Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

This progress report from the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme provides an update on the progress being made in the nationwide rollout. The reports seeks to highlight concerns raised with the committee, and those concerns are particularly highlighted in chapter 3. I will say at the outset that I concur with many of the statements that Senator Siewert made in her contribution, but I also would like to say that many people have had very good packages with the NDIS. Having said that, there are also people who have had concerns and whose package hasn't delivered what they thought it would deliver. This is an issue not just for participants but also for providers, and it is also a concern raised by unions that represent the workforce within the disability sector.

I want to go through some of the concerns that have been raised. They are considerable concerns but they are also concerns that should be able to be rectified. As has already been stated, we urge the NDIA to take note of the recommendations in this report. There are five recommendations. They are very simple recommendations that really shouldn't need to have been made because the actions recommended should already have been happening. I'm sure each and every one of us in the chamber has spoken to constituents who have been trying to access or become participants of the NDIS. There have been concerns regarding access to the scheme and, of course, we are behind in terms of the number of participants waiting for access. We have particular concern for participants in the planning process and also for those participants who have families and carers who also wish to be involved. This issue has come up time and time again. Participants, families and carers have raised their dissatisfaction with plans and how they are being developed. There is an issue about plans being developed over the phone. That issue has come up time and time again, and another issue that has come up is the skill and competence of planners, the inconsistency of planning decisions and the delay to plans and plan reviews.

I'm just going to touch on a couple of those concerns in more detail. We are being told that someone is given a call, they talk about the plan over the phone, and if that participant has a carer or a family member who wants to help them that carer is not necessarily involved in the conversation. A plan is then developed and that's it. The plan does not go back to the participant for further review—it is finalised and then activated. Obviously that process is always going to run into trouble. That is not a process that bodes well for successful plans. Carers have told me time and time again that they are shut out of the planning process. On many occasions they have not been told that they are entitled to be part of the planning process. Indeed, they are entitled to give carer statements, and that has not been happening. We've also had issues with the portal. Most of those issues seem to have been rectified, but we are still being told about portal issues. It is not only the participants. Providers will tell you themselves that they have those issues, particularly in terms of payments for services that are directly required from the NDIS.

So, what I hope we will achieve from this progress report is that the NDIA will look at the five recommendations we have put to them and will act on them. My understanding is that there has been an announcement that planning by phone will not be taking place in future. I hope that is the case. I understand that the assistant minister said it would no longer be happening. But if that is not the case and it continues to happen, the concerns that have been raised within this report will continue to come up. People will continue to be frustrated about what they receive in their plan and the process they need to go through, because the NDIS is a transformational system. For some people, it has been life changing. But we have to make sure that is the case for everyone who is a participant in the NDIS. It has to be ensured that when these concerns are raised the government and the NDIA act quickly to rectify the issues, because these are not isolated instances; these are concerns that have been raised by many, many people. As I said, I'm sure every senator in this chamber will be well aware of the concerns people have, because they're out there talking to their constituencies, getting the emails and the phone calls.

So, I would recommend that senators read this report. I think the progress report is a good one. It also highlights the work of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS and the further reviews that are currently underway and that will be reported on to the Senate and the House of Representatives in the future. I commend the report to the chamber and thank the NDIS committee for the work they've put into producing this report.