Rebecca White (Lyons, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the revised explanatory memorandum to this bill and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Albanese Labor government is committed to ensuring the NDIS is a pillar of Australia's unique social safety net.

That means that we are committed to ensuring the National Disability Insurance Scheme provides essential disability supports for people with permanent and significant disability today and into the future.

We are committed to an NDIS that is fair, consistent and empowering for people with permanent and significant disability—an NDIS that is sustainable, effective and safe and operates with integrity.

This government has been committed to taking fraud and misconduct in the NDIS seriously.

Those who defraud the NDIS are exploiting the hundreds of thousands of Australians who rely on the life-changing support the NDIS delivers.

We were left with a mess in coming to government. Under the former coalition government, the NDIS was a soft target.

Our government acted quickly, investing over $550 million in tackling fraud and noncompliance, setting up the Fraud Fusion Taskforce and passing the getting the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Act to place it on a sustainable footing.

But there is more work to do, and this bill is an important step.

Today I introduce the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill to the House. This legislation will ensure that the NDIS remains true to its purpose—safe, strong and centred on the people it serves.

We cannot ignore the findings of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.

The stories were harrowing.

They revealed a system that was fractured, underresourced and too often blind to harm. Australians with disability told us in no uncertain terms the days of abuse and neglect must end.

The findings of the independent review into the NDIS reinforced this call. The review told us the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission must be more responsive, more powerful and more trusted.

It told us that regulatory gaps are putting lives at risk.

It told us that, without reform, the integrity of the scheme and the safety of its participants cannot be guaranteed.

That is unacceptable.

This government will not stand by.

This bill delivers on our commitment to reform the NDIS. It does three things.

First, it strengthens safeguards.

We are giving the NDIS commission the powers it needs to protect participants. That means tougher penalties—up to $16 million for corporations that breach the law and prison terms for those who recklessly or deliberately put lives at risk.

It means expanding banning orders to capture not just providers and workers but auditors and consultants who compromise safety.

And it means introducing anti-promotion powers to stop unethical advertising, because the NDIS is not a marketplace for exploitation.

Second, it improves integrity and responsiveness.

We are tightening compliance requirements so the NDIS commission can act swiftly when harm is suspected.

And we are introducing evidentiary certificates to streamline enforcement because justice delayed is justice denied.

Third, it modernises the scheme.

Electronic claim forms will replace outdated processes, saving time and reducing fraud. A 90-day cooling-off period will protect participants who choose to leave the scheme, ensuring decisions are made with care.

This bill, as amended by the Senate, also introduces whistleblower protections that will support those in the NDIS who see something to say something.

These reforms were not written in isolation. They were shaped by the voices of participants, their families, carers, providers and states.

We held forums across the country, online and in person, because this scheme belongs to the people it serves.

And what did we hear? We heard that accountability matters.

We heard that penalties must be strong enough to deter harm.

We heard that predatory behaviour must be stamped out.

We listened, and now we are acting.

The vast majority of providers do the right thing. They deliver safe, quality services that change lives. This bill is not about them.

It is about the minority—those who recklessly or intentionally cause harm, exploit or defraud people with disability.

To them I say: you don't belong in the NDIS.

Importantly, it is also about people with disabilities and their families. To them I say unequivocally: your wellbeing, your dignity and your life is just as valued as any other Australian.

I commend this bill to the House.

Leave granted for second reading debate to continue immediately.

Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every day, thousands of Australian families rely on the NDIS. For Australians living with significant and permanent disability, it provides not just support but opportunity. It is a therapy session that can change a child's trajectory. It is a support that keeps a loved one safe at home. It is the difference between coping and not. For these families, the NDIS is not a line item in a budget. It is deeply personal. It is what holds their world together. It is a lifeline. It is the difference between a life of isolation and a life of choice. That is exactly why the coalition's support for the NDIS remains steadfast. We understand that the NDIS is about more than service delivery. It is about dignity, independence and the right to choose. It is one of the most significant reforms in our nation's history.

But the NDIS is now at a crossroads. Built to support around 410,000 people, it is now supporting more than 760,000. This growth raises a serious question: how do we ensure the system keeps pace without falling over? For the NDIS to continue delivering support, it must be sustainable. If the scheme is not sustainable, it cannot be there for the people who rely on it most, not just today but into the future. All this points to the urgent need for a clear government plan to bring the exploding costs of the NDIS back under control before the system becomes entirely unsustainable.

Despite this urgency, the government's own targets have remained elusive. In April 2023, the Albanese government pledged to bring annual growth down to eight per cent. By August 2025, the Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme suggested even tighter limits, aiming for a range of five to six per cent. With current growth still sitting at around 10 per cent, a significant gap remains between the government's promises and reality on the ground.

This brings us to the elephant in the room. How exactly does the government plan to bridge that gap? What we have seen is costs being shifted around, like with the Thriving Kids program. Shifting numbers on a page and in a spreadsheet is not the same as fixing the problem. For a scheme of this size, now approaching $50 billion a year and forecast to be $60 billion a year by 2028, Australians deserve more than just promises. They deserve a clear road map, evidence based policy and transparent reporting. Above all, they deserve a timeline that is realistic and holds up under the weight of practice.

Let me be clear, the coalition supports the intent of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2026. We support stronger protections for NDIS participants. We support tougher civil and criminal penalties for providers who do the wrong thing—including penalties of up to 10,000 penalty units, equivalent to around $3.3 million—because any provider who exploits a person with disability or misuses taxpayer funds must face serious consequences. There is no excuse for that kind of behaviour, and there is no place for it in the NDIS. We also support the introduction of antipromotion orders because providers should not be advertising or selling services outside the purpose of the scheme.

We support giving the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission stronger powers, including banning powers, to act against providers delivering poor-quality or unsafe products, because participant safety must always come first. But powers on paper mean little without boots on the ground. The commission must be properly resourced so participants and workers are not left exposed while enforcement is delayed. We support the introduction of a 90-day cooling-off period, because participants should have greater choice and control.

