Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by saying that it is a great honour to hold this portfolio. I have really relished getting to grips with the brief over the last couple of months. I sat down, of course, with the department and with the NDIA and the commission—as you would expect. I've been making my way through the thousands of pages of analyses and reviews that have been produced, and I have spoken with my state and territory counterparts. I've been out and about, talking with advocates and speaking with service providers, regulators, academics and workers in the sector and their representatives, but the most important conversations that I've had have been with people with lived experience of disability—the people who participate in the NDIS. I want to thank the sector and the disability community for how generous they have been with their time and their knowledge.

For decades, people with disability have told policymakers: nothing about us without us. I understand the need, I understand that call and I understand my responsibility to make sure that their voices are heard and that they carry weight. As Minister for the NDIS, I have a responsibility to ensure the NDIS is not done to or for participants without their input. The scheme must be designed, overseen and implemented in partnership with the people who have a lived experience of disability. This will continue to be the government's position going forward.

I also want to make it clear that the NDIS is part of the unique Australian social safety net. It stands alongside Medicare as one of Labor's great achievements, so Labor will continue to make changes to improve the NDIS. We know that the scheme has been life-changing; we know it isn't perfect. We want to ensure that the scheme delivers on the vision as originally set out. We want to protect the safety and uphold the rights of every single participant in the NDIS. We want to ensure that the scheme delivers consistent and fair decisions, and we want every dollar allocated to NDIS participants to reach them and to be spent in a meaningful way that makes a difference to their lives so that people with disability can continue to live with dignity and exercise control over their future. We will pursue these things in line with this very clear principle: if you are a person with a disability, your interests deserve to be at the centre of the policies and the government decisions that affect your life. This is how I'll approach this portfolio as the minister, and it will be at the heart of the Albanese government's approach to the NDIS. We know how important it is to make sure that the NDIS is there for long haul.

In relation to the order being discussed, the government has previously outlined that we have claimed public interest immunity over the requested documents, as disclosure would prejudice relations between the Commonwealth and the states and territories. The government continues to reiterate our view that we cannot agree with this motion. We do, however, acknowledge the interest in the chamber in continuing to reform the NDIS to get it back on track and ensure its sustainability for future generations of Australians, and I thank those Senate colleagues who have reached out to offer support for that broad objective.

On 8 February 2024, the government tabled the final report of the Independent Review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and that was publicly released on 7 December 2023. The review delivered 26 recommendations and 139 supporting actions to respond to its terms of reference. In delivering its recommendations, the review provided exhaustive analysis and proposals to improve the operation, effectiveness and sustainability of the NDIS. The independent review panel has said that its reforms can improve the scheme and meet National Cabinet's annual growth target of no more than eight per cent growth by 1 July 2026. The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024was the first legislative step by our government towards ensuring this annual growth target is achieved. The Minister representing the Treasurer has already tabled key documents for the benefit of the Senate, in addition to the aforementioned review.

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

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

Let's recap where we are. We are seeing confusion reign when it comes to the NDIS and the legislation that is meant to support it. The changes that the government rammed through last year are wreaking havoc in the lives of so many disabled people, their families and their allies. Participants are receiving conflicting information from staff. Agency staff are not interacting in a trauma informed way. Planners continue to not read the evidence they have been provided with and that they have often requested. There is a continual pattern of planners and agency delegates making a call, giving a view, in relation to clinical evidence that they are not qualified to assess. Meanwhile, we also continue to see agency staff breach participants' privacy through the sharing of confidential information without the consent of participants and email the wrong people with the wrong information again, again and again.

This new three-month funding period that has been introduced by the government continues to limit choice and control because—guess what? Some people's funding needs and the expenses that go with them don't fit neatly into a three-month funding period. Sometimes they need intense supports, requiring additional funding for longer periods than three months. It just does not make sense. It's the type of bureaucratic nonsense that the NDIS was created to eliminate.

The biggest casualty, though, of the new NDIS National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Act 2024 is the fact that the legislation no longer considers 'reasonable and necessary' in its determination of funding or of supports. And what we have seen as a result of that? We have seen over 700 new appeals to the tribunal in May 2025 alone. It also seems, by the way, that the participant service guarantee, much celebrated when it was passed, has just been chucked out the window. In March 2025, in that quarter, only nine per cent of people who applied to get access to the NDIS had that request actioned in the required 21-day period—nine per cent. Meanwhile, the agency continues to make unreasonable requests of participants, like saying that participants have two business days to reply in relation to the progression of complaints—an unreasonable deadline in itself—and then in fact closing the complaint as the agency hadn't received the information within their own two-day deadline.

We are continuing to see participants kicked off the scheme because of what appears to me to be a culture in the agency that prioritises media management over supporting participants and their families. We're seeing participants kicked off their supports because selectively edited bits of information were presented to a minister by a shock jock during an interview, resulting in a diktat to kick that participant off the scheme. What happened? Ten months later, after appeal after appeal after appeal, they got their funding back because—guess what?—the information the agency had was not sufficient to make the decision and, in fact, when the evidence was looked at, the person very much did meet the requirements and needed those supports.

