Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on an issue that matters deeply to Australians with disability, to their families, to the carers and to the many service providers who support them every single day. The coalition have always supported the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and we will continue to support it. The NDIS is one of the most important reforms in this country. It has changed lives by giving Australians with significant and permanent disability more dignity, more independence and more choice. But, if the scheme is going to keep doing what it was set up to do, it has to be sustainable, fair and properly run. Right now, Labor is not getting that right.

Let me be clear. The coalition supports the NDIS. We back it because we know how important it is to Australians with disability and their families. But supporting the NDIS does not mean giving Labor a free pass for poor management. A scheme this important cannot be left to drift, and it cannot be changed in a rush, without proper consultation, proper safeguards and clear answers for the people who rely on it.

Labor keeps changing its story on the NDIS. In April 2023, it said it would bring annual growth down to eight per cent. Then it shifted again and said growth would be brought down to five and six per cent over the medium term. But growth is still sitting at 10.3 per cent. That tells you that Labor has not been managing this well. It's been playing catch-up the whole way through.

The NDIS was originally expected to support about 410,000 Australians. Today, it supports more than 760,000 people. It was once expected to cost around $13.6 billion. This year, it's around $50 billion, and it is projected to rise to around $70 billion by the end of the decade. That sort of growth cannot continue without proper planning, proper safeguards and proper consultation with the people who rely on the scheme.

What worries people is that Labor is once again chasing savings without clearly telling Australians what these changes will mean in real life. Families, participants and providers are worried, and they have every right to be. The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 sets up a new framework for eligibility and access, but it still leaves too many unanswered questions about how these new assessments will actually work and whether people will keep the support they depend on. For families already under pressure, the uncertainty is not some policy detail in Canberra; it is deeply personal.

The bill sets up the legal mechanism for a new approach to eligibility based on functional capacity rather than diagnosis alone, but it does not yet give families the detail they need to understand how that assessment will operate in real life. That is the source of so much anxiety. Parents want to know whether their child will still qualify. Carers want to know whether the support their loved ones depend on will be reduced. Existing participants want to know whether they will be forced to repeatedly prove what is already well understood about their disability and their daily needs. Under this proposal, existing participants will be reassessed over several years from 2028. With more than 760,000 people in the scheme, this is a huge task.

If people lose access to the NDIS or have support cut back, where are they supposed to go? Our health system is already under enormous pressure. GPS are stretched, specialists' waiting times are too long, and families are still paying too much out of pocket. If the Commonwealth shifts the burden without building up other services, families will pay the price. That is why the government should not be pushing through major changes without a clear plan and proper consultation with the disability community.

At the same time, the scheme does need stronger safeguards. Fraud and exploitation are real problems, and every dollar lost is a dollar taken away from an Australian with a disability who genuinely needs support. We also support measures that make sure participants or their trusted nominees stay in control of reassessment decisions, instead of leaving room for misuse by others in the system.

But protecting the integrity of the NDIS must never come at the expense of the people it was created to support. In Capricornia alone, there are 5,442 NDIS participants. These are not just figures in a briefing note; these are local families who rely on this support every single day. I have spoken with Susan McHugh, CEO and co-founder of Compass House in Rockhampton. Compass House is an NDIS-registered psychosocial disability provider supporting people with complex conditions in Central Queensland. It has reported zero unplanned psychiatric hospital admissions since 2020 for participants receiving full daily support. That is not accidental. It shows what properly resourced relationship-based support can achieve.

Susan McHugh also warned that this bill could do real harm to people with mental health disabilities if it is not amended. She makes the point that brief one-off assessments do not properly capture conditions that come and go, that suspending plans when a participant is uncontactable can be dangerous, as a lack of response may actually be part of a crisis, and that extra compliance demands mean very little if the pricing system still fails to reflect the real cost of complex support. That is a serious warning from a local provider on the ground, and this parliament should listen.

There are also serious concerns about the government giving itself broader powers to reduce funding for certain support categories, in particular social, civic and community participation supports and some capacity-building activities. These are not optional extras in the lives of many participants. These supports help people build confidence, develop life skills, participate in their community and maintain independence. Any change in this area must be handled with extreme care, because a reduction on paper can mean isolation, lost opportunity and greater pressure on families in the real world.

The bill also changes the way participant plans will operate. Right now, plans do not have an official end date and, in most cases, any unspent funds can roll over into the next year. Under this bill, plans will have a legislated end date and unspent funds will no longer be carried over.

On integrity, the coalition has been clear: we will support measures that crack down on fraud, noncompliance and exploitation. Public confidence in the NDIS depends on knowing the money is going to real supports for real people. When around 94 per cent of providers are unregistered and there are serious concerns about non-compliant or fraudulent claims, every member of this House should be paying attention. Fraud not only wastes taxpayer money; it takes support away from Australians with disability. That is why stronger provider registration, better record retention and tighter claims timeframes matter. But these measures should go after the crooks, not make life harder for honest participants and providers who are doing the right thing. Reform has to be fair as well as firm. But these measures should go after the crooks, not make life harder for honest participants and providers who are doing the right thing. Reform has to be fair as well as firm.

Behind those numbers is Paul, a Capricornia constituent caring for his wife Sharon after she was diagnosed with early onset dementia. It is a cruel disease that takes a person's memory, independence and quality of life little by little. For nearly two years, my office has worked with Paul to fight for the basic support Sharon needs. As Sharon's condition got worse, the funding simply was not enough. Because there was not enough care at home, she suffered a serious fall that put her in hospital for about six months. If Sharon had sufficient carer funding, that injury may well have been avoided. During Sharon's long hospital stay, Paul was working around the clock with the hospital and the NDIS to get an adequate care plan in place, all while continuing to work full time. Red tape between the hospital and the NDIS delayed Sharon's release. She was medically fit to leave, but it was determined she could not return home. The system completely failed them.

Then there's Mitchell, a 36-year-old man living with a rare auto-immune condition who has now also suffered a stroke and needs even greater support. It took 14 months of fighting by his parents alongside my office, to secure an increase in his NDIS funding to an adequate level. During that same time, his mother, his primary carer, was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and was undergoing treatment while still battling the system to make sure her son was not left behind. No family facing that kind of heartbreak should also have to wage a bureaucratic war just to access basic care.

These are not one-off stories. They show what happens when the system lets people down. It's not ministers or bureaucrats who carry the cost. It's families already under pressure. It's carers trying to hold everything together. It's participants whose safety, independence and dignity depend on the right support being there when they need it. That is why every change in this bill matters. These stories are a reminder that behind every policy change is a real person, a real family and real pressure on households already doing it tough. The coalition will continue to support the NDIS, but we also we will also keep holding Labor to account for how it manages the scheme.

Australians with disability deserve reform that is careful, compassionate and properly considered. They deserve consultation, clarity and common sense. They deserve a government that understands sustainability is important and that sustainability cannot be achieved simply by setting savings targets and hoping the detail works itself out later. The coalition will continue to back the NDIS because we believe in it and in the Australians it supports. But we will keep holding Labor to account for every change it makes. Australians with disability deserve a government focused on supporting them, not one focused on chasing savings and fixing its budget problems on the backs of vulnerable people. Australians with disability are not a line item in Labor's budget, and they should never be treated like one.

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