Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Acting Deputy President. The incredible hypocrisy of what we are seeing here with this motion is that, somehow, the Greens now think it is tremendously important that we make all this investment when it comes to the NDIS, and yet we were the ones who were putting forward the support for the Greens to be able to have an inquiry. They gave it all away yesterday, but now they want it all back today. It is quite incredible.

The reality is that this particular motion that has been put forward by the Greens completely and utterly denies the fact that yesterday they were prepared to do a deal and use this very important piece of legislation as the bargaining chip for that deal. That deal will see most Australians worse off as a result of the legislation that they're going to see forced through this chamber, but it's the Greens who have to go and explain to their constituency why they are stopping young Australians getting ahead. They profess to be the party that supports young Australians, and yet it will be young Australians who are denied opportunities because of the dirty deal that they did yesterday. Apparently, as part of that deal, they weren't able to secure the deal that they want to put on the table today as a matter of urgency. If it was that urgent, why didn't you put it in the deal yesterday? Weren't you able to get anything better than a two-month extension on the NDIS bill in return for stitching up every single Australian, including the young Australians who you profess to be the champions of?

I would say that what we have here is, once again, the Greens somehow virtue signalling to try and cover up the fact that they have stitched up every single Australian with their dirty deal. I'm sure, over time, as the terms of the agreement that have been put in place between the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens to get this particular deal underway so that we can get these bills forced through this place so Australians can end up with a situation where their taxes will be increased—despite this government promising not to make any changes to these particular tax arrangements before the election, they've been ably abetted by you down the other end of the chamber.