Alice Jordan-Baird (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

():  I rise today to contribute to the discussion of the Thriving Kids inquiry report. I'm honoured to be a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability alongside some outstanding members across the chamber. Our committee chair, the member for Macarthur, has tabled the No Child Left Behind, a parliamentary inquiry report into the proposed Thriving Kids program. The Thriving Kids initiative is intended to address the missing middle. We define this as the service vacuum for a national system of supports for children aged eight and under with developmental delay and low-to-moderate support needs. We want to focus on identifying developmental concerns earlier whilst ensuring children with permanent and significant disability will continue to be supported through the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

If you speak to any family in my electorate or across the country who have a child with developmental delay under eight, they'll tell you the current system isn't working for them. They're waiting years for specialist appointments. They say that the system is confusing and hard to navigate, and the supports they're receiving from the NDIS aren't targeted enough. The harsh reality is these children are falling through the cracks. One in five young children experience developmental delay or autism, mostly at mild or moderate levels. Intervention is simply not happening early enough.

Our committee's report, No Child Left Behind, seeks to provide a strategic framework for the new national system of disability supports so we can better support this cohort of kids to get the very best start in life. The release of this report is the work of the community. We conducted public hearings last year, and community and advocacy groups made over 400 submissions. The committee also received over 1,000 survey responses from parents, carers and providers. We heard from experts, peak bodies, parents, families, providers, participants and those with lived experience. I'd like to thank every single organisation and person who took the care and time to put in a submission for our inquiry. Your experiences and expertise were invaluable to the findings of this report.

As for the health professionals and parent groups, I've found Dr Kate Renshaw's contribution about the benefits of play therapy particularly powerful. As Dr Renshaw pointed out, many therapies and interventions are not specifically designed to complement children's developmental pathways but play therapy is. Paediatric play is evidence based and it's so important to make positive developmental gains. These types of insights are why the inclusion of health professionals and parent groups are so valuable. I thank them for their contributions to this report.

I'd like to give a special shout out to families in my local community who took the time to write to me and raise their concerns. In particular, I'd like to acknowledge the work of Shannon Meilak, a fantastic disability advocate in Brimbank. She took the time to compile a number of accounts from locals with lived experience that were really important to this process and helped shape the report. Shannon, thank you for your advocacy.

It was clear to the committee that there was some misinformation following the announcement of the Thriving Kids program by the Minister for Health and Ageing. Families felt anxiety about what the proposed changes might mean for their children. I believe that the recommendations in this report will lead to better outcomes for these children, such as the recommendation for a single port of entry with multiple referral pathways for children with developmental concerns, whether they are in the NDIS or not, or the focus on boosting the workforce to support families to navigate the system, particularly families in regional, rural and remote areas as well as CALD and Indigenous communities, children in out-of-home care, parents and carers with disabilities themselves and other high-risk communities.

There's no doubt that transitions are hard, and there is a specific recommendation for that as well to help children transition from early education into primary education or from primary education into higher education, as appropriate. By increasing funding and resources to already existing organisations that can deliver through a hub-and-spoke system, these supports can be made more readily available and therefore can improve equitable access for these children and their families, thereby ensuring that cost and distance are not barriers.

I'm so proud that the Albanese Labor government has committed $2 billion, matched by the states, to deliver Thriving Kids, and $1.4 billion of this contribution is direct funding to states for Thriving Kids services. The recommendations of this report mean that the Australian government will work closely with the state and territory governments to better help families. I'd like to thank each of the state and territory governments for working alongside us on this momentous initiative.

At the end of the day, this is about giving our kids the best possible start in life without forcing families to navigate the exhausting NDIS-or-nothing battle we see too often. I'd like to thank the Minister for Health and Ageing and our wonderful chair, the member for Macarthur, and the committee secretariat for all of their hard work in bringing this really important report to life. I look forward to being part of the review and continuing this work with the committee.

Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's wonderful to join with my fellow committee members today in speaking to this report. I would like at the outset to just thank all of the committee members for their genuine engagement on this issue, particularly the committee chair. The inquiry was pretty pressed for time and we were a little bit location limited, but I think everyone worked very hard in the circumstances to try and get the best possible inquiry report together. I think it's been a very useful exercise. The member for Macarthur, who is the chair of the committee, particularly brings a lot of real-world experience to this particular topic. The coalition are broadly very grateful for the skills he brings to this place and to this topic.

