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) (19:23): Senator Steele-John raises a couple of issues in his contribution now. I think the first is relating to the approach taken to establishing tests for functional capacity. I think the government has been really clear that we seek expert advice on these issues.

It's why we've established a technical advisory group. A good number of extremely distinguished individuals have agreed to join that group. They are presently working.

I think they have met twice. They are engaging very deeply on the way that we should assess functional capacity for access to the scheme. I'll reiterate the remarks I made earlier about this.

Of course a social program of this significance should have clear guidelines about what is required to participate and whether or not the program is suitable for your particular characteristics. We consider that legislating that is important. The independent review considered it important, and we are keen to hear from disabled people and experts in developing the necessary arrangements.

In relation to pricing, it's pretty unexceptional for a government to set prices for a social program. This is effectively a $50 billion expenditure of public money, and the government needs to establish a pricing regime in this context. I'd make this additional point: people with disability should not be paying more than other Australians for the services they are receiving, and that is the focus of the work that the NDIA has been doing recently.

The issue here is where a minister should seek advice when setting the price for a key social program. To date, the price-setting has been done by the board on the basis of advice provided by the NDIA. The bill before you proposes that the minister would set the price based on advice provided by the NDIA.

Minister Butler is on the record agreeing that there may be merit in moving responsibility for that advice in time to IHACPA, but the preliminary work that IHACPA has done on this subject advises that this would be a long process. Our focus at the moment is on making sure that the prices paid by participants are fair, are based on evidence, are sustainable and, importantly, are in line with the prices that are paid in other sectors.

The evidence before us in recent years indicates that the prices being paid from within the NDIA are higher than in other sectors—higher than in aged care, higher than in the veteran sector, higher than the prices paid by some compensation schemes, higher than the prices paid by some insurance schemes. The NDIA has been working on benchmarking so that the price-setting they have been recommending to date to the board—and, in future, to the minister, should this legislation pass—is based on an analysis of the pricing that exists in other markets.

We may differ on this, but we think this is a prudent way to approach things. It's a prudent use of public money, but it's also an important signal to the disability community that services provided to disabled people shouldn't attract a premium; they should be priced at around the level that other Australians pay for those services.