Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Before getting to the substance of the document itself, I want to acknowledge that today is the International Day of People with Disability. It is the 27th year that this incredible day has been celebrated—this year, with the theme of promoting the leadership of disabled people. And what incredible leadership we have shown this year as a community. Across the nation people came together, from all parts of our country and our community, to send a very clear message to the major parties in this place that we urgently needed to establish the royal commission into the violence, abuse and neglect of disabled people, coming on the back of nearly a decade of systemic advocacy around this issue. It is the latest success in 27 years worth of struggle and progress around the rights of disabled people. Across those 27 years disabled Australians have claimed for ourselves the tools of our liberation from the discrimination that we face, the tools with which we have begun to tear down the barriers that we face in our communities and elsewhere.

We campaigned tooth and nail for the establishment of the NDIS. There is many a party and many a person in this place and in others who gladly claim credit for the creation of the NDIS. But its origin—the reason that it exists—is the tireless advocacy of disabled people to bring into being a system which supported the rights of disabled people to live life on our terms, in line with human rights, in which we are able to define our presence and chart our future.

There are many problems with the NDIS. There are many problems with the royal commission. There are many problems still to address in our society overall. There is much, much work to be done. And so much of that work must urgently be led by disabled people. It must place our rights at the centre. There is so much listening and learning that urgently needs to be done by non-disabled folks. But today I celebrate and am proud that the disability community have brought this country to the cusp of a cultural revolution that will see places and spaces, culture, communication, art, industry and everything in-between remade and reborn fully accessible, fully inclusive, and open and welcoming to all.

The NDIS is such a critical part of that cultural change. It has been the victim of shocking ignorance on behalf of this government. There has been many a mistake made by all sides of politics when it comes to the successful implementation of the scheme. What we heard in this inquiry and what we have heard so many times before is that people feel as though they have to fight a system that was brought into being to support them. They feel like they have to justify themselves and navigate a system set up to see them fail. What we have laid down really clearly in this report are recommendations that will go to improving the heart of the NDIS process—the planning process.

These are simple recommendations calling for things like the ability of participants to see their plan before it is signed off. No member of this place would buy so much as a garden shed without being able to see what it was they were buying before they bought it. Yet this scheme often expects disabled people to sign off on their plans and have them put into force before they have been able to see a proper draft. It is the essence of ridiculousness. The NDIS was not set up to be a giant, mutated Centrelink. It was set up to be an insurance scheme which promoted the human rights of people, which gave participants the ability to live life on their terms. It was set up to end decade upon decade of a faulty funding system which pitted disabled person against disabled person for ever-dwindling resources. It was set up to create processes that support the rights of disabled people, not processes that you have to fight. Yet this is where disabled people are in 2019—still having to fight the system far too often.

The solutions offered in this report, so clearly elucidated, are drawn from the very clear evidence given by disabled people, their advocates, their organisations, their families. The government should study them in detail, for they provide a road map to fixing so many of the issues that we see in the scheme today. If we are going to tackle the challenges that exist within the NDIS or the challenges that confront disabled people in any other space, part of the process is for non-disabled folks to realised that they have got to sit down with us and listen—leave their privilege at the door, leave their sanctimony at the door and leave their preconceived ideas at the door, and listen and be guided by what disabled people say.