Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That the House:

1) notes that:

a) Australians with a disability and their loved ones have been crying out for a royal commission to inquire into violence, abuse and neglect to people with disability;

b) only a royal commission is has the powers to compel evidence, conduct public hearings and provide a safe place for witnesses to shed a light on the shameful abuse and neglect being suffered by Australians with a disability;

c) today in the Senate at approximately 12 pm, the government voted against a royal commission to inquire into violence, abuse and neglect of people with a disability;

d) the government is right now desperately running down the clock so there is not enough time for the house to vote on the Senate's message; and

e) the government is doing all it can to avoid a second loss on the floor of parliament in just one week; and

2) therefore calls on this Prime Minister to allow enough time in the House so that the Australian people can know where he and the government stands on this important issue.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Maribyrnong from moving the following motion forthwith—That the House:

1) notes that:

a) Australians with a disability and their loved ones have been crying out for a royal commission to inquire into violence, abuse and neglect to people with disability;

b) only a royal commission is has the powers to compel evidence, conduct public hearings and provide a safe place for witnesses to shed a light on the shameful abuse and neglect being suffered by Australians with a disability;

c) today in the Senate at approximately 12 pm, the government voted against a royal commission to inquire into violence, abuse and neglect of people with a disability;

d) the government is right now desperately running down the clock so there is not enough time for the house to vote on the Senate's message; and

e) the government is doing all it can to avoid a second loss on the floor of parliament in just one week; and

2) therefore calls on this Prime Minister to allow enough time in the House so that the Australian people can know where he and the government stands on this important issue.

Labor has been calling for this royal commission since 26 May 2017. We understand the government does not know how to handle this issue, but that should not be a reason why we cannot vote on the issue of a royal commission. The Senate did a very important report examining the abuse and neglect of people with disability. That report recommended unequivocally that there should be a royal commission. Labor has met with carers, with people living with disability, with their advocates, with people who have shocking stories to tell.

The government sort of said that there's no need for a royal commission, that there is the NDIS—that'll fix matters up—or that the aged-care royal commission is a sufficient tool to look after people with disability. There's no doubt that the aged-care royal commission will look at how young people in nursing homes are going, but that is not all people with disability. There is no doubt that the NDIS has some standards and regulations which will cover about 10 per cent of people within the NDIS. But Labor will not give up on this call for a royal commission. We've heard this before. When we called for a royal commission into the banks, the government said there was no need. Eighteen months to two years later, the government eventually came to the party. But this royal commission into the lives of people with disability, and the existence of neglect and abuse, is in many ways much more urgent and in some ways even more serious than the banking royal commission.

We need to suspend standing orders to debate whether or not we should have a vote on a royal commission into disability. I draw to the attention of the parliament the Senate committee report, which says:

In its submission, Disability Clothesline noted the propensity for violence, abuse and neglect of people with disability living in institutional care to be 'swept under the carpet' and not be properly investigated. The submission contended that momentum for investigation and inquiry of any allegations of this nature requires the following thresholds to be met—

and these are criteria that would normally generate a debate about having an inquiry—

But the problem is that often these criteria for momentum are never fulfilled, and in the meantime people with disability are abused.

I understand that in this climate, with this contested parliament at this point in the cycle of the 45th Parliament, it might be tempting just to dismiss this debate and say, 'There's another time to do it.' But when is the right time to have a royal commission? If this is not the right time, when is? And, if we do not do it, who will do it?

It is a fact beyond doubt, beyond any conjecture or debate, that people with disability are more likely to suffer violence than people without a disability. It is a fact beyond doubt that children with a disability are three times more likely to experience bullying than children who do not live with a disability. The accounts of abuse in all its forms are harrowing, and I know every member of the parliament is upset when they read these accounts. The question is: what is the solution to the system—business as usual, or something significant of a sufficiently cathartic and powerful nature that we reconsider the whole way in which we're treating people with disability and the fact that they are subject to violence, abuse and neglect?

Too many people who have been victims of violence for too long have had to put up with their calls for help being ignored. This call for a royal commission is part of our promise to protect people with a disability from the scourge of violence and bullying, from abuse and marginalisation. When we first called for this royal commission, two years ago, we had no concept or knowledge of the current numbers in this House of parliament. For us, this has been an issue that we made a decision to back in two years ago. We make this decision to support a royal commission, not because we believe we would have a majority in the House but because the idea is the right idea for vulnerable Australians.

When we made that announcement I was accompanied by Senator Carol Brown and the member for Jagajaga. We met with people with disability and their parents, their carers and the people who love them. All members of the House have met the sorts of people I'm talking about—courageous people who call out abuse. They've shared their experiences with us, their trauma and their pain. What it is worth members of the House recalling when we suspend standing orders in order to debate the merit of a royal commission into the lives of people with disability and violence and extremism—what we want to say very clearly and what they've said to us—is that this royal commission is not for them; it's for all the people who are still suffering in silence.

No-one in this House can guarantee that this abuse will not happen again. No-one in this House can guarantee that we have currently in this nation a foolproof system to protect vulnerable people from neglect and abuse. On the very day that we announced this policy, Anne Malia, whose precious son Matthew suffered abuse, made an appeal to Australia. I'd like her words to be heard in this House now, even if it is in the context of this motion to suspend standing orders. She said:

We need to protect, not only the people who have stepped forward and have voiced what's happened to them, but thousands of people and children, adults and children, that don't have a voice, physically do not have a voice.

She went on to say—and whether or not we are successful today or on another occasion, her words ring true:

We need to be their voices, we need to protect them. Let's do this now, today.

We gave a promise then, and we give a promise now, to all the self-advocates, to the families, to the people who live with a disability, to all the parents who have teenage children, who worry about who will keep them safe when they no longer can.

I make it clear that, whatever happens in parliament today, Labor is committed to implementing a royal commission to protect people living with a disability from abuse. I understand that in the Senate it may be the case that the government, who voted against the royal commission, could receive the rescue party of One Nation to vote against a royal commission. Whilst that may be the case—that those One Nation senators, such as they are, are valuable allies to the government—I'm going to ask the government to reconsider their opposition to a royal commission into disability. And even if—

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