I also want to thank the many people who made contributions by way of either submissions or evidence. This is not always an easy process. It's a difficult topic for many people to talk about. On the lived experience that people have either as a person to whom the NDIS or potentially Thriving Kids would apply or as parents of those children, it takes a degree of strength to get up and make a contribution. But it's a valuable contribution because it helps shape the future of what the healthcare system of Australia will look like. So I want to make a proper acknowledgement of those contributions.

At the outset, I just want to say that the coalition supports early identification and early intervention for children with developmental concerns. We will work constructively on sensible reforms that protect the NDIS for the long term. Thriving Kids is described as a national system of supports for children aged eight and under with developmental delay and disability and low to moderate support needs delivered through mainstream services. The report notes the initiative is intended to ease pressure on the NDIS by offering earlier supports through settings like GPs, early childhood education, play groups and community health centres. We note the government has committed $2 billion over five years, with design to be settled with the states and territories. The report also notes evidence that around 739,000 participants receive NDIS support, and of those about 23 per cent are children under nine.

What we, as coalition members—I should acknowledge the member for Nicholls, my coalition colleague on this committee—support in this report is that co-design is essential. The report recommends an inclusive co-design process with evidence based interventions. We support strong safeguards, such as phased implementation and preventing loss of supports as the new arrangements roll out. We support better integrity and oversight, including the recommendation for an inspector-general of the NDIS. We support a single portal of entry, with multiple referral pathways so that families are not forced to navigate a maze. We support a clear principle that being in Thriving Kids must not preclude a child from entering the NDIS later if their needs change.

We know there are areas where the government is failing these families right now. Evidence cited in the report describes families receiving information that is confusing, incomplete or poorly conveyed with slow communication. It also describes inconsistency in decision-making, with families reporting the same diagnosis producing different outcomes. Most concerning, the report records wait times of six months to four years for assessments and therapies, even in urgent cases. Sadly, by any measure that doesn't qualify as early intervention. The system is failing at the moment when families need help the most.

Our major concern is that we've got a major announcement, but we are still lacking a huge amount of detail. I was hoping that we would help flesh this out through the inquiry and the report. The report itself notes that families have been repeatedly told that the change is coming, but the announcements have too often not been matched with detail, adding to their uncertainty and anxiety. Coalition members are saying plainly that families deserve answers on the basics: who will qualify and how decisions are made; what supports are funded, at what intensity and for how long; what safeguards exist if a child's needs escalate; and what review rights families have and where they go when things go wrong.

The report notes concern that accessing supports outside the NDIS can sometimes be perceived as affecting future access, and it stresses Thriving Kids participation should not block later NDIS entry. We agree with that direction, but we add this: no-one should be shifted out or delayed from entry unless viable alternative supports are in place and operating. This must be tested in practice, not just promised in a media release. The transition risk is real, and the families that we heard give evidence are warning this parliament about that. The report records widespread concern about the transition, including the risks of exclusion and loss of supports, and the need for clear rollout timelines and transparent communication. Stakeholders have called for clear pathways for children who will need ongoing support, particularly around the age nine transition point.

We will keep pressing the government on one test: will any child be worse off during transition? And another warning: schools are not going to be a magic solution, and the report warns against such wishful thinking. It records serious concerns about positioning schools as the central hub, including that many schools are not adequately equipped and staff can lack training and capacity. It also records concerns about bullying and discrimination, and that for some children the school environment can be quite difficult. If the government intends schools to play a larger role, it must fund capability, workforce and safeguards and not just pass the problem to our teachers.

The report identifies workforce shortages, limited outreach and telehealth constraints as a significant problem for regional and remote areas. It also notes families can face hours of travel, and telehealth is not always suitable for children with autism. We will hold the government to account to ensure service access is not determined by postcode. We support practical service models for thin markets, including commissioned approaches and hub-and-spoke options, where evidence supports them.

The report recommends dedicated resourcing to ensure robust data accuracy, transparency, interoperability and consideration of Indigenous data sovereignty principles. It also recommends a rapid review after 24 months of operation, with the review to be reported back to the House, which is appropriate. Coalition members support these accountability measures because families deserve proof that outcomes are improving and that they're not just slogans. We will work constructively on reforms that are clinically informed and financially responsible. We will support sensible measures to address the NDIS growth trajectory while keeping the scheme true to its purpose. We will fight to ensure that no-one falls between the cracks. And we will not support changes if alternative supports are not genuinely available.

