Joint Standing Committee On The NDIS

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Proof Committee Hansard
JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE NATIONAL DISABILITY

INSURANCE SCHEME
(Public)
FRIDAY, 28 JULY 2017
MELBOURNE
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JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME
Friday, 28 July 2017
Members in attendance: Senators Gallacher, Siewert and Mr Andrews.
Terms of Reference for the Inquiry:

To inquire into and report on:
National Disability Insurance Scheme
WITNESSES
GUNN, Ms Stephanie, Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Participants and Planning Group,
National Disability Insurance Agency................................................................................................................ 5
PEARCE, Ms Colleen, Victorian Public Advocate, Office of the Public Advocate, Victoria............................ 1
RUNDLE, Ms Vicki, Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Markets and Supports,
National Disability Insurance Agency................................................................................................................ 5
TIDSWELL, Mr Grant, Chief Operating Officer, National Disability Insurance Agency ............................... 5
Friday, 28 July 2017 JOINT Page 1
PEARCE, Ms Colleen, Victorian Public Advocate, Office of the Public Advocate, Victoria
Committee met at 08:59
CHAIR (Mr Andrews): I declare open this hearing of the Joint Standing Committee on the National
Disability Insurance Scheme for the inquiry into general issues around the implementation and performance of the
NDIS. These are public proceedings, although the committee may determine or agree to a request to have
evidence heard in camera. I remind all witnesses that, in giving evidence to the committee, they are protected by
parliamentary privilege. It is unlawful for anyone to threaten or disadvantage a witness on account of evidence
given to a committee, and such action may be treated by the Senate as a contempt. It is also a contempt to give
false or misleading evidence to a committee. If a witness objects to answering a question, the witness should state
the ground upon which the objection is taken, and the committee will determine whether it will insist on an
answer, having regard to the ground which is claimed. If the committee determines to insist on an answer, a
witness may request that the answer be given in camera. Such a request may also be made at any other time. I
remind those contributing that you cannot divulge confidential, personal or identifying information. If you wish to
supplement your evidence with written information, please forward it to the secretariat after the hearing.
I welcome Ms Pearce, the Public Advocate for Victoria. Welcome back to the committee. I believe you are
able to update us on an issue or matter.
Ms Pearce: Yes. Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee to provide an update on the case
of Ms Z, which I presented to you on 28 April and 12 May 2017. Firstly, I would like to thank the committee for
the attention you've paid to this story. I've no doubt that my appearance before the committee has contributed to
the developments we've seen since April. I'd like to firstly say that Ms Z still remains in prison, but I do want to
provide some background remarks.
I was appointed and have been acting as the guardian for Ms Z, a 39-year-old woman with autism. She has
been detained on remand in prison for 455 days. For the majority of this time, she has been in the mental health
unit or the management unit of the prison. Her charges are very minor and relate to breaches of an intervention
order preventing her from visiting her parents and assaulting police455 days for those charges. A jury recently
found her unfit to stand trial, and consequently not guilty, because of mental impairment. Ms Z has a well-
established diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and borderline intellectual functioning, the combination of
which causes her to function at a level consistent with intellectual disability. Psychiatric assessments determine
her condition to be chronic and persistent and therefore permanent, rather than one which might respond to
treatment or ameliorate over time. Her presentation is such that she responds poorly to stress or perceived threats,
resorting invariably to a pattern of overt aggression or withdrawal. Her level of functioning is quite low, and her
disability needs are consequently very high.
As a result of being incarcerated in restrictive conditions, Ms Z's presentation has become even more
withdrawn and less cooperative. Similarly to when I last spoke you, she continues to be held in isolation for 23
hours per day and is provided with few opportunities to leave her cell or have contact with other prisoners. On
selected days, she is allowed one or two hours out of her cell. Because she poses such a risk, all of the other
prisoners must be returned to their locked cells in order for Ms Z to be granted the airing time. As such, the
decision is left to the discretion of the guards, which means it does not happen every day. During the 23 hours
spent in her cell, Ms Z lies in bed with little or no stimulation or human contact.
Psychiatrists are well aware that Ms Z copes exceedingly poorly with the prison environment. She makes this
known by vocalising her distress, by screaming loudly, and through aggressive behaviours. Staff, including
forensic psychiatrists, acknowledge that her time in prison has been far more onerous compared to that of a
prisoner without her presentation. They notice the effects of her behaviours on other prisoners, the consequence of
which is that she cannot engage with any of them. They also recognise that she is not being provided with the care
that is commensurate with her needs. In speaking with the prison staff, they openly admit their incapacity to
manage and care for Ms Z. They readily recognise that they lack the training, knowledge and skills to effectively
deal with her. That being said, I am also aware and grateful that some officers are working extremely hard in
caring for Ms Z and some have been successful in engaging and developing a relationship with her.
In the past, Ms Z was not eligible for state disability services, and recently the psychiatrist found that she was
no longer needing psychiatric care; therefore we have a good example of her falling through the cracks. As I've
said in earlier presentations, Ms Z is, thankfully, an NDIS participant, because she meets the disability
requirements under the NDIS Act. In this sense the scheme is a welcome support that has successfully captured
someone who otherwise would have fallen through the cracks of our system. The fact that Ms Z hasn't previously
received supports appropriate to her level of need has made the NDIS planning process more difficult, because it
NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME

Page 2 JOINT Friday, 28 July 2017
has required creativity and an understanding of what will be required. It does mean, however, that if done
properly, Ms Z will be able to access services and supports she has needed but has not yet been able to obtain.
When I last spoke to you, there were significant delays in finding an agency that would provide her with
support coordination. In May we found an agency who was able to do that, and at the moment her plan includes
funding for specialist support coordination, and as I said, this is now being provided. A proposal has also been
developed for a plan that includes post-release supports. An NDIS funded provider has prepared a proposal for a
staged transition from prison, which includes a detailed explanation of the types of supports Ms Z will require to
safely transition from her current restrictive environment to independence within the community. The plan is
quite substantive. It includes two-to-one supervision provided 24/7, which is the only way to keep both Ms Z and
the community safe. It includes renovations to her house that allow staff to work with her in a secure
environment. As it is, the proposal is priced at $1.6 million for a 12-month period. There is no doubt that the
quantum of the package is a direct consequence of the length of her incarceration. The costs and the risk to the
community would have been far less, in my opinion, if more appropriate supports had been provided to her
earlier.
As I understand it, the proposal now sits with the NDIA. Since my last appearance before you, the NDIA has
been more engaged. They were given the proposal in June and have informed me that it is still under
consideration and that approval is yet to be confirmed. In the meantime we've mostly relied on the hard work and
goodwill of agencies like the one who prepared the proposal. For instance, a service provider included in the
planthe same agency that would provide the support for Ms Z in her houseis proactively collaborating with
the prison. The prison has agreed to bend their protocols around transitioning in order to allow the agency to enter
the prison and begin engaging with Ms Z in preparation for discharge. They do this to respond to the uniqueness
of the situation and because they understand the importance of prior engagement in ensuring the success of the
transition. The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services has found two suitable accommodation
options and is now working to provide a certificate of available services, at the request of the judge.
As mentioned, we are very thankful for the attention you've paid to this case. It has certainly been a factor in
the gains that have been made. However, despite recent progress, all parties are now at a standstill until the NDIA
approves the plan. In other words, the case is progressing, but unfortunately not quickly enough to prompt her
release from prison. While these negotiations take place, Ms Z remains in detention and her situation continues to
deteriorate. After 15 months she is finally beginning to adapt to the prison environment, which makes her
transition to a new and unfamiliar environment all the more difficult. It is clear to me that the trauma Ms Z has
suffered in the past 15 months has been detrimental to her recovery. In fact, it has led to a very substantial request
for funding to the NDIA. As I said, in my view, the cost could have been lower had it occurred earlier.
In a recent court hearing of Ms Z's case, the judge appointed to the case stated that she has been imprisoned for
14 months in part as a result of the inability or refusal of various authorities to negotiate secure housing,
supervision and other forms of assistance. In conclusion, this is an example of the complexities of working with
people with disability who are involved in the criminal justice system. In these situations, the cost to the
individual and the community is much greater and necessitates a different approach.
In their appearance before you, the NDIA stated that they want to make sure they have access to the right skills
and understanding within the agency. They suggested this is possible by engaging national teams of experts. This
was set in the context of supporting people with a mental illness. But I would like to repeat that the need is just as
great for participants involved in the criminal justice system. I would strongly support the implementation of a
NDIA unit specialising in the interaction of the scheme with the criminal justice system. A team of specialised
professionals with an in-depth understanding of this cohort would be best placed to ensure the scheme in a way
that is genuinely responding to their unique support needs.
Finally, the difficulty that guardians face in their interactions with NDIAthis is a general comment and it's
Australia-wideis the inability of guardians to access the NDIA portal. Unlike family members, guardians do not
have ready access to information that indicates how supports are being utilised. In some cases, this results in
delays that make it difficult for guardians to efficiently assist their clients. Guardians are court appointed to act on
behalf of individuals with regard to specific matters. Without access to the NDIS plans, guardians face delays in
decision-making, often leaving individuals without services or the supports they require. That's a general
comment; it's not related to this particular case.
CHAIR: Thank you, Ms Pearce, and thank you for the update on what is a fairly tragic set of circumstances.
Before I forget it, can I start with the last point about the access of guardians. Is there a particular reason why
that's the case?

