National Disability Insurance Scheme

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:36): Will the minister outline what work she and her department have undertaken to ensure job losses in service delivery like these seen at Anglicare are not repeated as the rollout towards NDIS continues?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:36): I think I've tried to explain to the honourable member the complexity of the NDIS and the range of moving parts that continue. In terms of where things go into the future, we are moving into a new world of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, in which services are becoming contestable. So for any provider, I think, to assume that in perpetuity into the future they will continue to have the same funding levels would be living in denial.

Of course, the National Disability Insurance Scheme offers providers a range of opportunities, and there are some providers who are doing extremely well. Those who have adjusted their systems and are working on the front end, I think it is fair to say, of attracting new customers, providing people with the sorts of services that they want are the ones that are going to thrive into the future. But I think to assume that every service that exists today—for them not to change their practices into the future is living in denial and undermines the basic premise of what all states and territories and the commonwealth signed up to with the NDIS.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Bourke, a further supplementary.