Rowan Holzberger (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm actually glad I've had a bit of a chance to reflect on my contribution last night, which was critical of the coalition. I had sat through the member for Parkes's contribution and was surprised to hear that the coalition's position seems to be hardening against this bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. If debate is worth anything in this place, I make a direct appeal to those opposite to support this bill because it is so important that we get this right. I know that there is a lot of goodwill across both sides of the House to make this work. So, in a way, I regret my contribution because we shouldn't be politicising this issue. This is an issue which is of deep importance and deep concern in our communities.

I really implore the coalition to look inside themselves and see the importance of supporting this bill. If this bill doesn't get through, if we don't make the changes that need to be made to the NDIS, we know that the support in the community for it is going to collapse and then therefore the entire scheme will collapse. That's quite apart from the fact that the NDIS is, as it is, completely unworkable for the public, for the providers and also for the participants who rely on it. We all know that. As good local members, we all have a million stories.

I have, I think, an even deeper appreciation than a lot of people because of my son, who is an adult autistic human being. He's just recently been diagnosed as level 2 autistic, which means that he is now automatically eligible for inclusion on the NDIS. But I'll say what I've been saying for years, which is that the NDIS is not made for my son. The only reason he has even gone through the process, the very expensive and really quite awful process, of being diagnosed is that there are no supports that exist outside the NDIS anymore. That is what is underlying all of the changes to the NDIS. Nobody listening to my contribution should think that it is just about throwing people off the NDIS into nothing. That is absolutely not something that I would support. As part of this, I am going to be continuing to fight to see those supports established outside the NDIS for people that the scheme wasn't designed for.

These are figures which I saw some years ago, probably about 2022 or 2023, but, in Forde, we've got about 8,000 people on the NDIS, and there are other electorates in Queensland where there are about half that number. If there are 8,000 people actually on the NDIS, that means there are probably another 8,000 people who really need services that would otherwise be provided if the NDIS weren't there. The idea that the NDIS should be the only lifeboat in the ocean is the reason why it has crashed, effectively; everyone has tried to scramble on board because it is the only thing available.

On Friday, I got an email, and then I called Rebecca. She's the mum of a two-year-old, Phoenix, with spina bifida. By the way, if you ever met Phoenix, you would see what a perfect little child he is. He is just the happiest, most charismatic little kid that I've ever met. Despite the fact that he was born with spina bifida, they thought he would live a perfectly full and active life. But he had complications when he was a baby, and it got to the point where the illness in his brain was so severe that the doctors basically decided they couldn't operate. In fact, the advice to the mother was, effectively, to just let him die.

No mother is going to put up with that news, and so she fought. In Queensland you're able to invoke something called Ryan's Rule, where you get a second opinion, and she did that. She got a second opinion and she found a doctor who would operate. It saved his life, but unfortunately it left little Phoenix unable to walk, unable to talk and unable to even roll over. But you wouldn't know any of this if you met Phoenix. I got to meet him on Saturday. For just the smile on his face, it was such a privilege for me to have met him.

But, at the moment, Rebecca can't get an electric wheelchair through the NDIS. She has been fighting for months to get this wheelchair. She's got a second-hand wheelchair, and, when Phoenix sits in it, his arms are literally scraping against the wheels, and he's got blisters on the inside of his elbows. He's got blisters on his little arms because the only wheelchair she can find for him to get about in is totally inappropriate for him. If the scheme was designed for anybody, it was designed for Phoenix. Rebecca having to fight through this system to get what Phoenix needs is exhibit A for why we need fundamental change in the NDIS.

But, of course, it's not just little Phoenix. We've all got a million stories, and there are a couple more that I'd like to talk about. One is about a mum called Alex and her young child, Hunter, who I think is four years old. When she first met me, before Christmas last year, she was desperate to get funding so that she could put him into a specialist childcare centre that would take a special-needs kid. When she sat there meeting me, he was climbing over her, biting her and hitting her. It was difficult enough for her to have the meeting with me, but I can't imagine what it must be like for her as a single mum trying to do all this on her own—trying to fight the NDIS at the same time as trying to get the supports she needs.

Her concern before Christmas was that if she didn't get the funding to be able to put him in this specialist childcare centre then she wouldn't be able to work. She'd have to leave her job. Because she would have to leave her job, she wouldn't be able to pay her rent. She was concerned that she was going to be sleeping in the car with her severely disabled child—and you know what? That's exactly what happened over Christmas. She didn't get the funding, she lost her job and she spent time sleeping in her car with her severely disabled child. The question is whether the NDIS should be funding that or if there is a failure in the wider system that means that she is trying to jump onto the NDIS because it's the only thing available.

The dysfunction of the NDIS—I think I'll finish with this story. I remember this from a couple of years ago. There was somebody who had come to us for help. She was trying to get an assistance dog for her child. The agency approved $5,000 in specialist reports. They approved another $2,000 on top of that for support coordination to get those reports together to see whether or not the child would benefit from having a dog. The report said, yes, the child would benefit from having a dog. She gave those reports to the NDIA, and what do you reckon happened? The NDIA refused the dog. So there she was—stuck in a system, going through the reviews, going through the ART.

I remember when it was, because it was during COVID. After a year of fighting for this dog, she was about to go into the hearing. The night before the hearing—this is why I remember when it was—she'd had a COVID test in order to show that she was able to go to the hearing the next day. The NDIA caved and gave her the dog. So many times, we see that the reports and the diagnosis that people get and then provide to the NDIS bear absolutely no relationship to the plan that they get at the end of it. I have heard from serious sources within the NDIA as well that that is true. There is no correlation between somebody's diagnosis and somebody's reports and the plan that they end up getting at the end of it.

There is a lot of work to do, and there is a lot of concern in the community at the moment that this is about throwing people off the NDIS into nothing. As far as I'm concerned, nothing could be further from the truth. This is about stabilising the NDIS for people who it is meant to be for, but it is also about expanding the supports that exist outside the NDIS. Thriving Kids, for example, which the government has made a significant commitment to—and I do also hope that the Queensland government gets its act together and puts something in place—is going to tackle the problem that exists in the electorate I represent. Take the suburb of Eagleby. One in seven kids between the ages of nine and 14 is on the NDIS. One in seven kids is totally unsustainable. It's absolutely unworkable if it's going to be maintained at those sorts of numbers.

I call on the opposition. I really believe that you are going to end up supporting this. I know that, quite rightly, you want to make sure that this legislation is properly examined—absolutely. But outright opposition to this legislation will, I think, mean the collapse of the NDIS. The public have had enough. We all know that the status quo is just not on. Let's make this work for the people that it was intended for. Let's make the whole system work for the people who won't be on the NDIS. To that, I commend the bill to this House.

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