Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

A pipeline from public money into organised crime—well said, shadow treasurer. Evidence from investigations and prosecutions shows that these losses arise from a range of activities, including outright fraud, deliberate overservicing, false invoicing, claims for services never delivered, and collusion between providers and participants.

This bill goes some way to addressing the rising number of bad actors taking advantage of participants and taxpayers by introducing additional provider registration requirements. Right now, around 94 per cent of providers are unregistered. The controls and fraud protection mechanisms are far too weak, and we see this nearly every day in the papers and on social media. This is absolutely unacceptable. These providers are taking advantage of NDIS participants, and they are taking advantage of the taxpayers who are funding this work. There are a few measures in this bill that stamp out this fraud. The digital payments platform needing to retain receipts and evidence of services and the 90-day claim timeframe will help with some of this, but it will not stamp out the rorts. That's why the coalition has called for a Senate inquiry into this bill. Submissions are currently open to participants, families, carers, providers and advocates right across the country. We must carefully scrutinise these changes. NDIS participants can't be expected to trust reforms that this government can't even explain, and they need more information on what these changes will mean for their future.

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