During the Senate inquiry into this bill, the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations pointed to a loophole in schedule 2 section 29A. In practice, this loophole would have allowed a correspondence nominee to withdraw a participant from the scheme or cancel a withdrawal, even against the participant's wishes. That goes too far. A correspondence nominee is there to assist not decide. If that line is blurred, it risks removing agency from the very people the NDIS is meant to empower. People who put trusted supporters around them should not lose their voice because of unclear drafting. Decisions as fundamental as whether someone remains in the scheme must stay with the participant. That principle matters.

That is why the coalition moved an amendment in the Senate to make it clear that these decisions must remain with a participant or their plan nominee. I thank the government for supporting this practical and important amendment to protect participants. At the end of the day, this is about a person's agency, dignity and choice, and that broader point goes to the heart of this debate. The coalition will always support measures that strengthen the integrity of the NDIS and protect participants.

But what we see now is deeply concerning. A report by the ACCC earlier this year found that providers are advertising services clearly not covered by the NDIS—all-inclusive holidays, flights, cruises, dining out and even the cost of ingredients for meals. We are seeing participants being sold equipment that does not match what they were promised, with wheelchairs, beds and mobility aids arriving faulty or unsuitable to their needs, leaving participants fighting for refunds or repairs. Some contracts are stacked against participants from the start, with excessive exit fees, cancellation penalties and long lock-in periods. These practices cause real harm—financial harm, emotional harm. Too often, families are left carrying crushing debt because someone chose to exploit them for profit. This sort of conduct is completely unacceptable.

Supporting the intent of this bill does not mean ignoring its gaps—and there are serious gaps. With around 94 per cent of providers operating unregistered, there is a massive regulatory blind spot. This bill fails to establish direct fraud controls for the majority of the market, and we see the consequences of this every day. Participants are quoted one price for basic services—cleaning, gardening or everyday supports—then, the moment they mention they are using an NDIS plan, the price jumps. Sometimes, it quadruples. It's the same service, the same job, for a higher price because it's the NDIS. That is unacceptable and an affront to the integrity of the scheme. These providers are exploiting vulnerable participants and the taxpayers who fund their support, and they're getting away with it because weak checks and inconsistent oversight have opened the door to bad actors. That has to change.

The NDIS must detect fraud early and stop exploitation before it harms participants, because, when the system fails, it is participants and their families who pay the price. We cannot pretend this is a small problem. Fraud within the scheme is happening every day. The Australian National Audit Office estimates that six to 10 per cent of payments could be noncompliant, incorrect or fraudulent. The system is identifying around 50,000 potentially risky claims every single day. In 2025, $48.83 billion was spent through the NDIS. If six to 10 per cent is going astray, we are looking at a staggering loss of between $2.9 million and $4.8 billion every single year. If nothing changes, that could rise to as much as $8 billion annually by the end of the decade.

These losses are driven by systemic misconduct, fraud, overservicing, false claims and claims for services never delivered. Law enforcement has warned that organised crime is now targeting the scheme. The examples are right in front of us. In March this year, the Federal Police raided a Sydney home linked to a suspected $3.5 million NDIS fraud syndicate. Days earlier, a man was jailed after misusing the details of 90 NDIS participants to generate fraudulent claims of more than $190,000. In February, a Darwin NDIA employee was charged over an alleged $5 million fraud. In New South Wales, three people were jailed for defrauding the system of $5.8 million in 2024. Another case involved an alleged $14½ million scheme tied to major provider networks, and, in Western Sydney, a $10 million NDIS fraud syndicate was uncovered in 2022. These are just some examples of the systemic exploitation occurring within the NDIS. Every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar taken away from someone who needs support and from taxpayers.

Let me be clear—this bill is a step in the right direction, but tougher penalties alone will not fix the problem. If the system itself is weak, bad behaviour and bad actors will continue to infiltrate it. The NDIS is at a critical juncture. It risks sliding into an unsustainable free-for-all or hardening into a soulless bureaucracy that stifles dignity under the weight of processes. We cannot allow either outcome.

The coalition's goal is to deliver a stronger NDIS, delivering better outcomes for participants, providers and the taxpayers who fund it. The NDIS is one of Australia's great reforms, but right now it is drifting under poor stewardship. Getting this right really matters. Every dollar matters; every participant matters. The future of the NDIS depends on it. I commend the bill to the House and move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) the Government and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) have been unable to clearly quantify the scale of fraud within the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS);

(2) the NDIA Fraud Fusion Taskforce estimates that up to 10 per cent of NDIS claims are inappropriate, mischievous or outright criminal;

(3) the Government must do more to prevent the fraud and rorting that is rife within the NDIS;

(4) the changes in the bill will do little to remove bad actors from defrauding participants and taxpayers;

(5) the changes in the bill provide no direct regulation or fraud controls for the 94 per cent of NDIS providers who are not registered; and

(6) robust integrity systems are critical to not only protect taxpayer funds but also to protect NDIS participants from exploitation by unscrupulous providers".

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

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

I rise in support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2026. In doing so, I acknowledge the contribution of the member for Lindsay in speaking for the opposition. I do appreciate the depth of support that you expressed in your speech for the NDIS and your desire for it to be sustainable. I want to acknowledge that.

Of course, there are some things in that speech that I think also need to be addressed. One is that, when the opposition talk about the NDIS growing unsustainably today, I think it needs to be pointed out that, when we came to government, it was growing at about 22 per cent—totally unsustainable. After the opposition oversaw its implementation, from the trial period until we got into government, we really saw it being completely mismanaged in terms of the number of growth. Something else the member for Lindsay said is that we now have a scheme with about 720,000 people on it. In Queensland, I know when the Productivity Commission was first designing the NDIS, it was designed for somewhere around 95,000 Queenslanders, but, in effect, we've ended up with somewhere around 175,000 Queenslanders—totally unsustainable at those levels.

I'd like to acknowledge the work that the minister, Senator McAllister, and the health minister have done recently to get the NDIS back on track. I'd also like to acknowledge the work that the former minister, Bill Shorten, also did. He's somebody who is perhaps more responsible than anybody else for the beginning of the scheme and was, unfortunately, witness to it being so badly managed while Labor was in opposition. The work that he did when we got back into government in 2022 really began to get it back on track. We are headed to that short-term target of eight per cent growth, down from 22 per cent.