The future steps that this government takes are really important. They must stop running this sector by announcement. They must publish the detail that families need in order to plan their lives and consult properly with parents, clinicians, allied health professionals, educators and disability advocates. They must provide clear transition pathways and communication so that families are not left anxious and confused. And we must ensure that participation in Thriving Kids never blocks access to the NDIS when needs change.

The government really needs to finalise, as a matter of urgency, an agreement with the states and territories on the design, funding, roles and responsibilities and an implementation timeline for Thriving Kids to provide certainty to families and providers. The objective must be simple: earlier help, clearer pathways and better outcomes for children and their families. We will support what is sensible, strengthen what is missing and hold the government to account until the detail matches the promise. The future of our children deserves that.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We all want our children, and Australia's children, to have the best possible start in life. We want them to thrive. And if, by some chance, they seem to exhibit developmental delays, we want to be able to support them to achieve the best possible outcome. As with all early intervention, the earlier the better. But it has to be the right interventions at the right times. When dealing with very small children, this can be difficult to assess. They may not be of an age to be able to undertake assessments. They may not be cooperative with assessments; no-one wants to focus on the things they can't do.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. It seems logical that access to services requires a diagnosis, a gatekeeping eligibility. Yet, for early intervention, this need for a diagnosis can form an impenetrable barrier, preventing young children from accessing vital services for early intervention. This is one of the challenges that Thriving Kids was set up to address. As with any change in a complex system such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the changes themselves are complex, and there is, understandably, concern and nervousness in the participant and carer community as well as among clinicians and therapists.

So I'm pleased to be able to speak about the House Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability report No child left behind, which examines the proposed Thriving Kids initiative, a reform that goes to the heart of who we are as a nation and how we support our youngest Australians. This committee inquiry was specifically set up to examine Thriving Kids and its implementation.

I'd like to think the committee and its chair, the member for Macarthur, Dr Mike Freelander, himself a paediatrician, as well as the more than 400 organisations, peak bodies and individuals who provided vital information and gave evidence to the committee. At its core, this report asks a simple but profound question: when a child needs support to thrive, will the system be there—early, equitably and effectively?

Importantly, the committee recognised the importance of maintaining the ideals underpinning the NDIS: independence, dignity, choice, equity and inclusion in the new program. The Thriving Kids initiative is therefore positioned as a critical element of broader reform, designed to strengthen early intervention, improve equity of access and embed evidence-based, coordinated supports for children who have developmental delay and their families. This is not merely administrative reform; it's about life trajectories, because, when support comes early, children are more likely to be able to participate fully in education, build relationships and reach their potential. When it comes late or not at all, the consequences can echo across a lifetime.

Families, clinicians, educators and advocates spoke to the committee clearly. Fragmented systems must be connected. Workforce sustainability matters and reforms must never compromise access to care. Their message was unmistakeable. Reform must be careful, inclusive and grounded in evidence. That is why one of the report's central recommendations is for an inclusive co-design process involving recognised organisations, people with lived experience, First Nations communities and culturally diverse families. If we are designing supports for children, those voices must not just be consulted; they must help lead the design. The report also recommends establishing a thriving kids advisory council to guide governments on implementation and ensure the initiative delivers appropriate quality services. This is about governance, but, more importantly, it's also about trust. Parents must be able to trust that, when the reforms occur, their child will not fall through the cracks. Indeed, the committee was explicit: the initiative should be implemented in phases with safeguards to prevent the loss of supports for children. That principle—no loss of support—should be our guiding light. Any child who misses out, who falls through the cracks, is potential lost.

We know from the inquiry that families already face long wait times for assessments and therapies, sometimes stretching from six months to four years. So much for early intervention. We know they report confusing navigating systems and inconsistent decision-making, and we know that uneven service distribution forces some families, particularly in regional areas, to travel hours just to reach a provider. These are not minor inconveniences; they are structural barriers to opportunity. The report therefore emphasises integrated planning across health, education and disability systems; culturally safe and neurodiversity-affirming models of care; and multidisciplinary teams, particularly in rural and remote areas. In short, it calls for a system that works around the child, not one that forces the child to navigate the system. A single point of entry to help families get the support they need is another really vital reform.

