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senate vote 2023-11-17#5
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2024-06-14 10:45:42
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Title
Bills — Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023, Disability Services and Inclusion (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023; in Committee- Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023 and another - in Committee - Segregation
Description
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- The majority voted against [amendments](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2023-11-17.76.1) on sheets 2181, 2182 and 2172, which were moved by West Australian Senator [Jordan Steele-John](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/wa/jordon_steele-john) (Greens).
- ### What was the purpose of these amendments?
- Senator Steele-John [explained that](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2023-11-17.76.1):
- > *These amendments end segregation for disabled people in housing, in work and in education. In Australia in 2023, a disabled child is forced to go to a segregated special school where disabled children are physically prevented from being educated alongside their non-disabled peers. In 2023, a disabled person can legally be paid dollars on the hour for their labour packing earphones for Qantas or putting food in packages for the Defence Force. Twenty thousand of us are forced into these forms of segregated work, and don't you tell me about choice. I hope that in the course of this debate the government does not once bring forward the discriminatory nonsense of choice. When disabled people and our families are repeatedly refused entry to mainstream settings including mainstream schools, when employers don't return our requests to be interviewed for a job and when we are told that our support needs cannot be met by an employer in the workplace, we are left then with no option. Don't you dare tell disabled people that, just because of certain policies and procedures of the disability support pension, it is perfectly fine for us to be paid dollars on the hour, when this government sets the policies of the disability support pension. And don't you dare tell us that we have to choose between being segregated together in institutional housing settings and loneliness in isolation. I am so sick of advocates for segregated housing explaining to me: 'Oh, Senator, if we got rid of segregated housing, disabled people would be lonely. Don't you know that disabled people like to live together?' We sometimes do. We sometimes don't. We are human beings, and we deserve the same choice in housing that is afforded to every other person in this country. It is true that renters right now may need to club together to afford their rent in this rental crisis, but there is not a government policy that has the explicit intent to require them to do that. That is what we currently have in segregated housing in Australia. These settings in which segregation occurs have been identified by the disability royal commission as key parts of the cycle of segregation in which disabled people are trapped and forced into segregated schools, forced into segregated work and forced into segregated housing. What is the result? The result is violence, abuse, neglect and early death.*
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> *The government may well say: 'There is need for more consultation. There is a need for a transition.' These amendments give you 10 years for the transition to fully inclusive work, 10 years to pay us a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. It gives you 10 years to ensure all disabled people have the right to live in the forms of housing that we choose. It gives you until 2051 to decide that disabled children will be educated alongside our non-disabled peers wherever we live. Thirty years is long enough.*- > *The government may well say: 'There is need for more consultation. There is a need for a transition.' These amendments give you 10 years for the transition to fully inclusive work, 10 years to pay us a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. It gives you 10 years to ensure all disabled people have the right to live in the forms of housing that we choose. It gives you until 2051 to decide that disabled children will be educated alongside our non-disabled peers wherever we live. Thirty years is long enough.*
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senate vote 2023-11-17#5
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2024-06-14 10:44:00
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Title
Description
<p class="speaker">Malcolm Roberts</p><p>In serving the people of Queensland and Australia, I have four questions. I'll do a little bit of explaining to get to the point. One Nation simply cannot support a bill that establishes an entirely new disability bureaucracy when the bill does not even define 'disability'. I wonder: is this an admission that the NDIS has failed or that the government is letting it run completely out of control? I'll come back to that.</p>-
- The majority voted against [amendments](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2023-11-17.76.1) on sheets 2181, 2182 and 2172, which were moved by West Australian Senator [Jordan Steele-John](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/wa/jordon_steele-john) (Greens).
- ### What was the purpose of these amendments?
