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

Senator STEELE-JOHN (Western Australia) (13:20): We've just heard from the minister in their response a continuation of a set of statements about this legislation that are incorrect and deeply concern the disability community because they continue to demonstrate that the government do not quite understand or do not wish to engage with the legislation they themselves have written.

I want to be really, really clear for the parliamentary record and for anyone following this debate—and I know we've only got 10 minutes or so before we come out of the committee stage. The legislation, as currently written, empowers the minister to make rules in relation to what is and is not an appropriate treatment. An appropriate treatment is a treatment which will be necessary for the participant to have demonstrated they have undergone or completed before they are able to access the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The bill further goes on to define what can and cannot be considered by the minister when deciding—when making the rules—about what is and is not an appropriate treatment. They are prevented by the legislation from considering: Is the treatment too expensive? Is it available in the geography in which the participant who is applying resides?

Is it appropriate to their social or environmental circumstances? That's the bill you've got, folks. The additional protection outlined by the minister, that an appropriate treatment may not be a restrictive practice and must be a treatment funded under Medicare, is the result of a Greens' amendment passed in the House.

Those were not the original words of this legislation. I am incredibly proud that they are now words within the law, but they're not there because the government wanted to put them there. They are there as a result of a Greens' amendment moved to this law in the House of Representatives.

I also wish to make very clear that, when we are considering legislation, it is our responsibility as members of parliament to consider what can be done—what may be done with the powers granted to a government—within that law. And we cannot take the word of the government of the day as to how that law will be used. Intention is irrelevant in a context where a law sits on the books to be used by a government or a minister with a different intention.

The concern of the community is that these powers, if used by a minister or a government with an intention to rewrite any rules that might be made by this government, they could, in fact, rewrite them. Ministers are not bound by the rules they make. They are the ones empowered to make and remake those rules.

They may be required to consult in the process of making those rules but, ultimately, it is their decision. It is within their power, and that power is then held over the heads of the person who will be required to jump through the hoop that the minister decides—not the person, not their treating professional, but the minister of the day. That is the concern of the community.

That is what has been articulated by experts giving evidence at the inquiry. Those are the fears that have been shared, and they are well founded in fact and in an accurate reading of the law. The government may seek to distract from that reality, but they cannot distract from the words they have written into their own legislation, because it is as clear as day.

If they wanted to place more limitations on those powers, then they could. If they wanted to require that any minister in the future could not mandate an appropriate treatment—if it were, say, a treatment where the wait list was longer than 12 months—they could require that. If they wanted to require that an appropriate treatment could not be a treatment that constituted a financial burden upon the participant, they could do that too.

Hell, they could amend their own legislation to remove the aspects of the law that currently prevent the minister from taking issues such as financial burden and geography into consideration. These are all things the government could do, and yet they are refusing to take the opportunity to clarify and to implement. The NDIS from its very beginning, from its original establishment, has been based on the idea that a disabled person should be able to access individualised supports that meet their specific needs, and that those individualised supports should be reasonable and necessary, and that what constitutes a reasonable and necessary support should be decided on a case-by-case basis because disabled people are not all the same.

We do not fit into tiny little boxes. Even though that annoys government, politicians and bureaucrats, that is the reality. That is why the principle that people should be able to access reasonable and necessary individualised supports was placed within the foundational act of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

This legislation rips that heartstring out of the scheme and replaces it with government mandate, with government control and with ministers in offices in Canberra making the decisions, having the power, deciding for you and doing everything about you without you. We will be moving an amendment to safeguard this foundational principle because it is vital. Progress reported.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Sharma ): It being 1.30 pm, we will now move to two-minute statements.