Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start my contribution to this debate today by acknowledging the extraordinary disability organisations in my electorate. These are organisations I've worked alongside, people I've advocated for and people I've seen serve our community well and transform people's lives.

I think of places like Warrah school at Dural; Inala at Cherrybrook; Studio ARTES—which is an organisation, in my view, of national significance; CNS Precision Assembly at Hornsby; and Northcott, which specialises in disability employment and whose participants I've seen firsthand bring skill and dedication to the real workplace. I had the privilege of having Cain Noble Davies, who came to me from Northcott, in my office. I also think of the wonderful Clarke Road special school, which transforms the lives of so many young people and families in our community, families that trust the school with their most precious people every single day. These organisations don't just provide services. They provide dignity and community. They provide the daily proof that people with disability are human beings with gifts to offer and lives worth living fully.

Speaking of lives worth living fully, I want to note that I have been proud to stand up for the recognition of Australians with disability who are extraordinary achievers. It is my honour to be running a campaign in the Berowra electorate at the moment to rename Hornsby pool after not only our most capped female Paralympian but our most capped female swimmer ever, Ellie Cole. She has 17 Paralympic medals. No female swimmer, Paralympic or non-Paralympic, has ever won so many medals, and no female Australian Paralympian has ever won so many medals either, so she deserves the recognition of our community. She's a proud resident of the Berowra electorate, she's a wonderful Australian and I look forward to seeing Hornsby council eventually listen to the Australian people, listen to the people of Berowra and rename the pool in honour of a great Australian and a great Australian who's been such a wonderful advocate for people with disability.

Turning to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, I want to talk about the story of a constituent of mine, a child called Max. If the NDIS is about anyone, it's about a child like Max. Max is four years old. He lives in Berowra. He has multiple severe and lifelong disabilities, two rare genetic conditions and epilepsy. He's non-verbal, he can't walk and he can't stand independently. He requires high-level support for virtually every activity of daily living. He's a bright, curious, determined, wonderful little boy, and he's exactly the kind of child that this scheme was created to support.

Max came with his mother, Gemma, to my office. Gemma was in the depths of one of the hardest periods of her life. She hadn't been sleeping, she was managing Max's complex needs largely on her own and she had sustained serious chronic injuries to her arms and wrists from the physical demands of caring for him. Then the NDIS, the system that was supposed to be there for her son, had cut his therapy hours by approximately 40 per cent, down from 396 hours a year to 234. Around 4½ hours a week for a non-verbal, non-walking four-year-old with two rare genetic conditions and epilepsy was not enough.

The NDIA had suggested that childcare educators could deliver physiotherapy and speech therapy strategies for Max in a one-to-three ratio environment. For a 21-kilo hypotonic child with high-support needs—I want to be direct about this—that is not a solution. That is a risk, and it reflects the kind of decision-making that happens when people making choices about a child's plan have never met the child, never read his 30-plus clinical reports and are working under pressure to cut costs rather than apply clinical judgement.

I took up Max's case. I particularly want to acknowledge Senator Jenny McAllister, who I went to see. She handled this matter with particular care and genuine human decency across party lines. Together, we were able to ensure that a much more experienced team at the NDIA was put in charge of Max's plan review. The difference was immediate and profound. When the new plan came through, Gemma told me she cried with relief. There were more support worker hours to help with his care and improved allied health therapy hours, and critical pieces of equipment were approved. What happened next? Max pulled himself up the stairs using just the handrail. He guffawed with laughter at the top. He started moving around the kitchen, exploring what was accessible to him. He's making progress in his receptive language. He seems, as Gemma says, so much happier.

That's what the NDIS is supposed to do. That's the investment that's worth making. That's why every dollar that leaks out of this scheme through fraud, gaming and waste is not an abstraction. It's a dollar that could have gone to a child like Max and didn't. Gemma has asked me not to use her story to fuel division between the parties, and I respect that. She saw Labor and the Liberals working together to help her son, and she values that. So do I. But I want this parliament to understand concretely and humanely what's at stake in this debate. It's not a budget line. It's about children like Max.

I want to make the most important call I can make in this speech today, and that is to call directly to the disability community of Berowra and across Australia. There's a Senate inquiry into this bill, and if you're an NDIS participant, a family member, a carer, a support worker or a disability organisation, this is your chance to shape the scheme's future. Your lived experience isn't just relevant; it's essential. It's the most important evidence that the inquiry will hear. I'm urging all the organisations I name today and every family I've had the privilege of serving and those I haven't met because the scheme works for them to make a submission. The Senate inquiry is open now. Don't leave this to others. Tell your story. Your voice will shape what this scheme looks like for the next generation.

Let me now turn to the bill and our position on it. The NDIS was originally established to support around 410,000 Australians, and it now supports over 760,000. It was estimated to cost $13.6 billion, and now it costs around $50 billion. By the end of this decade, on the current trajectory, it will reach $70 billion. On that trajectory, the scheme is unsustainable. Sustainability isn't the enemy of compassion. It is its prerequisite. In the coalition, we reaffirm our bipartisan support for the NDIS, and, to the extent that this government is genuinely pursuing sustainability and integrity, we are broadly supportive. We'll support this bill through the House, but we will also hold the government to account, because this is the Albanese government's third attempt to slow the growth of the scheme, and their track record of broken promises in this space doesn't inspire confidence.

In April 2023, the government committed to reducing annual growth to eight per cent, and they failed. The minister then announced a target of five to six per cent. They failed again. Growth is currently sitting at 10.3 per cent. The government's now proposing a two per cent growth target. It's an enormous reduction, and, without a clear, detailed, properly consulted implementation plan, it won't be a savings target; it will be a harm target.