The member for Lindsay talked about there not being a plan. There absolutely is a plan, and it's being rolled out now. Unfortunately, it's being rolled out while the scheme is as big as it is, when it could have been dealt with at the time. It is pleasing to hear the opposition talk positively about their attitude towards the NDIS and the future of the NDIS because it is a scheme that Australians rightly should be proud of. It is a world-leading scheme, and it changes people's lives for the better in a way that would have been inconceivable in the past.

I remember being a young staffer to Peter Duncan, the former member for Makin, in the nineties. One memory, more than almost any other memory, that sticks with me was visiting community centres where there were parents of disabled kids that were just desperate for any assistance that they could get. The emotion that I felt on those visits is something that has stayed with me for decades. From talking to families who were involved in Disability Services Queensland, it is worlds apart from what the NDIS is, with all of its flaws, compared to what it was like when it was through Disability Services Queensland.

I'm no political professional—I feel like I need to make that point before I go on to my next point. I ran a construction company and worked on the land, but then I found myself working for a senator in 2018, Senator Murray Watt, doing all of his constituent work, all of the electorate work. In 2018, we saw the NDIS go from being a trial to being fully implemented, and we began to have a trickle of complaints come into the electorate office.

One story that I remember really stands out from that time. A severely disabled child, an autistic child, was trying to get an assistance dog, and the dog cost 20 grand or something like that. They're not cheap. The NDIA approved $5,000 worth of reports—OTs, psychologists, whatever—and then another $2,000 for support coordination to get those reports together. So it was $7,000 in total for reports, which is ludicrous in itself. The family duly went away to the professionals, who said, 'Yes, this child would benefit from a dog; it's a reasonable and necessary support.' It's ludicrous in itself that it should be $7,000 to get it, but guess what the NDIA said when it got the reports? No dog. If it weren't true it would indeed be funny.

This family then began the journey that so many families undertake of going through the review process, going to the AAT, fighting the agency all the way and having the agency fight tooth and nail back at them. I remember it was during COVID because the family, on the night before the hearing, had got a COVID test so they could attend the hearing. But on the night before the hearing—and the agency had spent $7,000 on the reports and potentially tens of thousands of dollars on a top-tier legal firm to fight this family all the way—the agency caved in and gave them the dog. It is those sorts of stories which we saw in 2018 and 2020 that, on a personal level, turned me off the NDIS so much.

I've got a family member who's autistic and needs a bit of help, but, after taking part in decisions about whether or not we pursue the NDIS, I thought that the supports they would get through the NDIS would not be worth the hassle that it would take for them to go through the process of applying and then fighting for those supports. Of course, now we know that there are no other services that exist outside the NDIS. They've all been allowed to die on the vine, so the NDIS is, as is often said, the only lifeboat in the ocean, and now that family member is going to have to try and get some supports through the NDIS. But it was such a horror story that I witnessed in my time in Murray's office that it really turned me off even trying to get the NDIS supports for that family member.

What we saw back then was the opportunity, when the scheme was beginning, to tackle the problems as they arose, but, instead, the problems that existed in 2018 just scaled up as the scheme scaled up, and it was left to the rest of us not in government to sit there and watch it careen completely out of control. Now, any member in this House would know that the NDIS is probably the single biggest issue we hear in our constituents' concerns. That trickle that we witnessed in 2018 has really turned into a flood, and we knew all along that something was fundamentally broken, and this government is trying to get it back on track.

I feel like I need to be careful when I say that because the NDIS is so life changing and so important for people. I think the message needs to be that it will continue to grow. With the short-term goal of eight per cent growth and the longer term goal of five or six per cent, in line with the growth of Medicare and aged care, it will continue to grow. People, I think, need to have faith in that. Within that growth, the changes that the government is making through this legislation are part of its wider plan of reinforcement. Getting back to what I said to begin with, I'm very pleased to see that the opposition has that long-term optimism about the success of the NDIS.

There are a couple of features of this bill that I think are really worth emphasising. One is the promotions order. I know that some of the things I'm about to mention here are illegal anyway and would already be caught up by the law as it is, but this is the extent that some providers will go to to get business. These are both anecdotal stories. One was from a very good source—a local Indigenous health service, in fact. They said that there are now providers literally trawling supermarkets in Logan and going through the train station, looking for obviously vulnerable people and trying to sign them up to the NDIS or trying to sign them up as part of their plan—absolutely disgraceful. Again anecdotally—this may not be as good a source as that first one—there are stories of providers offering cashbacks if you sign up to the NDIS. Unfortunately, it's believable. It's believable when you realise that some providers see a participant as a prize cow. Somebody with a million-dollar plan is treated as prize cattle.

That is, incidentally, a concept that fundamentally undermines choice and control, which is supposed to be at the heart of the NDIS. If your plan is seen as not profitable because of the supports they'll need to provide, you won't be able to get that provider. So what sort of choice and control is that, when you're not actually able to choose your provider because the provider doesn't see you as profitable enough?

The other thing I'd just say on fraud is that it is probably the central problem that the community has with the NDIS. This is the best example of where the opposition just completely took their hands off the wheel. This government is now reviewing more claims of fraud every single day than the previous government reviewed in a year. It is almost unbelievable that that is possible. It took investment; it took an investment in systems and it took an investment in people. Perhaps it was their ideological obsession with not employing public servants, outsourcing and trying to cut costs. We saw it in so many areas, whether it was 41,000 veterans waiting for their claims to be processed when we came to government, or whether it was robodebt and the heartache that was Centrelink. The NDIA also suffered that. I think that that is absolutely worth underlining. That's a stunning figure—that we review more claims every single day than the previous government reviewed in an entire year.

