Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor has ripped the heart out of the NDIS, and people in my electorate are paying the price. They tell me that these changes are a betrayal of them by the Labor government. When the government chose to slash so much funding from the NDIS they also, to add insult to injury, made it harder to access the NDIS in the future—a thinly veiled attempt to remove support for people or to remove them from the NDIS altogether, and they've succeeded. And let's be clear here: these services are essential—absolutely critical to keeping people well and in many cases to keeping them alive, to live a meaningful life. NDIS providers and the participants who are using their services in my electorate of Ryan tell me the same thing: these changes mean that the providers are no longer able to provide the services that the participants and our communities desperately need. The providers are being forced to close their doors.

Just this month the Archdiocese of Brisbane contacted me to inform me that they have been forced to make the heart-wrenching decision to withdraw from the delivery of NDIS funded disability services through their social services agency, Centrecare, precisely because of the new NDIS funding model. The closure of Centrecare's disability services is going to directly impact 698 people with a disability and approximately 630 staff across South-East Queensland, and in my electorate of Ryan it's 40 clients and 16 staff directly impacted by the gutting of the NDIS. Now the Labor government is gutting it further by removing children who have mild autism from NDIS support, in another cruel and callous move to save money.

Autistic Australians deserve support from our government, not the opposite—not having the rug pulled out from under them. Terms like 'mild' and 'moderate' autism have absolutely no clinical basis. The minister has fabricated this. These terms are harmful and further isolate children who are in need of support. Since the announcement I've had very many parents of neurodivergent kids reach out to my office in deep distress, terrified that their kids will be left behind. It's clear that the government, in designing this policy, didn't consult with experts in the space or indeed with those who would actually be affected. The design does nothing more than attempt to solve a political problem for the government.

Neurodivergent kids and their parents being used as political footballs: that's shameful. The proposal is that these kids will be kicked off the NDIS and shunted to a Thriving Kids program. But, for affected kids and their parents, there is staggeringly little information about this, further exacerbating their worry and their distress. For instance, there is no information on the Thriving Kids program that provides guidance as to what happens with children who are currently on the early childhood intervention program and who would have transitioned to the NDIS prior to 2027. There is no information about whether critical services such as speech therapy and occupational therapy would be funded under the Thriving Kids program and with the providers who have been working with these children for a significant period of time. There is no information about how children will access these therapies and what the threshold criteria would be. These cost-cutting measures are indescribably cruel and are deliberately targeting vulnerable Australians. That is unconscionable. Australians deserve better than to be treated like a line on a spreadsheet.

That applies to housing, too. You don't yet own a house? You don't have a household income of $200,000 plus? I'm sorry to say, but Labor and the LNP have decided they don't care about you ever getting ahead. They've decided that property prices should continue to just go up and up, and they've decided a small handful of property investors and big banks should make enormous profits at your expense. Want to buy a home in Mitchelton? Back in 2020 the price would have been around $700,000; now it'd be approaching $1.2 million. A monthly repayment that would have been around $2,500 in 2020 is now closer to $6,000 a month.

Meanwhile, rent has skyrocketed, so you're less likely to be able to save for a deposit. Labor and the coalition like to pretend they're doing something about this, but they're lying. You can't tackle housing affordability if you keep giving tax concessions to property investors. If an investor can use a property as a tax write-off—if they have half the tax on the sale of that property wiped—of course investors will buy more properties and keep driving up the price. Until we wind back these tax concessions, house prices will continue to be out of reach for more and more hardworking Australians.

Sadly, the government has given up its role to provide essential services like housing, handing it over to the private sector—obviously for the worse. Who sold off all our assets and made everything worse? Let's investigate. Case (1) is Qantas. Sold off by Labor in the 90s, they got $2 billion in government subsidies during COVID and turned around and illegally sacked 1,800 workers—for which they were fined $90 million just recently. They didn't have to pay back that free $2 billion to the government though. Case (2) is Telstra. Labor started the sell-off of Telstra in the 90s and the Liberals finished the job. Telstra has just made a $2.2 billion profit after shedding over 3,000 jobs and hiking their fees well above inflation. Case (3) is the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, a major pharmaceutical corporation sold by Labor in 1994 for $300 million, now worth over $100 billion. They just fired 3,000 workers. Their sale has made us more reliant on the US pharma industry. Case (4) is the Commonwealth Bank, sold by Labor and the coalition for $8 billion. It just posted over $10 billion in profits and was found by the banking royal commission to have engaged in irresponsible banking and lending, overcharging interest and fee gouging. Its sell-off means we have no bank acting in the public interest now.

These were our assets, and Labor and the Liberals sold them. It's time to take back control of our economy. Essential services should be in public hands and run for the people. One in three large corporations—including Qantas for several years in a row—are not paying corporate tax. And, speaking of avoiding tax, Queensland LNP and Queensland Labor: are they just two factions of the Adani party? No matter who you vote for in Queensland, multinational coal corporation Adani wins. It was recently revealed that the LNP has made a new deal with Adani where they'll continue to get our coal for free, by deferring royalty payments, and make billions of dollars exporting it.

Labor has cried crocodile tears, calling it a 'secret sweetheart deal'. Do they think we have no memory? When Labor approved Adani's Carmichael mine back in 2019, they struck exactly the same royalties deferment deal. They did this after the ex-Labor state secretary was employed by Adani to lobby his colleague, the Labor Premier, directly. And get this—Adani has paid zero dollars in company tax since they started operations in 2021. I repeat: zero. They've made billions in revenue in this time. Adani promised to deliver $22 billion in taxes and royalties to the Australian people but knew it would never have to keep that promise, because Queensland has a two-faction system: Labor and LNP, factions of the Adani party.

It's no wonder people—especially young people—are switching off from politics. Here are four ways Labor and LNP have sold out young people. First, most MPs went to university for free. Meanwhile, you are paying more than ever. A social work graduate will now repay the government almost $50,000. Our tax system is so rigged against you that HECS generates four times more revenue than the royalties from giant multinational oil and gas companies. Second, owning a house is totally out of your reach. House prices are growing much faster than wages. For most people, if you started saving for a house 10 years ago, you are now further from having a home deposit than when you started. Third, your future and the planet's future are being sold to coal and gas corporations. Within 25 days of being re-elected, Labor approved the biggest new fossil fuel project in the Southern Hemisphere. Both Labor and the coalition take millions in donations from coal and gas corporations. Fourth, rents are out of control. In Queensland, rents have risen 3.5 times faster than incomes. In Brisbane, rents have increased by 52 per cent since 2020. Labor and the coalition have created this mess because it makes money for their corporate mates. It's time for change.