Ms Pearce: I think it's how the system was set up, and the interface between state guardianship and
administration laws and Commonwealth laws has never been properly resolved. I think there are privacy issues
that are involved. But we are appointed by the court to make decisionsto stand in the shoes of the person. I
think there are two things: I think there is a technological issue, and I think there is an issue around privacy that
needs to be resolved.
CHAIR: Thank you. Coming back to the case specifically: is there anything that this committee can do to
assist in the matter?
Ms Pearce: As I've said, appearing before you has focused the attention of all of the parties and it has been
extremely helpful. We are at the point where there is a proposal, and we're awaiting approval. The matter is going
back to the court in August. It would be very helpful if we had an approved plan because Ms Z cannot be released
unless there is a certificate of service.
Senator GALLACHER: So just to be clear: we're waiting on a decision made on the point. Someone needs to
sign off on that
Ms Pearce: Yes, that's how I understand it now.
Senator GALLACHER: and Ms Z will then transition from an inappropriate facility.
Ms Pearce: Yes. She does now need to go before the court in early August. Having said that, if there had been
a place for her to go earlier, she probably could have been bailed. But now it's so close to the time of the court
decision that I would imagine she would need to be there. In any case, the Victorian Department of Health and
Human Services has identified a suitable property, but, as I said, it requires renovations. So we are still going to
see some time possibly before she is able to transition. A really pleasing response has been from the Victorian
correctional system, which is struggling to deal with Ms Z in prison. Their willingness to engage with the support
coordinator and their staff to see if there's anything they can do to be of assistance to aid that transition will be
very helpful in the meantime.
CHAIR: If I can be presumptuous enough to speak on behalf of the committee without having consulted
them, I suspect our view would clearly be that the quicker this is resolved, the better, because it's gone on for far
too long. There are some further systemic issues I'd like to ask you about as a result of that, but in terms of the
case itselfmy deputy is nodding, and I'm sure Senator Siewert will agreethis matter should be resolved. It has
gone on far too long.
Coming back, then, to the systemic issues that arise from this case in particular, you spoke about better
interaction between the scheme and the criminal justice system and about some sort of national unit within the
NDIA. Are you able to elaborate on that any further?
Ms Pearce: I think at the moment everyone's following their rules. The criminal justice system and the
management of the prison are following their rules, and NDIA are following their rules. But what we need is a
more flexible, agile approach that means we can move far more quickly on these matters. It would be better if
NDIA could understand what is the problem with the support coordinator, who's only very recently been
appointed, providing in-prison supports. Is it the prison? Can we talk to the prison? Are there ways? It's about
being proactive to ensure that happens. Really it's only because, firstly, the prison system and NDIA know that
I'm appearing before you that we've got the concession that, yes, they can come in. So people are willing to do
things. It's that at the moment they're really, I think, bound by their rules of operation.
Senator GALLACHER: But, putting a brutal fiscal hat on, this lack of coordination and action is actually
causing a bigger impost on the taxpayer than there would be if they were more proactive and able to make
decisions.
Ms Pearce: Yes. I can't say for certain, but, had Ms Z been able to be accommodated in the community much
earlier, I question whether we would have needed a $1.6 million package with two staff on board. That's because
she's escorted in and out of a prison cell by two staff, and she's become institutionalised, so we're going to have to
deal with that on her transition.
CHAIR: I know this is not your expertise, so at best you could speculate, but, in your knowledge of the
matter, is there any prospect that her condition will improveyes, she's got a permanent disabilityin terms of,
say, that staff ratio in the future?
Ms Pearce: As you can imagine, my office deals with similar sorts of circumstances and people who are in
and out of the prison system, and we have had some success with some people. I would imagine that we may see
further interactions with the criminal justice system, but if we can begin this process then I think there is hope,

and I think we all have to live with the thought that there is hope for people to have a better life, and that's really
the premise underlying NDIS.
CHAIR: I know your expertise is here in Victoria, Ms Pearce, but, from your knowledge of or conversations
with similar offices elsewhere in the country, is that lack of interaction between the criminal justice system and
the NDIA something that's common around the country?
Ms Pearce: Yes, it is. I know that not everybody is as difficult as Ms Z, but we do see many people with
disabilities in and out of the prison system. Mental health, acquired brain injury and autism are very common
factors in a large number of prisoners. If we are able, through the provision of adequate supports, to ensure that
transition from a prison environment or a corrective environment into the community and we're able to reduce
recidivism and, in the long term, the cost to all of usthe individuals but also the wider communityit would be
of enormous benefit.
CHAIR: Given that this is an insurance scheme, that ought to be one of the objectives of it.
Ms Pearce: Yes, indeed.
Senator SIEWERT: I have a question around the unit you're proposing, with the interaction with the justice
system. Have you raised that with the NDIA?
Ms Pearce: No. I've raised it with this committeeit really came up as a response from the committeebut
not directly with the NDIA, no.
Senator SIEWERT: Thank you. I think it's a really important issue.
CHAIR: Thanks, Senator Siewert. Ms Pearce, thank you very much for coming along today. If I could impose
upon you, it would be useful from the committee's perspective to receive some report as to the future progress of
this matter. We don't need you to come back before us, but it would be useful if you could hopefully indicate
through the secretariat when this has been resolved by the NDIA so that we are aware of the outcome.
Ms Pearce: Thank you. I'd be very happy to do that.
CHAIR: Thank you very much.

GUNN, Ms Stephanie, Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Participants and Planning Group, National
Disability Insurance Agency
RUNDLE, Ms Vicki, Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Markets and Supports, National Disability
Insurance Agency
TIDSWELL, Mr Grant, Chief Operating Officer, National Disability Insurance Agency
[09:20]
CHAIR: Welcome. Would you like to make any opening comments?
Mr Tidswell: Thank you. I pass on apologies for David Bowen. David's not able to be here today as he heads
off on Sunday on a well earned one-month break overseas. He has a short handover period and the new CEO, Mr
Rob De Luca, will start on 28 August. I'm sure he'll look forward to the opportunity to present evidence to the
joint standing committee.
One thing I'll do at the outset is talk a little about what we've been doing in the last little while. The refreshed
board of the NDIA has asked us to have a very deep look into participant and provider experience with the NDIS
given the feedback they've received. Our chairman has consulted widely with stakeholders, participants,
providers, state and territory ministers and officials and has asked us to look in detail at our approach to how
participants find their way into the scheme, how providers are effectively registered and become providers for the
service and how participants use those providers. We've run a very intensive process. We are up to nine or 10
workshops across the country. We've had probably 300 individuals involved in those workshops. Most of those
have been participants. We've run them across the country. There is another one in Townsville next week. Those
have given us a rich picture of concerns and issues moving forward. We've identified over 300 pay points. We are
well on the way to thinking our way through what we need to do about those pay points so we can come back and
tell stakeholders more broadly about what we're doing about it. We haven't landed that yet. We're still in the
process of working through options and thoughts and ideas, and then we'll come back to the board with a plan on
how we will deliver that in the next little while. Our goal would be to finalise our thinking through August and
then we'll come back with an approach for the rest of this financial year. Naturally, we've been looking at the
evidence that's been provided to the joint standing committee as well to make sure we're picking up the kinds of
things that you're hearing as well.
CHAIR: Thank you very much. The purpose this morning is for us to receive some feedback from the agency
in relation to the submissions and what we've heard from witnesses, particularly in relation to the public hearings
in Canberra and Penrith. As you will be aware, we are in the process of writing and finalising effectively three
reports in the coming weeks: the aspect in relation to hearing, the mental health aspect and the annual report.
There is a lot to cover in relation to that. I say at the outset that we probably have more questions than time allows
this morning. So, with your cooperation, when time runs out this morning, the secretariat might forward you all of
the questions that are outstanding and ask you to respond to us in writing rather than here. That might enable us
this morning to at least have a discussion about some of the more significantI was going to say egregious
examples that have been raised with us. It's our hope that we will be able to table those reports when the
parliament resumes, not altogether but within the first few sitting weeks of the parliament resuming. We won't be
able to get on with any other work until we do that, and, as part of our future work, we want to have a look at the
transition arrangements on a state-by-state basis, because that seems to be the most important issue facing the
agency and facing all of us with the NDIS over the coming year.
Obviously, one of the big issues that has been raised with us is the whole planning processthe timeliness of
the planning and the thoroughness of the planning. Witnesses have put to us inconsistencies in planning, rigidity
of the process and the inability, in instances raised with us, which you would've read in the evidence, for things to
be dealt with in a flexible manner. Without going into all of the specifics of that, because we'll give you the list of
more detailed questions, I'm interested at this point in where the agency sees this from the point of view of any
developments from now on.
Mr Tidswell: I'll provide some information and then ask Ms Gunn to provide further detail. We've got a
challenging rollout across Australia and we're doing pretty well against the bilateral estimates that were set up
some time ago with state jurisdictions. At around 80 per cent, or a bit over, on each quarter we're getting people
into the scheme, which is a great thing. Where we're not getting those people, it's often because either they're not
eligible or we're having difficulty making contact with people, because there's the cohort of people who aren't
easily contacted and probably get services in an episodic way. But we are building that approach and
methodology as we phase in more regions, put more staff on and put more partners on to build the momentum to
get the work done. So we're working hard to think through our processes and procedures, and the pathway work is