This is an absolute shame on this government and, indeed, on the entire body of the political system dominated by the major parties. The Liberal Party, the Labor Party and the National Party should hang their heads in shame when they hear what is happening to NDIS participants right now—the fear and uncertainty, the cuts and the pain of people that deserve so much better. Well, we in the Greens will keep fighting for disabled people and their families.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too stand to speak on the sad fact that this government lacks transparency. This is just another classic example of the government trying to hide what are clearly documents in the public interest about a scheme that is so important to so many Australians. I heard the contribution of the new Minister for the NDIS, Senator McAllister, and I can only hope, despite the words that she just spoke, that she is going to be more transparent than those that have gone before her. The NDIS is important, as the minister outlined, and it is not something that is owned entirely by the Labor Party. The NDIS has been supported across all areas of this chamber because we clearly all believe that it is very important that we support those people that live with permanent and stabilised disability to have the best opportunities they can.

But that is not the point of this particular attendance by the minister. The point of the attendance of the minister is based entirely on transparency. For months and months and months we've been coming into this place and hearing a whole heap of waffle around why this government will not release documents in relation to the financial sustainability framework for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Nothing could be more important than the financial sustainability of this scheme, because it goes to the very essence of what Senator Steele-John said, and that is supporting Australians who live with disability. The government can say all they like about the scheme, but the reality is that they are not being transparent, and, in the process of not being transparent, they are denying Australians the opportunity to look under the hood and see what's going on with this—to be quite frank—very expensive scheme that we want to make sure is delivering the best interest for those Australians that it was designed to support.

This is just another example of the lack of transparency of this government. In fact, the Centre for Public Integrity recently called out the alarming rise in the lack of transparency delivered by the Albanese government as deeply troubling. Well, it is deeply troubling because the purpose of this parliament and the purpose of this Senate is to make sure that we understand what's actually going on behind what the government is doing. They do not have the right, as government, to be able to cover everything up and not allow Australians to see what they are doing. So these motions and these attendances, like the one we have today, are really important to make sure that we have a system by which the government is required to come into this chamber and answer the Australian people about what it is doing with the money that it collects from Australians through their taxes.

The question it begs in all of this is: what is the government hiding with its refusal to come in here and tell us and to provide documents that are absolutely fundamental to the administration of a very important scheme under the government? It goes to the fact that this is a government that's prepared to lie and then is prepared to take actions to cover up those lies, because quite often, if information were made available, you would see that much of what the government is saying is actually untrue. We saw that with the 'Mediscare' campaign that they ran in the election campaign, only to find out that the department itself had told the government that their claim that the only thing you'd need when going to see the doctor was your Medicare card was untrue. Their department itself said that a significant number of practices would still require people to pay out-of-pocket costs, which we are seeing right now. We also saw the same thing with taxation and the promises they took to the election. We now find Treasury itself has been working up more opportunities to tax Australians more.

Once again: if you don't have transparency, the government gets away with things that it would not be able to get away with if it were actually being honest with the Australian public about what it's doing. This particular attendance by the minister goes exactly to that point. The government needs to be transparent so that we know what it's doing. It would also be in your own best interests, because it would be very difficult to call you a liar if you actually provided the information so that you could defend yourself and what you're saying. The fact that you keep hiding things and then are found out for lying, I think, is a very sad indictment of the government.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Minister Chisholm?

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order: I ask that Senator Ruston withdraw.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't think it's unparliamentary. However, for the smooth operation of the chamber, I will ask you to withdraw, Senator Ruston.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At your request, Deputy President, I will withdraw. It does highlight the fact that this government is quite happy to hide things that end up causing incredible distress and uncertainty for some of the most vulnerable people in our community. As Senator Steele-John pointed out, with some of the things the government has been doing—the lack of transparency, the lack of consultation—all it does is to say to Australians who live with disability, 'This government doesn't care about you; as a government, we're happy to leave you in a state of permanent uncertainty,' which only creates distress. You should be ashamed. You should come clean with those documents so Australians can see what you're up to.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in relation to this matter and raise my concerns regarding transparency. I want to touch on some of the points that both Senator Steele-John and the minister made. Firstly, Senator Steele-John, I acknowledge and deeply respect your ongoing advocacy with respect to these matters. The example you gave of the participant being off the system and then having to go through numerous appeal procedures to get back onto the system is deeply disturbing, to be frank. I hope that person is doing okay. It shouldn't come to that.

I also acknowledge the responsibility that Senator McAllister has with her new portfolio. I note her comments with respect to the new portfolio. I note that she recognises the gravitas and the weight of the responsibility of this portfolio. I also note her comment about engagement with those with lived experience in dealing with the system. I also note her reference to the introduction of the NDIS, and it should be noted that the NDIS was implemented with the support of all parties in this parliament. The coalition certainly supported the introduction of the NDIS and supports the ongoing sustainable operation of the NDIS. There's no question about that.

