CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland) (16:17): I rise to raise concerns on behalf of my constituents who have been impacted by the NDIS 2024-25 Annual Pricing Review. Freezing the price paid for allied health providers and cutting the travel allowance for those services are amounting to a real cut in income for these providers. These are caring people, and they are providing a critical service in our community, but they have to be able to make a dollar as well.
Cutting their capacity to service some of our most vulnerable people is a huge mistake by the Albanese government. We're talking about speech pathologists. We're talking about physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, podiatrists and dietitians.
They've all contacted me in my office in Gippsland to raise their concerns that they'll no longer be able to deliver those services to the most vulnerable people in my region. I quote from one letter: 'I have no clinic space for my clients to come and meet me at, and I'm one of the very limited number of speech pathologists providing services to adult NDIS participants in Gippsland.
These changes will be detrimental to my ability to support participants. It will literally cut my catchment area in half. These are people who are already struggling to access the care they need without these changes being put in place.' Another provider said to me: 'We are already seeing the impact of these changes.
Services have already begun withdrawing or reducing their travel zones. Families in smaller towns are suddenly being left without therapy options. Providers are reassessing case loads, cancelling outreach visits and pausing intake.
The effect has been immediate, and the ripple is only beginning. These decisions make it increasingly difficult to retain staff, provide supervision and absorb the growing administrative burden that comes with compliance.' People in communities like yours, mine, the member for Cowper's and the member for Hinkler's are people with disabilities who used to have the benefit of allied health providers travelling to them to provide essential services.
These services are now being cut. This policy reflects a very Canberra focused, city-centric mindset that thinks that all people can travel to an allied health provider just around the corner. That is not the case in our regional communities.
Cutting the travel allowance in half disproportionately impacts regional providers, who must travel long distances to reach their clients in those remote and isolated areas. A lot of their clients actually have mobility issues themselves, so it's not as if they can just get in the car and travel to their health provider. That is why these allied health providers are travelling throughout our communities, providing their services and those outreach efforts right across our regional areas.
It means that people with disability and their carers must face very difficult decisions, such as relocating away from their homes, the supports they have and the people they love, and this further isolates people with disability from their families, friends and community. I've written to the minister on seven occasions, and, to be fair, this minister doesn't actually respond to us; it's his chief of staff who responds.
I just ask him to reconsider how this will impact regional communities and long-term viability of allied health providers in our communities.