really about trying to ensure we get a better quality experience with the process for participants; and, if we get it
right for participants, it'll make it easier for providers. On top of that, we're working hard to fix things as they
currently stand. We're not standing still. We're not waiting for this piece of work to kind of deliver everything, so
we are working day by day on our training, on our quality improvement and on ensuring that we can absolutely
get a better, more consistent, nationally applied approach.
The challenge is that everybody presents with different circumstances. This is not a one-size-fits-all, cookie-
cutter approach. People come with different lived experience of either receiving service or not receiving service.
So it is going to be always challenging to have a perfect, homogenised pattern kind of approach. But we do want
to improve our quality and our approach so that participants get a quality experience through the planning.
Senator GALLACHER: I have a question at that point. I have been on the committee since it was formed.
We've conducted a range of inspections at trial sites and we're holding a range of hearings on specific silos. One
of the things that's always stuck out for me is that, when we take evidence, the department doesn't appear to be all
that prepared when it's the department's turn to rebut, reinforce or give some advice about that evidence. I
understand it's a heroic endeavour that you're rolling out, but, when people come to a public hearing and raise
very specific issues, does the department have someone that looks at those issues and is prepared to give us a
response? That has not always been apparent.
Mr Tidswell: I hear what you're saying and we're here to do that today. It is challenging, though, because the
opening question covers a number of things. If we just wanted to talk about the quality of experience, we're happy
to discuss our approach in that direction. If it was about timeliness, we're happy to talk about that. It really is the
kind of
Senator GALLACHER: If you could address that, at least in part, today, it would be helpful.
Ms Gunn: I would add that, where possible, when individuals raise particular circumstance at earlier hearings
our staff who have attended those hearings as observers have followed up with those individuals. If appropriate,
we can give you a status update on the individuals where we thought that was most important to do.
CHAIR: The question goes to what is the quality assurance in relation to planners. We understand this is a
work in progress so we are not expecting perfection overnight, but, from the committee's perspective and the
broader community's perspective, we are looking for where progress has been made. If we come back and have
further hearings in 12 months or two years time, one would hope that the problems that have been identified to
date are less, at least, in the future than exist at the present time. So the question comes back to: yes, there are
individual cases, but, from a systemic point of view, what is being done to ensure that the planners who are
selected are adequately trained and skilled in the first place? How do you hold them accountable and what's in
place for quality assurance of the work which they do?
Mr Tidswell: Ms Gunn is going to talk about the broader quality assurance program, then I will ask Ms
Rundle to talk about our new capability, which was put in place in the last month.
Ms Gunn: We absolutely recognise the need for a quality framework. We've now instigated a quality
management framework across all our sites, which basically looks at the identification of issues, uses all of the
standard tools about peer based supports, draws examples out, uses case studies, uses both risk assessed and
random sampling of decisions and actions both predecision and postdecision, explores that, and spreads those
lessons out across our network to try and develop a much more consistent approach to the decisions. Where we
see a systemic lack of understanding about the way in which a particular decision should be applied in a particular
circumstance, we will pull that out and then develop a training module. Our quality teams within each of the
regions, which were not fully operational in July of last year, are now up and running and their job is to take those
training modules and wash that over all of our staff.
We have dedicated periods of training on a monthly basis, and, in response to many of the issues that have
been raised, we have just kicked off on a revised refreshing of all of our trainingbringing our staff right back to
the terms that are important. What does 'reasonable and necessary' within the scheme mean? How do you apply
that in the multiple circumstances that you are going to be confronted with? What is the base training? We've
been criticised even for disability awareness, for example, so we've revamped our disability confidence training
and understanding. We are in the process of working with a number of organisations to relay more substantially
even the history of disability rights for our staff, so that we come from the right placeunderstanding the point of
multiple disadvantage that many of our participants will be coming from, and understanding our role in
structuring their plan to deliver against outcomes for improvement.
So, it is a multilayered approach to quality, and the effectiveness of that goes to the regularity of our training.
Being able to pick that up goes right back to the recruitment of our staffthe right people in the right place with

the right skillsand trying to develop across the network. It won't be in every area, but, across the network, we
want much more and much deeper understanding by disability-type, so that we have subject matter experts who
all of our staff can refer to if they are themselves not expert in the disability that they are confronted with. Our
challenge then is to grow that in a systematic way as our workforce and our partner workforce grows rapidly as
well. But we can certainly give you a copy
Senator GALLACHER: Where do the planners come from?
Ms Gunn: Lots of different places. We ask and we advertise for people from multiple backgroundsearly
developmental educators; a lot of disability support workers; ex-public service, more state than Commonwealth,
who have been either in the disability policy departments or in a direct service delivery role.
Senator GALLACHER: There's no skill shortage then. Do people apply for them?
Mr Tidswell: The Productivity Commission has headlined with 'one in five jobs in the next little while will be
in this sector'. It is going to be challenging over time as disability service organisations, providers and our partners
look for staff. There is no doubt about it in some parts of Australiait wouldn't be a surprise to yourselves that in
remote parts of Australiathere's going to be a challenge to perfect the model, get the right skilled staff and keep
those staff.
Senator GALLACHER: If you advertise for a planner, do you get five applicants or 500?
Ms Rundle: I look after the people side of the organisationHR, recruitment, the ICT build and also the
providers and markets part of the agency. There are a few things I will respond to, but I will start with the
workforce question. We have an arrangement with states and territories, as we transition people into the scheme,
which we call 'first offer'. Because a lot of these people are experienced people in the state and territory disability
system and because the states are putting in half the money into the system, the arrangement is that their staff will
have the opportunity in our recruitment exercises as we roll out the new parts of the scheme, but those and any
other applicants are still subject to a range of things that we do. I have forgotten the technical term but we do
things like aptitude assessments to make sure that they have the right attitude and the right values for the scheme.
We interview them and they are refereed checked et cetera. They do come from the sorts of backgrounds that Ms
Gunn has previously outlined.
Mr Tidswell mentioned that there will be a shortage of people in remote and rural areas, which is not new to
any state or Commonwealth program, but the other workforce piece that Mr Tidswell alluded to is the growth of
the actual workforce in the market. We will need another 80,000 jobs in the market itself. In a way you have to
see the recruitment of our people within the broader context of the whole workforce: we are competing with a
growing aged-care workforce and childcare workforce.
Senator GALLACHER: As far as quality assurance is concerned, are you able to recruit appropriately
trained and qualified people or do you recruit people who you then have to train?
Ms Rundle: We definitely train all of our staff, because there are things about our scheme that,
notwithstanding their skill level and their experience, are really important for people to know, and they are quite
different to anything that has been done before. I know you know this because of your long association with these
committee hearings, Senator, but the scheme is all about individual plans for people. State and territory services
have never hadI am not saying that they're not person centredthe luxury of being able to design a scheme
quite like this. The way you get people into the scheme and the way that people deal with people in the scheme
are quite different and so you want them to have the right sort of attitude
Senator GALLACHER: What I'm trying to get to: do you have enough planners?
Ms Rundle: Yes, we do.
Senator GALLACHER: Are all your positions filled?
Ms Rundle: Yes. In fact, we've been recruiting on time and even ahead of time in all of our regions. I'm sorry
I didn't realise
Mr Tidswell: How many planners would we have at the moment?
Ms Gunn: Just under a thousand.
Mr Tidswell: The one thing I can say about the staff is that they're absolutely committed to this role. When
we survey our staff they're overwhelmingly here to help people with a disability have a better life. You get that;
you then have to train them in the craft of creating the plans, doing the reviews and doing the work that we've got
to do according to the legislation and the guidelines.

Senator GALLACHER: Some of the complaints, particularly in my home state of South Australia, are that
plans weren't being renewed; they'd been extended. So I'm just curious as to whether you have enough planners.
Mr Tidswell: I think one of the thingswe will touch a little bit on the arrangementswe've found difficult
with some of the reviews is making contact with people, for example. We've got to get better at perfecting that so,
ahead of time, explain to people: it's time for a review. We think some people might be responding to some
alleged stories in the media about: don't get your plan reviewed, because it'll be reduced et cetera. So we've found
it difficult to get in contact with some people.
Again, we want to get better at explaining to people the process: why it's necessary, what we need to do. We
want to have a more risk based approach to our reviews so that we can not interfere with people's lives too much
in those circumstances to perfect it. There's no doubt about it: as we enrol more people into the scheme, it
becomes more challenging. Eventually, once the transition is completed, our work largely will be doing the
review cycles as they run through. It's always going to be a challenging kind of thing as you build up a head of
steam.
CHAIR: There did seem to be a thread of evidence from the hearings that there was a difference in the quality
of plans prior to 1 July 2016 and subsequent. Have you got a response to that?
Ms Rundle: I could talk about BAF, for a moment, if that was helpful, and then obviously, the others will
want to add to this. There was a difference in the planning process leading up until 1 July last year so, in trial, we
had what we called a bottom-up planning process. Since July 1, we changed our process so that we could be more
effective about how we identified people's needs. We learnt a lot in trial and we also realised we couldn't handle
the scale that we had this last financial year and this year using the same process we had in trial. So we took the
strengths from trial and built on those, and built a system that worked for us from July 1. So the actual process did
change a little bit. In terms of the quality, I will just add something else, if it's helpful
Senator SIEWERT: Can I ask a question there before you move oncan you explain the difference between
bottom-up and what you do now, because it makes it sound like it's therefore now top-down.
Ms Rundle: It was my poor terminologyI'm sorry. With bottom-up planning, we started with a general
conversation that was semistructured with a participant, asking them a range of questions to put it fairly simply.
What we do now is we still have a conversation with that participant, but we have tried to identify the key things
which will go to developing the sort of plan that a person needs. Our questions have been more thoughtfully
constructed and are more targeted to get the sort of plan that we think a person needs. We look at what that looks
like and then we adjust it accordingly.
Senator SIEWERT: My understanding is you now have a basic plan thatand I forget what you call it off
the top of my headyou use rather than actually going from an individual's, as you said, bottom-up approach. So
you've already got a structure that you use for that plan for everybody.
Mr Tidswell: What we try to do for volume, consistency and, we would argue also, better quality is to have
parameterstypical support packages and those parameters are what we ask our staff to use to guide the planning
conversation and plan development work. It's not true to say it is top-down; it's more putting in place better-
quality templates, approaches and mechanisms, so there is some equity acrossa similar person with a similar set
of circumstances gets a similar kind of package.
I think what we've got here is the national scheme. We're trying to do it in a uniform way. We're trying to keep
within the funding envelope, and those typical support packages roll back into the total cost envelope of the
scheme of about $22 billion. So we are using those as the mechanism by which we assist our planners arrive at the
individualised plans. The plans are still individual. They are still the sorts of things that meet the reasonable and
necessary needs of those individuals.
Senator SIEWERT: But that's not what we've been hearing.
Ms Gunn: The only other thing that I would add to Mr Tidswell's explanation is that we absolutely will
change those typical support packages as the evidence for the scheme builds. We didn't have the evidence in the
early days, and the bottom-up process that Ms Rundle described ended up providing plans with line-by-line
supports. It was heavily criticised in the sense that it was a very prescriptive way for a person to have to use their
fundsfor example, they only got X number of hours for therapy or X volume of time for house assistance.
The key change in their typical support packages is to identify the three types of supports that a person needs
core supports, capacity building and capital. The core supports are all the daily living types of assistance a person
might need, and you can track that quite closely to a person's disability type. The planner's responsibility is to
adjust that for the person's circumstances. Within the core supports, you have complete flexibility in the way in
which you apply that in the volume and how you use those funds. The challenge for us is to understand the

