Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025. The coalition will be supporting this legislation while also flagging important amendments we will be moving and registering significant concerns about how far this bill falls short of what is truly needed.

The NDIS currently supports more than 760,000 Australians with disability, including our 65,000 participants in my home state of South Australia. Given the scale of the scheme and the public investment involved, it is essential that parliament continues to carefully scrutinise its performance to ensure it is operating effectively, remains sustainable and delivers safe, effective and appropriate services for participants.

The coalition reaffirms our strong and unequivocal bipartisan support for the NDIS and the role the scheme plays in enabling Australians with significant and permanent disability to live with greater control and choice. This legislation is the second in a series of changes the government has made in response to the 2023 independent review into the NDIS and the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. One of the most significant, welcome measures in this bill is the introduction of antipromotion orders giving the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission new powers to address providers who advertise or sell products that are clearly inconsistent with the purpose of this scheme.

We must be clear eyed about what this bill does not do. These changes provide no direct regulation of fraud controls for the 94 per cent of NDIS providers who are unregistered, and that's not a minor gap. In my office and those of colleagues, we receive a steady stream of reports from NDIS participants who have sought quotes for basic supports like gardening, cleaning and household assistance only to find that the moment they mention 'NDIS' the price quadruples. This bill does not fix that.

The ANAO has reported that the NDIA estimates that between six per cent and 10 per cent of claim outliers could be non-compliant, fraudulent or incorrect. Law enforcement agencies have warned that organised crime is increasingly targeting the scheme, exploiting fragmented oversight. This is not a peripheral concern; this is an existential threat to the NDIS if it is not confronted directly and decisively by this government. The government cannot claim to be protecting the NDIS while billions of taxpayers' dollars are potentially leaking through fraud and exploitation. Before Labor cuts support to participants, it should start by cutting fraud.

The coalition supports the introduction of a 90-day cooling-off period for participants who wish to withdraw from the scheme. As it is currently drafted, a participant's correspondence nominee—a person appointed simply to receive copies of correspondence—would be able to make or cancel a request to withdraw from the scheme on behalf of the participant. That's inconsistent with section 79(1)(a) of the act, which makes clear that a correspondence nominee cannot act in relation to the preparation, review or replacement of a participant's plan.

The coalition will be moving an amendment to ensure that only the individual participant or their plan nominee can make or withdraw a request to exit the scheme. That's really important. It's about choice and control by the participant or their nominee—no-one else. It's critical. We urge the government to support this amendment. It is straightforward in its fix to an unintended consequence that, if left uncorrected, could expose some of our most vulnerable participants to significant risk.

The broader picture is that the NDIS is at a crossroads. The scheme has grown rapidly. Originally expected to support around 41,000 Australians, it now supports more than 760,000 participants. While it's true that this bill is a step in the right direction, the government must not make the mistake of thinking it is a step for a destination. The destination has not been reached by this bill.

I move the second reading amendment in the coalition's name:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that:

(a) 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);

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

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

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

(e) 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

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