Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am still disappointed and somewhat in shock at the press reports yesterday that the Minister for Social Services is pushing to purge the board of the National Disability Insurance Scheme by sacking its chairman, Bruce Bonyhady. Dr Bonyhady's work in establishing the NDIS has been widely regarded as exemplary, and it is a crying shame that the government are scapegoating him for the problems that have emerged under their stewardship of the NDIS. Mr Bonyhady worked very closely with the Gillard Labor government. Together, under the leadership of Prime Minister Gillard and the now Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, they created the biggest social policy reform since Medicare.

There are residents in my electorate of Wills for whom the NDIS will provide care and support services which they are in desperate need of. I have close family and friends who are waiting for the NDIS, and I know the significant impact it will have on their lives. The NDIS will be transformative for them, and they are the reason that I must condemn what is occurring under this government and its incompetence. I call on the minister to take responsibility for the government's mismanagement of the NDIS. The buck must stop with him. And I remind him that this is—or should be—about more than just politics.