But what the minister didn't touch upon is what goes to the heart of this matter, and that is transparency. This is one of the largest—if not the largest—social benefit schemes that the Commonwealth legislates and manages. Hundreds of thousands of Australians are impacted by this scheme directly, and millions are impacted indirectly. When you have a scheme of such magnitude, it is incredibly important that there's transparency around fundamental aspects of the scheme, and there can be nothing more fundamental than the financial sustainability of the scheme.

The Senate, in discharging the obligations of its role, sought documents that go to the heart of that financial stability. Yet all we've faced is roadblock after roadblock, constructed by the Albanese Labor government to prevent giving the Australian people, through the Senate, the information they deserve with respect to the financial sustainability of this scheme. This isn't about the senators. This is about us discharging our role on behalf of the Australian people, as the house of review and an upper house, to keep the executive accountable. That's what this goes to.

As Senator Ruston said, the latest research, including a report issued by the Centre for Public Integrity entitled Still shrouded in secrecythat's what the report says: 'still shrouded in secrecy'—indicates that there has been an appalling lack of transparency on behalf of the Albanese Labor government. I want to quote some of these figures, which are quite shocking in many respects and are in this report: the compliance rate for orders for the production of documents has fallen to 32.8 per cent—less than one in three! That's the current performance rate. It's materially less than that of the previous Morrison government in the 46th Parliament. It's fallen from 48.7 per cent to 32.8 per cent. It's collapsed. If you go back a number of decades, it used to be 90 per cent—90 per cent of the orders for the production of documents called for by the Senate, by a majority of the senators sitting in this chamber representing a majority of states. Senators from across the political spectrum, representing all the states and territories, have called for this information, yet the government denies providing that information, on the basis of parliamentary interest immunity.

There's no transparency as to why the release of these documents would, in some way, compromise federal and state relations. I previously asked: 'Did you ask the states whether or not you could release the documents?' I would have thought that would be the first thing you'd do. I've asked, 'Is there any problem, in terms of the states releasing the documents?' They won't even answer that question, so how can they make a substantial argument on parliamentary interest immunity?

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in relation to the attendance by the minister in relation to the NDIS. I thank everyone that's spoken about it, and I associate myself with the comments of my colleagues Senators Ruston and Scarr. I also thank Senator Steele-John for his comments.

When I started in my role as a whip in this chamber, I noticed this regular pattern on a Monday morning in relation to the NDIS. One of the things that struck me was the fierce and relentless advocacy of Senator Steele-John and former senators Hughes and Reynolds in relation to this issue. I thank Senator Steele-John and the former senators absent now from this chamber for their work on something that is critically important, and that's the right for Australians to know what is going on with the NDIS. That's the transparency that we speak of.

They spoke about this throughout the entire 47th Parliament, but here we are again, at the beginning of the 48th Parliament, and those questions have not been answered. Fundamentally, at the core of what we are asking for is basic information around what is happening with this scheme. That shouldn't be very hard to respond to, but what is even more concerning is the secrecy. Why won't this be disclosed? Why are we here every Monday of a sitting period asking this same series of questions? Why does Senator Steele-John have to keep asking these questions? Why did former senators Hughes and Reynolds keep asking these questions? Because we haven't had the answers that we deserve to have.

As Senator Scarr rightly put, we're not asking for ourselves. We're asking for Australians. We are asking for those in the disability sector. We're asking for Australian taxpayers, and we're asking for some of our most vulnerable Australians who are meant to be protected by this scheme.

The coalition wants a strong and sustainable NDIS. We want to ensure that we protect the people that need it, but we also want to make sure that we punish the people that abuse it—those that most egregiously abuse a system that is there to protect some of our most vulnerable and to provide them the dignity and independence that the NDIS should deliver. That's where we stand on this. We want clear answers to the questions that have been asked in this Senate chamber for the past three years. We'd also like an understanding about why you want a process where we are constantly asking these questions with no answers, especially from a prime minister who campaigned, before the 2022 election, on a transparent government—on a government that will tell you what is going on. Anybody that wants to see whether this government is transparent or not just needs to listen to what is happening here this morning and have a look at the Hansard of every other discussion related to this one, because there has been no transparency—none whatsoever.

Senator Steele-John made a comment about planners that I wanted to touch on as well. We were in Senate estimates when this came up, and there was a collective chin drop when we found out that participants are being forced to go through the process—a costly and time-consuming process—of putting together evidence that the NDIS had asked of them in relation to their plans. That is time and energy and resources that should actually be spent on the care of participants spent instead on a report. They provide that report, and guess what? No-one reads it. Yet, if they were not to submit or provide that report, the example that Senator Steele-John provided of someone who lost their plan and would have to fight to get it back would eventuate. Why are we standing by and allowing that? Why are we forcing families who have children with permanent conditions to provide evidence of those conditions year on year or plan on plan? Something that is permanent is not going to change. There is something fundamentally wrong here, and this government needs to explain to us why they won't give us the information that we're seeking, why they won't make this simpler and why they have made hardworking senators in this place rise week after week to get the answers.

Question agreed to.