Nicolette Boele (Bradfield, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For my statement today, I'm going to read out one of the barrage of emails that I've had from constituents about their experiences last year with cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and pleading with me as their avenue of last resort for help. This email is from a resident of Willoughby in my electorate, and its subject line is 'A plea from a concerned constituent: the human cost of NDIS changes in Bradfield'. It reads:

I am a speech pathologist from Willoughby, and I am writing to you today not just as a constituent, but as somebody who recently had to walk away from a job I truly loved.

The reason for my departure was the immense emotional and professional toll caused by the recent, devastating changes to the NDIS.

I simply could not continue to bear witness to the daily heartbreak on the front line.

Within days of these announcements, the sudden silence was deafening.

Clients were forced to abandon therapy,

their families no longer able to afford the services they so desperately need.

I sat with parents and watched them weep from an unfathomable grief—

the stress of being forced to choose between

providing their child with essential support

or

keeping their family afloat.

It is the sound of a family's hope being shattered.

My previous career as a registered nurse gave me a unique, and I would argue, painful insight into the long-term consequences of this neglect. I have seen the future that these funding cuts are creating. It is a future where the most vulnerable individuals are stripped of their dignity. I have seen people who, without simple interventions, lose their ability to communicate basic needs like going to the toilet or to swallow food without fear of choking. I have seen the slow, cruel erosion of their independence and the humiliating battles to perform the most basic tasks.

This is not a sustainable future for our community or our country. It is a slow-motion catastrophe.

These cuts will not save money;

they will simply transfer the financial and the human burden to our already overwhelmed hospitals and mental health facilities, pushing our burnt-out healthcare workers to their breaking point.

Ms. Boele, I am asking you to look beyond the political rhetoric and see the human faces behind these policies.

Please tell me you are against this.

Please tell me you are willing to stand up for these children, these families, and the dignity of every individual in our community.

My hope for a compassionate and healthy future rests on your willingness to act.

I thank this constituent for her advocacy. I've heard you and I am acting.