But perhaps the most important message of this report is captured in its title: No child left behind. The committee made clear that its objective was to ensure every child who requires foundational supports is protected, included and provided appropriate services as the Thriving Kids initiative is designed to do. That is a commitment this parliament must honour. Now, reform of this scale will inevitably prompt concern. The announcement of Thriving Kids has already caused anxiety among families and providers, and we should not dismiss these concerns. We need to listen to them. Good reform is not measured by how quickly it's implemented but by how safely it is delivered. So, as the government considers its response, due within six months of the report's publication, we must focus on what success looks like. Success is a parent who can access help for their child. Success is a teacher who has the allied health support in the classroom. Success is a child who gets the right support at the right time before challenges become lifelong barriers. And success is a system that is equitable no matter a child's postcode, background or family circumstance.

The measure of a society is not how it treats those who are thriving already; it is how it lifts those who need support to thrive. This report gives us a blueprint. It calls for evidence-based policy, it calls for coordination, it calls for accountability and, above all, it calls for inclusion. So let's take up that challenge with the seriousness it deserves, because, when we invest early in children, we do more than change individual lives. We strengthen communities, reduce long-term disadvantage and build a more compassionate nation. Every child deserves the chance not just to participate but to flourish. And let's ensure that, in Australia, truly, no child is left behind.

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The inquiry into the Thriving Kids program was formally referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability on 2 September 2025. The inquiry was tasked with examining and advising on the design of a national system of supports for children aged eight and under with developmental delay and autism who have low to moderate support needs. I want to say a huge thankyou to chair Dr Mike Freelander and co-chair Dr Monique Ryan for their diligence, their stewardship, their care and their deep consideration of all the submissions. I also want to say a very deep thankyou to all those who made presentations and submissions to the inquiry.

It must be acknowledged that, since the Thriving Kids initiative was announced, many families, carers and providers have felt anxious about what's ahead. I've heard directly from local families and providers in my electorate who are worried about what this program will mean for their children and clients. As a member of this committee, I welcome the tabling of the report, No child left behind, and want to reaffirm that the committee's purpose throughout has been clear: to ensure that every child who needs foundational supports is protected, included and able to access appropriate, high-quality services in a timely way through the design of Thriving Kids. That commitment has guided our work at every stage, and it now must guide the government's decisions in design and implementation.

I also want to thank the many organisations, health professionals, providers, families and carers who contributed to the inquiry, particularly those who shared personal stories. Those accounts were frank, often difficult and deeply instructive.

The phased implementation of Thriving Kids was due to start on 1 July 2026, with the access changes to the NDIS from mid-2027. The commencement has now been delayed to 1 October as part of the National Health Reform Agreement that was finalised last Friday at the National Cabinet meeting, with additional time granted to states and territories to implement the program, which I welcome.

Many stakeholders are pleased to see that the inquiry report reflects core issues raised in evidence, including equity, genuine co-design, evidence based interventions, strong governance, a capable workforce and phased implementation. But a report is not an outcome. As we now turn to program design and implementation, the government must heed the remaining and significant concerns raised by stakeholders in response to the inquiry report as practical advice on what Thriving Kids must look like if it is to succeed. At the moment, families and providers are still asking who exactly will be covered and how decisions will be made, as the inquiry's terms of reference did not include eligibility criteria in its scope. The government must ensure that eligibility for Thriving Kids is transparent, consistent and anchored in functional need.

Stakeholders have expressed concern about language such as 'mild to moderate developmental delay and autism' and suggestions that autism is not a permanent disability, which do not align with established diagnostic frameworks. Crucially, eligibility must not depend on simplistic severity categories that are not applied consistently and can be clinically imprecise. Functional assessment must be the basis for access and funding, with clear guidance and safeguards to prevent children from missing out at the point where early intervention matters most.

Families should not be forced to wait for a formal diagnosis before help begins. Thriving Kids is an opportunity to fix a longstanding gap by funding early screening, navigation and functional supports from the first signs of concern, particularly for children in priority cohorts. Stakeholders support staged reform, but they warned that the revised timeline risks moving faster than systems can safely deliver. Leading autism organisation Amaze cautions that commencement on 1 October and full implementation by 1 January 2028 may still fall short of the inquiry's intent for a flexible, phased rollout supported by pilots and clear public timelines, especially for workforce and service development.

