National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE (Queensland) (12:23): I rise to speak to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. First of all, I associate myself with the comments made by my colleagues earlier on this bill—they're Senator Waters, Senator Steele-John and Senator Faruqi. I commend Senator Steele-John for the incredible work that he has done representing the disability community in this place.
It is clear that this bill was not co-designed and properly consulted on by members of the disability community; if it was, this would not be the bill that we would have before this parliament. This bill is part of a repeating pattern from this government, and governments before it, where we have a royal commission into an issue, we find out the things that are going wrong, and then, rather than passing legislation that genuinely is co-designed with the people it affects and addresses issues raised in the relevant royal commission, the government instead uses it as cover to make budget savings.
We've seen this in aged care. Under the cover of implementing the recommendations of a royal commission, we've had legislation introduced and, rather than improving aged care for older people, we're seeing people assessed by a tool that cannot be overridden by clinicians and humans. People are sometimes waiting more than a year to access care, and thousands of people are dying while waiting to access care.
What we see in this NDIS bill that the government has introduced is a very similar pattern: a royal commission has said we need to address problems with the care and supports for people with a disability, but instead of having a co-designed bill that was properly consulted on and that looks at how to improve the care for people with a disability we have a bill that the government has unashamedly said time and time again is about cutting funding to the NDIS.
The word 'sustainable' is code for 'cuts'. The Labor government egregiously went about a process of manufacturing consent in the community to make these cuts by convincing the community and by engaging consultants—then jumping on this idea that, if we just make everyone think that the NDIS is riddled with fraud, then we'll get consent from the community to cut people's funding.
Yet the fraud that exists in the system isn't being committed by the people who need the help and support of the scheme. It's largely being committed by providers who are engaging in fraud, noncompliance and misconduct. Rather than bringing forward a bill that genuinely deals with that, we have a bill before us that's about cutting supports from tens of thousands of people, which they need to live.
I note that I'll be moving a second reading amendment standing in my name which deals in particular with automated assessments. We have seen the damage that automated assessments have done in aged care, which was thousands of people being inadequately and incorrectly assessed by a system that has taken out human overrides so that they cannot get the support that they need.
When did we decide that computers and algorithms were the way that we'd determine the care and support that humans with complex conditions and abilities would need? When did we decide that? I don't want to live in a world where an algorithm or a computer decides what care and support I need when I'm old or if my circumstances change and I acquire a disability.
Is there a single person in this chamber who would want to be subjected to that? I don't think there is, yet we're standing here today debating a bill where all of us can potentially make the decision that our fellow human beings, our fellow Australians, with a disability can be subjected to an algorithm or a computer deciding their complex needs. How did we get here?
We cannot, and the Greens will not, support a bill that leaves decisions about people's care and supports to an algorithm and a computer. That is immoral. We have heard a lot from the government saying, 'We need to make these cuts so that the NDIS is sustainable.' As my colleague Senator Faruqi said, only minutes ago, this is about choices.
Why do the major parties always make choices that the people who have to pay for budget repair are the most vulnerable people in our communities, the people who require care and support? We've seen it in aged care, where we effectively have an algorithm that is cutting the assessed needs of older people. We've seen it in social services, where people living on welfare, on income support payments, are continually expected to subsist on a payment that is well below the poverty line.
And yet the government is really fine with giving $268 billion to AUKUS. We see fossil fuel subsidies going out the door. We see a failure to honour taxing of the gas companies.
And because the government doesn't have the courage to do those things, to make big corporations and billionaires and gas companies pay their fair share, it's turning around and saying, 'But, hey, you 160,000 people on the NDIS, we'll just cut your support.' We're a wealthy country; we should not be looking for budget savings from people who need our care and support.
And it's a false economy, because those people who have their supports cut are going to end up in our health system. They're going to end up needing mental health care. Some of them are going to die.
We know that. We're also going to see families and friends and volunteers who care for them removed from the labour market because when the government removes support, when the two major parties gang up together to pass this bill and remove those supports, the people who will step in are family members and volunteers in the community. They will be taken out of the labour market or they will be forced to try to keep their jobs and provide support.
So many of those will be women. Women already carry a disproportionate care burden in this country. They're filling the gaps in aged care; now they going to be filling the gaps in NDIS.
This is not a cost-free decision. It might save money for the NDIS budget bottom line, but we are going to pay for it. The people who get chucked off the NDIS are going to be paying for it in awful ways.
That cost is going to flow through to the rest of our community. That's 94 million hours of annual paid care that will need to be replaced by someone else—families, volunteers, friends. That is not cost free.
The government, when it introduced the NDIS, said that it was a scheme that was going to give people the reasonable and necessary supports that they needed to live a good life. That will no longer be the case if this bill passes. The government talked about the fact that it was a scheme that was designed to give people with a disability individualised support so that they could have dignity in living a life well lived.
That will not happen for thousands of people if this bill passes. The Labor government talked about people with a disability having choice and control over their lives. That choice and control is going to be taken away from thousands of people with a disability if this bill passes.
Not only will they have choice and control taken away, but there'll be computers and algorithms making decisions about the care that they need. Providing someone with a disability the support that the NDIS provides is not charity. It is what governments are supposed to do for members of our community.
If these cuts pass, if this bill passes, we are taking away the agency and dignity of people with a disability. The NDIS was supposed to provide people with lifetime security if they had a disability. If this bill passes, thousands of people with a disability no longer have that security and will live with the fear and uncertainty of what is going to come next for them if they are kicked off the scheme.
Looking after people with a disability is the responsibility of national governments. We have a responsibility in this place to make sure that as a community we collectively insure against people with a disability not having the care and support that they need. I want to return to a point that I made earlier.
Every one of us in this place should imagine what it would mean for us if we were the person with a disability or we were caring for someone with a disability and this bill passed. I spoke to a father the other day who said they have an adult son with autism. Right now, they have the care that their son needs.
It has allowed both of them to work. It has allowed their adult son to have a fantastic quality of life. They said the difference that it has made to their son's life compared to when the NDIS didn't exist is just incredible.
They are nervous and they are worried about what it will mean for their son not to have the level of social and community support that they currently have. They talked about the fact that, for their son, removing that level of social and community support will actually increase the challenges that he will experience and the challenging behaviours that he and others will experience and the impact that that will have on them as a family, on their son and on their ability to work and what other supports that will ultimately potentially mean their son will need that will need to be made up for because the care that they currently receive will be reduced.
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