- Senator Steele-John [explained that](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2023-11-17.76.1):
- > *These amendments end segregation for disabled people in housing, in work and in education. In Australia in 2023, a disabled child is forced to go to a segregated special school where disabled children are physically prevented from being educated alongside their non-disabled peers. In 2023, a disabled person can legally be paid dollars on the hour for their labour packing earphones for Qantas or putting food in packages for the Defence Force. Twenty thousand of us are forced into these forms of segregated work, and don't you tell me about choice. I hope that in the course of this debate the government does not once bring forward the discriminatory nonsense of choice. When disabled people and our families are repeatedly refused entry to mainstream settings including mainstream schools, when employers don't return our requests to be interviewed for a job and when we are told that our support needs cannot be met by an employer in the workplace, we are left then with no option. Don't you dare tell disabled people that, just because of certain policies and procedures of the disability support pension, it is perfectly fine for us to be paid dollars on the hour, when this government sets the policies of the disability support pension. And don't you dare tell us that we have to choose between being segregated together in institutional housing settings and loneliness in isolation. I am so sick of advocates for segregated housing explaining to me: 'Oh, Senator, if we got rid of segregated housing, disabled people would be lonely. Don't you know that disabled people like to live together?' We sometimes do. We sometimes don't. We are human beings, and we deserve the same choice in housing that is afforded to every other person in this country. It is true that renters right now may need to club together to afford their rent in this rental crisis, but there is not a government policy that has the explicit intent to require them to do that. That is what we currently have in segregated housing in Australia. These settings in which segregation occurs have been identified by the disability royal commission as key parts of the cycle of segregation in which disabled people are trapped and forced into segregated schools, forced into segregated work and forced into segregated housing. What is the result? The result is violence, abuse, neglect and early death.*
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- > *The government may well say: 'There is need for more consultation. There is a need for a transition.' These amendments give you 10 years for the transition to fully inclusive work, 10 years to pay us a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. It gives you 10 years to ensure all disabled people have the right to live in the forms of housing that we choose. It gives you until 2051 to decide that disabled children will be educated alongside our non-disabled peers wherever we live. Thirty years is long enough.*
<p>I remind everyone of the hasty and ill-thought-out concoction of the NDIS. Prime Minister Gillard hastily introduced it for election purposes before an election. Then she was voted out, and the Liberals and the National Party inherited a complete mess. They tightened it up, but it's still sloppy. In tightening it, we got mixed signals going about services that are being provided to the disabled. That leaves them in a totally inadequate situation. I'm concerned about taxpayers and the disabled in these remarks and questions. If the NDIS continues in its current form, it will send the entire country broke and continue to provide inadequate services to the disabled.</p><p>This bill does not deal with the NDIS. It establishes an entirely new bureaucracy in an entirely new agency. If the Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023 and the associated consequential bill pass into law, the Minister for Social Services will be given legislative authority for new spending programs to cover the 88 per cent of Australians living with a disability who cannot access support under the National Disability Insurance Scheme at the moment.</p><p>I want to talk about the NDIS now because it provides financial support to just 610,000 participants, or 12 per cent of Australia's estimated population living with a disability, while being the second-most expensive social program after the age pension. The annual running costs in the year ending 30 June 2023 were $38.8 billion. That is 26 per cent higher than Medicare, $30.8 billion; 40 per cent higher than aged care, $27.7 billion; and 40 per cent higher than the support for state government hospitals, $27.3 billion. Minister Bill Shorten expects the annual running cost in 2026 to be $50 billion, making it almost double what is spent on state government hospitals. The NDIS is unsustainable at these levels and will not be able to properly provide services for the disabled.</p><p>I'm not going to sign a blank cheque for any government. I won't be giving the government more spending power until I know how taxpayer money goes to those to whom it is intended, and many of the disabled are not getting the services necessary. Like many Australians, I've worked hard to bring up my children and to pay my taxes. Every tax dollar that the NDIA wastes is a dollar that is not spent on health, education and keeping us safe. NDIS participants using their plan money to holiday in exotic places and paying excessively for ordinary items like transit wheelchairs and aluminium shower chairs diminishes support for the program and prevents services to other disabled people who deserve support. Until I'm satisfied the Labor government can manage their departments, I'm not going to give them any more spending power.</p><p>The Auditor-General investigated decision-making in the NDIA, the agency, between 1 July 2016 and 31 March 2017 as part of his report <i>D</i><i>ecision-making </i><i>controls </i><i>for sustainability</i><i></i><i>National Disability Insurance Scheme access</i>. In one group of 150 cases that were reviewed, the decision-maker's name was not recorded in 42 cases. In another 18 of the 150 cases, there was no record of the reasons for the decision. That's not accountability for taxpayers' money. In a review of another 1,339 cases, 13 per cent—that's almost one in seven—did not have sufficient evidence to support decisions to give lifetime support under the NDIS Act 2013.