Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak against the government's National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. The member for Jagajaga, a former minister and tireless advocate of people with disability and of disability reform, like so many of us on this side of the House, outlined with great clarity earlier why this bill is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. It is nothing more than a sneaky way of diminishing what the NDIS is. We on this side of the House can see through the government's sneakiness with this legislation and their tactics that will effectively diminish the livelihoods of Australians with disability.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme was designed, funded and introduced by Labor. It is being delivered on time and within the budget. Already thousands of Australians with disability across the nation are having their lives absolutely transformed because of the NDIS. People with disability, their families and carers know that Labor, we on this side of the House, will always protect them. I, like everyone else on this side of the House, including the member for Jagajaga, who is here in the House today, will keep on fighting to protect the National Disability Insurance Scheme from this government's attacks.

I remember very clearly the day in 2013 when the then minister for disability and the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, finally succeeded in passing the NDIS. I was sitting in the chair at the time. You could feel the collective sigh of the nation. You could feel that at last we had delivered something for people with disabilities to give them dignity and to give them some form of being able to do the things that most people enjoy doing here in Australia. I can still see the scene before me here in this House. There was elation from both sides of the House. Both sides supported the NDIS in the form that it was presented to the parliament and both sides cheered the bill being passed. Basically, members of the coalition, in opposition at the time, put their hands on their hearts and said, 'Me too. We support the NDIS. Me too. We are part of this.' That is what we heard at the time. But they also said that about other bills and other things that were passed in this place, like Gonski, for example. They were saying things like, 'You can vote for us, the Liberals, and get Gonski and the NDIS.' Those are the things they were saying in the lead-up to the 2013 election. When it comes to things like disability support and education, they were saying, 'There is no difference between us.' They said that over and over, but we all know that it is not correct. The Abbott-Turnbull government has turned its back on Gonski by ripping $30 billion from school funding and now we see it again with this unnecessary piece of legislation.

This bill aims to establish, as we have heard, a special account, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account. The coalition government's priorities are in question about this, not the former Labor government's plan to fund the NDIS. The NDIS was fully funded. Disability organisations have resoundingly rejected this fund and the government's planned cuts that will go into it. The government refuses to listen to those who are experts in the field, like Peter Davidson from ACOSS, who said:

It is not obvious why this new fund is needed. Its purpose, apart from the generic one of funding the NDIS, is not clear and we don't believe it should be supported in its present form.

I will add my own reflections on this very bad piece of legislation. While this is a game of political trickery being played by the government, sadly it is just another example of the government being intent on hurting our most disadvantaged Australians.

Sadly, the future of the NDIS is no orphan when it comes to the government's callous approach to our community. For example, our lowest paid workers are the latest victims, with the cuts to penalty rates that we saw recently. Thousands of people are finding themselves worse off. The Leader of the Opposition presented a bill to save those workers, but the government is refusing to support it. What does this tell us? It tells us that the government is much more interested in giving the big end of town a $50 billion tax cut and ripping money out of the pockets of the people who need it most. This bill is an example of it. It is smoke and mirrors and full of trickery. Disturbingly, inequality in Australia is at a 75-year high, and we are a First World country so that should not be the case. We should be a beacon for progress and advancement in our region. Instead, the gap is getting bigger and bigger. The last thing we want to see is the gap for people with disabilities getting any bigger, so that they are completely out of touch.

Earlier this week I spoke about the omnibus bill. Think about that bill. I have not seen a piece of legislation that puts every community group in one bill and hurts them. They are hurting people with disabilities, people on support pensions and people on Newstart. Absolutely no other piece of legislation that I have seen attacks every sector of the community, all grouped in one bill. That is what the government is doing. This is another piece of legislation which will be used in the future to water down and diminish the good things that were put in place to ensure that people with disabilities have the ability to do the things that all of us take for granted. As I said, this bill is trickery and smoke and mirrors.

We need to ensure that the NDIS is funded correctly, as was proposed in 2013. It was costed, it was articulated in this House and everyone agreed to it, and now the government wants to see it changed. It makes you wonder what the real purpose is behind this particular bill. I oppose this bill because it is nothing other than a waste of the parliament's time—that is No. 1—because we already have the funding in place in its correct form. It is nothing but a political stunt. The government would have people believe that the previous Labor government did not fully fund the NDIS. Those are the things we have been hearing in the media and around the place. Those are the kinds of things it has been putting out there, but nothing could be further from the truth.

We have seen the real intent of this bill and we referred it to a Senate inquiry in order to better understand what the government was attempting to achieve in establishing this account. The inquiry is yet to report. The submissions provided tell a very clear story, though. The minister's own department proved in the submission they put to the inquiry and in evidence presented to the hearing that the NDIS is fully funded. That supports the fact that, in the 2013-14 budget, Labor clearly set out how the NDIS would be funded for 10 years, well past transition to the full scheme. This included reforms to the private health insurance rebate, reforms to retirement incomes, the phase-out of the net medical expenses tax offset and other long-term savings proposals. The Medicare levy was increased by 0.5 percentage points to two per cent, together with the contributions from state and territory governments around the country. These measures clearly covered the cost of the NDIS for 10 years. Just like the day when the NDIS passed, coalition members should remember this, because they voted for almost every single savings measure to fully fund the NDIS. In fact, some of those measures even passed the parliament after the election of 2013, when the coalition formed government. As I said, this new account is a smokescreen for more cruel cuts by the government that will be seen in the future. Australians will not accept more cruel cuts from the government under the guise of funding the NDIS.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is already funded. Further, the former Labor government actually set up its own special account, the DisabilityCare Australia Fund. This means that there would be two special accounts that would effectively serve the same purpose—funding the NDIS. Not only is this fund unnecessary, but the government is likely to use the fund to justify more budget cuts under the false guise of filling an NDIS funding hole left by Labor—and that is what it is going to try and put in the picture. It is wrong.

It is wrong that the NDIS is being used as an excuse for cuts to payments for the most vulnerable people in our society. As we have seen before, the government seeks to pit one group of vulnerable people against another, and that is just plain wrong. The members on the government side should be ashamed of this particular bill and the trickery that is involved in it—that is, if they had any compassion, and that is becoming increasingly questionable, given the cuts that they are heaping on Australians and what is proposed in this bill, through the trickery and smokescreens, into the future.

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