Just as importantly, the inquiry recommended overlap periods where both the NDIS and Thriving Kids operate concurrently, allowing children to remain supported under existing NDIS plans until Thriving Kids is fully functional and able to meet needs. Given the government has previously indicated changes to the NDIS access from mid-2027, stakeholders are concerned they may not fully overlap. It's important that both state and federal governments guarantee continuity of support. That means no child should lose, delay or have reduced support until foundational supports are fully rolled out, accessible and proven to meet demand.

The majority of submissions all returned to the same reality—workforce. Reform will fail if we design a system that assumes clinicians, educators and navigators exist in numbers we wish they did. A local provider in my electorate of Mackellar Kids First Children's Services has made this point powerfully, saying, 'Allied Health qualifications take years. Universities struggle to secure placements. Experienced clinicians are leaving due to workload and administrative burden and lack of support.' So the government's task is two-fold: design a model that can actually be staffed, and invest now to grow and retain the workforce required. I would like to add at this stage that the paid prac placements are core to us growing our allied health workforce. At the moment, we are burning our allied health students out and forcing them to face decisions in their life as to whether they have food on the table or are able to complete their practical placements. That is not good enough. We must fund training pipelines, supervision capacity, retention supports and practical incentives to work in underserviced areas. It also means developing a workforce that is neuro affirming and evidence informed, including capability across diversity, including cultural competency, gender-responsive practice and disability affirming approaches for all disability types.

Kids First Children's Services also cautions that families cannot substitute sustained professional support with information, resources and online programs. The reality is families usually seek early intervention because they are already overwhelmed, not because they lack information. Many parents know what their child needs in theory, but require skilled in-person guidance to apply strategies in real life. Online access can be helpful but it does not reliably build confidence, consistency or progress for children with more complex needs, especially where families face trauma, poverty, housing insecurity, language barriers, disability or burnout.

Government must ensure Thriving Kids supports carers without transferring responsibility onto them. Building carer capacity should mean funding coaching, supported practice, and practical wraparound navigation. Parent capacity has a ceiling shaped by work demands, mental health, caregiving load and life stress. Policy cannot ignore that ceiling.

Another consistent message is that we must design a system that matches the provider landscape and ensures there is not bias towards large NGOs being treated as the default voice of best practice with service models presumed scalable everywhere. In some metropolitan areas, including parts of Sydney, large NGOs have withdrawn due to cost and workforce pressures. Small family run practices remain embedded locally, coordinating with schools, GPs and preschools and supporting children over many years. Government must design Thriving Kids to work with the full ecosystem—public, not-for-profit and private—so families have genuine choice and local capacity is not inadvertently dismantled.

Related to this debate about registration is that, whilst all providers are bound by professional obligations and clinicians are operate under strong regulatory frameworks, many providers choose not to register for reasons of cost and administrative load, not because of poor quality. Any expansion of mandatory registration must be done without disrupting care through a streamlined, proportionate registration pathway that leverages existing professional registrations, reduces duplication and preserves safeguards and quality standards while ensuring small community based services can participate.

Providers stress that resource allocation should be based on real service availability and waiting times, not on postcode. (Time expired)

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

Thank you to the Deputy Speaker, who is becoming a regular audience of mine in this chamber. I'm glad to be able to make a contribution to this report. It's unplanned, but it's also something which is very, very close to my heart. In fact, in many ways, I'd say that I've come to this place with a few priorities that are very important to me. My head priorities are probably cheaper housing and cheaper energy, but my heart priority would be the NDIS and looking after the disabled in my community.

I have a very close family member who is autistic. We decided as a family that we wouldn't pursue applying to the NDIS, because I know through the work that I've done in the community that the supports they would have got through the NDIS just would not have been worth the headache and the hassle of going through that process of diagnosis and making an application and going through that torturous project. But, as it has been said, the NDIS is the only lifeboat in the ocean, and with everybody trying to climb on it because there's nothing else there, it has collapsed the system.

I did promise never to read a speech from my phone, but it was literally 39 minutes before I walked into this chamber that I got a follow-up message from a constituent that I tried to help last year. She came to my office with her three-year-old autistic child, who was non-verbal and biting. It was so difficult for her to even have a conversation with me while she was trying to manage his behaviour, that it was just unfathomable what it must be like for her everyday trying to manage that behaviour alone. She saw me because she was about to run out of funding for her child, who was in a specialist day-care centre, because, of course, there are very few day-care centres that are set up to take kids with those sorts of behaviours. She was desperately worried that she was going to lose the funding for that child care. That result would mean that she would have to leave her job, and because of that, it would mean that she would then be living in a car with her severely disabled three-year-old child.

