Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. This bill legislates for the establishment of a savings fund to allow the government of the day to properly manage what will be the biggest effort ever attempted to provide the kind of living support necessary to allow those among us who have a permanent and debilitating disability to live full lives, to their best capacity. It will provide the kind of help that we would hope would be available to any of our children if they were in that unfortunate position.

The NDIS of course has bipartisan support, and we all want it to be an enormous success. But it offers great challenges, such as ensuring skills are available to meet the funding increases. That will be a great challenge. If anyone places a pile of money into a space where it has not existed before, there will have to be a huge ramp-up of services, and there are risks around how people will qualify and register to deliver those services. But it is this government's duty to get that right. We will make sure that those who choose to manage their own funding have the assistance available that they need, and that others have the right mix of funding. It will also be a great challenge to get the administration right, making sure there are sufficient people with the skills, as I said.

But the NDIS cannot work unless we get the budget right, unless it is properly and fully funded, and that is what this bill is about. The previous, Labor government revelled in announcing the program, but, as in so many other cases, they did not work out how to fund it. They left that to the coalition. The shortfall has a number, a very scary number: $4.1 billion in the first year of full operation and rising year-on-year after that. Just think of that—$4 billion a year short and then eventually rising to $7 billion a year. This is just so typical of Labor. They promise the rivers of gold, say they have delivered the rivers of gold, and then never deliver.

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