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) (13:00): Senator Steele-John, I thank you for your contribution just now. I want to address a number of matters which you raised earlier before coming to your direct question. I think the important point that hasn't yet been canvassed is that, in making a support determination, the minister must have regard to advice about safety.

Of course, that's an appropriate safeguard to exist in legislation. It is a legal obligation on the minister to consider the impacts on safety that any such determination would have. You mentioned also the approach to unscheduled reassessments, and it is true that the bill sets out clear criteria that give participants guidance about when an unscheduled reassessment will be considered by the agency.

They are the kinds of things that you would think would ordinarily trigger a reassessment: a change in a person's functional capacity, a change in their health or their mobility, perhaps, or a change in their external circumstances—perhaps a change of address or a move from school to employment. It is these kinds of things. But you're right that, as drafted, it doesn't create a specific pathway for a person to make a request based on a support determination.

You'll know, I think, that the government's been very clear from the outset that we do seek to safeguard against risks to participant health and safety, particularly for NDIS participants who require 24-hour support and care. The explanatory memorandum indicates that the intent is to exclude supports that are essential to a participant's health, safety or continuous 24/7 care and support.

We've been very grateful for the many advocates who've engaged with us on this commitment because operationalising those arrangements requires engaging with the people who know the scheme best. As you indicated in your contribution, Senator Steele-John, we recognise that participants and their advocates can provide us with very good advice about how best to do this, and we have been listening carefully to what they've had to tell us in the months since the bill was introduced.

The government will be moving an amendment to establish a new plan variation pathway for participants who have high support needs. Those amendments should be circulated in the chamber shortly. Indeed, I had thought that they would have been by now.

I've authorised them for distribution. Senator Steele-John, you were generous enough to share your thinking about this matter with Minister Butler's office. You and I have had the opportunity to discuss your thinking about this also, and I acknowledge the work that you and your team have done to also think through how to operationalise such a pathway for escalation.

I don't want to get ahead of debate on that particular amendment, but, in response to your question, I wanted to acknowledge the work that you have done and the advocacy from many people in the community around this question and to confirm that the government will be moving an amendment of that kind later in the course of debate. Senator STEELE-JOHN: Thank you very much.

I and my team look forward to seeing those amendments in detail. I'll move to one of the clearest pieces of feedback that we received as an inquiry in relation to concerns from the disability community. There are a number of concerns that have been flagged repeatedly with the government, and they have been flagged in the spirit of a genuine attempt to ensure that there is an understanding in government about the dangers of the legislation that they are putting forward.

That is why I will turn to the new definition of permanence established in this legislation. The act, as currently written, requires a disabled person to demonstrate the permanence of their disability in a new way, and it gives the power to the minister and government of the day to define for disabled people—not for individual disabled people but entire cohorts of our community—what constitutes having sought or undertaken all appropriate treatments to, for want of a better word, cure yourself of your condition before then making an application to be on the NDIS.

Let me be really clear what this is: this is a government having the power to decide what, in their political view, are the appropriate treatments for a person to have undertaken to demonstrate that we have tried hard enough to cure ourselves of our disability before we then apply for the NDIS. Because the government, in other parts of this law, put in place a process through which all participants on the scheme will eventually be reassessed for their eligibility, this is something that will affect every single participant in the scheme.

There has been so much alarm raised by the disability community about these powers—again, ministerial powers—because of the very way in which this law has been written. This is not an ideological debate or abstract debate about the appropriate role of government. These are concerns that spring specifically from the way the act is written and what is written into the law.

The law that Labor has written says that, in determining what an appropriate treatment to require a disabled person to undergo before they access the scheme is, questions of whether that treatment would constitute a financial burden, is geographically available or is appropriate in the broader circumstances of the individual, are things which the minister of the day is prevented from considering when defining what is appropriate.

This means whether or not the treatment is something that can be afforded is not considered, and whether or not it is something that is available is not considered. That means that, if you are a disabled person living in Kununurra, in Western Australia, you can be subjected by your government to a requirement that, before you get access to the vital disability supports that you need or in order to continue accessing the vital disability supports you already have, you undergo an 'appropriate' treatment as defined by your government.

The fact that treatment is not available anywhere other than Perth is irrelevant. The fact that you can't afford the gap fee—irrelevant. There's the fact that you may be a single mum of three kids who would be happy to undertake the treatment—potentially, could even afford it—but you've got nobody to look after the kids while you recover.

Those are factors which the minister is not required to consider under this law, as it is written, right now. The governmental response to this concern—I am very sorry, but I'm going to use this language specifically and intentionally—has been gaslighting. They've gaslit the disabled community, again and again, because Labor have said: 'You're anxious over nothing.

There's no power to require anything in this legislation. Show me the word "requirement". It's nowhere in the bill.' That's rubbish.

When it comes to if you live or die, based on the disability supports you've got right now, like the person that helps you get out of bed in the morning to have a shower, to get your food in, to go to the pharmacy, to keep your job or just live—does anyone really believe, when faced with the question of whether or not you can continue to receive those things, that just because there isn't the word 'requirement', there isn't coercion occurring?

When faced with the requirement to undertake a treatment, there's the box you've got to tick which says, 'Oh, yes, I've tried that treatment.' You can't get the NDIS if you haven't ticked that box. Does anyone really believe, in that moment, that they aren't being required by their government to undertake that treatment and that they aren't being coerced by their government to undertake that treatment?

Come on, be serious. Does anybody really think that that's a fair thing to do to people? That's a fair response to that concern, particularly when you have written this part of your law in such a broad way.

We heard, as a committee, from experts and advocates, that these powers could enable a minister to require a participant with a psychosocial disability to undergo electroshock therapy before accessing the scheme. And, again, what was the response to that concern? I watched it happen live.

There was horror in the faces of the Labor committee members; they were scrambling for some type of response. I watched it happen live. What was the response? 'Oh, we've been very clear that's not the government's intent.

We're writing rules to make sure that won't happen.' Well, whoop-de-do. You're writing rules—rules that can be, using your legislation, rewritten by a subsequent minister or, indeed, a subsequent government. Minister, what are people in rural WA meant to do if they are told they must undergo a treatment that is only available in Melbourne and that they won't be allowed to access the NDIS if they don't get the treatment?