Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

This is the culmination of a longwinded and, in some respects, tortured process. I know it was a suboptimal process for many in the disability sector. But, to touch on the minister's final couple of remarks there, I think it was an indication that, where the government and opposition start in two different places but come together in good faith and in the best interests of our country, we can reach agreement. We will be agreeing with the first tranche of amendments moved to this bill.

I said at the beginning 'a tortured process'. There have been 97 amendments to this bill from its inception, which fly in the face of claims from the government at the time that this was a perfect, fully formed bill, not requiring much attention, including their later claims that the work being done by the Senate inquiry was unnecessary and just costing the scheme. We've seen dozens of amendments flow out of that further Senate inquiry. In that respect, I want to place on record my gratitude to all of the senators who undertook a lot of painstaking work hearing from advocates as part of that inquiry and making up for the shortfalls in the consultation that the government undertook. In that respect, I want to thank, in particular, Senator Hughes for her leadership in that Senate inquiry.

What has ultimately driven the opposition to support this bill and, in particular, these groups of amendments is the overarching objective, as stated by the minister, to ensure a number of things, but, first and foremost, the sustainability of the NDIS into the future. We on this side of the chamber have been talking about sustainability for a long time. We have been talking about sustainability in the NDIS when it wasn't a bipartisan view, when, in fact, we had a lot of opposition from the then opposition Labor Party in relation to those views. We were very critical of the opposition at that time for not being constructive in opposition and for using the NDIS for political purposes. Because we had made those accusations of the Labor opposition, it would have been wholly hypocritical for us to have gone down the same path and used this for political purposes, which, quite frankly, I could have as shadow minister and we could have as an opposition. So, in the vein of not being hypocritical, we have sought to support the government in a number of worthy amendments to the scheme.

These are things that have been self-evident concerns of many for a very long time. I don't underestimate how hard it's been for the minister at times in facing down a lot of the unprincipled attacks, which, quite frankly, we faced when we were in government, including from the then opposition; nonetheless, he has faced those down. That's a credit to him for doing that. In that respect, we're very happy to support these amendments. These amendments encompass negotiated amendments between us and the government. For those people in the gallery and for those people watching—of whom I don't think there are probably that many at nearly five o'clock on a Thursday—there is a lot of argy-bargy that goes on in this House but also a lot of good work and negotiation that has gone on behind the scenes between my office, the minister's office and our respective leaders. In the amendments that we progressed with the government, we were very keen to ensure the integrity of the scheme. The minister used the term 'integrity' a lot. When we talk about the financial sustainability of the scheme, intertwined with that is the broad public support and acceptance of this huge amount of money, and nothing erodes that broad public acceptance more than some of the abuse and the affray that we see splashed over our papers on a daily basis.

That is why we were very keen to move self-evident amendments of what people could use their plans for—that doesn't include prostitutes, that doesn't include alcohol, that doesn't include drugs—things that we think build on the acceptance, we hope, of a community that this is a scheme that is changing people's lives and that is ensuring that government does for people with a disability what it should be doing. When you boil government down to its absolute barest, if government is not here to support Australians with a disability, what on earth are we here for? Ensuring that the scheme has broad support in the community will be enhanced by these amendments. That's why we will support it. That's why we will support the ultimate bill.

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