Page 1883 - Week 05 - Thursday, 16 May 2019
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risk to vulnerable people. They are another important step in ensuring that people working in NDIS services do not pose a risk to participants. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee—Minister for City Services, Minister for Community Services and Facilities, Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Minister for Roads) (5.51), in reply: I thank members for their contributions to the debate on the Working with Vulnerable People (Background Checking) Amendment Bill 2019. Since 2012 the scheme has delivered a broad spectrum background checking scheme to help reduce risk for vulnerable children and adults. As we have reviewed the scheme and how it operates and considered the new policy challenges of the NDIS and matters arising out of the royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse we have looked at amendments necessary to the scheme. The amendments in this bill will further strengthen protections to help reduce harm to and neglect of vulnerable people in the territory.
The primary changes arising from these amendments are the inclusion of regulated activities specifically for the purpose of working and volunteering in the national disability insurance scheme, the inclusion of disqualifying offences for NDIS activities, the inclusion of interim conditions of registration and the removal of registration cards.
I thank the scrutiny committee for their comments on the bill. As a result I will be moving some amendments to the government’s bill, which I will comment on in the detail stage. The committee commented on the engagement of human rights and how requests for reconsideration and registration engaged the right to a fair trial. The bill removes the possibility of a never-ending administrative loop of requests for reconsideration of registration.
This improvement balances the volume and frequency of evidence submitted to the commissioner by a person they believe relevant to their case with the commissioner’s expertise to determine the relevance of the information and whether to consider it. This will streamline the review process, seeking to provide outcomes to applicants more quickly. This simple change will provide greater operational efficiencies which can be translated into tangible benefits to any users—registered workers, volunteers and the vulnerable people they support.
Over the past five years we have been engaging with our national and jurisdictional colleagues on the NDIS and the responses to the royal commission. Many of the amendments proposed in this bill give effect to the full implementation of the NDIS. We retain responsibility for screening workers and cannot fully participate in the broader national reform approach to workers screening until our legislation is in place and Access Canberra can undertake the necessary change management to incorporate these changes into its operations.
Key changes in the bill relate to people working specifically in a new activity, which I have mentioned. The bill introduces the new concept, which has been recognised nationally, of disqualifying offences. The committee raised issues with the delegation
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