This party was responsible for the birth of the NDIS. Unfortunately, we weren't there while it turned into a delinquent teenager. But we're back. We're back now. At the heart of this government's approach is what the disability community says, which is 'nothing about us without us'. That is the approach that we are taking. We are working in lock step with the people from the disability community who this affects. I think that is the Labor way. It is unsurprising that it is only the Labor Party that is able to actually fix the NDIS and get it back on track. As I said, I'm pleased, despite the politicking that goes on, to know that the opposition in their hearts want to see it work, because I think the Australian community wants to see it work as well. But it's going to take a lot of effort, and it's going to take a lot of us working together to make it happen. This is not the beginning of the process to fix it, but it is an important step along the way. There is a lot more to be done. I commend this bill to the House.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The NDIS, National Disability Insurance Scheme, is one of Australia's most significant social reforms. While the significance of the NDIS means that we have to protect its ongoing financial sustainability, it's important that we in this place always remember that reforms must not come at the expense of participants rights, fairness, dignity or access and that all changes to the NDIS have to strengthen the scheme for the long term whilst keeping those who access it and whose lives depend upon it firmly at the centre of any changes to its design.

This bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2026, contains measures that respond to real and serious problems which confront the NDIS. Strengthening the powers of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to detect abuse, to prevent exploitation and to enforce accountability is important, and they're overdue measures. This bill also strengthens the framework to ensure fit-for-purpose penalties for offences, which should deter providers from doing the wrong thing and which should also ensure that unsuitable people can be excluded from providing services under the auspices of the NDIS.

NDIS participants have to be kept safe by our system, and providers who do the wrong thing must face consequences. This bill will help install some of those guardrails, but it's concerning that this bill also gives the chief executive officer of the NDIA the ability to vary a participant's plan, including increasing or decreasing the total funding amount available under both the old and new framework plans. This power can be exercised unless the act or the NDIS rules expressly provide otherwise, and it can be exercised without the need for a reassessment.

The explanatory memorandum for this bill states that this amendment codifies, for the absence of doubt, an existing practice within the agency. It is described as a clarification rather than a change in the substance of how the NDIA operates. The explanatory memorandum further claims that these changes do not 'impact on or change the circumstances in which the CEO can vary a participant's plan', but I have to note that for participants, for advocates and for Australians in the broader disability community this change feels consequential. Their very justifiable concern is not that plans can occasionally be adjusted since there are clearly circumstances in which increases to total funding amounts are essential.

The concern is that this amendment codifies the power to single-handedly reduce supports without a fresh assessment of participants and without the sorts of procedural safeguards that participants should reasonably be able to expect when their support funding is at stake. Advocates who participated in the Senate inquiry into this bill also expressed the reasonable concern that this provision could be used in ways which are actively harmful or could have unintended consequences, in particular, if and when participants are not involved or consulted on variations to their plan.

We have to remember that, for people whose independence and wellbeing rely on stability of support, a NDIS plan is not an abstract budget. It can be the difference between being able to live at home and not being able to live at home. It can be the difference between experiencing consistency and security of care and experiencing a personal crisis. Any power that allows support to vulnerable individuals to be altered in what appears to be a non-transparent fashion has to be accompanied by clear limits. I would argue that it has to actually be rendered transparent, and I would argue that it has to include an opportunity for participants to request review and appeal of those changes. Reforms that rely on discretion rather than explicit safeguards risk shifting the balance of power in any situation away from participants and towards administrative control. This is fundamentally inconsistent with the intent of the NDIS as a participant centred insurance scheme.

These concerns come into sharper focus when they're placed alongside the new I-CAN assessment tool. In the coming months, NDIS participants will begin to be assessed using a structured interview process conducted by NDIA appointed assessors using the instrument for the classification and assessment of support. The objectives of this reform are understandable. The current system places an unfair burden on participants to gather medical evidence for assessment that's time consuming and can be costly. It can really slow the process down. Both the independent review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme and my own personal professional experience of having worked within it for many years as a paediatric neurologist testify to the fact that the existing system evolves inefficient, duplicative and inconsistent evidence gathering which can, on some occasions, very much undermine the participant experience and can create an unusual and unreasonable workload for healthcare professionals who are trying to assist individuals in securing appropriate supports under the NDIS.

But, as University of New South Wales researchers have pointed out, the move to I-CAN raises some pretty important questions. For example, how will assessment results translate into budget decisions for participants? What additional evidence will be considered when medical reports are no longer required to inform the planning process? What will inform the planning process? How will consistent, transparent and fair decisions be applied by differing assessors over time? We've seen in the past that inconsistency has been a consistent bugbear for many individuals operating within the NDIS and that individuals with very similar support needs have on innumerable occasions received very different support packages.

The I-CAN should measure support needs across 12 areas of daily life, including mobility, self-care, communication, relationships and physical and mental health. Each of those areas is scored on two scales—how often support is needed and how intensive the level of support that is required is. However, reducing individual participants with sometimes extremely complex care needs, which can sometimes be multifactorial, to a single binomial score can present some significant complexities. The reality is that a score does not reflect a lived experience and that an assessment tool is only as fair as the system that we put in place to interpret it. If we put garbage in, we will get garbage out. We can't necessarily equitably and effectively reduce people with very complex medical and physical needs to binomial scores. We're already seeing this play out with the integrated assessment tool in the aged-care system. I know that I and many of my colleagues in this place are hearing from affected individuals within the aged-care system every day that that tool is not working for them. I think that we have reasonable grounds for concern that this similar tool may not work well within the disability space. I hope to be wrong on that, but I have some concerns regarding it.

When we combine this new tool with new statutory powers to reduce support without a new assessment, there has to be a risk, whether that is intentional or not, of a new system in which reassessment outcomes and administrative discretion interact in a way that could well disadvantage NDIS participants. And so I support the calls of People with Disability Australia for stronger protections, specifically their recommendations for plain language reasons for decision-making, that Administrative Review Tribunal review rights be required where plan variations reduce the total funding that recipients are receiving and that all recipients should be able to access independent advocacy when they need to contest such decisions. It's only fair. It's only reasonable. I urge the minister and the National Disability Insurance Agency to approach the implementation of these changes with the sort of care that, wherever practicable, will err on the side of participant protection.

NDIS reform which focuses support on functional needs, which builds strong foundational supports and which addresses waste and exploitation to preserve resources for those who rely on them is critically important. All of us in this place recognise that. As a former participant within the system and now someone who has from this place sought to improve it, I have been supportive of changes in that respect and of this nature in the past, but I've always been clear in my previous professional life and in this one that those reforms can't erode the rights of participants.