individual circumstances, taking into account the various assessments that the person might have, and the
variations to that typical support package that person might need.
CHAIR: Is there a set of standard procedures or guidelines that each planner will follow? There is obviously a
tension between these two things. Mr Tidswell, you were saying that in order to efficiently conduct this scheme
and to ensure that it stays within the budget, which is obviously a consideration, you need to do certain things.
But, on the other hand, it has to be individualised for a particular participant. I understand that that is not
necessarily easy to do, but I suspect that this has given rise to some of the evidence that we have heard, which is
that participants with similar situations and similar disabilities have different outcomes that weren't expected. I
can understand there being different outcomes because of the individualised aspect of it. But simply based on
what we've heard, there seems to be some difficulty still.
Mr Tidswell: I will ask Ms Rundle to give you a run-through of what we have just rolled out and continue to
roll out essentially across the decision support structures for our staff and approach, which should improve the
pre-decision checkpoints and get them in a more uniform way. But I think you've hit the nail on the head on the
complexity of running a national scheme and doing it in a coordinated and consistent manner. We want a similar
outcomethat is the nature of the schemefor the bottom part of the country or the top part of the country but it
also has to be done in a way that provides an individualised experience and approach. The degree of difficulty
here is high. We are not saying that we've got it perfect. We've got a whole lot of things in flight. We're really
doing some intensive thinking at the moment about that experience as participants go through the planning phase.
Subject to working it through and working out how we deliver it within our resourcing envelopenot the scheme
envelope but our operational budgetwe are hoping to make significant improvements. But we've got a lot of
things in flight, and the work with the business assurance framework is one of those.
Ms Rundle: The business assurance framework that Mr Tidswell is referring to is controlled and supported by
the ICT system build that we've just done for this. What it enables us to do is pick the key decisions that people
make that actually make the biggest difference, as a start. We want to roll this out across a whole lot more
decisions, but we've picked three for a start. They are (1) the decision to make the access decision in the scheme,
(2) the decision to approve the plan and (3) the decision in relation to provider registrations, because that goes to
who do you let in to provide services to people and are they properly qualified, et cetera, and registered.
In relation to all of thoseparticularly to access and planning, because they are the ones that we are starting to
do firstwhat the system does is it automatically tests a decision before the decision and then it also tests post the
decision. I should have described this earlier: the whole planning process and the access process is supported by
the ICT system, so people will press buttons, they will assess things and then they will say, 'Yes, I approve.'
Instead of writing it down on a piece of paper, like they might have done 30 years ago, they now press the button
and say it's approved. In making that decision to approve it and press the button, at that point the system will
automatically pull out a sampling of decisions that are being made.
What it does is based on the level of competency of staff. We've got staff who are highly competent, staff who
are competent and staff who we call beginners. What we've done is we've said, for beginning staff, we will test in
some cases 100 per cent of all of the decisions they are about to make.
Senator GALLACHER: Is this the delegation that senior public servants have to a decision made by an
algorithm?
Ms Rundle: No.
Senator GALLACHER: It's not that?
Ms Rundle: It's supported by a delegations framework. If I'm a level 6 planner in the system, so I've got more
senior planners who I work to and I've got a few planners who work to me, then my delegation would be
somewhere around the middle of that decision-making. I cannot approve very expensive plans or very complex
sort of plans. I am going to have to seek assistance with that; I'm going to have to send it to someone more
experienced.
Now, the system that we've just built is built on the competency level of our people, through something we're
calling skills tagging. When people have undertaken particular training and they've developed particular skill sets,
they then get what we call a 'skills tag' and we know that they are competent to be able to approve things at that
level. The system then is an automatic workforce enablement system that moves the work around accordingly,
based on that skills tagging. At the same time, the business assurance improvement that we've just put in will pull
out decisions before the decision and also post the decision. As an example, what it will do if I'm about to press to
approve a plan and I'm a beginner, it will take all of mine out and all of mine will be looked at by a more senior

person before it actually goes through. I won't know that it's going to happen until I press the button and it tells
me that that plan has gone somewhere else for quality assurance.
I should add that prior to this we did do a lot of other manual quality assurance, but it was post the decision.
We would go back in and audit to look to see where we thought decisions had been made poorly. We did that in
trial. We've been doing it all through last year. But this is an automated process. The key thing with this is the pre-
decision, because that's the added safeguard.
Mr Tidswell: We would hope this would give us greater consistency in decision-making across the country.
What we then are working on, and Ms Gunn has outlined it, is the quality assurance framework and ensuring we
get a better quality experience there for participants. I'm talking about a knowledge base of disability types: how
can we match people with a certain disability with somebody with a knowledge of that type of disability and also
the experience of having really quite a tricky conversation. It's not an easy thing to do to explain how this scheme
is going to workwe've got to get better at thatand to provide the advice.
Again, it's a groundbreaking scheme. It's not an easy thing to explain. It's not a simple thing you can do over
one quick cup of tea, saying this is what is in and this is what is out. It takes time. What we're learning is thatas
people are on the scheme longerat their second or third plan, people are getting more used to how the scheme
works, getting more competent, getting more confident and really starting to make some strides. There are some
wonderful examples of people who have made extraordinary progress as a result of the scheme.
CHAIR: Is there sufficient ability or flexibility for participants to be able toI don't want to use the words
'formally review'do something short of a formal review? Again, some of the evidence that we have received is
that unless we go to a formal review, we can't necessarily get any change or have other matters taken into
consideration if we think we should; yet some other evidence says that we do not want to go to a formal review
because we are fearful of the consequences of a formal review. Again, I know we are working within a system
and there has to be guidelines, rules and everything like that. In your view, is there sufficient discretion within the
system itself to try to provide that level of flexibility without having to go through formal review processes?
Mr Tidswell: It's exactly one of the hot-button topics that we have discovered, and we are actively looking at
what we need to do. We need a formal process of review. That's going to be part of it. It's a distribution of
government money. We want to make sure it's being done at the right kind of rate and people are getting the
benefit of it. There's always going to be that component, but we are interested in the
CHAIR: I understand that, but is there something short of that?
Mr Tidswell: Well, that's what we're looking at.
CHAIR: If a participant says to a planner in the process of this, 'Look, I don't agree with what you proposed
there,' is there, and this is just off the top of my head, a mechanism or an ability for that planer to say, 'Look, why
don't I go and check with one of my colleagues or with a supervisor'or however it works within the system'to
just ascertain whether or not this is a matter which we could have a further look at?' Again, it's trying to find a
way that's sufficiently flexible, which I suspect will be more efficient in the long term. Hopefully, if you can do
something like that, it will cut out this process of having to go to a formal review anyway.
Mr Tidswell: There are two things we're looking at. We want to make that planning experience a much richer
experience and we don't want people suddenly getting a plan in the mail that is completely different to what they
thought they were going to get. We want to make sure we get it right up-front, hence the quality decision
frameworks, approaches and direction. What we want to limit is, as you've indicated, downstream review, angst
and concern. On top of that, with what we're thinking of, we do need to think through whether there is a sort of
plan review lite version that's in play within parameters. You'd have direct experience of this: you can't have a
system where people are constantly changing, rearranging and getting everything, so 'I heard this. I want that,' and
all that sort of stuff. You need to run it in ordered and coordinated way.
Senator GALLACHER: Can I just give you a specific example: there's a participant in Geelong who had
plan that allocated for some hours for someone to go in to clean her kitchen. What this participant said to me
and she was totally blindis, 'I don't need that. I don't want that. I can get that done. What I really want is to
spend two hours at the footy and I need the support to come to take me to footy so I can hear my team play.' Is
that still a concern or is that able to be fixed?
Mr Tidswell: In a perfect world, the way I would like to see it operating is that you wouldn't get that
disconnect or that situation where one of our planning staff has come in over the top and said, 'This is what we
can give you,' and it's completely different to what a participant has requested. It may well be that that was sort of
thing that person wanted in their first plan or second plan and things have changed. We need to think through how

