Greens Senator Jordan Steele-John says the government is continuing to refuse to provide financial documents underpinning NDIS changes.
For the 19th time in just short of two years Greens senator Jordan Steele-John has asked the government for documents relating to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Financial Sustainability Framework, and for the 19th time he has received ro joy.
The NDIS Financial Sustainability Framework was agreed by National Cabinet in April 2023 as part of the 2023-24 budget to achieve an annual NDIS growth target of 8% by 1 July 2026.
The Greens senator said billions has been slashed from the NDIS since Labor’s first budget in 2023.
“I asked for the financial sustainability framework in May of 2023 only to be told by this government that it did not exist, and then that it did exist but that we still couldn’t have it. Two years later and this is the 19th time that I’m again asking Labor to disclose the financial sustainability framework that underpinned and still underpins the government’s cuts to the scheme,” said Senator Steele-John in the Senate chamber.
“Now why is this so important? Because that sustainability framework was the reason for the existence of the legislation passed by this government against the express wishes of the disability community, of our families, of our allies, in July of last year and that legislation has resulted in over 26,000 reassessments of participants’ eligibility and following these reassessments, over 10,200 participants have lost access to the scheme.”
The state and territory supports that these people were meant to rely upon do not exist yet, said Senator Steele-John.
“In fact there isn’t even a definition, an agreed idea between the states and territories and the commonwealth as to what those supports should even be,” he said.
Senator Steele-John also noted that the “completely botched IT system” had caused “havoc” in the lives of many.
And he said the incoming supports needs assessment “sounded a heck of a lot like the failed independent assessments that the Liberals tried to force on us”.
Liberal Party senator Hollie Hughes, senator for NSW and shadow assistant minister for the NDIS, whose son in autistic, told the senate this would probably be the last time she would stand in the chamber speaking about the NDIS and she was worried that once she left, nobody would care about its sustainability.
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“When I’m no longer around, when his father is no longer around, my son will need lifelong supports,” she said.
“He has a significant, permanent, lifelong disability, and so I need it to be sustainable and I am frightened beyond words that when I leave this place, that no one will care.”
Senator Hughes told the senate that her son, like many others, had his plan cut, despite the needs outlined in extensive and expensive reports.
“The CEO of the NDIA told us in Estimates just a few weeks ago that they don’t read the reports,” she said.
Millions of dollars are being spent by the agency on lawyers, fighting families at the tribunal over the cuts, only to have those families eventually get what they were asking for in the first place, said Senator Hughes.
“When we talk about efficiencies … let me tell you, moving from the old system to the pay system, something as simple as bank account details did not transfer over.
“Senator Steele-John, you and I don’t agree on everything, but we do agree on sustainability. We need this to be for the people it was intended to be for… And there needs to be transparency and support.”