Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to draw the House's attention to the NDIS travel policy changes and their impact on regional and remote electorates like my own. Around the middle of June I started to get a lot of communication from NDIS providers who were very concerned about this change that was coming at them from 1 July and how it would impact their clients. What has happened is that the NDIA has reduced travel labour that can be claimed to 50 per cent of the standard hourly rate. It has maintained the existing time limit of 30 minutes each way in the MMM—or Modified Monash Model—areas 1 to 3, 60 minutes in MMM areas 4 to 5, and continued with no limit in areas MMM 6 to 7.

What this actually means on the ground for the providers and, more importantly, the recipients of these services, is that, for example, in a town like Albany a service provider was travelling to Katanning, which is an hour and three quarters there and an hour and three quarters back, and they were previously absorbing the lack of payment for the 45 minutes, because they were capped at an hour. They were absorbing that and they were continuing to travel beyond the one hour to provide the service in a town which has limited service providers. I have been told by those providers that they will no longer be able to viably provide those services, which means that people in a reasonably significant-sized regional town in my electorate will no longer have access to these allied health services. That story is repeated across my electorate in the 100-plus towns that I represent.

The peak bodies have complained that there was a lack of engagement, a lack of consultation, prior to these changes being brought in. Only 14 days notice was given to the service providers to make whatever changes they needed to make to adjust when this came in on 1 July. One would have thought that, when making decisions around service provision to remote and regional communities, the providers based in Albany, Esperance and Kalgoorlie would have been consulted to get their view on how this would impact them, but I haven't been able to find anybody yet who was consulted by the NDIA on these changes.

The NDIA's annual pricing review says that it needed to address excessive claims and that the current arrangement could lead to travel claims that are higher than the value of the support, especially in regional or less-populated areas. Well, yes, that's absolutely right. If you live in Warburton, which is a thousand kilometres north of Kalgoorlie, then, yes, the travel is going to cost more than your actual service, but that is just the way it is. If the NDIA has a better solution then it should put it on the table. I will come to the impact that it's going to have on that particular community in a moment.

What the service providers that I have spoken to are calling for is the reinstatement of full travel rates on regional and remote services, a genuine consultation with regional providers and communities, and a three-month pause on changes until the regional impact is addressed. I mentioned the situation with the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, and one of the service providers—the only service provider, in fact—who travels out to Warburton and many surrounding Aboriginal communities to provide these services has given me a case study she'd like me to present to the House. This is the impact of the travel cuts on an amputee client in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands:

I'd like to share the story of an NDIS participant living in the remote Ngaanyatjarra Lands—an Aboriginal woman in her mid-50s who recently underwent a below-knee amputation due to complications arising from unmanaged Type 2 diabetes.

In her case, early intervention and health literacy supports were not accessible, contributing directly to the progression of her condition. There is no regular podiatry or diabetes education service available in her community. By the time she presented to hospital, her condition had deteriorated to the point of requiring surgical amputation.

She now requires significant support to regain independence and avoid further decline. This is where the NDIS-funded occupational therapy becomes critical.

Our team … one of the few mobile OT services willing and equipped to travel to the NG Lands—is working with her to restore function, dignity, and safe access to her community and home environment.

Without face-to-face, culturally responsive OT input, here's what she would go without:

That's a pretty extensive list that this particular client will go without. There's no question that this service can be continued under the current rules. She goes on to say:

Her nearest regional centre is over 1,000 km from Kalgoorlie, meaning service delivery requires up to 22 hours of round-trip travel per therapist, often over several days. Until June 30th, 2025, NDIS travel rules allowed providers to claim this time in full—making the service possible, if still tight financially.

From July 1st, however, travel to and from these communities has been capped at 50% of … what our hours total, regardless of distance, duration, or number of therapists involved. This results in an estimated loss of 20+ hours of unfunded travel time per therapist per outreach trip which makes it financially unviable.

The Consequences Are Clear:

This is just one example. I do thank very sincerely the service providers across the Goldfields, not only for what they do on a daily basis but also for providing me with a whole host of case studies, which I'm not going to get a chance to get through in the time available.

In conclusion, I did want to say that the decision to reduce NDIS travel funding to 50 per cent of the service rate creates a significant barrier to the service provision for families in regional areas, particularly in my electorate of O'Connor. A physiotherapist from Collie, at the other end of the electorate, says he has 'grave concerns regarding the National Disability Insurance Agency's decision to lower price limits and travel funding for physiotherapy supports'. He says:

Physiotherapy services under these new pricing limits are unsustainable and will dramatically reduce choice and control for vulnerable NDIS participants.

New rate cuts and reduced funding for clinician travel do not keep pace with the growing operational costs required to provide individualised care. This will have an even greater impact on participants in rural and regional settings.

What this all adds up to is a situation where people living in regional and rural Australia will receive a significantly lower level of care than their city cousins, and that is simply not fair. I call on the government and the minister—who I have written to, and to her credit she has responded, but she responded by saying there'll be no change—to revisit this and to take into account the impact on those people who live outside the box. We're not talking about millions and millions of recipients here. The people mostly impacted in my electorate would be in the hundreds, if not the low thousands. So it's not a matter of destroying the budget by making concessions and accommodating this small group of people who will be impacted; it's simply about providing equity and fairness for people who live in regional and remote Australia.