Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again we see this government talking about cutting taxes when it's going to increase taxes on every single working Australian earning more than $21,000. In fact, what this government is going to do over the forward estimates is raise $8.2 billion through this measure, which is an increase in personal income tax. This is $8.2 billion which will not be in the pockets of those working Australians. In fact, over the decade, this measure will raise $43.8 billion. This compares to the medium-term implications of the 2016 tax cuts, which the Treasurer loves to boast about, which will cost the budget $16.3 billion. So the government is reducing tax by $16 billion, increasing it by $43 billion and claiming to be the party of low tax. But, as we say, this is a government that believes in low tax for some and higher tax for others, because the tax increase will apply to everybody earning more than $21,000.

The Labor Party has an alternative plan. It is a responsible plan but one that is focused on those who can better deal with the tax rise. Nobody likes a tax rise. Nobody runs to increase taxes lightly or quickly. Our plan actually raises $4 billion more than the government's proposed rise over the decade but exempts those earning less than $87,000 by keeping the deficit levy in place—because we are still in deficit after all—for those income earners earning more than $180,000. This will ensure that we have a responsible plan but one that is focused on those who can better—not easily or happily perhaps, but better—afford to pay it than those who are on $21,000. This government wants to tax people on $21,000 a year more. Many of those people will be earners of penalty rates, which this government is cutting. Here we have a government which is, on one hand, increasing their taxes and, on the other, reducing their earnings by cutting their penalty rates.

This is all in the name of the sophistry and the misleading statements that this government insists on making about the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which is fully funded and which will continue to be fully funded. It is highly irresponsible for the government to run that scare campaign when, in fact, what it's doing, for no good purpose other than their political convenience, is scaring those who rely on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

As I said in my remarks previously, another bill in this package abolishes nation-building funds, which the Labor Party opposes. It is not necessary. The government wants to take the money from those funds and put it into the NDIS. We oppose that.

This is again this government seeking to divide and conquer—divide those Australians, who all support the NDIS, and somehow claim that there's a test: if you don't support abolishing those funds, if you don't support the increase in personal income tax for those earning more than $21,000, somehow you're against the NDIS. That is of course wrong, inappropriate and misleading.

So the Labor Party will oppose these pieces of legislation. When it comes to the consideration in detail, I will move detailed amendments. I have already moved a second reading amendment which goes to this government's wrong priorities and points out that it is simply wrong to increase tax on those earning more than $21,000. We'll oppose the legislation because this government has its priorities wrong, and we have a better alternative plan.

The government did not say to the Australian people at the last election that they would increase tax for those earning more than $21,000. It wasn't in their manifesto. It wasn't in the policy speech. It wasn't a promise they made. They announced it on budget day this year. They're very brave after an election. They could have shown the same willingness to engage with the Australian people about tax that this side of the House has shown.

We've said to the Australian people that we'll reform negative gearing. We've said to the Australian people that we'll reform capital gains tax. We've said we'll keep the deficit levy in place. We've said we will limit tax deductions for managing your tax affairs. We have been clear about our plans. We don't mind fighting an election, more than one election, on our plans, because we want a mandate to do these things.

The government treat the Australian people with contempt. They sneak through their plans. They knew the fiscal situation before the election, but they did not have the honesty that's required with the Australian people. If the government are so committed to increasing the Medicare levy for those who earn more than $21,000, take it to the next election, argue your case, justify your position and see how we go with our competing tax plans. We're more than happy to have our plans out there, announced very early—not snuck in a couple of days before an election but out there very clearly, years in advance of an election—for the Australian people to be aware of, to debate, to analyse and to consider their position on.

Here we have a government which are so committed to reducing corporate tax and committed to increasing personal income tax, shifting the tax burden from one segment of the economy to the other. They can argue that, but be honest about it. Don't spout that you're low tax when you're increasing tax. They're increasing tax on some. We know that they want to reduce corporate tax, and they want to pay for it by increasing the taxes on ordinary Australians earning $21,000. Those are their priorities, and they're entitled to them. They're entitled to that view—but just be honest about it. Say, 'We want to reduce the tax paid by Australia's biggest companies, and to pay for it we're going to increase the tax on Australians who can least afford it.' If that's your view, as warped as it is, at least be honest about it, because that's exactly what's happening, as has been outlined earlier by me in relation to the Parliamentary Budget Office analysis.

We'll oppose these bills. They're the wrong bills. I commend the second reading amendment that I have moved to the House. I'll also, as I said, be moving detailed amendments.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for McMahon has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House, I will state the question in the form 'that the amendment be agreed to'. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Only the coalition government is taking the necessary steps to fully fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I rise to speak in support of the Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017 and related bills. The NDIS is the biggest reform of disability services in Australia's history. It is also reform that will be life changing for so many Australians with disability, their carers and their families. At full scheme, more than 460,000 people living with disability will have individually tailored and funded packages. The scheme provides participants with the support they need to undertake everyday tasks so that they can participate in their community and in social and economic life.

