeking answers about whether they will keep the supports they rely on as the government moves to reassess every participant's plan. We haven't just read those emails; my office has been on the phone speaking directly with participants, families and providers right across our country. Every interaction has been a plea from a person with a disability, their families, their friends, their support workers and providers to fix this, to stop participants being caught in the fallout of a failing system. They are scared and their families are scared, and they are looking to this parliament for certainty.

I've spoken to families who are doing everything right and still being let down by the current system. A mother was waiting for more than eight months for a wheelchair for her 13-year-old son, leaving him unable to safely get to school or to appointments. A woman with Huntington's disease whose condition is deteriorating is now receiving just 13 hours of care a week, but medical experts say that she needs more than five times that. She's at risk of choking, falling or even worse. This is happening across the board. This is the system as it stands today.

I've also met with many of the peak bodies and advocacy groups about the proposed changes. They're scared too. They don't know what these changes mean for them and the people they support. Why? Because the government has yet again made a big announcement that lacks any substantive detail. We've had a month of media stories talking about cuts, cuts and more cuts by this government, which has done nothing but induce and escalate that fear.

This bill is substantial. It proposes introducing an entirely new functional capacity assessment for people applying to the scheme. From 2028, new participants will be assessed against a threshold of significantly reduced functional capacity. But here is the problem: the criteria have not been designed. The details have not been released. Australians are effectively being asked to sign a blank cheque on reforms nobody has seen. This unknown test is set to apply to all new participants from 1 January 2028. It does not stop there. Every existing NDIS participant will also face reassessment between 1 January 2028 and 31 December 2030—reassessment against criteria that remain completely unknown. That uncertainty is terrifying families.

I had one mother recently contact my office at absolute breaking point. Her son relies on a feeding tube to stay alive. Imagine the panic of this mother as she wondered how she will keep her son alive after his plan reassessment was rejected. The family support coordinator was not even informed, and suddenly the family was forced to ration essentials: feeding supplies, continence aids—the basic items their son depends on every single day to survive. Again, this is sometimes about life and death. A feeding pump was approved, but there was no funding to repair or replace it if it failed. Without intervention from my office, the consequences could have been catastrophic. It should never have reached this point.

I want to be able to tell families like this that everything will be okay. I want to tell them that, if their loved one clearly needs NDIS support, they will continue to receive it, but right now I cannot honestly give them that guarantee. In cases like these, I am imploring the government to not burden participants with reassessments and with having to provide new medical evidence. Their condition isn't changing. A lengthy, stressful and traumatic reassessment process is cruel and unnecessary. Media reports have said the number of people on the scheme will be reduced by around 160,000 participants, but that number will be far greater when you combine the number of people who won't enter the scheme with the number of people who'll be exited from the scheme because they won't meet the new functional capacity assessment.

From mid-June, the government has committed to establishing a technical advisory group to develop a new functional capacity assessment. My ask of the Albanese government on this is to please consult with the disability community; it's really important. They have a wealth of knowledge. They have lived experience, and, more than anything, they want the scheme to remain for themselves and generations to come. Please do not exclude them from this process.

The bill will also make changes to plan reassessments. A participant or their support team can ask for a plan reassessment if they believe their needs have changed. In Minister Butler's Press Club speech, he stated:

One in five plans are currently subject to an unscheduled reassessment each year.

You do the maths—760,000 participant plans divided by five equates to roughly 150,000 plan reassessments a year, or around 12,000 reassessments every single month. According to the minister himself, most reassessments are currently resulting in funding increases, not decreases, of around 20 per cent, which is a major driver of the scheme's escalating cost. This bill seeks to tighten that process. Under these changes, only participants, their nominees or their guardians would be able to request an unscheduled review and only where there has been a significant and ongoing change in functional capacity.

But herein lies yet another problem. Providers are already telling me the review process is inconsistent, confusing and difficult to navigate. One provider described the planning process as a lottery, saying, 'Outcomes depend on who receives the report and whether the assessor actually understands the participant's needs and medical evidence.' Another said, 'Reviews are already proceeding without providers present if they're unavailable at the scheduled time, leaving decisions to be made without the full picture of a participant's circumstances and care needs.' That does not inspire confidence, and it raises serious concerns about how these tighter reassessment rules will operate in practice for vulnerable Australians and their families.

The bill also seeks to clarify that NDIS supports will be funded only where the need arises directly from the participant's recognised impairment, with broader health conditions intended to be treated through Medicare and the mainstream health system.

