Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion put forward by my colleague, Senator Steele-John, and I want to associate myself with the statements made by Senator Steele-John and Senator Waters.

Within less than a fortnight of this bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, being introduced into the parliament, people with a disability around the country mobilised to tell the government that this is not the way to be caring and supporting for people with a disability in our community. It would appear that the government isn't listening. If it were, it would have withdrawn this bill and engaged in a true process of co-design with people with a disability, their families, advocates and other stakeholders to come up with something that was not this.

This is a bill that is designed to do one thing: to make budget savings now and to continue to make budget savings in the future off the back of people who need support. This is a pattern that we are seeing from this Labor government. We've seen it in aged care, using the argument that they're implementing the recommendations of a royal commission. In fact, they're making the system worse for older people, making them pay more so that many of them can't afford care. The government are tying older people up in assessments and bureaucracy, which means they either wait years or they die before they ever receive support.

Just at the weekend I was talking to some older people in a workshop, and one of them said to me, 'We feel they just want us to die. because then they won't have to pay for us.' And it's hard not to wonder whether that is, in fact, the case, because the same thing is going to happen here with the changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. There are people who are going to die as a consequence of these changes.

Removing social supports for people arbitrarily can have catastrophic consequences for people. Not that long ago we had COVID lockdowns and so many people were saying that they were going stir crazy locked in their houses, asking, 'When would it end?' Well, this bill will consign some people with a disability to a lifetime of being locked down in their homes. Shame on you!

We keep hearing the word 'sustainability'. What's sustainable about chucking people off a scheme that supports them when we know that that's a false economy? Poor mental health is going to go through the roof, and we already have a mental health crisis in this country that we are not addressing with adequate supports. We're going to see more hospital admissions because people haven't had the care and support that they need. It's just like we're seeing with aged care: hospital beds are filling up because people cannot get the care that they need in their homes. We are going to see that repeated here.

Forty billion dollars in savings—I can think of a whole bunch of other places where we could find $40 billion in savings. Let's not buy submarines that are just going to put us on an offensive war footing against a country that's one of our major trading partners. That's not going to make us safer. How about we have a gas tax? Stop letting big corporations off scot-free without them paying their fair share. Let's tax the one per cent and make them pay their fair share. Let's stop giving massive subsidies to fossil fuel companies. Let's not grandfather into the never-never capital gains tax and negative gearing. There is so much money out there if the government had the courage to stand up to powerful vested interests, to not do their bidding, and actually do the job of government, which is to care for people.

People on the NDIS have said the scheme is not perfect. There are aspects that need reform. There are people who are being negatively impacted by fraud in the system. Why don't you start by going after that first? You could actually have a concerted effort to bring legislation into this place to seriously tackle the fraud that some providers are perpetuating, which is harming people on the scheme, and then reassess where you're at. But, no; you want to start with cuts. You want to not only start with cuts but give the minister virtually unfettered power to make more cuts into the future. Who knows who will be the government then? I find that pretty scary.

There are some parties in this place that would love to decimate the NDIS, and you're basically giving them a blank cheque and a free pass to do whatever they want in the future to cut people's supports. There is a pattern with this government: tying people up in bureaucracy and automated assessments. We're seeing algorithms creeping in to the way people are going to be assessed on the NDIS. We're already seeing what a disaster that is in the aged-care space—automation in social services and cutting people off from their payments. That's another group of people in our community who should be supported and looked after by governments, but this government refuses to do what needs to be done. They're getting savings out of not raising the rate of income support. It's just another example of going after savings from the people in our community, who governments are supposed to be helping, instead of standing up to vested and powerful interests.

This is a government that came to this parliament with a massive majority. This is a government that has a pathway through the Senate to do good things for people in our communities. What did we see with aged care? We saw them do a deal with the coalition behind closed doors about the financials, and now we've got a mess of a system where people can't afford to access care. They can't get care. I guarantee that we're looking down the barrel of the same thing again. They are working with those parties who are happy to help the government use the vulnerable people, the people who need our help in our community, as the cash cows to balance their budget, because they don't have the courage. Notwithstanding their massive majority, and notwithstanding the fact that they have a clear pathway through this place to do good things that will help our community, they want to punch down on the people who need and deserve government support.

How shameful it is that one of the ways that you've tried to build up consent in the community for these cuts is to put fraud out there like it's this massive emergency. I've seen people in the street with a disability getting spat on because the community has been led to believe that it's the participants who are committing this fraud. It's been quite convenient for the government to let people think that, because that will help manufacture consent for changes that are going to really harm people.

We know the focus groups were there; the research is there. How do we get consent to chuck 241,000 people off the NDIS? I know; we'll start telling everybody about fraud, even though I can count on my two hands the prosecutions for fraud. It's punching down on people who need support—people with a disability, older people, people who need income support. That's how this government rolls. And the public is noticing. I honestly don't know how you sleep at night. I don't know how you can have so much power, such a majority, and then not help people. It blows my mind.

What blows my mind even more is when I'm at rallies like one for the NDIS and I'll have someone who I know is a Labor volunteer or supporter come over and say, 'Thank you so much for speaking out.' Well, who's speaking up in your party room? Who's speaking up in caucus? What's the point of having 94 of you in the lower house, if you can't stop something as bad as this? Why even bother? I say to those Labor backbenchers in the Senate and the lower house, where are you? Where are you standing up and speaking out about cuts that are going to devastate people with a disability.

They already know. They've had a taste of what this is going to look like, because they've already had supports start to be cut and they know what that means for their lives. They know that it means some of them won't be able to get out of bed. They know that it means they're going to be disconnected from their communities. They know that it means they're going to be locked inside their houses. They know that it means they're not going to be able to get to work. Parents know that it means the family that's just hanging on by a thread as it is, because of the challenges that they are facing with their kids who need support, are going to go under. Knowing all that, what's the point of sitting on the Labor backbench if you can't speak up in your own party room?

I am really proud of the work that the disability community, people with a disability, have done despite the challenges, to stand together and to tell the government that this is not okay. I am proud of the work that the disability community has done to speak out and tell the public what this is going to mean for them, how devastating this is going to be for them and their families. Make no mistake: in addition to people with a disability paying for these cuts, women in our community are going to pay for these cuts. Who's doing the bulk of the caring work when the government's not giving people the support they need? Women! They're the ones looking after our parents and grandparents because they can't get access to aged care. They're the ones looking after kids with a disability and other family members with a disability because they can't get the support they need. This is a government that's supposed to be about women. We've heard that women and people with a disability are going to be more likely to experience violence, abuse and neglect if they get their supports taken away. Yet this is a government that tells the community, 'We care about violence against women. We're doing everything we can to stop violence against women.' There are things that you can do that will help such as not taking away people's community supports in the NDIS; getting rid of the partner income test in social services, which we also know exposes women to violence; getting rid of gambling advertising, which we also know drives violence. You talk the talk, but you're not very good at walking the walk. Again I ask: what is the point of having a Labor government with a massive majority if you're not going to act on the issues that really impact people in our community, if you're not going to look after the most vulnerable, if you're just going to keep bowing down to vested interests and powerful interests and do their bidding? You've had over four years, and that is the pattern that keeps repeating and repeating and repeating.

This bill is a dog of a bill. It will harm people. If this bill passes, there are people who will die. I urge the government to scrap this bill, to withdraw it from the Notice Paper, to go back and start again and to have a genuine process of true co-design with people with a disability. Come back and tell us how you are actually going to tackle fraud from providers that are taking care away from people with a disability.

I urge the coalition: do not support a bill that is going to harm people and that will see people die.