Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

As I conduct my weekly mobile offices and phone calls with constituents, it has become clear that there is a lot of angst, fear and concern amongst those living with disability and those in the disability sector about the independent assessment processes this government has brought in. They are very sceptical and cynical of the fact that this is a proposal that could end up being funding cuts by stealth.

Last Saturday I was doing a mobile office at Booval Fair in Booval in Ipswich, and parents again raised this independent assessment process. We've received emails and phone calls from local parents. These are parents who often had to battle for years to get the packages they need for their kids, and they're genuinely concerned about a process where there's been minimal consultation—really tokenistic consultation—by the minister involved. What they've done is outsource this, in terms of private contracts, for these people to engage in what is really annual auditions to get the funding they need for those living with disability. This causes parents of those living with disability tremendous concern.

They should have concern, because this is a government that cut $4.6 billion out of the sector, in terms of the NDIS, and put $1.5 billion back. I call on the Morrison government to do the right thing: abandon these sinister and stealth plans to cut funding for the NDIS and allay the concerns of so many people in the Blair electorate.

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