Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

The shadow minister has asked about funding for the NDIS. Let me tell you how much funding we are providing for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Last year it was $13.3 billion. This year, in 2019-20, it will be $17.9 billion. That's a $4.5 billion increase in funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The following year, it'll be $22.2 billion. The following year, it'll be $23.6 billion. This is funding at a record level for disability.

And I'd make one other very important point: there is one side of this House that can be relied upon when it makes a commitment to be able to deliver it and to be able to fund it. There's one side of this House that knows, if you make a commitment to the Australian people, you need to have the financial wherewithal to deliver it. Sadly, under the previous government, we saw PBS referrals, PBS decisions, being held up for fiscal reasons. An absolute disgrace! You will not see that under this government, because there is one other very important number in the budget that the Treasurer brought down last night, and that is a $7.1 billion surplus.

Why is that surplus so important? It is because the Australian can be confident that we are managing the budget, that we have a strong budget, and that we can pay for the commitments that we have made—and, indeed, you can see the evidence of that in the way, for example, that there is an upward variation across four years for public hospitals of $1.9 billion. We can do that because the budget is under control. The budget will be in surplus. Our commitments on the National Disability Insurance Scheme are fully funded. Australians with disability can rely upon us to meet the commitments that we have made.

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