we can do that without then having a massive kind of planned amendment that is constantly moving, changing
and readjusting a process. There's got to be a balance here.
Senator GALLACHER: Her point was that her wellbeing was best served by her having that recreational
opportunity on a Saturday rather than something which she could organise with her family.
Ms Gunn: I think I'd reflect also on the trial period, where we were able to do that: people came in, they
would go, 'It's not quite working for me.' We ended up with individuals, within a year, having 12, 13 or 14
amendments to their plan just as they played with it and thought about it. That's why we went away from this line-
by-line process and lumped the funding into core, capacity and capital. It's designed to give people a lot more
flexibility in the way they use their funds. What we have discovered in the kind of volume of people that we've
brought in is that people don't understand how they can use the funds in their plan. So being able to have that
conversationthat one would be relatively easily fixed, to say: 'You actually can use your funds in these ways.
Here are your other options.' But it would be making ourselves available for that person to ring up, find us easily
and chew it over. Our LACs, local area coordinators, on the ground have to be a source of that guidance and
information for a person. In particular, if a person has their support coordination funding in their plan, that is the
role of that person to say: 'This is how you can think about it. You have a budget of $20,000. You've got to use
your capital money for capital purposesequipment and technologybut this is the flexibility that you do have.'
So we are also, to try and help people understand that, building a lot more material about how you use it, what the
flexibility is and what you can expect to get as outcomes from the money that you have.
CHAIR: One area in which, again, there was criticism was the questionnaire, the range of questions and the
evidence that, for some disabilities, in particular, questions were asked which were pretty irrelevant and questions
that should have been asked weren't being asked. Is there any work in terms of some more variation in the
questionnaire?
Ms Gunn: The key challenge there for us is that we want to build a base set of information, a base set of
questions, for everybody. That's what guides our typical support packages, our evidence going forward. It
particularly drives then our consistent measuring of outcomes for the benefit for the scheme overall. But, as we
evolve and engage with more and more people in more and more circumstances, those questions will be able to be
nuanced and refinedin particular, where we are then able to work with particular cohorts, are there particular
questions to understand the functional impact of the person's disability? We will be able to drill down into that a
little bit more, with a focus on understanding then the nature of the supports that would be useful for that person.
That will be work that we will continue to work on.
Mr Tidswell: If the chairman, Dr Helen Nugent, were here, she would reinforce what she has reinforced to us
and me many times: we get one chance to get this review of the participant and provider experience right, and so
the raft of these things that we useour guidelines, our questionnaires, our templates, all the materialare under
active consideration. We haven't landed at where we're going to settle on these things. They are the sorts of things
that help us and assist us, but they've got to be the sorts of things that are understandable and coherent. There is no
doubt about it: we've got a lot of feedback, as you have, about: how do you actually understand what the NDIS is
about; how does this work; what does this mean; and what's the language you're using? So effectively we are
looking root and branch at communication materials, guided planning, questionnaires et cetera, to be able to make
them more understandable and to be the sorts of things that are absolutely really useful, where participants get
empowered through the process.
Senator GALLACHER: What about the really difficult cases that have got the capacity to have untoward
publicity, like the one we've heard about this morning? How does the planning regime deal with these? We had
evidence in Canberra from someone asking: 'Who's going to look after these boys when I'm gone, because they're
40 years old, they're 100 kilos and they're not very well behaved, to put it mildly.' These are really challenging
cases. How do you deal with those?
Ms Gunn: The general design of the scheme is to recognise that there is a small proportion of people who, for
want of a better term, we call intensive and superintensive needs. They have very complex behaviours, largely
driven from complex circumstances and a combination of disabilities as well, quite often. We have a team that is
now our expert advisory group around planning for complex circumstances and we're building that up slowly
within each of our regions. The challenge for that group is typically, as Ms Pearce was saying, the interfaces with
all of the other service systems that that person will typically need to stabilise and understand their circumstances
as well. In each of our sites, we have working arrangements with the justice system, with child protection
typically involved as well for those individuals. So it is not perfect by a long stretch, but there are expert staff
within our teams who are focused on understanding the power of an investment into a person's plan and
understanding that those behaviours are typically driven by pain, frustrations and poor communication. Many of

them have not had the benefit of appropriate assessments and interventions for many, many years, we've
discovered.
Senator GALLACHER: There has been some media coverage recently about Indigenous people with
disability being incarcerated in high numbers or overrepresented numbers. This is an area where you have an
emerging group of planners. Can youperhaps on noticedescribe that to us.
Ms Gunn: Sure. I would be very happy to document it.
Senator GALLACHER: Out of 1,000 planners, are there 50 that look at it?
Mr Tidswell: We will take that question on notice.
Senator GALLACHER: It is an emerging area.
Mr Tidswell: Absolutely.
Senator GALLACHER: In the evidence in Canberra, a woman said: 'I don't know what's going to happen
when I'm not here. This person's 110 kilos. I don't know what's going to happen.' They're going to live, obviously,
longer than their parents.
Mr Tidswell: It is important to say that we work closely with the jurisdictions, the states and territories. We
meet, as a minimum, monthly with them, and we're all on the same page on this. The other thing we're trying to
do as well in jurisdictions is making sure the mainstream service delivery structures don't default to this scheme,
whether it's health, education or justice.
Senator GALLACHER: Without being brutal about it, there are probably enormous savings to the taxpayer
there if we can get this right.
Ms Gunn: It's really important. With that integration interface at the time of release from prison, for example,
we have a lovely model that we're now trying to roll out, testing with each of the jurisdictions about the agency
staff being involved with the preplanning prior to release and making sure that we have all the supports in place
for those people that are our responsibilities, to connect them up with all of the other services, such as housing
and the external criminal justice processes, so that they are all connected and working collaboratively when the
person does come out.
Senator GALLACHER: It's an emerging areathe social impact bonds. I think the first one was the
Peterborough example in the UK, where they reduced recidivism and paid a dividend on the investment.
Ms Gunn: Absolutely.
Senator GALLACHER: So can we get a snapshot of where you're looking.
Mr Tidswell: We will come back with that on notice.
CHAIR: Coming back to the questionnaire and what flows from that, do you envisage that, over time, you
will be able to developwhilst retaining the individual approachcohorts of different disabilities? Obviously a
child with hearing loss is entirely different to an adult with a physical disability, who's entirely different to a
person with some form of mental disability. I know there are overlaps as well, but do you see that, as this matures,
you'll have more of a cohort approach that will then enable you to look at it individually?
Mr Tidswell: Yes, that's certainly one of the things we're actively looking at. We've heard that again. We've
run these workshops. They've largely been the opportunity for people like us to sit back and just listen and get the
lived experience of people with a disability as they talk about their journey and challenge and all sorts of stuff.
Unfortunately, like you, we have stories that make us quite uncomfortable, about how we've sent vision impaired
people a letter and not braille. There are examples where we haven't quite got that, so we want to get better with
not only our core training and understanding of people with a disability and the challenges that people face but
also looking at that kind of cohort based servicing and approach.
CHAIR: My interest is not simply in sending somebody who's blind a letter that they can't read. It flows from
my experience of welfare reform and what they've done in New Zealand, which is an insurance based model of
welfareand this is an insurance based model for this areawhere they were, by developing a breakdown into
cohorts, able to tailor their responses much more individually. It just seems to me that there are some parallels
there that might be useful in terms of the further development of the way in which the scheme operates.
Mr Tidswell: The one thing we are really trying to doand this goes back to New Zealand, because I'm
familiar with the New Zealand approaches and using data and understanding the best intervention to get people
off welfareis bring the outcomes focus in as early as possible, even before we start talking to you about a plan:
how do we connect you to the mainstream, what's the outcome, what are the goals you're trying to achieve in your
life, and how can we get there? At some point, we may well also develop datasets that can help us describe what