</p><p>These findings in 2017 led to the Auditor-General making a number of recommendations. Seven of the nine recommendations made in relation to improving decision-making controls and fraud controls were not fully implemented by the time the Auditor-General investigated the NDIA again last year. Despite a history of approving access to the NDIS without lawful authority, senior bureaucrats in the NDIA will not make sure all delegates are trained. Of the 1,147 NDIA planners employed by the NDIA on 30 June 2020, only 73 per cent—under three-quarters—of them had been trained to spend billions of hard-earned taxpayer money. No wonder the NDIA costs cannot be controlled!</p><p>Not only does the government need to show me it can manage the NDIA in accordance with the law passed in this chamber, but it also needs to deal with the demand shock created by the introduction of the NDIS. The sudden high demand created by the tsunami of money in NDIS participant plans has caused the cost of seeing an occupational therapist, a speech therapist or a psychologist—as well as others—to skyrocket. NDIS is more generous than the Department of Veterans' Affairs or aged care, and that leads to inequality. That should not be the case. It's a mess. It's time the government aligned the price it pays for the same service across different government programs.</p><p>Anyone can apply for a participant package under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013, but only people with a disability who meet the age, residency and disability requirements and can demonstrate that support is reasonable and necessary are intended to get support for a lifetime. As I've already said, it's a lottery at the moment because decision-making is so poor in the National Disability Insurance Agency due to its messy and improper formation and its lack of foundation at its birth.</p><p>While public servants sit in air-conditioned offices, an army of poorly paid disability workers provide the core supports needed by people with a disability. Disability workers are poorly paid, trapped in a system with little job security or prospects. They're often working with questionable service agencies. Their employers are small businesses which often have no relevant experience and are unable to provide training or support in what can be confronting and stressful situations. No wonder there's a shortage of disability workers right now.</p><p>I want to see all National Disability Insurance Agency plans de-identified and made public. Australians need to know what is being funded. They're the ultimate payers for this service. Employing a qualified chef to teach someone how to cook at home is a luxury that we cannot afford. Prior to NDIS, it was estimated that families provided 80 per cent of the support for a person with a disability and the government provided 20 per cent. The introduction of the NDIS was to shift some, but not all, responsibility to government, with families providing 60 per cent of the support and the government providing the remaining 40 per cent. We don't know much about the level of family support provided today, but we do know only 30 per cent of all plans are managed fully or partially by the participant or their family, which suggests that government is taking on far more responsibility than was ever planned. Participant managed plans account for 30 per cent of the number of plans but just 12 per cent of the NDIS budget. These budgets are spent, but not overspent. Another 60 per cent of plans are managed by someone other than the participant or their family. These managed plans account for 46 per cent of the NDIS, four times as much. The remaining 10 per cent of NDIS plans are NDIA managed, and they account for 42 per cent of the NDIS budget. The NDIA consistently underspends these plans. Why?</p><p>Until I see lawful, responsible and effective by the National Disability Insurance Agency, I will not be supporting any new spending power by government. One Nation supports disability services, yet they have to be sustainable for the Australian taxpayer or there will be no services in the future, and those services that there are won't be fit for the disabled. Spending on the NDIS will outstrip all Medicare services. There is billions of dollars of fraud currently happening in the NDIS that the government has done next to nothing to stop. We'll be opposing this bill until the government can prove it is running the NDIS in a way that isn't going to send the country broke.</p><p>I'll go back to my opening question from my first question: is this new legislation an admission that the NDIS has failed or that the government is letting it run completely out of control?</p> <p class="speaker">Katy Gallagher</p><p>The answer to that is no, and this bill is not about the NDIS.</p> <p class="speaker">Malcolm Roberts</p><p>Why are we are we setting up a duplicate and parallel bureaucracy when we can't even rein in the first one?</p> <p class="speaker">Katy Gallagher</p><p>We're not.</p> <p class="speaker">Malcolm Roberts</p><p>How much money will be required to implement this bill?</p> <p class="speaker">Katy Gallagher</p><p>There's no funding attached to this bill.</p> <p class="speaker">Malcolm Roberts</p><p>We're already in a deficit. Where is the money coming from to pay from this parallel disability system?</p> <p class="speaker">Katy Gallagher</p><p>The government already provides support and services outside the NDIS.</p> <p class="speaker">Malcolm Roberts</p><p>Will you do a root-and-branch review to assess the basic NDIA design, intent and strategy?</p> <p class="speaker">Katy Gallagher</p><p>There's work being led by National Cabinet in relation to reform to the NDIS, and that work will proceed at first minister level.</p> <p class="speaker">Malcolm Roberts</p><p>Could you give me some details on that, Minister, because it's the taxpayer and the disabled who need to be treated with respect here?</p> <p class="speaker">Katy Gallagher</p><p>There are communiques that are issued outside of National Cabinet. There's also the work that's been done under the NDIS review. I think parts of that information, including the terms of reference, are publicly available.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
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