Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me pleasure to rise before the House today to speak on the Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017. The National Disability Insurance Scheme has always received bipartisan support. When the Medicare Levy Amendment (DisabilityCare Australia) Bill 2013 was introduced into parliament, the coalition acknowledged the importance and magnitude of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the need to fund this program. What defies common sense today is why those sitting opposite do not support the bill before them now. Let me quote the then Prime Minister Gillard's speech to parliament in 2013 to increase the Medicare levy by 0.5 per cent in order to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme. She said:

Increasing the Medicare levy will raise approximately $20.4 billion between 2014-15 and 2018-19—amounting to approximately 55 per cent of the total cost of funding DisabilityCare Australia over that period.

The opposition knows full well that the current Medicare levy increase only funds half of the current cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and it is still in the rollout phase. Currently the National Disability Insurance Scheme is costing approximately $5.3 billion and is projected to reach $10.8 billion when the NDIS is in full operation in 2019-20. As the then Prime Minister toured around the country to meet with the nation's premiers to sign the states up to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, she met with young Australians suffering from various disabilities. I ask: does the former member for Lalor or any current Labor member, as those who once fought so hard for this scheme, want to go knock on those same doors to tell Australians that this system is not funded? The full rollout is not funded. The government would not be introducing this bill to the House if everything was covered.

I return to when we on this side were in opposition. Following the former Prime Minister's speech, the Liberal Party members rose and stated that this parliament has a shared commitment for a better deal for Australians with a disability. Mr Andrews said:

It is important to note that this is also a shared vision of every government in Australia and every opposition in this country. The federal coalition, for its part, has enthusiastically supported each milestone on the road to the NDIS …

So again I ask those sitting opposite: what has changed? Why was it acceptable, under a Labor government, to increase the Medicare levy by half a per cent to cover a little more than half of the costs associated with the trial phase of the National Disability Insurance Scheme? Their amendments at the time to the Medicare levy were applied to not only those who earnt over $87,000 but all Australians who pay the Medicare levy. I mean, the hypocrisy on this bill and many others, and the position changes from this Leader of the Opposition, are just so evident—and I won't list them all; there are too many to list. Now that the Labor Party sit in opposition, they're happy to play politics and to not put the people of Australia first. An increase in the Medicare levy of 0.5 per cent—excluding, of course, those who are already exempt—is a commonsense extension of the 2013 policy, their own policy, that enjoyed widespread support. What's changed?

We know that the opposition keeps stating that they had fully funded the NDIS when they left government. We know that's just not true. The Senate committee heard from Treasury officials about the scale of the funding gap for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Treasury Deputy Secretary Michael Brennan stated that the funding gap is $55 billion, and that the three sources of funding going into the National Disability Insurance Scheme savings account are broadly commensurate with that. Michael Brennan also stated that there were a number of savings that Labor claimed to go towards funding the Medicare levy that were never realised. This evidence puts to bed the claim that Labor funded the National Disability Insurance Scheme. They didn't. And they should now do the right thing and give Australians with a disability the security and certainty they need. It is important that we show Australians similar values to those that the former Prime Minister outlined in her speech—that we show Australia that we fully support this scheme, that we have a united voice and that we properly fund it.

It's not the current government's fault that Labor in government racked up billions and billions of dollars in debt. Remember: when they came in, in 2007, there was no debt—zero debt; not a dollar. And then those opposite racked up billions of dollars in debt. And the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is guilty in that. She was there. She was a member of the cabinet when they approved all those decisions and racked up that debt. And now they come into this place in opposition, and I ask those opposite, including the deputy leader, what are they doing now to support debt reduction? What are they doing now to support the next generation of Australians who will have to pay the interest on that debt and also to pay back the principal. Not only will they have to pay the interest, which is compounding; they'll have to pay the principal.

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