Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

We get so excited to have a chance to contribute. In terms of the question we asked today to the minister about the NDIS, it is interesting to find out that at no time do we have any commitment about the timing of the NDIS rollout. There is no question about commitment, and there is no question about the process involved in actually negotiating the NDIS. In his response the minister gave very useful information about the way the process needs to happen, which is that we have to have the federal government working with every state and territory to negotiate an outcome and bilateral agreements. All the same, this is exactly how the NDIS is structured to operate. When we were in government, with the support of the opposition in launching the NDIS, we knew what the structure was going to be. It was going to be a series of bilateral agreements so that, by 2019, we could come to a national plan across our nation which effectively looked at the needs of people with disabilities. There is no question about that.

We have had quarterly reports since the introduction of the NDIS, which talk about how the NDIS is progressing, the number of people receiving packages, the average cost of the packages and the timing of the introduction. It is all there in those quarterly reports and, of course, the minister comes in, as he ought, and tells us what is happening as we receive a quarterly report. With the first couple, the minister took great pride in saying that there could be some problems here and that they were going to fix them, and there has been the introduction of efforts. Yesterday, in response to a question from Senator Siewert, the minister talked about the policy changes that had been implemented. That is all fine. He said that this is what has to happen and that the program was going to evolve and we would work it through. The minister again today said that there was absolute commitment to the NDIS. We acknowledge that, we celebrate it and we share it. There is absolute cross-party support for the NDIS. The questions were in full and on time.

Yesterday and last night in the media and again today, the minister has responded with absolute commitment to 'in full', but there is no explanation and no commitment to 'on time' and no acknowledgement if there is a problem with the timing or that there could be a problem with the timing. It is really important that the minister and the government understand that this is a commitment that has been made in the budget papers and in public statements by the Prime Minister and others in the timing of the NDIS rollout. At no stage has there been any acknowledgement that there could be a problem with it, just evasion. It could be nothing but a deliberate evasion because the question was followed up a number of times in this place and also in media coverage. Instead of actually answering the question, the minister has consistently ignored that part of the question and moved on to talk about how committed the government is to having the NDIS.

Believe me, it is people in the community who are watching what is happening with the NDIS. There was so much hope and so much pride in people with disabilities across this country or in people who were working with people with disabilities when the government—their government—made the statement that everyone in this parliament was committed to the NDIS. There was genuine hope that this was finally going to be an effective response to needs that had been identified over many years. Consistently, people are asking what is happening. People are going to fora all over the country. In every state and territory there are people who gather together regularly to review what is happening with the NDIS and to plan what is going to happen in their jurisdiction. They have an effective and extraordinarily responsive network where they share knowledge, they share ideas, they share hope and indeed, at times, they share frustrations because, as the minister said today, this is a difficult and complex program. But it is no more difficult and complex now than it was when the NDIS was officially put into place. It is no more difficult and complex in terms of what will happen than when the promises were made that there would be a certain date of completion. In the budget papers only this year there was a reaffirmation of a timely implementation of this program. We will continue to ask, the community will continue to ask and probably the media will continue to ask because they know they have an audience for this question: when will the commitment to the timeliness of this program occur, and when will we work together on it? (Time expired)