The NDIS is not just transforming the lives of participants. It also has opportunities and challenges for providers. As the assistant minister, I travel throughout Australia, and I've had discussions with many providers and many stakeholders. I'm very conscious of the impact of such a large reform. As the Treasurer, the Hon. Scott Morrison, said when introducing this bill, we know that Australians support this change. As Australians we believe in looking after our mates, our country and those who need our support. This bill ensures that they have that support.

A fully funded NDIS is fundamental to the future of more than 460,000 Australians living with significant and permanent disability. Funding for the scheme must come from somewhere. The money tree which had surplus fruit on it from the Howard era was overpicked by Labor and subsequently died many years ago. This was a metaphorical tree which Labor saw as their saviour to fund the NDIS. However, as we know, Labor are far from good horticulturists, let alone fiscal managers.

This bill will increase the Medicare levy rate by half a percentage point to 2.5 per cent of taxable income from 1 July 2019. The supporting bill will make consequential amendments to other tax rates which are linked to the top marginal rate and the Medicare levy. This will not only provide certainty for people currently living with severe disability and their families but will also provide assurance for all Australians that the support is there if they should require it in the future. Despite a lot of promises, the previous Labor government failed to fully fund the NDIS, leaving a substantial annual funding gap of almost $4 billion from 2019-20, a gap which grows each and every year. We have all heard Labor claim that it 'clearly identified enough other long-term savings to pay for the NDIS'. But referring to 'other long-term savings' is simply not good enough. Australians deserve better. In Senate estimates, when asked whether these measures could be listed in detail, Treasury's response was, 'The short answer is no.' The fact is that Labor never quarantined savings to help fund the NDIS. Its so-called savings were spent several times over and instead used to get back to surplus. We all know that that never eventuated either.

The additional increase in the Medicare levy will apply from 1 July 2019 and is expected to generate $3.6 billion in 2019-20 and $4.3 billion in 2020-21. Importantly, low-income earners will continue to be exempt from the Medicare levy and will not be impacted by the increase. As a universal insurance scheme, an increase in the Medicare levy ensures that all Australians, where able, contribute to the NDIS. The increase represents about $1 a day for the average income earner. For example, a person with a taxable income of $80,000 would pay an additional $400 a year to ensure they are fully covered by the NDIS into the future. From 2019-20, one-fifth of all revenue raised by the Medicare levy will be credited to the NDIS savings fund special account once it is established by legislation currently before the parliament, where it will be protected for meeting the needs of people living with disability. This account will hold NDIS underspends and selected savings across the government. Put simply, by placing these funds into a locked moneybox of sorts, no-one can query the fully funded status of the NDIS.

Let me put into perspective the current funding gap for the NDIS: $55.7 billion over the next decade—more than Labor's 2009-10 budget deficit. As the Treasurer said in his second reading speech on this bill, now it is time to rectify that shortfall. It is imperative that the coalition puts the NDIS on the correct course to full funding. Let me not stray from the misinformation that exists in the camp of those opposite who purport that hardworking, low-income Australians will be worse off under this levy increase. Low-income earners will continue to receive relief from the Medicare levy. Low-income thresholds for singles, families, seniors and pensioners will all remain. Blind pensioners and Australians entitled to full and free medical treatment under the DVA gold card will also have their Medicare levy exemptions remain.

By deciding to increase the Medicare levy rate from 1 July 2019, the coalition government is asking Australians to contribute according to their capacity to fund the NDIS. Fundamentally, this is an insurance levy and anyone paying it today may also be someone who needs the assistance of the NDIS sometime later in their lifetime.

I segue now to some of my meetings and experiences as the assistant minister responsible for the NDIS, which I believe will highlight the importance of a fully funded NDIS, one which will ensure these positive benefits become accessible to those living with disability throughout Australia. As I travel around our vast country, visiting and meeting NDIS stakeholders, what quickly become apparent are the benefits this scheme will bring to those living with disability and their families. By assisting people to be independent, learn new skills and participate in activities they would never have thought possible before, the NDIS is truly life-changing.

Take for example an 11-year-old boy who is now happier and developing a stronger relationship with his family as a result of the NDIS package which he received last November. The package this young man receives has not only enabled him to increase his capacity to learn, but now he has shown more independence and is showing off a new confidence that he had not displayed until now. The father of this NDIS recipient speaks highly of the scheme and the plan his son receives, stating that, prior to the NDIS, the services received were inconsistent, and even daily continence products for the child resulted in extra burden on already-tight family finances. The NDIS has turned the lives of this young boy and his family around, and they look forward to a happy, independent life ahead.

