Disability Services
Mr PERRETT (Gympie—LNP) (12.32 pm): I rise to speak briefly to the Disability Services and Other Legislation (NDIS) Amendment Bill. This bill is about supporting the start of the operation of the NDIS commission in less than a month’s time from 1 July. The bill will ensure that all urgent and critical amendments are made to relevant legislation, including that the Disability Services Act 2006 operates in conjunction with the Commonwealth legislative framework to provide a strong quality and safeguards framework, in particular in relation to the authorisation of restrictive practices and worker screening, and that existing quality and safeguards apply to regulated disability services that will be outside of the NDIS. The bill will also strengthen the operation of the yellow card system, the disability worker screening system, during the changeover. The bill will also amend the Coroners Act 2003 so that the deaths of certain NDIS participants are reported to the State Coroner and amend the Public Guardian Act 2014 to ensure that community visitors continue to visit relevant sites to protect the rights and interests of certain NDIS participants. It will also permit information sharing with the NDIS commission.
This bill is a sensible and necessary step in Queensland’s transition to the Disability Insurance Scheme. All of us understand that it is crucial that no Queenslander living with a disability is made worse off as a result of the transition to the NDIS. This bill will help to ensure that Queensland’s accountability frameworks remain in place as the transition continues. Unfortunately, we have repeatedly seen and heard of those living with disabilities put at risk because of this government’s incompetence and neglect.
This transition has been beset with problems solely because of government incompetence. Less than a year ago we learnt that, through gross incompetence and a gross oversight, hundreds of NDIS letters were sent to deceased family members in December 2017, leaving their families and supporters traumatised. Less than a year ago we learnt that there was a two-year gap in cabinet briefings of any NDIS updates. Two years ago! How is it that no-one noticed that the progress of the NDIS had not been brought to cabinet? What is going on around the cabinet table?
Consequently, this has led to transition issues that are now being addressed. This management of the transition is putting our most vulnerable at risk as a result. We are seeing those at risk of homelessness being unable to secure NDIS or state funding in time. We are seeing services such as the Queensland Narrating Service no longer being funding and being at risk of closure. Then we have the fiasco of the Taxi Subsidy Scheme, which the government decided to cut from 30 June. Queensland was the only state going to do this at the time. It was either incompetence or penny pinching.
The axing of the scheme coincided with the NDIS rollout even though the NDIS does not replicate the subsidy and every other state has agreed to maintain its own taxi subsidy schemes. Yet again the government did not fix this oversight until the last minute and only after much public protest and 13 disability organisations calling out its callous cut. We are talking about a program that provides half the cost of a taxi, up to a maximum subsidy of $25 per journey, as well as a $20 lift payment to drivers of wheelchair accessible taxis. This is being used by 10,000 Queenslanders. Thankfully, the program was extended for another 12 months. The NDIS was meant to make people with disabilities more independent. The government’s threat to axe the Taxi Subsidy Scheme would have done the opposite.
Many who use the scheme are already struggling financially and psychologically and the government’s backflip is a victory for those who rely on it.
All of us have worthy and commendable organisations in our electorates struggling to help those at risk with disabilities. In the Gympie electorate there are numerous organisations that address the needs and provide assistance for these most vulnerable in our society. Our community could not operate without organisations such as the Red Cross’s mobility hire, the Blue Care day respite centre, the Blue Care nursing service and the Bravo Disability Support Network. There is also Centacare Community Services, the Gympie Stroke Support Group, the Jessie Witham day respite centre, the Parkinson’s support group, Avenues Lifestyle Support and Weeroona Association Inc.
The litany of incompetence and ineptitude by this government makes it harder for these
organisations to do their job. The government has been unprepared and has delivered poor oversight.
A Queensland Audit Office report from May last year found that fewer than 60 per cent of all people eligible for the NDIS in Queensland are likely to be in the program by the time it reaches full rollout.
Notably, Queensland is locked into paying its full $2 billion a year commitment regardless. According to the QAO report, if Queensland is unable to renegotiate its current commitment to contribute $2.03 billion it will mean that the state’s contribution to each participant’s plan increases on average from the planned $22,500 to $39,700.
Despite being obliged to have a local area coordinator in place six months before the rollout began in different locations around the state, Queensland had managed to do so in only one. In May last year only seven per cent of the total projected number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants for 2019 were in the scheme. Four months later, in September, a further report advised that those with impaired decision-making abilities may be disadvantaged in accessing the scheme.
Incompetence and being unprepared for what we knew was going to be rolled out is negligent. In the interests of and support for those who are disabled and vulnerable, I do not oppose the bill.