The independent NDIS review and the disability royal commission have both found and emphasised that trust in the scheme depends on its transparency, its fairness and its accountability. That means participants need and should and deserve to know when decisions can be changed, on what basis and how they can challenge such decisions. The NDIS only exists because Australia has made a collective commitment, a significant collective commitment, that people who are living with a disability will not be left to navigate fragmented or inadequate systems alone. That commitment will not end, should not end and cannot end simply because it's become too complicated or too costly to deliver on it.

The bill before the house contains measures which do strengthen the NDIS, but it also contains others that place significant weight, perhaps too much weight, on administrative discretion without sufficiently explicit safeguards. As these changes are implemented, the government has to continue to engage closely with all parts of the sector to ensure that these reforms do not affect participant dignity, fairness or access. Above all else, the people who access the NDIS have to remain at the centre of it. While we no doubt need stronger action against bad providers, that always has to come with stronger safeguards for participants.

Ali France (Dickson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I love the NDIS, and I love that Labor created it and that we will always work to make it better. The NDIS is dignity. It is opportunity and it is independence for people with a disability. It is the gateway to fulfilled, happy and productive lives, but it must deliver. It must shift the dial. It must be safe. It must be equitable. It must be sustainable. And people with a significant disability must be at the centre of the scheme. The public must have confidence in the scheme. Sadly, I think that confidence is wavering. The scheme's social licence is at risk. We took a huge step forward when we set up the NDIS in 2013. I became an amputee in 2011, a couple of years before the scheme was set up, and I experienced the world as a woman with a disability without the NDIS. I've since spoken to many people about the incredible change that it has made to their lives and my life.

When introducing the NDIS legislation, the then prime minister Julia Gillard broke down in tears. She said it was the greatest change to Australian social policy in a generation. But over a decade, under those opposite, the scheme was allowed to become unruly and unsafe, a mess. It is not delivering for the people who need it most. It became a rorter's paradise and a postcode lottery. I know this, providers know this and the general public know this. We are livid that the scheme, over nine years under the coalition, was allowed to disintegrate and become riddled by fraud, inequity and a complete lack of basic safeguards for participants. I know the majority of providers are good, and the needs of people with a disability are at the very heart of what they do. I know good providers want the rorters out too.

As soon as we came to government in 2022, we ordered a review of the NDIS, and what I heard was worse than I had ever anticipated. There were no basic fraud or compliance controls in the nine long years the coalition were running the NDIS. That's not my assessment; that's the assessment of the National Audit Office. Zero. The ANAO found a profound lack of compliance measures, which left participants and providers without the safeguards needed to ensure that funding was being used fairly and effectively to support those who rely on it the most. This bill is part of our commitment to fix that.

The NDIS stands as one of the most significant and transformative social reforms in Australia's history. It was built upon a simple but profoundly powerful promise that Australians living with significant disabilities should have access to the support they need to live with dignity, independence and opportunity to ensure that no-one is left behind because they have a disability. This promise remains as vital and non-negotiable today as it was at the scheme's inception.

Recent inquiries, including the NDIS review and the disability royal commission, made it clear that the system has not lived up to that promise. We saw evidence of abuse, neglect, fraud, inequity and a complete lack of basic safeguards. It is well known that people with a disability in Australia are significantly more likely to be subjected to violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. That is why these changes are so very, very important. We need more safeguards, more checks, more accountability to protect people with a disability from harm.

When we came to government, we took action to protect the NDIS, investing over $550 million in tackling fraud and noncompliance. This included the establishment of the Fraud Fusion Taskforce and amendments to the NDIS Act. This bill continues our commitment to strengthen and protect the NDIS. It strengthens the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission's regulatory powers and it introduces a stronger penalty framework to reflect the seriousness of the offending conduct and ensure that there are credible deterrents for breaches of the NDIS Act.

The Senate community affairs committee received over 50 submissions on the NDIS commission measures and undertook a public hearing and targeted engagements with peak bodies and those with a disability. The NDIS commission also undertook extensive consultation to inform the development of reforms to address systemic issues of noncompliance and harm.

This bill will also allow for banning orders to be issued to auditors and consultants, giving the NDIS commission the power to restrict unscrupulous providers from promoting products or services that undermine the integrity of the NDIS. We know that the vast majority of NDIS providers do the right thing and provide quality services, but this is about ensuring an integrated system where compliance is straightforward and noncompliance is detected and penalties enforced—one where those that see the NDIS as a get-rich-quick scheme, rather than a disability support scheme, will be restricted, banned and penalised.

For too long, the penalties for wrongdoing within the NDIS have failed to reflect the seriousness of the harm caused. Weak deterrents have allowed a culture of business as usual, even in the face of substandard care or fraud. By modernising and expanding the penalties and offences framework, this bill ensures that the punishment fits the crime. It sends a clear message that exploitation and unsafe practices will no longer be tolerated. Participants deserve a system that actively protects them, and taxpayers deserve confidence that public funds are being used responsibly. These reforms also significantly strengthen the commissioner's ability to impose banning orders. This shift moves the regulator from a reactive stance to a preventive one, stopping harm before it occurs.

Effective regulation also depends on timely access to information. In the past, investigations have been hindered by delays in obtaining essential documentation, allowing wrongdoing to remain hidden for too long. This bill strengthens the commission's powers to inquire and to require information within shorter, more appropriate timeframes. The capacity for swifter action is essential for a regulator that must be proactive and assertive in an evolving market.

The bill also introduces new safeguards for participants who choose to withdraw from the scheme. Leaving the NDIS is a significant life event, and participants must be supported but also protected throughout that transition.

At the same time, the bill authorises the NDIA to move towards a fully electronic claiming system. This modernisation reduces the administrative burden, minimises the risk of error and closes loopholes that have too often been exploited. It is a practical step that strengthens both participant experience and integrity.

These reforms directly address the recommendations of the NDIS review, which called for a more proactive and effective regulatory approach. The commission must be able to regulate the market, not simply react to it, and this bill removes the structural barriers that have historically limited enforcement. It gives the regulator the tools it needs to detect, prevent and respond to breaches with far greater powers and precision.

These changes also support legitimate high-quality providers—ethical operators; those who put participants first—of which there are so many. I meet with so many good, caring providers, and they are just as keen to clean up the system as we are.

