Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Worker Screening Database) Bill 2019. The NDIS was started by Labor with very, very vague terms, extremely vague terms, and lofty goals put out there. Then the Liberals came along and decided to try to fill it. We had a wild, unplanned, grand vision with no substance. This is now open to abuse, while not supporting the very people it was meant to support. We must support, we need to support people with services and physical support for the vulnerable and the down-trodden in our society. One Nation is in favour of that. But instead of doing that, under the Liberal-Labor duopoly we have now created a monster, created an industry. At the core of this bill is the abuse of privacy because there seems to be open access to records.

As I said, as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to look after the taxpayers of our country while also making sure that the needy and the vulnerable are taken care of. We now have $2 billion per annum in providers—10,000 providers. Who audits this? Who controls it? Who oversees it? Who gives it direction? There seems to be a lack of direction. And yet the needy suffer. I know of the experience of a constituent in Toowoomba who took many years to sort out with the Queensland state government a scheme to look after her son and give her son proper care and to give herself a break as carer. That has failed to be replicated. It has just withered and died. They are not getting the care and the support that they need and to which they're entitled and that the Liberals and Labor promised.

Yet we also hear other stories of incredible wastage of money—people doing menial jobs, jobs without any real service being provided, people just getting money off the taxpayer for nothing. I'm not talking about the needy. I'm talking about the consultants. I'm talking about the labourers that feed off this growing empire. We are giving money in bucketloads to those who don't really need it while withholding it from those who do need it. It is becoming a huge extortion, and there is no accountability. We used to have, under competitive federalism, accountability from the various states competing to provide better services. Now we are seeing the opposite and we are seeing the state governments withdraw from providing disability protection and disability care and services.

One Nation proudly supports and stands for the vulnerable and needy—and for having a fair go for all Australians and for giving all Australians a fair go, including taxpayers. We will not be supporting this bill, because it just continues to magnify the industry that is growing like topsy and that has no accountability, leaving the taxpayers vulnerable while not supporting the needy. We want to see some real accountability come into this, not open slather on the privacy of many individuals.