Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

In summation of the second reading debate for the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Transition Mobility Allowance to the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Bill 2016 I thank members opposite and note a few technical matters about the bill before I address some of the issues that were raised.

The bill introduces the 2016-17 budget measure: the transition mobility allowance program into the National Disability Insurance Scheme—the NDIS. The NDIS is, of course, the new way of providing individualised support for eligible people with a significant functional impairment and a permanent disability. The NDIS will provide about 460,000 Australians under the age 65 who have a disability with the reasonable and necessary support they need to live fruitful and successful lives.

The mobility allowance is one of 17 Commonwealth programs transitioning into the NDIS as part of its rollout across Australia, which commenced on 1 July 2016. The mobility allowance is being transitioned into the NDIS to ensure that the NDIS is the main program of support for people with a disability who need assistance to enable them to fully engage in the workforce and other economic activities.

The challenge to eligibility and the ongoing entitlement rules are designed to support the transition of mobility-allowance funding to the NDIS as eligible recipients move from the payment to the NDIS. For those recipients who are ineligible for the NDIS, other arrangements will be put in place to support them. I will turn, in a moment, to that current group of mobility allowance recipients who are ineligible for the NDIS.

In the 2016-17 budget—the most recent budget—the government provided $46½ million to ensure that recipients are not left without a means of support in the short term. Those are the recipients of mobility allowance who may not roll into the NDIS. Over the long term, the government is considering how these recipients can best be supported to maintain their workforce participation. The changes in this bill will ensure that the mobility allowance payment is better targeted to those who need it most while they wait to be transitioned to the NDIS.

The changes are consistent with changes made to other Commonwealth programs where funding is transitioning to the NDIS. The government is, of course, fully committed to the full implementation of the NDIS and to ensuring that those Australians who need support to engage in work and training receive the necessary assistance. Of course this bill is another step by this government towards that outcome.

I might make some brief comment with respect to matters raised by members opposite. On a number of occasions a number of the members opposite used the term that 'the bill goes further than the original proposal'. Where they use that phrase I infer they are talking about the original proposal which was the 2013-14 Labor budget proposal to, in effect, roll the funding for the mobility allowance in its entirety into the NDIS as it rolled out. Of course, in 2013-14 the budget years that were being considered were 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18. Here were are on 30 June 2016 with the full rollout of the NDIS underway—and well underway, I might add—and this issue arises. During the trials we got a firmer estimate on the number of people who were in receipt of mobility allowance and who would be unlikely to roll into the NDIS, but the fact that people who were in receipt of mobility allowance would not all roll into the NDIS was always known. It was clearly known in 2013-14, and yet in 2013-14, when the budget decision was made to roll the entirety of the mobility allowance into the NDIS starting on 30 June 2016, what was the funding that was allocated in any of those years 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 to, in effect, mitigate the roll-in of the mobility allowance for those recipients who could be reasonably estimated would not transition into the NDIS? The answer to that question is zero. Not a single cent was provisioned in those four out years of the budget to look after those people who would not under any reasonable estimate transition into the NDIS.

To sit and listen to members opposite talk about how this bill goes further than the original proposal is, of course, trivially true and profoundly false. It does go further than the original proposal in that we have actually budgeted for the people that you knew would exist in 2013-14 who do not transition into the NDIS but nevertheless will lose a mobility allowance. The budgeted amount in this bill, which was set out in the 2016-17 budget, is $46½ million. So, in absolutely typical Labor fashion, the game plan is to have the idea in embryo, roll the money in, leave it underfunded, know that there is a cohort that you have to address but do not address the funding of that cohort in your own budgets and leave it to future governments to address that funding—which we have done with this $46½ million.

In commending the bill to the House I would simply say that it is a difficult thing to listen to members opposite talking about this bill—

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