There will be changes to the existing settings for plan renewals. Currently, plans don't have a specified end date and, for ease, have been continued while a participant's plan is reassessed and a new plan is created. In many cases, unspent funds from the previous plans have been carried over. From 1 February 2027, this won't be the case. Plans will have a legislated end date, and any unspent funds will no longer roll over into the new plan period. Let me make this very clear to the government. There can be no gap between the end date of one plan and the commencement of another—not one day, not one hour and certainly not many weeks or months—because, when you are talking about feeding supports, personal care, mobility equipment or essential therapies, even a short administrative delay can have devastating consequences.

The government must get this right administratively. No participant should ever lose access to essential supports because of bureaucratic delays or failures within the system. Consider yourselves on notice, government, because Australians have already seen what happens when delays and backlogs become normalised in other parts of the system. We see it in Centrelink every single day. People are waiting for months for applications to be processed to the point where six-month waits for an age pension barely even make the headlines anymore. The disability community should never be expected to accept that as normal.

The bill will also introduce some additional categories for provider registration. Supported independent living providers will already have mandatory registration requirements applied this year, and this is a good thing. You are caring for and responsible for our most vulnerable people. You must be held to the highest standards. There will be mandatory registration requirements for plan managers. I've heard from many plan managers over the last month who I can tell are genuine, caring and compassionate people. They have the participants' welfare front of mind. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of bad actors who are doing the wrong thing. They are not looking after clients or their packages. They're charging hundreds of dollars for printing documents that were never provided, charging for services never coordinated or inducing people with disability with food, alcohol, cigarettes and iPads to become the new plan manager. This is wrong, it is abhorrent and, unfortunately, the actions of some have meant we need stronger safeguards in place to protect participants.

I was appointed to this portfolio only a few months ago, and one of the very first things I identified was a lack of mandatory requirements for providers managing people's plans or daily supports. If you are entering someone's home and providing any personal care, I believe you should have basic qualifications—first aid certificates, working-with-vulnerable-people checks, criminal history checks. This is not going on right now. The NDIS was established to support and protect people with disability, not expose them to greater harms. These checks and balances are everywhere else in our work. Our healthcare providers have them. Our aged-care workers, childcare workers and teachers—anyone who works with vulnerable people—must have these checks for safety, and the NDIS should not be excluded from that. I recognise that there are some providers who provide services where people may think these aren't necessities, but if we want to provide people with the best service and the best care, these shouldn't be considered barriers.

Perhaps the most jarring change of all for the disability community will be the planned changes and reductions to community supports. Minister Butler said costs for community supports have blown out from $4 billion in 2021 to $12 billion this year. I understand the need for us to review this—and the costs have tripled in just five years—but so far the Albanese government have failed at every turn to explain exactly where these costs have blown out. From the feedback I have received, this change alone is causing the greatest anxiety for participants and their families.

Meanwhile, dodgy operators continue slipping through the cracks while legitimate providers are buried in paperwork, compliance costs and bureaucracy. One provider in my electorate of Lindsay told me participants are having their packages wiped out by fraudulent activity. They said they've lodged six separate fraud reports in just two months, but they don't hear anything back. That is deeply concerning. Providers are also raising serious concerns about the role and the accountability of some support coordinators within the system. One provider told me, 'We work with the clients more than they do.' Another said change-of-circumstances requests are often not lodged in time, leaving participants stuck in limbo while their needs go unmet. Others raise serious concerns about participants being pressured into changing providers or living arrangements against their wishes.

While honest providers are trying to do the right thing, many say the cost of registration and compliance has become prohibitive, with little meaningful incentive to remain registered beyond basic optics and credibility. To put that into perspective, one provider employing 300 staff and supporting more than 800 participants told me they recently paid $35,000 for a single audit on top of existing registration costs. We all want the scheme to be sustainable into the future, to continue supporting Australians with significant and permanent disability for generations to come. When the NDIS was established in 2013, Australians overwhelmingly supported that vision. But the social licence underpinning the scheme can only be rebuilt if this parliament confronts the rampant fraud, dishonesty and abuse occurring within the system today.

Disappointingly, there are very few measures in this bill that directly target that misconduct. A digital payments platform, claim timeframe changes, receipt retention requirements—these are the only real changes the government is making to address fraud. You know it, I know it, Australians know it and participants on the NDIS know it. That is why the coalition has called for a Senate inquiry into this bill. That is why submissions are currently open to participants, families, carers, providers and advocates right across Australia. And that is why these proposed changes must be properly scrutinised before vulnerable Australians are asked to place their trust in reforms that the government still cannot fully explain. People with disability deserve transparency, deserve honesty and deserve certainty about what these changes will mean for their lives going into the future.

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