Try as hard as I might to help, I got this message 39 minutes before I walked into this chamber, and she is going to say it better than I could. There are a couple of spelling mistakes, and I just might stumble through it a bit, but the sentiment will be clear: 'Sorry I haven't reached out. My son and I have had a rough few months. After we spoke last, the provider spoke with me and told me a week before Christmas that my son needs the funding if he wanted to return this year. I was devastated. I didn't have time to organise a review or even try to do anything. My housing arrangements fell through because I had to leave work and my son was no longer in care, and the person I was living with could not handle him. We lived in our car for a week before YFS put us in emergency housing. We have been in a motel for two months now, with my son's behaviour getting worse and worse and no end in sight. I'm really not okay, and I can't get anyone to understand or help.'

Probably it would be best to leave my contribution as that, because I'm not going to be able to say anything. I think nobody, none of us, could say anything that would match the power of that. That is a story that, as MPs, I'm sure we see all the time, and it's just unfathomable what people are going through.

I was very pleased with the contribution from the member for Fadden. I think there is a genuine sense that we all want to make this work. It was really very good to hear him list those things that the opposition are setting as preconditions to support Thriving Kids—not that a first-term MP like me is going to be able to hold the government to any of them, but I'm sure the sentiment is something we all agree on. I hadn't understood what the opposition's position was on this, so I was very, very pleased to hear the member for Fadden go through that.

In the electorate I represent, Forde—and these figures are three or four years old now—there's something like 7,000 people on the NDIS. Compare that to another electorate—an inner-city electorate, in fact. I remember the comparison with Griffith. There was something like 3½ thousand people on the NDIS. So, in a working-class area like Forde, you've got twice as many people as you do in an inner-city electorate. Among the schools in Forde there's Eagleby South State School and Waterford West State School. I never quite get the term right—I think it's called an inclusion term or something—but generally it means kids with disability. Something like over 40 per cent of children at that school have a disability. Not only are all of those families and all of those kids really set back to begin with; the 60 per cent of kids in that classroom with them are also struggling with the behaviours. The teachers are struggling with those behaviours, and it holds the whole community back.

So, while there are 7,000 people in Forde who are actually getting the NDIS, it probably makes you think maybe there's another 7,000 people that should be getting the NDIS, but the scheme was never meant for that. In fact, there's one number I know that comes to mind. The Productivity Commission said that the NDIS in Queensland was supposed to cater for about 95,000 people. Right now there are 175,000 people on it. It's totally unsustainable. We all know in this place that, when a scheme like that is unsustainable, as it is, it will lose community support. So it is vital, in order to maintain that support, that the community have faith that it is actually returning value for money and doing what it's supposed to do.

I've got 10 minutes. I could go on forever with the problems. There's one other problem I suppose I would just want to say, which is that, even with all of this money being spent and all of these participants in this system, there are still businesses going out of business. They still can't make the money work. I'm not sure whether it's called Centrecare, but the Catholic Church's arm in Queensland that was looking after it has exited the field because they could not make it work. With a scheme costing—what is it?—$50 billion a year or somewhere around there, they couldn't make it work. Something is going wrong from the end to the beginning, and there have to be changes. Those changes, as has been mentioned, are causing anxiety in the community. So, again, it was very good to hear the opposition's contribution that people need to know the kids aren't going to be worse off—that anybody who's getting the NDIS at the moment is going to continue to get the NDIS, for a start.

This is not about trying to just shove people back into a dark corner, which is what existed prior to the NDIS, but about trying to come up with something better. It may be at the school level, though of course they won't be able to cope with everything. It may be back at the community level, though they will need to be better resourced. What is true is that it's not working now and we have to come up with something else.

While I've got a minute, there are many people in Forde that do an incredible amount of that personal advocacy. One of them is Shannon Manning, who I want to give a shout-out to today. She is a mum who has, well and truly, real life experience, with one severely disabled child and a younger autistic child as well. If there is any woman who is an example of how you do not lose if you keep on fighting, it is Shannon Manning. She fights not only for herself—and when I say 'herself' I mean her kids and her family—but for many parents that I send her way as well, including the woman that sent me that text today. Obviously, we lost that fight. But, together, I think this parliament and people in the community with good spirit will keep fighting and will keep winning for the millions, the 20 per cent, of people in Australia that live with a disability.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 17 : 35