Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the government's NDIS bill as circulated.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice of motion standing in the name of Senator Waters, I move:

That so much of Senate standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving a motion, namely a motion relating to the government's NDIS bill.

Labor's NDIS bill is just cruel. It should be scrapped. It should be withdrawn. It should be removed. It should be sent back. It should be torn up, quite frankly, loaded into a cannon and, if I had my way, fired into the sun. It is a horrific, inhuman piece of legislation that would see 241,000 disabled people kicked off the NDIS—fellow Australians doing it tough, struggling, stressed, trying to make things work and trying to navigate a bureaucracy that is always apparently against them and always apparently on the side of a government that is trying to find ways to get out of providing the basic supports. For these people, for these community members, this government plans to cut their lifelines to remove the programs, the therapies and the supports that are the source of hope for so many. Just when things were starting to potentially get better, just when the therapy was helping the child succeed at school, just when a disabled person had finally been able to keep a job, just when a new skill was within somebody's grasp, or just when a new friend had been made—a new connection built, a new safeguard against loneliness and isolation—this government would tear it away. Shame on you all.

This bill is a disgrace. The fact that the disability community have had to work and expend their time, effort and energy trying to explain to this Labor government why cutting nearly $40 billion out of the NDIS is a bad idea—that's a joke. It's a joke. One hundred and eighty-five billion dollars over the decade is the largest cut to a Commonwealth program in the history of this nation.

To my crossbench colleagues and to the members of the National and Liberal parties: whatever you may think of the NDIS, these cuts go too far. They go too fast. They will cost too many jobs. They put at risk too many lives. Our responsibility as members of parliament is to listen to the community.

In the brief window that the government deigned to give disabled people and our families to have our say, to speak about this bill that would shape and reshape their lives, we have spoken with a united voice. The verdict was unanimous. Evidence was taken from disabled people and their families, from healthcare professionals, from union members, from allied health professionals, from doctors and from service providers. They sent a clear message: this bill must not pass; this bill must be withdrawn; this bill poses a threat to the lives and safety of disabled people.

So we call on the government today to listen. Withdraw this bill. No parliament, no government, should ever have the powers to shape the lives and livelihoods of people that this bill grants this government—the ability, with a stroke of a pen, to strip away the basic supports needed to have a shower a couple of times a week, to go out into the sun once or twice a month, to keep your job, to go to the doctor, to have enough support work to enable you to get out of bed safely and to be able to help your kids get to school. This is something that no government should have the ability to strike away, to strip from people.

Withdraw this bill. The Greens oppose it now and will at the next vote and at the next vote and at the one after that. We will not stop; we will not bend or bow or break. We oppose this bill. (Time expired)