Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australians are rightly proud of the life-changing support the NDIS provides to people with a disability. It is vital that we protect it for the long term by making sure the NDIS is sustainable, is effective, is safe and, most importantly, operates with integrity.

We know that the NDIS wasn't just drifting under the Liberal Party; it was being driven into the ground. The coalition left Labor with a mess—a mess that we must clean up brick by brick. When Labor came to office in 2022, spending on the National Disability Insurance Scheme was growing by 22 per cent a year. The ANAO found that the system set up by the previous government lacked basic prevention controls for fraud and compliance. So it is this government that is restoring integrity to the scheme.

We are cracking down on fraudulent behaviour and dodgy providers. We know that every single dollar that is taken away from a participant by fraud is a dollar they are denied in the care and services they so deeply and desperately need. That is why our government has acted quickly, investing over $550 million in tackling fraud and noncompliance, including setting up the Fraud Fusion Taskforce and amending the NDIS Act. Now more claims are being reviewed every single day than were reviewed in a year under the previous government. That's more scrutiny and more integrity under this government.

Under the coalition, the NDIA required no substantiation for any claim. Under this government, we have the capability to screen every single claim for basic levels of compliance. To go to some of that compliance, let's talk about the warrants. Under the coalition, 30 warrants were issued across four years from 2018 to 2021. Under this government, 77 warrants were executed in just 2025 alone. That is more than double the number of warrants under this government, showing the level of integrity, compliance and cracking down on dodgy behaviour that we are tackling.

Under the coalition, the then CEO of the ACIC, Michael Phelan, said leakage could be as high as 15-to-20 per cent. Under this government in 2024, when he was head of the NDIS commission, he said that the estimate was conservative, but that was 2022, not now. Now, of course, the government has put in place a lot of mitigation strategies.

Unfortunately, where we see fraud in the system, we too often see violence, abuse and neglect of participants. We as a government are determined to clean up the sector and protect people with a disability. This bill will introduce: a stronger penalty framework for breaches, including failures to comply with registration conditions; banning orders; and a code of conduct. It will mean that banning orders can be issued to auditors and consultants. It will give the NDIS commission the power to issue anti-promotion orders, to restrict unscrupulous providers from promoting products or services that undermine the integrity of the NDIS. These are commonsense measures, and they are ready to go.

We know that there is still more work to be done. As a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS, I know the minister has referred to our committee an inquiry into fraud to recommend future measures. This is something that I know the committee is already looking at in public hearings around the country, to hear from participants firsthand about their experience, to make sure that we can continue to increase integrity, to crack down on fraud and to increase compliance. Our goal over time is to create an integrated system where compliance is easy and noncompliance is hard, because it's what participants deserve, and it's what they'll get from us.