QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr BUTLER (Hindmarsh—Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Minister for Health and Ageing and Deputy Leader of the House) (14:19): Thank you to the member for McEwen for that really important question. Last night, as he knows, the Senate passed the government's plan to get the NDIS back on track. This is really important, essential reform.

It had become increasingly clear, I think, to the broader Australian community that this extraordinary social program, which has delivered so much to Australians living with disability, had nonetheless grown too big, was costing far too much and had become a soft target for crooks and for shonks. The changes that were passed last night deal with all of those problems and set the clearest possible path, I think, for a sustainable, secure future for the world's best disability insurance scheme.

While these reforms are essential, I know that they are, as the Prime Minister indicated, hard reforms. I know that they are causing anxiety in some parts of the community among some NDIS participants and their loved ones. I want to assure those Australians in the broader community of a few things: this program will still grow; this will still be our biggest social program outside of the aged pension, significantly bigger than Medicare and way bigger than the PBS; and it will remain the centrepiece of the most comprehensive suite of supports for people with disability that you will find anywhere on the planet.

But, even with the passage of those changes last night in the other place, there is still much to do. New eligibility tests are being developed right now to return the scheme to its original purpose, which was, as I think we all know, to support people with significant and permanent disability. That makes our work with state governments even more critically important—to rebuild those other support systems that used to exist at state level to provide that critical support to people with more low to moderate support needs.

Every state and territory, except Queensland, has now finalised their implementation plans for the Thriving Kids program supporting children under the age of nine. Those supports will start rolling out in only a few weeks time, and they'll be fully up and running by the end of next year, ready for the new eligibility changes that take place on 1 January 2028.

I have to say that Queensland needs to get moving in this area as well. Queensland families deserve the same commitment and the same action that we're seeing from every other state government, Labor and Liberal alike. Then we need to get on with the other critical work to develop supports for other groups: children over the age of nine, people with psychosocial disability and many others.

I thank the parliament for their support for this critical plan. We now need to get on with implementing it.