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

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) (12:47): The government will not be supporting the amendments moved by Senator Steele-John. I might take the time that's allotted to me to explain a little about the approach the government has taken to the reforms overall and the reason why Senator Steele-John's amendments are not amendments we can support.

The NDIS is something that Australians are very proud of. It is a scheme that was established after a long campaign led by disabled people and supported by trade unions, by civil society and ultimately by the Labor Party in this place. They campaigned to establish a scheme that would change the lives of many thousands of Australians.

We stand by the wisdom of that decision. This has been a life-changing scheme. I remember in around 2001, as a much younger woman, being in a meeting with a range of people who were caring for people with significant disability in a regional community and, at that time, listening to the fear, the anxiety and the anger in that community of people and their sense that they had been left behind.

At that time, I remember thinking, 'If we win government this time, in 2001, then we have to do something about this.' We didn't win government in 2001, but we did win government in 2007, and we started work on putting in place supports that would allow disabled people to live lives of dignity with independence, with choice and with control, to be truly included and to be treated with respect.

All of those things are reasons why this scheme must continue into the future. But, the truth is—at times it is important to have honest but difficult conversations—this scheme is off track. It is well off track.

Without intervention, the scheme is projected to cost more than $100 billion a year by the middle of next decade. It would increase to something in the order of 2.3 per cent of GDP. It's the government's view that that is not a circumstance that the community supports.

The reason it's increasing in this way is that many of the ordinary boundaries that sit around a social program have not been put in place for this scheme. Our view is that the scheme needs to be sustainable—and that means making changes. I understand the Greens political party have a different view.

The dissenting report that Senator Steele-John and his colleagues co-authored as part of the committee inquiry into this bill indicated that they thought this scheme should be fully funded. I take from that that the Greens political party has no concerns about the scheme reaching $100 billion a year by the middle of the next decade, and I take from Senator Steele-John's comments now that the reason he thinks that is fine is that it could be funded by other means—perhaps a gas tax.

This gas tax, which is advocated for by those at the other end of the chamber, was costed by the PBO, as I understand it, to raise around $17 billion a year. I have heard the Greens political party commit that money to dental. I have heard the Greens political party commit that money to public education.

I've heard them commit it to clean energy. I've heard them say it should be used for welfare reform. This doesn't suggest a serious approach to public finance.

It doesn't suggest a serious response to the challenges that we think this scheme faces in terms of sustainability. For that reason, we do not support the amendments proposed, which would remove one of the measures that the government proposes to start to manage the sustainability issues that genuinely confront this scheme. The amendments before us from Senator Steele-John would remove support determinations from the bill.

Support determinations are intended to be used by the government to limit the funding available through social and community participation funds. Total spend on social and community participation alone at the moment is $12 billion a year. That is quadruple the level it was in 2019-20.

It is close to what we spend on the PBS each year. In the absence of any action, this would have grown to around $18 billion by the end of the decade—so changes are necessary to secure the future of the scheme. The amendments Senator Steele-John proposes would remove our ability to address this cost growth and limit our ability to establish clear and consistent approaches to determining funding for particular NDIS supports.

We think this capacity is a sensible and reasonable capacity for any government to possess. The ability to prescribe funding methodologies and maximum funding amounts through a legislative instrument is an ordinary way to manage a social program, and it provides flexibility to respond to changing circumstances and emerging evidence about the efficacy of supports.

It also retains parliamentary oversight. It's done by way of a legislative instrument, and it will support a more transparent and a more consistent approach to determining participant funding.