National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Senator McKIM (Tasmania—Australian Greens Whip) (17:54): At the start of my contribution, I spoke at length about the fact that the NDIS is a beneficial scheme for people with disabilities, disabled people, and, of course, so it is. But it also benefits our community more broadly. Specifically, it benefits many people who are parents of disabled people.

I want to take this opportunity to put on the record the views of two people who I know in my home state of Tasmania. They are parents who have two kids with intellectual disabilities, and both of those children are on NDIS plans, and that includes one of those two children who has Down syndrome. I spoke to both of those parents today.

They're deeply concerned about the impact not just for them but for many, many other disabled people and parents of disabled people. They explained to me in the course of our conversations today how the NDIS paved the way for them to create a life that was specifically tailored to the interests of their child with Down syndrome and how he currently has an amazing life because the NDIS has enabled him to have an amazing life.

They wanted me to be clear with the Senate about their view that the NDIS enables people to continue to be part of the broader community, and they wanted me to make sure that the Senate understood their view that the consequences and the ramifications of this legislation passing would be huge. They told me that the cutting of funding that facilitates and supports disabled people as proposed in this legislation was going to take us back into the dark old days when people with disabilities—or at least when more people with disabilities—were hidden and/or institutionalised.

They made the point—this is critical—that people with intellectual disabilities often need the benefit of support workers to be able to interact with other people and to be able to establish their own social connections. They often need the benefit of support workers to have fun in their lives and to experience, in their own way, the life that many of us simply take for granted.

They also asked me to make the point that, for them and for many other parents of people with disabilities, the support services are desperately needed to give the parent or the carers for people with disabilities some respite and that this cannot be underestimated as a positive social benefit to the NDIS scheme. They really wanted me to stress that this is about not only supporting disabled people and allowing and assisting disabled people to lead dignified lives but that disabled people have the ability to profoundly enrich the lives of everybody that they come into contact with.

Having supports like those supports provided with the NDIS helps with that. Yes, it helps disabled people. Yes, it helps parents and carers of disabled people, but it profoundly helps the broader community because their lives are enriched many, many, many times when they come into contact with disabled people.

They've also asked me to put on the record that funding that enables community participation or recreational activities gives people with disabilities, disabled people, a rich life outside of their family supports and, as I said earlier, allows carers, parents and other family members the time, mental space and other resources to replenish their own energies.

This will have profound consequences for disabled people, parents and family members of disabled people and people who care for and support disabled people. They also wanted me to communicate that NDIS funding has enabled children to participate in what they describe as mainstream life to the extent that they can. For their son with Down Syndrome, this has meant the difference between having the very rich life that he does with NDIS support with an array of activities that suit his interests and keep him active and engaged and, alternatively, the future that they may be facing, which is some level of lesser support within a group situation that bears no resemblance to the life that most of us are able to lead.

There are any number of good reasons why this legislation should not and must not be supported. The government's argument for this legislation is political spin. Absolutely, crack down on the fraud in the system that is perpetrated by providers.

The Greens stand ready to work with the government because that fraud is taking money out of genuine supports for disabled people. We stand ready to work with the government on that. But let's not pretend that this is about fraud.

This is about budget savings. When you think about budget savings, you have to think about the choices that governments make. This choice is to punch down on disabled people in the most catastrophic, diabolical way just to save some money that could easily have been saved by reining in the tax breaks for wealthy property speculators, that could easily have been generated by making the super wealthy pay a wealth tax in Australia, that easily could have been saved by walking away from the catastrophic AUKUS deal or that easily could have been raised by applying a gas export tax in Australia.

The fact that, of all of the parties of government, the Labor Party, who brought in this great achievement of the NDIS, now seeks to gut it means that they will stand condemned not just by the Greens but by history. I foreshadow my second reading amendment. (Time expired)