is the better package, given your circumstances, that will lead to that better outcome, exactly like the investment
model in New Zealand.
CHAIR: If we don't do that, then we're not really applying an investment or insurance model.
Mr Tidswell: Exactly.
CHAIR: And so nobody misunderstands what I'm saying: it doesn't mean that the aim of this is to get people
off the NDIS. The aim is to get the best outcome for them. If there is data that helps you to do that and, by the
way, has some efficiencies as well, then that's a desirable outcome, I would've thought.
Mr Tidswell: Therefore, that's why we do ask a lot of questions up-front because we want to be able over time
to test how people are improving in their livesin their social outcomes, employment outcomes and community
connection outcomes. Hence, it does seem like we collect a lot of data up-front. That's partly to track and report
on progress and help people realise their goals.
Ms Rundle: Just to add to that: the scheme actuary, in her quarterly report and then her end-of-year report,
always talks about where the expenditure is in the scheme across the range of supports. The other thing we are
trying to do is understand what supports people choose where they've got flexibilitywhat do they choose in
order for us to then measure how that support correlates to the outcome. So we continue to build that evidence.
CHAIR: This is off the point, but I'll ask it because you've raised it: in terms of the data that's collected, is that
ultimately going to be available for researchers? You'll do some analysis of that data, but I've always personally
been of the view that government data that is collected should at least in its broader formI don't mean
specifying individuals, so privacy concerns are taken into account. In America, for example, data that is collected
by governments is much more broadly available to researchers than it is in Australia. But, if we're going to
continue to develop and evolve this scheme, it seems to me that, the more research that's done, the better.
Mr Tidswell: Absolutely. I think the opportunity here is immense. The Australian Institute of Health and
Welfare, which you would be familiar with, has been joining up the data since getting that picture. One of the
other things of the scheme is that it's absolutely beneficial for the 460,000 participants in the scheme, but also for
the carersand the economic benefits for them as wellto be able to be back out in the community earning
income, et cetera. We want to prove the net worth of that across the country as well. Interestingly, I'm meeting
with a researcher from the University of Melbourne over lunch today because they have got a particular initiative
and interest in this area. What we'd like to do with our research isback to that investment approachfind out
what is the suite of things that could be on offer that could improve a person's life, and then have people take up
that opportunity to do that in that way. It doesn't mean everybody says 'I'll take that'; they might over time. We
want to provide our staff with that kind of information so they can put those options in front of people and make
those decisions.
Senator GALLACHER: You mentioned the 460,000 participants. Given the difficulty in South Australia that
came out with the underestimation of children with autism, is that impacting on the scheme as a whole or is that a
swings and roundabout thing?
Mr Tidswell: Absolutely. I think the Productivity Commission is much better qualified to talk about end state
and numbers and approaches. They're doing that in that area as we speak. But they're the figures we use and that's
what's locked into those bilateral estimates, which are viable work as we go through each week, each month and
each quarter, for that transition.
Senator GALLACHER: Is the actuary saying they are on track to hit 460,000, or is it 560,000?
Mr Tidswell: 460,000.
Senator GALLACHER: The fact that in South Australia there was an allegedly underestimation of 50 per
cent has not been banked on?
Mr Tidswell: My interpretation is that these are estimates at a point in time. The difficulty with these things is
that they are locked into the funding envelope and arrangementsthe deals that have been struck with the state
and territory governments.
Senator GALLACHER: There is a suggestion that autism is diagnosed higher than perhaps what is
estimated. Have I got the right evidence there?
Mr Tidswell: We thought the story that came out of the Productivity Commission's draft paper blew this story
up in a sense. So what we are trying to do is work within what we think are the estimates that were put in place.
The jurisdictions give us data on those who are existing. We go out and try and make contact with those people as
quickly as we can and bring them into the scheme. And then there are projections on new entrants. I think in this
instance it is the swings and roundabouts of the approach as you roll through.

Senator GALLACHER: But is there any emerging evidence that people are shifting a state responsibility
onto the scheme?
Mr Tidswell: I would take that on notice. These are early days. I look at these figures daily. I talk to the
jurisdictions all the time.
CHAIR: But what you said before was that there is a danger of this occurring and we have to be vigilant that
it does notif I can paraphrase your earlier evidence.
Mr Tidswell: Yes. Effectively, these are locked into agreements and to go above them requires another
conversation between the Commonwealth and the states and territories.
Senator GALLACHER: We know from the evidence that New South Wales has transitioned 7 thousand
people from the public sector to the private sector, and in South Australia that work is ongoing as we speak. Does
it present any challenge for the agency that all these public servants are moving into the NGO sector? You do not
think it will have any impact on the scheme?
Mr Tidswell: No, I would not imagine that at all.
Senator GALLACHER: Disability Support Services will remain?
Mr Tidswell: That is my understanding.
Ms Rundle: That is a matter for New South Wales, in any event; the New South Wales government are
moving their services to the sector, and that has been their decision. The only observation I would make is that
any experience, no matter whether it be public provision or private sector provision, as long as it is kept in the
sector in some way, is beneficial. And I think that is what is happening in New South Walesthose people are
moving to the sector through those arrangements.
Senator GALLACHER: And there are no challenges emerging there?
Ms Rundle: Not that I can see.
Mr Tidswell: In New South Wales it is starting in earnest from next Monday, with the Benevolent Society.
They are a very good organisation. My daughter works for them and they are a pretty good outfit.
Ms Gunn: We worked very closely with the New South Wales government on that transfer. We have very
detailed plans with them about understanding which components are going so that we can match our planning to
combine in an appropriate timetable with those individuals as well.
Senator GALLACHER: So we are not going to hear at a hearing in two or three months time that it has all
been bad since they moved from the state public sector to the Benevolent Society?
Ms Gunn: That would not be our responsibility.
Mr Tidswell: That's a hypothetical. I don't usually answer hypotheticals!
CHAIR: Can I come back to a specific then. Another matter in which we had evidence was in relation to
when and how medical reports are used. I recall an example where a plan did not provide for a prosthetic device
though it had been recommended by a medical practitioner for this particular participant. As a general
proposition, if there are medical reports in relation to participants, that should at least be part of the basis of
evidence that you take into consideration for that particular individual. I know it is not everything, but it is
certainly one piece of evidence that should be taken into account. I know that not every case is indicative of the
way in which the scheme operates overall. Nonetheless, these are matters that have been raised with us.
Ms Gunn: You're right, information from medical practitioners is really important in understanding the
diagnosis level. Underneath that, we then have to understand the functional impact of the diagnoses. We
sometimes struggle to get that information clearly documented and understood. But I am not sure why a plan
missed having a prosthesis. If a person needs a prosthesis, it is very obvious. I would imagine that that was just an
error in the plan construction rather than a failure to look at the piece of evidence.
Senator SIEWERT: In this case, it was done on review; so you would clearly think they would have looked
at it. Maybe we could ask you to look at the specific evidence that we took in Canberra. This was overturned and,
on review, a decision was made not to fund it. The local office was overruled.
Ms Gunn: Looking at it in detail would be of assistance. It may well have been the type, scale or nature of the
prosthesis as well. We are very happy to look at that.
CHAIR: As a general matter, should it be a prima facie requirement that if there are medical reports they
should be taken into consideration prior to a plan being developed?

Ms Gunn: It is one piece of information we would take into account as part of the assessment of the person's
needs.
CHAIR: I understand that it is one piece, but should it be a necessary piece?
Ms Gunn: Not for everybody.
CHAIR: If it is readily available, there doesn't seem any harm in obtaining it.
Ms Gunn: No, that's absolutely right. A person can provide it.
CHAIR: Yes, but should the agency be more proactive in relation to that? Should the agency say, 'Do you
have any medical reports in relation to your condition and, if so, can you provide them to us'?
Ms Gunn: As part of the access process, a person is encouraged to collect all of the information they have
about their disability and their needs, and that is typically taken into account; it is part of the question process that
the person would go through.
Mr Tidswell: And we find that our speed in making that decision is sometimes compromised because of the
speed at which that information can be provided to usand sometimes it is not provided to us. It is a bit of a
challenge getting the material that we need in that area. We need to do better. We need to explain to participants
well beforehand what they need to get ready so we can ensure that, when we have a conversation with somebody,
everything is there and ready to gorather than waiting for something to be sent and not sure what it is.
CHAIR: That leads to another area of concern that was raised with us, and that is what participants and/or
families perceived as a lack of transparency about the planning process and what was required. I know the old
adage 'individual cases make bad law', but there does seem to be enough evidence before us from a variety of
people both in Canberra and Penrith that this is a more general issue than what might have arisen in one or two
cases here or there. So I suppose the question is: what is the agency doing in order to ensure that there is
transparency about the decision-making processobviously prior to decisions being madefor participants?
Mr Tidswell: This is absolutely under active consideration. We are testing some hypotheses at the moment
about a better approach. We had a workshop last Friday in Penrith where we talked about this directly with
participants. We are talking to our planners and staff as well to think through how we actually ensure that when
that planning conversation is finished you are pretty clear about what is going to be available in your plan and
why. I suspect that it is pretty daunting for a lot of people, pretty overwhelming. But that is where we want to get
to, and we are not there yet. I think we're getting better with that, but we certainly want to improve our approach
to making, as you called it, the transparency of the decision making much clearer: what's a reasonable and
necessary support for you to live a standard life over and above what you might get in terms of mainstream
services as a citizen of this country. We've got to do better with that; we know that, and we
CHAIR: And some of that goes to the language which is used and whether it's sufficiently plain English
enough for people to understand it. That was raised by a number of people.
Mr Tidswell: And we've got to get better with that. That's the key thing that we're looking atto improve the
plain English, simplifying it, not having our jargon that we understand. Sometimes it's challenging, because it
might be in the act, but we need to think through how we actually provide that. Just to talk about 'reasonable' and
'necessary' is not a simple thing for people to get their heads around. It's difficult enough to train our staff, let
alone to talk to somebody who's already in a state or territory scheme about what this means and how it applies,
and we've got to get better with that and get our information products out there and get our partners out there in
the community talking about what's going on. We're being challenged. We get better. Our partners are on the
ground six months before rollout so they can get those connections, do the talking, do the conversations, have
expos. There was an expo a month or two ago in May in Ipswich, ahead of time just before we rolled Ipswich. It
went really well because people knew what they had to do and the system worked much better. But we've got a lot
of work to do there to demystify what is effectively a fairly complex scheme.
Senator GALLACHER: What do you say, when you get that right, to the suggestion that the level of pricing
set by the NDIA doesn't accurately reflect the cost of service delivery? When you get a plan that you've agreed
on, the next step is that people say, 'Yeah, that's fine, but we can't afford it because you're not giving us enough
money.' The pricing is out of step with what the marketplace says.
Mr Tidswell: I'm not quite convinced that that's the case. Ms Rundle can talk about how we've commissioned
a pricing review, so I'll let Ms Rundle talk about the pricing review.
Senator GALLACHER: Is that the McKenzie review?
Ms Rundle: That's the McKenzie pricing review, which was commissioned in early July and will be
completed at the end of December. It will report to the board and management. What it will do is look at all of