A fair and transparent regulatory environment strengthens the reputation of the entire sector. Above all, this bill is about trust. Participants and their families place enormous trust in the NDIS. They trust that the people entering their homes are safe. They trust that the services being invoiced are being delivered. And they trust that, when things go wrong, the government will act. The public have also placed their trust in us to provide proper oversight and systems to ensure taxpayer funds are spent appropriately. This bill honours that trust. It is a necessary step towards a safer, fairer and more sustainable NDIS, one that protects participants, respects taxpayer money and ensures the scheme remains for generations to come.

The 2022 NDIS review was a road map for change—for difficult, hard change. We are on that road, and we are determined to get it done. We must admit that the current system is not equitable, fair or safe. We must admit that the NDIS is not working for everybody. If we want the NDIS system to be the system it was intended to be, to truly provide security and dignity for people with a disability, the NDIS needs the structural change proposed in this bill.

I say to people with a disability and their families: we have your back. We know change is frightening for participants and providers. It's particularly scary for those who rely on the NDIS every single day, to have a shower; to eat fresh, healthy food; to get out into the community; to go to work; to be part of what it means to be human; and to get out into the environment. I say to people with a disability and their families: we will walk with you, and we are listening. We are committed to ensuring the NDIS delivers essential supports to Australians with significant and permanent disability, not just today but for generations to come.

I am incredibly proud to be a member of the Labor Party—the party that introduced this incredible scheme that has transformed the lives of people with a disability and their families right across the country. Our responsibility is to build and to reform the NDIS to ensure that it is fair, consistent and empowering and to make changes that place people with a disability back at its heart. This is about doing what is right—honouring the trust placed in us and ensuring the NDIS continues to provide dignity, opportunity and security for all of those who rely on it. I commend this bill to the House.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill because I fundamentally believe it is overdue and insufficient. It is part of the solution that we need for the deep corruption that has been allowed to permeate the National Disability Insurance Scheme and, of course, the fraud that has occurred where money has been taken from some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in the community. It has been allowed to become a honeypot for organised crime fraudsters and people who seek to do ill will against the Australian taxpayer. I think it's incredibly important that integrity measures are introduced, as this bill seeks to do, but I think it is also insufficient when you look at the scale of the fraud and corruption that has been allowed to permeate under this government.

I hope and pray that they arrest it properly, because we have a fundamental design problem around how the NDIS operates in detecting issues of fraud and corruption. This is seen very clearly where there's a centralised agency providing significant amounts of public resources that are in theory designed to assist people with a disability. I have someone in my family who's an NDIS recipient. I doubt there isn't a member of parliament here who doesn't have at least part of their extended family in a like set of circumstances. The question is: are they the people who are utilising the NDIS for their capacity to live out a dignified life, or has it become the honeypot for people who see a way to suck at the taxpayer's teat but not deliver any return, value or outcome for the Australian people? Unfortunately, too many people in Australia now think of the NDIS as the honeypot for corruption. It's actually seen very much as the benchmark of how not to design a program if the objective is to help the people it's designed to serve and be fiscally prudent.

I often refer to this, and I have referred to this previously in this place. I won't mention the person by name to respect their privacy. An NDIS recipient, who I regularly see at a train station in Melbourne—I saw her only the other day in the Goldstein electorate—has been one of the most ferocious critics of how the NDIS has operated. As she correctly points out, in the situation that there is a long-term viability problem of the NDIS, someone such as herself, who is a recipient of the NDIS—she's in a situation where there is kind of a change of circumstances—and has Down syndrome, will become the target or live the consequences of any reduction in spending. Meanwhile you have the people who are clearly rorting the system, they are clearly abusing public money, they are clearly abusing public trust, they are clearly also abusing, in many cases, some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. These people have essentially been given free will under this government. It must stop. This is not enough. This bill is a step in the right direction, I'm not arguing against that, but it is not enough.

People with disability are living with the anxiety of the sustainability of the scheme because fraudsters, people who are corrupt, people who seek to steal from the most vulnerable in the community are getting away with that with essentially no real accountability on a scale that is warranted and deserved. When you particularly talk about the scale of the dollar value, the NDIA have put forward projections that up to $5 billion of the $50 billion, or thereabouts, NDIS program is going towards fraud and corruption. When the NDIA say in Senate estimates that the legal system would 'literally be clogged forever' if every single person who was defrauding the program was pursued then we've got a design problem, and I don't think that should shock anybody.

The question then becomes, what do we do about it? This bill is a part response to that. We have penalties for not providing documentation on time. Okay, well, that's providing false or misleading information or disclosure. Yes, all those sorts of things are important and they're considered now, under the bill, a 'serious contravention', a 'significant failure' and a 'systemic pattern of conduct'. The bill supports higher criminal penalties in these cases and increases the maximum penalty to figures in the vicinity of $82,500 to $3 million. But, at the end of the day, it comes down to what is the incentive in place for people to actively support the end of this corruption.

We all have an active incentive to end this corruption, because it is Australian taxpayers' money that is being defrauded, Australian taxpayers' money that is going towards corrupt activities and it is hitting some of society's most vulnerable. So we all have an interest in doing something. The problem is one of distributed information. Of course the central authorities, as is always the case with centralised government programs, they think they know all and they can solve all problems if they just seek to investigate it. But, instead, it is people on the ground, and this is where I want to give huge credit to Drew Pavlou and Pete Zogoulas, who are going out there and chasing down people who are very suspect in their NDIS activities. These two, on their social media, are looking specifically at where money is being spent, the seemingly endless number of NDIS providers located in specific communities—often multiple businesses in the same location—billing millions of dollars to the Australian taxpayer, but it's not really clear what these businesses are actually providing the Australian community.

Of course everybody has a right to innocence until proven guilty, but that doesn't change the fact that we need people out there specifically looking at where this fraud and corruption is occurring and to stand up for the Australian taxpayer. By looking at the scale of these businesses located in individual locations that often have no real clear idea of what they are providing but billing the Australian taxpayer for millions of dollars, Drew and Pete are doing a good community service. I hope that the NDIA and the NDIS are paying attention to what those two are doing, because I doubt they have scratched the surface of the scale of the fraud and corruption in the NDIS system. I just wish more people were doing that. As the previous speaker said, we want people with a disability to be able to live bold and confident lives. We want them to be able to live their lives with dignity and choice to the extent that they can do so. That is what the NDIS was designed to achieve—to enable the next generation of Australians to live a more dignified experience than those often in the past.

