Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in relation to the attendance by the minister in relation to the NDIS. I thank everyone that's spoken about it, and I associate myself with the comments of my colleagues Senators Ruston and Scarr. I also thank Senator Steele-John for his comments.

When I started in my role as a whip in this chamber, I noticed this regular pattern on a Monday morning in relation to the NDIS. One of the things that struck me was the fierce and relentless advocacy of Senator Steele-John and former senators Hughes and Reynolds in relation to this issue. I thank Senator Steele-John and the former senators absent now from this chamber for their work on something that is critically important, and that's the right for Australians to know what is going on with the NDIS. That's the transparency that we speak of.

They spoke about this throughout the entire 47th Parliament, but here we are again, at the beginning of the 48th Parliament, and those questions have not been answered. Fundamentally, at the core of what we are asking for is basic information around what is happening with this scheme. That shouldn't be very hard to respond to, but what is even more concerning is the secrecy. Why won't this be disclosed? Why are we here every Monday of a sitting period asking this same series of questions? Why does Senator Steele-John have to keep asking these questions? Why did former senators Hughes and Reynolds keep asking these questions? Because we haven't had the answers that we deserve to have.

As Senator Scarr rightly put, we're not asking for ourselves. We're asking for Australians. We are asking for those in the disability sector. We're asking for Australian taxpayers, and we're asking for some of our most vulnerable Australians who are meant to be protected by this scheme.

The coalition wants a strong and sustainable NDIS. We want to ensure that we protect the people that need it, but we also want to make sure that we punish the people that abuse it—those that most egregiously abuse a system that is there to protect some of our most vulnerable and to provide them the dignity and independence that the NDIS should deliver. That's where we stand on this. We want clear answers to the questions that have been asked in this Senate chamber for the past three years. We'd also like an understanding about why you want a process where we are constantly asking these questions with no answers, especially from a prime minister who campaigned, before the 2022 election, on a transparent government—on a government that will tell you what is going on. Anybody that wants to see whether this government is transparent or not just needs to listen to what is happening here this morning and have a look at the Hansard of every other discussion related to this one, because there has been no transparency—none whatsoever.

Senator Steele-John made a comment about planners that I wanted to touch on as well. We were in Senate estimates when this came up, and there was a collective chin drop when we found out that participants are being forced to go through the process—a costly and time-consuming process—of putting together evidence that the NDIS had asked of them in relation to their plans. That is time and energy and resources that should actually be spent on the care of participants spent instead on a report. They provide that report, and guess what? No-one reads it. Yet, if they were not to submit or provide that report, the example that Senator Steele-John provided of someone who lost their plan and would have to fight to get it back would eventuate. Why are we standing by and allowing that? Why are we forcing families who have children with permanent conditions to provide evidence of those conditions year on year or plan on plan? Something that is permanent is not going to change. There is something fundamentally wrong here, and this government needs to explain to us why they won't give us the information that we're seeking, why they won't make this simpler and why they have made hardworking senators in this place rise week after week to get the answers.

Question agreed to.