Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will be supporting this government amendment. This amendment compels the chief executive officer of the NDIA and the NDIS quality and safeguards commissioner to provide data and information including protected information under the NDIS Act for the purposes of a royal commission. Currently under the NDIS Act 2013, agency heads can release information at their discretion. This amendment eliminates that discretion and associated administrative process that may prevent a royal commission, including the disability royal commission, from accessing the information it needs for its purposes. Labor supports measures that will ensure that the royal commission can maintain its integrity and that people with disability, their families and carers and the disability sector can have confidence their evidence is heard independently and impartially. That's why Labor is supporting this amendment.