The bill establishes a new framework for determining access to the NDIS, shifting from a diagnosis based model to an assessment of functional capacity. In principle, a more consistent and objective assessment process is quite sensible. The current system has produced real inconsistencies, and participants with similar needs have received vastly different support packages depending on who's assessed them and when. But here's the problem. This bill creates the legislative mechanism for the new assessment without actually telling us what the assessment will look like. The government hasn't developed it yet. The details will come through the rules and regulations—disallowable category A rules requiring unanimous agreement from states and territories. That's a significant amount of policy still to be written and a significant amount of anxiety being created right now in communities like mine.

Right now, there are thousands of parents across Australia who don't know whether their child will still be eligible for the NDIS under the new rules. There are adults with lifelong disabilities who don't know if their plans will survive reassessment. That uncertainty is cruel and unnecessary. The government owes people answers, not just a promise that the details will come later. I should note that all existing participants will be progressively reassessed between 1 January 2028 and 31 December 2030. That's more than 760,000 reassessments. Our health system is already stretched to breaking point. People are being turned away from emergency departments.

Wait times for specialists are months long. If people are exited from the NDIS and pushed into a health system that can't absorb them, we will have solved a budget problem while creating a human catastrophe. The government must be clear about where these people will go. I'm also deeply concerned about the burden being placed on participants to prove and re-prove their disability—costly new medical reports, new assessments and new processes for people who have in many cases spent decades navigating this system already. The government must apply genuine common sense and genuine compassion to this process.

And then there's Thriving Kids. As the shadow education minister, I want to say to Minister Butler and Minister Clare: families need to be able to trust a system, but how can they trust a system whose eligibility rules haven't been written yet? You've made an announcement that a group of people with disability will be moved from the NDIS and will end up being part of the education system. What will this mean for the education system? There are so many questions to answer. What's the expectation on schools? What's the impact on schools? The ministers need to explain this. They have left families and school communities worried, and, as the shadow education minister, I share their concerns.

Of all the changes in the bill, the ones causing the greatest anxiety in the disability community are the support determinations—the changes that will enable the minister to reset budgets in existing plans for social, civic and community participation supports and capacity building activities supports from 1 October 2026. The government says critical supports, daily living assistance, personal care, mobility equipment and home modifications will be protected. We will hold them to that commitment, and we will be watching closely to ensure that that commitment is honoured. But I want the government to be honest with the community about what these changes will mean in practice. Vague reassurances are not enough. People deserve specifics.

Let me be direct about something that I believe is at the heart of this debate and hasn't received enough attention. That's the question of fraud and waste in the NDIS. This isn't a minor administrative problem. This is a systemic failure that is stealing money from our taxpayers and our most deserving people. Around 94 per cent of NDIS providers are currently unregistered. The ANAO has reported that the NDIA's own assessment is that between six and 10 per cent of claim outlays may not be compliant. They might be fraudulent. They might be incorrect. Of the $48.83 billion spent on paid supports in 2025, that equates to between $2.9 billion and $4.8 billion per year. By the end of the decade, if current growth continues, that figure could reach $8 billion annually. Every single one of those dollars have been taken from a participant who needed it, and the Albanese government, with more than 10,000 public servants working on the NDIS, hasn't been able to get on top of it.

We hear every day about providers quoting one price to a customer and then quadrupling it the moment the customer mentions the NDIS. We hear about organised criminal networks deliberately targeting the scheme. We hear about services that were billed but were never delivered. This is unacceptable. It's a betrayal of every genuine participant in the system. The bill goes some way to addressing this: improved provider registration requirements, civil penalties, new information-gathering powers and a 90-day claims window. These steps are steps in the right direction, but they're not nearly enough. The digital payments platform will help. Mandatory record retention will help. But determined fraudsters won't be stopped by paperwork requirements alone. The government needs to bring genuine prosecutorial energy to this problem, not just regulatory machinery.

I want to close by speaking directly to constituents like Eleanor, who wrote to my office this week about her son Benjamin, an adult with significant permanent disability whose supports were confirmed by the Administrative Review Tribunal. Eleanor is nearly 60 years old. She's carried Benjamin's care responsibilities for many years. Her own sister, who had significant disability, died in respite care. She has seen what happens when the safety net fails. Eleanor asks that I not support any bill that weakens the rights of NDIS participants, reduces essential supports or places further burden on ageing carers. I hear that, and I share that concern.

The coalition's position isn't to weaken rights; it's to ensure the scheme is strong enough, honest enough and well funded enough to actually deliver those rights. That means cracking down hard on fraudsters and the bad actors who are bleeding the scheme dry. It means ensuring rules are being developed and consulted on properly and designed with human dignity at their centre. It means holding the government to account every step of the way. I've spent time as a parliamentarian fighting for constituents who have disability. I've sat across the table from parents who are exhausted, frightened and desperate for someone to listen. I've seen what happens when the system works, when a child like Max gets the support he needs and climbs the stairs, guffawing with laughter. I've also seen what happens when it doesn't.

The NDIS was built on the idea that Australians with significant and permanent disability deserve to live with dignity, independence and genuine choice. That's a noble idea, and our responsibility is to protect a scheme like this from those who'd seek to exploit it. The coalition will support this bill through this House. We do so not as a blank cheque to government but as a commitment to the principle of a sustainable and well-governed scheme. We will scrutinise the rules framework carefully. We will push for proper consultation. We will call out broken promises.

Let me again call on the people in the disability community in my electorate—the participants, the families, the carers and the organisations. Make your submission to this Senate inquiry. This is your scheme, and it's your voice that must shape the future.

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