these things. The first thing to say about pricing is that there'll be a point that we want to get to where we don't
have pricing at all, where we don't need pricing, because we've got a really good, thriving market that's
competitive, that gives really good value for money for participants, and they can choose and make changes if
they're not satisfied. The market's nowhere near that space yet, as we know. One of the things we do is we don't
price everything but we price a number of things where we think that the market's not yet developed enough and
participants could be at risk of being taken advantage of. I'm not suggesting that providers would, as a general
course, do this, because I think providers always act pretty much in the best interests of participants. That's been
really clear in all of the consultations we've been doing with providers, where they've been more interested, in
fact, in the participant's experience than some of their own issues. But, that said, for a time we'll need to put prices
on some of our items. If you look at some of our pricesfor example, attendant care, which is probably 80 to 85
per cent of the scheme, if you include therapythen we compare quite well at the moment to attendant care in
other sectors.
But, just the same, we do recognise that there are two things happening here. One is that providers have been
block funded before in the past by state and territory governments and it is very difficult. I've worked in states and
territories for a lot of my career and I know what it's like for the sector to have to organise their business models
around state and territory and Commonwealth funding systems. There are so many streams of funding coming in.
They're always juggling how they do it. And now what they've got to do is move their business model so that they
can price for individual services because they're paid through individual participant plans. So it's jolly hard
Senator GALLACHER: I know in South Australia there's a company that calls itself Ubercare which charges
$35 an hour for a two-hour minimum. Is that sort of stuff emerging across the sector?
Ms Rundle: Thirty-five dollars an hour for what?
Senator GALLACHER: Two hours minimum. You just ram up, and they come and give you personal care. It
might not even be the disability sector; it might be just you need someone to come round and give you a hand.
Ms Rundle: I'll look at that. I can't comment on that specific one.
Senator GALLACHER: Well that's emerging as a result of, I presume, this sort of demand.
Ms Rundle: Possibly it is, but our price for attendant care is actually higher than that, as you would know. I
think the second point that I was going to make is, firstly, we recognise the difficulty that providers are making.
Having said that, some providers are doing reasonably well and some are doing quite well. So the experience
across providers is variable, and we think that it's different for different reasons, which is why the pricing review
that Mr Tidswell referred to is going to be really important. We want to really dig down and find out what the
difference is between the different sorts of service provision, and so looking at services for complex participants
and maybe other sorts like taking people into the community for community activities and looking across the
whole range of those, looking that the geographical differences.
At the moment, our price guide is an east and west price guide, and we also have a loading for remote and very
remote. What we know is that those geographical cuts at the moment probably aren't sensitive enough to cater for
the other geographical differences, so we're looking at that. We're looking at emergency services, short-term care
and crisis care, and there's a range of other things that the review will look at: the adequacy of pricing and
provider sustainability. It'll also give us advice about the glide path to a deregulated point, which is a much later
in the future for some things.
Mr Tidswell: The degree of difficulty is high here, because we're, again, running a national scheme. So you've
got great variability across jurisdictions. One thing I can see is the hourly rate has gone up to a benchmark higher
for a lot of jurisdictions than it was previously. Again, it's another tension point, because you're trying to get a
uniform approach to this and a standard approach. You're trying to make sure that people don't get into the
situation where they need five minutes of help and get charged two hoursa call-out fee for those approaches and
some flexible solutions and all sorts of stuff protect not only the integrity of the scheme but vulnerable people
from being exploited. At the end of the day, we're, again, trying to tidy things up where things have been a bit all
over the place across all jurisdictions.
CHAIR: And, if the aged-care sector is any indication, there's likely to be over time a significant
rationalisation of service providers, and uber care may be a part of that.
Ms Rundle: We've found that already where some people have decided they'll join coalitions of services that
have joined up, because it's been more economical, and shared their corporate overhead.
Mr Tidswell: I've spoken to chairs of boards of some NGOs who, for the first time ever, have got a big
challenging dilemma for them at their board meeting: they've got a surplus; never had that before. They're starting
to think through: 'Okay, what do we need to dobusiness development costs? Do we expand here to deliver

better services?' And that's the sort of stuff we want to hear. So we think the pricing envelope is good, and we'll
get further evidence and advice about how to make it better.
Senator GALLACHER: But, in the mental health sector, there is state funding to provide services which are
not easily replaceable in the free market system. How do they get funding to maintain what they do?
Mr Tidswell: I 'm not an expert on the state mental health systems, I am afraid.
Ms Rundle: We're working with the mental health sector. It's not actually, I was going to say, as bad as it
might seem; it can work quite well. I think part of the problem we're dealing with with the mental health sector is
that we need to do better at explaining the match between our planning process and our funded supports and the
current way that they deliver services. I've been meeting with them recently in our pricing work and talking to
them a bit about that.
Senator SIEWERT: There has been evidence to indicate that there is, in some instances, the need for some
block funding. That was reinforced when I was in the south-west here in WA a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure
you've read the evidence we received in Penrith, which I found very compelling, around certain case histories. I
understand the issues around block funding very, very clearly and the concerns advocates have around that. Have
you looked at what happens where there are extremely difficult issues, where there is a need for coordination and
where NGOs are now providing services that they are simply not being paid for?
Ms Rundle: I'm not sure I fully understand. I'll have a go at it, but, if I don't answer it well enough, please say
so and I'll get the right answer for you. There are a few things in that question. The first thing that I'd say is that,
where we've got people who need support coordination, we fund support coordination. We've been doing some
work recently on looking at how we can improve our guidance around support coordination. We'll look at pricing
for that as well in our pricing review. Also, wherever we find that we've got failure in the market, we've been
doing some work to look at what we would do when we have failure in the market. We call it 'provider of last
resort'. We're doing work on that. We're also doing work on submarkets. Where we know we have particularly
difficult markets, where we might have a shortage, we've been looking at that. A good example that you know
well, Senator, would be SDA. We knew that we needed to build more specialist disability accommodation. Our
policy and our pricing reflects that to provide incentive to get more people to invest in that market. I'm not sure
that I've answered well enough.
Senator SIEWERT: You've given me some useful information, thank you, but not on the specific point. You
might need to take the question of looking at the Penrith example on notice. There was some very compelling
evidence. You could not cover the sort of evidence that we heard then and that I've subsequently heard by talking
to people around case coordination. The example that was used was in quite dramatic circumstances, but there are
other examples. It was quite clear from the evidence we received that this was not just an isolated incident. I
would say it would happen elsewhere. Perhaps I could ask you to take on notice having a look at the evidence we
received in Penrith and those sorts of circumstances. I think they said you couldn't write into somebody's plan that
these sorts of circumstances might happen and therefore we need to allocate some case coordination. Perhaps you
need to take this on notice too: have you had cases where providers gave you situations where they had to pick up
the costs around services that they had to provide but they had no way of recouping the costs from somebody's
plan?
Ms Rundle: Yes, we are aware that there are some issues with providers claiming against some supports in
plans, and there is a range of reasons for that. Some of them have been system related and some have just been
because of the way things are described in the plan compared to the service that the provider is giving. We work
on a case-by-case basis and we work out what the problem is. Usually Ms Gunn and I work together on these
things because one part of it is planning and the other part is the provider experience and difficulty with payment
through the system. We usually resolve them. As you suggest, I'll offer to take those on notice and will get you a
definitive answer. The other thing I would acknowledge is that we need to do quite a lot of work in relation to
building our support coordination workforce because we know that it's variable around the country. For us, that's
one of the biggest pieces in all this. If we get really skilled support coordinators or case coordinators, they're
going to be able to help people access services, change their mind about services if they're not happy with
services, find another provider and advocate for them for mainstream services that they should be getting. So the
skill level of these coordinators is really important. This is another area that we are giving a lot of focus on at the
moment.
Senator SIEWERT: Thank you. You said you're working on case coordination. Could you take us through
how that's operating or is it better if you take it on notice?

