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

():  Thank you for bringing this motion to the chamber, Senator Steele-John. I sat with you for two of the three days, where we heard people talk about some of the flaws in this legislation, and it clearly should not have come into this place in the shape that it is in right now. In two days of inquiries, of the three, I heard really sad testimony from people who are worried and concerned, bringing very valid examples of why this legislation needs a rethink. It's so bad that they don't trust the government to get this right. They want to see the detail, they want to know how it's going to impact them and they also want a say in exactly what is planned.

You're right to say that it was completely friendless. Like you, I didn't hear many witnesses at all saying they would pass it in its current form; I heard them encouraging senators in this place to not pass it. Those watching the hearing would be left in no doubt that participants in the scheme want the scheme to be sustainable. They want the support to go to those people who need it most. I was asked on the weekend by someone, 'Who's going to be courageous enough to make the changes to the scheme that mean that it's sustainable?' I said, 'If you listened, like I did, to the testimony, the people who want this scheme to be successful, who want it to be sustainable and who want it to work are the families and the participants of the scheme itself and the people that provide the services to them.'

What was missing from the commentary and the evidence was a commitment to go after the obvious fraud. I think over a couple of days of the hearing I saw some items in local papers about significant charges being laid against people for NDIS fraud. Where there is NDIS fraud, the people impacted are the taxpayers, the participants themselves and the providers. Most providers are doing the right thing. They care about the participants they work with. They want them to live the best lives they can. But there are providers that are doing the wrong thing. We heard, in the inquiry into the integrity of the NDIS, from the Australian Federal Police, from the tax office and from other agencies whose job it is to detect fraud of organised crime and of people who are deliberately targeting vulnerable people to exploit them. I certainly haven't seen enough in this legislation to give me confidence that it will have a great effect.

The government's own modelling shows they want to remove 241,000 people from the NDIS by 2031, but they couldn't tell us who they are or where they are from. It's just an arbitrary number. We asked if it's in regional and remote areas, where there are currently thin markets, but we didn't get an answer to that question.

Let me give you an example that I became aware of. I wrote to Senator McAllister and to Minister Mark Butler about a devastating impact of recent changes to the NDIS related specifically to health impacts for residents living with Machado-Joseph disease on Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory. As part of consultation for the NDIS annual pricing review, the Australian Physiotherapy Association told of the devastating impact those changes will have on service provision for those people. They said services in that area are already limited and now they can't provide services at all. Checking that, I spoke to the community itself, and they said they understand they live in a remote area and they live in thin markets but this is having a significant impact on them. I haven't yet got a response to that letter.

Groote Eylandt has the highest known prevalence of MJD per capita globally, which causes progressive loss of mobility, speech and independence. They can't wait for bureaucracy to find the answers. We heard from participants and their families over and over again that there is a void in information about these changes. Imagine what it's like for those people in thin markets, where they're relying on people they've built a strong relationship with to provide services. I asked that the ministers give urgent attention to that matter and provide me with advice and provide the community administrators that run those communities and service providers with that advice. I can hold my breath, but sadly others can't, and I still haven't got an answer to this one.

The NDIS provides not just support but also opportunity, independence and dignity. It is the chance to work, to participate and to access support that people need without feeling like they're a burden on the people they love. It is meant to provide hope for the future. I've been contacted directly by people in South Australia who talk about their real fear about what this will mean not just for the participants but for their families. What they're saying is not only that they don't understand what's going on here and they need all the detail but that there hasn't been an appropriate level of consultation. It seems like a pin was arbitrarily thrown to find a number the government needed to hit to reach its bottom line. It's policy laziness. That's what it is. It was writ large in the consultations.

What people with disabilities told us constantly throughout these consultations is that they feel invisible, they feel unheard and they feel like they are being reduced to a line item in the Albanese government's budget papers. It's no wonder they feel like that. While this government shuffles Treasury spreadsheets to fill its near trillion-dollar deficit and to make it look more manageable, it's the most vulnerable Australians who are left wondering why it is them who are paying the price for Labor's inability to control its spending.

There is no denial that the NDIS has grown far beyond what was originally expected when it was established 13 years ago. It was a scheme designed to support about 410,000 Australians, but it's now supporting 760,000 people and growing at about 10 per cent a year. It was originally expected to cost $13.6 billion, but it's now approaching $50 billion a year and it's projected to blow out to about $70 billion by the end of the decade. This is the NDIS that Labor built. This is their third attempt to rein in the scheme, to rein in that growth and to protect participants from bad actors. They have failed on all of those measures.

In August 2023, Labor promised growth would be reduced to eight per cent. They failed on that measure. Then, in January this year, despite growing that target, they pledged to reduce growth even further—five to six per cent. Guess what? They failed again. Now, a few months later, with no achievements under the belt, there's a pledge to reduce it by just two per cent. I want to be clear: the coalition's support for this scheme remains unwavering. We believe the scheme must be there for Australians with significant and permanent disability—exactly as it was intended—but the integrity of the very scheme that we're talking about here is weak. Criminals know the guardrails are weak and the fences meant to protect them are flimsy. Australians have heard the stories day in, day out; the NDIS has lost the social licence that it once had.

This government is in charge. It's been in charge for more than four years. It's their job to find the answers. It's not their job to bring legislation like this into the parliament, which has failed to convince not only the people it is there to support but also ordinary Australians who are quite happy to pay for it. But they're not happy to pay for the fraudsters or the criminals, which are the people that we need to go after. They're not happy to pay for the red tape, the bureaucracy, that means that money is not spent where it's intended. We heard about people needing to get reassessments for profound, lifelong, incurable disabilities. What a waste of money. I don't even have to work in the sector to realise that. What's the saving if you reduce the requirement to do that? It would make a huge difference.

This bill is a substantial bill. It provides significant change to the scheme. That's why it needs more consideration; that's why it needs more time. From hearing all of the submissions and the witness testimonies, I'm certainly convinced it could be much better in making the scheme more sustainable and in addressing the fraud that is plaguing it. One of the most concerning parts of the witness testimonies that I heard was about the impact on community supports. You could hear the fear in people's voices. You could hear it; you could see it. They were concerned about becoming invisible and about not doing, or having the ability to participate in, the things in life that we take for granted. That was the thing that caused the most anxiety for participants and their families.

Community supports are critical. Earlier we heard concerns about the impact of removing community supports on jobs. If people can work, they should work. It might not be in the same way that I, or someone else, can work, but if they want to be able to contribute by working, volunteering or doing things out in our communities then they should be able to do that. But to make an arbitrary cut to the ability to do that across every participant—I was left scratching my head and thinking, 'How is that right?' There's not even a suitable explanation to explain how this legislation got to that point. Meanwhile, dodgy operators continue slipping through those cracks while legitimate providers are buried in paperwork, bureaucracy, compliance and red tape. And it's not just the providers. The participants are bogged down in this. And their families are bogged down in this; what they want to focus on is improving the lives of the people they love. It's a simple request; you'd think it wouldn't be that hard.

The scheme must be sustainable for the future to continue supporting those Australians with significant and permanent disability for generations to come. There were very few people that I heard that wouldn't agree with that sentiment. There is opportunity to address its cost to make it more sustainable, but the way Labor is presenting it is not the way to do that. The inquiry should be extended and this bill should not be presented.