But one of the biggest problems when you design these grand centralised systems is that, once you design them, they seemingly work well, at least in terms of the discussion in this parliament and in the documents designed by policymakers. But it's how they're utilised by people on the ground, legitimately or otherwise, that makes the material difference to whether Australians continue to have confidence they're respecting people and they're seeking to empower people to live out their best lives. We've seen this in the context of NDIS. We've seen similar and parallel examples where people in Canberra think they can design programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. And of course we see them across many programs in the disability sector, where the organic development of services designed to support often the most vulnerable in the community have slowly had their capacity corroded because the system has said they no longer fit within how it is run.

One of the great community services in the Goldstein electorate is Bailey House. Bailey House is, I think, coming up to its 75th year this year, or is in its 75th year this year. It is a great community organisation supporting people with a disability, in particular residents of nearby suburbs with Down syndrome. I've always been a big supporter of Bailey House. It's an amazing community organisation full of people doing incredible work. They're a support service that existed before the NDIS. One of the biggest problems that they've had is that the NDIS has not been well designed to accommodate and meet the needs of centres like theirs because it doesn't reflect the design, support and cost structures that operate there. So they go out and fundraise, of course, as many disability and other community organisations do.

But there's an organisation that the NDIS should be working to empower, frankly, for efficiency, for scale, for service delivery, for better outcomes for people with a disability, for integrity measures. Just about every single thing Bailey House does fulfills an important gap around ownership or control of public money. To be custodians for people with disability to live better lives, Bailey House fulfils that purpose, just like their program Bailey arts fulfils that purpose. I'll never stop speaking highly of them because of the important role they play within the community. They bring others in from the community to support people with a disability. The NDIS should be seeking to empower and to support clients to be able to live out their best lives with the community services that they need.

But, instead, the NDIS has been allowed to become a honeypot for fraudsters and the corrupt to take advantage of the Australian taxpayer and, of course, people with a disability. The design failure right from the outset has caused huge losses of public money. I see one of the Labor members, who I assume is supporting this bill, smugly replying and dismissing such a comment. The government is literally introducing integrity and safeguard measures to address the design limitations and problems of the scheme that has led to—in the former minister for disability's own words—organised crime taking advantage of the Australian taxpayer and people with a disability. I don't think that's something that should be smugly dismissed. I think it should be acknowledged, fixed as quickly as possible.

The only criticism I have is that this bill does not go far enough. It probably gives a sad reflection on why so many Labor members just shrug with indifference when we talk about $15 billion of money going to organised crime through the CFMEU-Labor cartel. According to them, it is public money and, hey, we can just smugly dismiss the realities of what the Labor government seeks to empower. I think there's a time where we have to acknowledge that the government has got something wrong. The government is turning around before the next federal budget saying to Australians who have worked hard, saved and sacrificed to get themselves and their families ahead, 'We're going to add extra taxes on you, but we're not going to do anything about handing public money from the Treasury to organise crime through the CFMEU-Labor cartel.' I actually think there's something really sick and perverse about that. The tepid measures, by comparison, that the government is seeking to enact with this bill on NDIS fraud and NDIS corruption don't surprise me. But it does disappoint me that Labor members would smugly dismiss such a measure when we're talking about some of the most vulnerable people in the community being taken advantage of. Those members need to reflect on the fact that it is public money that is being used for corrupt and fraudulent purposes. More importantly, within five weeks we all know we're going to come into the parliament and they're going to propose that, while they're indifferent to doing anything about public money going to organised crime, corruption and fraud, they have no hesitation in turning around and adding new taxes onto Australians to fund that organised crime, corruption and fraud.

So I think it is so important that we support these basic measures, but I do not think they're the end. Until the government start to take organised crime, corruption and fraud of public programs seriously, and they are not, that they can turn around to the Australian taxpayer and expect people to even pay their current bills let alone ask them to pay bigger bills for new taxes because they have no fiscal constraint and no preparedness to address fiscal program design and to raid the future opportunities and aspirations of Australians to feed the undeserving—being organised crime, corruption and fraud—I think is just frankly incredible. But welcome to the Albanese government, because, when it comes down to it, in a choice between standing up for Australian taxpayers and handing money to organised crime, we know who they'll support.

Trish Cook (Bullwinkel, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The NDIS is a national program that funds care and support for people under 65 years of age with permanent and significant disabilities. I rise today to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2026. In my electorate of Bullwinkel, from the hills of Mundaring to the heart of the western wheatbelt towns and the foothill communities, I see firsthand the transformative power of the NDIS. Australians are rightly proud of this scheme. It is a world-leading, life-changing pillar of our social fabric. For the families that I meet in my electorate, the NDIS isn't just about policy; it's the difference between isolation and community, between a life of limitation and a life of independence. The NDIS is a life-changing scheme and, today, it helps more than 750,000 Australians live better and more dignified lives. It was Labor who created the NDIS, and let there be no doubt that under Labor it is here to stay.

As a registered nurse and midwife myself, I've spent my career caring for people when they are at their most vulnerable. I know that healthcare and disability supports are built on a foundation of trust. Because we value this scheme so deeply, we all have a collective responsibility to protect it. We must ensure that it is sustainable, effective and safe. Most importantly, we must ensure that it operates with absolute integrity and that every cent goes towards the care that our community deserves.

When this government came into power in 2020, we unfortunately inherited a system that was not ready to meet the challenges of the future. We inherited a mess. Under the previous coalition government, NDIS spending was growing at a staggering 22 per cent every single year. It wasn't just the trajectory of the cost; it was the total lack of oversight of the system. The Australian National Audit Office confirmed what many in our local community have felt. The system set up by the previous government lacked basic prevention controls for fraud and noncompliance. It was a set-and-forget approach. They left the doors unlocked and the windows open and then expressed shock when the system was exploited. In a regional and suburban electorate like Bullwinkel, we know the value of a dollar, and we know that waste in Canberra means fewer services in local homes.