Ms Rundle: I can tell you how it works. It's a description about how it works in the plan. If a person requires a
support coordinator in their plan, it's added into the plan as a funded support. At the moment, it will be variable in
the regions, but mostly we find that our regional officers have a good understanding of the local support
coordinators who are available. Usually they would either talk to them or give them a list, or the LACs, the local
area coordinators, would give them a list and talk them through who's available. They could also look on our
provider finder, but this is the sort of service about which you would want to talk to a person. Usually, the people
who need the support coordinators are people with complex needs. You don't necessarily really want to leave
them to try to negotiate their own way through the system. They'd work out the sort of support coordinator who
would best match their needs and then the support coordinator would link up with that participant. They then take
the participant's funded plan, sit down with them and work out what they've currently got, whether they're happy
with what they've currently got and where they're not receiving services that they've been funded for, because
they're new, and then look for providers in the local area that might provide them. So it is about helping them and
guiding them to find what they need. They also check in with them. If support coordinators do their job well,
when a plan is coming up for review they should also sit down with the person and have a discussion with them
about how they felt about their plan in the last year, whether they have achieved the goals that they set out to
achieve and the sorts of goals that they envisage setting for the following year so that, when the participant comes
to the conversation with the planner or the LAC, they're more informed about what they want in the next year,
what's worked well and what hasn't worked well.
Mr Tidswell: Senator, going back to your opening pointthe support from advocates for individualised
servicingwe think that gives the ability for a participant to make some choices and maybe change their provider
a mix or what they get. Previously, as you well know, it was all delivered in-house and there was no choice. Some
providers still say, 'We did that. We should be allowed to do it. We're skilled at doing it. We know what's best for
that person,' et cetera. Fundamentally, the model we're going for does challenge that pre-existing block funded
arrangement.
Senator GALLACHER: As a segue way to the transport issue, this is where choice can deliver a worse
result. If there's a community bus on a regular run and the driver is a volunteer and he picks up 15 children per
day and then everybody goes their own way, that service no longer exists. What thinking or what activity has
happened in that space? We've had evidence from transport providers who say the service may will get worse, not
better.
Mr Tidswell: This is a big issue for the scheme and it's a big issue for Commonwealth and state and territory
governments. There are some very, very detailed conversations going on. Again, going back to pricing and
variability across the country in the transport area, the difference between what you can get in one jurisdiction to
another is quite extraordinary. It is a hot-button topic, absolutely. Watch this space as this is worked through.
Ministerial council meetings and others will work the way through it. It's still being considered. Ms Rundle can
provide some further advice.
Ms Rundle: I think you're referring to specialised school transport, Senator.
Senator GALLACHER: It's probably wider than that. South Australia might have 50 Access cabs that are
licensed and give a 365-days-a-year service as part of their licence to operate. Are those sorts of services going to
be impacted by this deregulatory approach? It also goes to specialised school transportation.
Ms Rundle: If I could go back a tick and firstly provide the context of the whole transport picture and then go
into those two examples. There are three sorts of transport we talk about in the scheme: transport for individuals,
community transport, which you have just referred to, and specialised school transport for kids with a disability
who need support to get to school. They need extra support over and above what they would normally need. Each
one of those, particularly the community transport and the children's transport, is quite complex, as Mr Tidswell
said. The senior officials' working group of the Disability Reform Council has actually set up a special working
group on this, because it is so complex. I can't tell you get what the outcome of all of this will be, but the aim is
that we try to maintain arrangements and access for people in the same way that people get access now.
I will describe what we are trying to do. At the moment, as you know, states and territories provide all of these
services, and many of them are through bus contractswe have bus fleets. These are big endeavours and they are
often linked to state government transport systems, as well is education systems and so on. When you think about
converting that, as you've rightly pointed out, into an individual package, it's very tricky, because a provider has
to have some guarantee of economy of scale to be able to make a future investment in a fleet. Yet there is no way
any real guarantee can be given, because they have to know that they're going to get that volume.
The other half of this is the participant side of it. If you were to be prescriptive to participants and tell them
they should use community transport because that'd enable that system to keep going, then you're not really

enabling choice. We're trying to work through this, but the aim, though, is that all states and territories and us are
trying to get to a point where people get the support they need and they get it when they need itkids can get to
school appropriately, in a safe way, and we do that in the most affordable, efficient and effective way. How that
plays out at the end of the day, we don't know. We're just working through it at the minute.
Senator GALLACHER: Some of the evidence is that the safe and appropriate way may be diminished in the
environment we have at the moment but is your working group looking at that?
Ms Rundle: We are. The quality and safeguards aspect of this is a big part in what we're thinking about. The
states and territories during transition are responsible for quality and safeguarding of services and particularly if it
goes to school transportwith kids in buses and things like thatthey are responsible
Senator GALLACHER: Do representative groups like the Bus Industry Confederation have somewhere to go
with their concerns?
Ms Rundle: They do. They've been going to states and territories and also to us.
CHAIR: Our concern here would come from an economic perspectiveapart from safety and concerns of
that nature. If we're talking about an instance of a mature market which has developed over a very long period of
time and, because of some purist pursuit of an ideal which is only one part of the system, we undermine that
market to the point where it doesn't exist and there'll be longer-term detriments for individuals, then we areto
use the old expressioncutting our nose off to spite our face. That is the concern that has been raised with us. I'm
not necessarily speaking on behalf of the whole committee but it's certainly a concern I have about the direction
we're going in. There are other areas in which services are provided where we accept the existing arrangements.
Individual choice doesn't mean that we're going to unlicensed medical practitioners or unlicensed physiotherapists
or whatever it might be. There are mature markets which have developed not only for health and safety reasons
but for other reasons as well.
Ms Rundle: There is an interaction with the new Quality and Safeguards Commission that's being set up by
the Commonwealth government, and that will be in play from July 2018 for both New South Wales and South
Australia, because they will have transitioned out by then. The other jurisdictions will happen in the following
year. All I could add is that everyone is very cognisant of the complexity here and everyone wants the right
outcomethe same outcome as you have just described.
Senator GALLACHER: There are a couple of areas, and one was hearing service provision where the
evidence was that we do world's best practice, but we may not be of replicating that in the scheme. Now with bus
provision and education services, we may well be doing the best we can. We need some assurance that they're not
going to be overturned.
Mr Tidswell: We are part of that process, but we're not the decision maker.
Senator GALLACHER: You're not the decision maker, but you recognise when good work's been done and
you have to keep it going.
Mr Tidswell: It's like I said: when you look at all the bits and pieces that jurisdictions have added on, more
than anything, it is the variance we're dealing with across the country, to be truthful. Part of this scheme is trying
to get to a uniform approach. Where it lands, we'll be very interested.
Senator GALLACHER: We don't want to cut off our nose to spite ourselves.
CHAIR: Senator Siewert, we are getting to the end of our time. Do you have any further questions?
Senator SIEWERT: I have a lot but I realise
CHAIR: If I could interrupt, is there a pressing matter that you want to raise at the moment?
Senator SIEWERT: In that case, I would like to ask for an update on Ms Z and the time line for the NDIA
making a decision.
Ms Gunn: I will need to come back to you. I wasn't in the room when Ms Pearce was explaining her
understanding of the status. Certainly, I've sought an update from my team and I'm very happy to put that on the
record when we see what Ms Pearce's additional concerns might be.
Senator SIEWERT: Could you take that as a matter of urgency and get back to us as soon as possible? I
would have thought you could get an update on that fairly quickly.
Ms Gunn: Absolutely. We will do that by Monday.
CHAIR: Essentially, her evidence was, to paraphrase it, that there is a proposed plan before the NDIA and it
is waiting for consideration to be finalised by the NDIA. We will wait for your further advice.
Ms Gunn: I will come back to you on Monday.

Senator SIEWERT: I have had a recent example of where someone was left without services because their
plan was being reviewed. Can you take on notice the number of times a person has lost access to service support?
How many times has that happened?
Mr Tidswell: We are looking a little puzzled here. It sounds as though the plan has expired, but we'll come
back.
Senator SIEWERT: I'm not going to go through all the details and I'm not sure whether it expired or was
being reviewed, but they were definitely left without support services of any kind. Can you take on notice whether
that has happened in other places and, if so, how many times?
Ms Gunn: We will do our best, but I'm not sure that we'd be able to identify that, I have to say. The only
instance that we could identify is where a plan had expired and a new plan had not been put in place prior to that
expiry.
Mr Tidswell: If there is a relevant example that you can provide us, Senator, we would follow it up. There
have been some situations where I know we have had difficulty in making contact with people to do the plan
review and so it led to some delay. But I hadn't heard that meant that therefore they weren't able to get services. If
there is a relevant example that you've got
Senator SIEWERT: There definitely is.
Mr Tidswell: It will be great to have that.
Senator GALLACHER: The other question that Ms Pearce brought up this morning was the guardian of last
resort can't get access to the portal
CHAIR: Where the public advocate has been appointed guardian for an individual, Ms Pearce stated that they
weren't able to get access to the portal and that was creating problems in relation to their responsibilities as
guardian.
Ms Gunn: I'm certainly happy to talk to them. If they act as a nominee, then that nominee is identified as the
person who has access to the portal on behalf of that person.
CHAIR: There is obviously some issue there.
Senator GALLACHER: The secretary can forward you the exact statement. She is appointed by the court as
guardian, but can't access the portal. That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Ms Gunn: I wasn't aware of that. We'll track that down straight away.
CHAIR: That might be an appropriate point to draw our discussion to a conclusion this morning. As I've
indicated, the secretariat will provide a list of questions, some of which we have covered in discussion, but some
are more specific. If it were possible to have responses by the end of next week, we'd appreciate that because we
want to finalise these reports within the next few weeks or so and certainly within the next early sitting weeks of
parliament in the next session.
Mr Tidswell: I suppose it will depend on volume.
CHAIR: It's not that long, Mr Tidswell. I'm sure you are sufficiently across all these issues, and the answers
will come readily. On that note, can I thank you very much for coming along and discussing this matter again
today. I declare this hearing closed.
Committee adjourned at 10:57

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Proof Committee Hansard

JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE NATIONAL DISABILITY

FRIDAY, 28 JULY 2017

BY AUTHORITY OF THE SENATE

Hansard transcripts of public hearings are made available on the

To search the parliamentary database, go to:

Friday, 28 July 2017

Members in attendance: Senators Gallacher, Siewert and Mr Andrews.

Terms of Reference for the Inquiry:

NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME

NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME

NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME

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