Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

It is not working, Senator Rennick. You've ripped billions of dollars out of the NDIS. You've failed to address the exodus by the executive of the National Disability Insurance Agency. You have now been without a CEO there since April—over a hundred days. You haven't even bothered to replace the CEO there. That's just a disgrace.

But what you are doing, and what your side seems particularly intent on doing, is propping up the budget. And how are you doing that? You're doing that by underspending on the NDIS, while people living with a disability are missing out. They're missing out on care and support that is so important to their everyday living. Your government could take much more action on making sure that people get to live with dignity. And what do you do? You go along and cap the staffing levels. What does that do? Let's think about it. You cap the staffing levels, people go to their specialist and their doctors, they get told what their needs are, they get support for it, and they go along, but there are no staff there to deal with the issues. People are on waiting lists that are months long even to get their plans looked at. It's a disgrace.

I'll tell you what: for somebody with a person in their family who lives with a disability every day, this is exceptionally close to my heart. You would not believe how close to my heart this is. And when I hear stories and have constituents come to me and tell me that they've been denied something by the NDIS that will make their life just that little bit easier, and they're denied it even though their GP, their medical specialist and their carers have asked for it, I think you guys should hang your heads in shame. It is an absolute disgrace. And I have seen that so many times you would not believe it.

Senator Scarr said, 'People should go and talk to their members and senators.' Well, you know what? The system should work better than that. People should not have to—