Thursday, 5 February 2026

 Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:10): (2294) My adjournment is for the Minister for Disability, and the action I seek concerns what can only be described as the complete collapse of Victoria’s disability group home system, and I ask for the government to take immediate steps to stop further group home closures, prevent the termination of the Disability Services Enterprise Agreement Victoria, protect the wages and safety conditions of more than 7500 disability support workers and ensure that participants in the South Eastern Metropolitan Region are not evicted from their homes or abandoned by a system that is failing around them.

The collapse of this system is something that this government was warned about repeatedly and is now inflicting real harm on participants, families and workers across the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region. Eight years ago the Andrews Labor government promised disability workers, families and participants that nothing would change when services were transferred to the NDIS; that promise, like many Labor government promises, has now been shattered. The government’s decision to let the $2.1 billion subsidy expire on 31 December 2025 has detonated a crisis that is tearing through the sector. More than 7500 disability support workers now face losing over a third of their wages. Mandatory training, staffing ratios and safety protection, the very foundations of the Victorian gold standard, are on the brink of being wiped out, and the consequences are already devastating. Seventy-seven group homes have been shut down across Victoria, many without any consultation with families or participants. Vulnerable people – people with profound disabilities, complex needs and lifelong support requirements – are being evicted from their homes. Skilled workers are fleeing the sector because they simply cannot survive on slashed wages and stripped-back conditions. Providers are warning they cannot continue. Now the worst has happened: Aruma has formally applied to the Fair Work Commission to terminate the Disability Services Enterprise Agreement Victoria on funding grounds.

This is not a warning, this is a crisis of a system that is collapsing in real time, hitting the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region particularly hard. Group homes in Dandenong, Noble Park, Cranbourne, Narre Warren, Keysborough and Berwick are already under threat. Families in the south-east are terrified. Participants are being told their homes may close, stressed workers are being told their wages and safety protections will be gutted. And the government – the very government that promised stability – has allowed this to happen through inaction, delay and a refusal to intervene. The scale of this crisis is staggering: 580 group homes, 2500 participants and thousands of families are now at risk. The government was warned this would happen – providers warned them, workers warned them, families warned them. This government made a promise, it has broken that promise and unless it acts now, the consequences for vulnerable Victorians in the south-east will be catastrophic.