Further to this, under the previous coalition government there were fewer than 30 staff who worked on NDIS fraud. Under our government, there are hundreds of staff. Under the previous government, there were only 30 warrants issued over the four year period of 2018 to 2021. Under this government, there have been 77 warrants executed in 2025. Under the previous government, there were five prosecutions in their last year in office. Under this government, 21 prosecutions have commenced already this financial year. We are making progress against those who prey on people with disabilities and the NDIS.

Our government is acting. We recognise that every dollar lost to a fraudster is a dollar stolen from a person with a disability. Since 2022, we have invested over $550 million to specifically tackle fraud and noncompliance. We established the Fraud Fusion Taskforce, bringing together law enforcement and intelligence to hunt down those who think NDIS is their personal ATM, and the results are clear. We have amended the NDIS act to tighten loopholes. We have scaled up our oversight to an unprecedented level. Today, more claims are made every single day than were reviewed in an entire year under the previous government.

We must be blunt and speak about the stakes. Where we see financial fraud, we too often see violence, abuse and neglect. When an unscrupulous provider views the NDIS as a get-rich-quick scheme rather than a support system, the safety of the participant can become an afterthought. I know that, when the system fails, it is the individual who suffers. We refuse to accept a status quo where the vulnerable are treated as commodities. We are cleaning up this sector to protect the wellbeing of every Australian person with a disability.

Let's deal with some facts. As I've previously mentioned, fact one is that we are finally getting the NDIS growth under control. Under the Liberals it was 22 per cent and spinning way out of control. Under our government, that's been brought down to 10 per cent. The NDIS Scheme Actuary projected that without Labor's intervention the scheme expenses would have increased by a staggering $45 billion over the next 10 years and by acting now we are saving the scheme from collapse. We are cleaning up the mess left by the coalition and cracking down on those people committing NDIS fraud.

Combating overall growth does not mean cutting plans. In Bullwinkel, I hear the anxiety of families who fear that their support will be ripped away. But let's be clear: overall plans are not being cut. The average value of plans is going up. While growth is moderating, the data shows that reassessed plans are actually more likely to increase than decrease. Last year, 58 per cent of reassessed plans increased by more than five per cent. Only 23 per cent saw a decrease. We're ensuring that the moderation of the scheme is achieved through efficiency and integrity, not by depriving participants of the support that they need to live their lives.

The bill before the House today introduces commonsense measures that are ready to go. It strengthens the NDIS commission's ability to act. That means stronger penalties by introducing a tougher penalty framework for breaches of registration, banning orders and the code of conduct. It means expanding banning orders so that banning orders can now be issued to auditors and consultants, closing the gap where middlemen could facilitate non-compliance from the shadows. There is the antipromotion orders measure. This gives the commission the power to stop unscrupulous providers from promoting products or services that are actively undermining the integrity of the NDIS.

The vast majority of NDIS providers in Bullwinkel and across Australia are fantastic. They are local small businesses, often health professionals, and not-for-profits who are doing the right thing every single day. They care for our neighbours, our friends and our families. Our goal is to create a system where compliance is easy and noncompliance is hard. We want our local honest providers to spend less time on paperwork and more time on care, while building a high-tensile steel wall against the crooks.

We know there is a lot more to do, and this bill is a major step. We will continue to work closely with the disability community to ensure that these protections remain robust. The NDIS is too important to fail. We cannot allow it to be drained by those who see it as an easy mark. I care for my community in Bullwinkel, and we care for one another, and this bill is about the same principle: protecting a scheme that belongs to all of us. It's about telling the scammers that the party is over and telling people with a disability that their future is secure. I commend the bill to the House.

Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the very few minutes that I've got before we proceed to adjournment tonight, I'll begin some comments regarding this bill, but I'll conclude those tomorrow morning. Obviously, the coalition will be supporting the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2026. We've proposed an amendment, moved by my colleague the member for Lindsay earlier this evening.

I'll start by making some comments in relation to the importance of the NDIS as a national institution. I've recently taken on responsibility as shadow assistant minister for the NDIS and disabilities. It was a role that I put my hand up for, and I asked our new leader to allow me to take on that responsibility, because I see it as such a critical reform and as something that we have to get right. It is one of those complex policy Rubik's cubes that we deal with in this building, and in this city, that have such a massive impact across every community that's represented in this chamber. So many people who have been on the sidelines of our society have been able to fully enjoy the full benefits of this scheme. It has been an absolute game changer for so many across our communities.

Unfortunately, we're now reaching a point where it simply cannot be sustained on the current footing. The rate of growth, as the previous speaker said, is up at 10.3 per cent according to the last quarterly update. I admit that, in the course of the previous coalition government, while the scheme was growing and reaching maturity—we were adding people, fresh in, who had spent many decades without these levels of support. The growth was a lot higher as we got things going. But, now, 10.3 per cent on a very mature scheme is way too high. Unfortunately, what we've seen from this government is a target of eight per cent. They're not meeting that. We're now seeing the National Cabinet saying, 'We're going to try to get it to five or six per cent.' We're well and truly over that. We have got a significant challenge in trying to get that number down to the government's goal.

What concerns us on this side of the chamber is what we are reading in the press. I've got a media alert for the term 'NDIS'. I can see multiple media reports every day—and I'm sure that will grow as we head towards the budget—where the assumption seems to be that the growth projections for the NDIS within the budget will match the government's target. That's great. That's wonderful except they're not meeting the target. They're nowhere near. They're growing at double the rate of the target. We can pretend that we're going to somehow magically find ourselves at a point where we are achieving the government's target, or we can get real about what we are actually going to do to try to ensure we do get there.

Unfortunately—and I spoke on this in the Federation Chamber yesterday, and I'm sure every MP in this place would be experiencing the same amount of casework that I am—about 80 per cent of the correspondence that I receive in my office is now NDIS casework, and primarily from people who have had their plans cut. I heard, from the previous speaker, 'Well, if you consider it in the totality, if you consider the average plan'—no. For the constituents who contact my office who have had their plans cut, sometimes significantly—

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Member for Bowman. You'll get time to continue your remarks.

Debate interrupted.