Another success story is that told by Graeme, the parent of a child with a disability who also lives with a disability himself. This unique example highlights the views of someone who oversees the planning of the NDIS plans and who receives a plan himself and whose own child is benefiting from his own plan as well. Graeme spent six months as chairperson of NDIA's staff participation network, a forum open to staff who are NDIS participants or are a parent, family member or carer of a participant. The network provides valuable advice to influence the NDIA's operations. As an NDIS planner, Graeme experienced a huge, constantly-changing environment, starting in the NDIS trial site in Western Australia. Graeme believes that he had to accept that resilience was key to ensuring that he and the organisation learned the best way to do things and deliver for others. By accepting change and adopting changes, Graeme knows that good leadership is essential if we want to roll out a seamless scheme focused on achievements and participant success. Having been involved in all facets of the NDIS, as a planner, as a participant and as the father of a participant, Graeme is inspired by the stories and achievements of other participants who are benefiting from the NDIS.

I urge all members of this House to support this bill. To deny this bill success is to deny those who are less able to support themselves, through no fault of their own, often life-changing NDIS plans. This bill is critical to providing certainty, for NDIS participants, for their families and for their carers, that their needs will be met. It will also ensure that the scheme remains available for all future participants.

The longevity of the NDIS can only be ensured by the sustainability of its funding. For those living with significant and permanent disability and their families and support networks, the NDIS presents an opportunity in often-challenging lives. That is why Australians support this change and support this levy. The quintessential Australian trait of looking after one another can be seen by extension through the NDIS. Life's cards are not always dealt fairly. To those living with disability and their families: I implore you to stand proud and know that this government will provide the quality care you deserve, not only for today but for tomorrow and for your future. I commend this bill to the House.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The big lie at the heart of this legislation is that this rise in the Medicare levy is necessary to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We've just heard from the member for Ryan, and she quotes the Treasurer, who, according to the member, said, 'We look after our mates and those who need our support.' Well, the coalition has shamelessly sought to guilt Australian wage earners into accepting an unnecessary and unjust increase in taxation by stating that, without it, people with disability will somehow suffer from a supposedly underfunded National Disability Insurance Scheme. The coalition is exploiting the Australian people's decency. It is conning Australians by preying on their willingness to assist those in need, and for that it deserves condemnation, because the fact is that this tax rise on seven million Australian wage earners is not needed to fund the NDIS. The funds are already there. It is just that the coalition has other plans for the money, because this government's priority is not people with disability; it is not Australian wage earners; it is corporations and banks.

Over the next 10 years the coalition plans to take $40 billion from Australian wage earners with this tax rise, while at the same time giving $65 billion to banks and corporations with a tax cut. Think about that for a minute: the Australian wage earner hands $40 billion to the government and the government adds that money to its big pile of revenue. Then the government goes to the same pile of revenue, takes $65 billion out and gives that to the banks and corporations. That $40 billion is not funding the NDIS, it is funding a corporate tax giveaway. Abandon the $65 billion corporate tax handout and there will be no need for a tax rise on Australian wage earners. But we know from bitter experience that this government's focus is not on Australian wage earners; it is on looking after the big end of town.

The coalition remains wedded to the failed ideology of trickle-down economics, which contends that if you tax corporations less they will have more money to invest and that the benefits will trickle down throughout the economy. In theory it makes sense: if you tax corporations less, they'll have more money, they'll invest more and there'll be more jobs. It's a theory that has been played out in the United States for the past 40 years in real life, and it has failed. It has made a very tiny percentage of people very, very wealthy. But it has condemned vast swathes of the American people to insecure work and lower wages. It is a theory that has gutted the once-mighty American middle class, who formerly enjoyed secure work, high wages and the best living standards in the world. The American dream has become little more than a memory for millions of Americans who are now what are called the 'working poor'—people who have jobs but who don't earn enough to live well. Trickle-down economics is the cane toad of economics: it sounds good in theory but in practice it is devastating, and once introduced it is difficult to eradicate.

This unnecessary tax rise on Australian wage earners and the accompanying tax cut for corporations and banks is part of this insidious agenda. Why on earth would any Australian government seek to inflict on Australian wage earners an unnecessary new burden on their spending power? Wages in this country have been flat for more than a decade. Flat wages have helped keep inflation and interest rates low, but they have also meant that Australians' purchasing power has steadily declined in the face of rampaging power and utility bills and staggering rises in the cost of housing. Australians are at breaking point. The government's Medicare levy increase will increase the tax burden on Australians earning as little as $21,000 a year. These include people who have just had their Sunday penalty rates cut, and students and graduates, who face higher tuition fees and earlier and steeper repayments of their student debts.

I genuinely shake my head at those opposite, especially those like the Nationals—like the member at the dispatch box—who, like me and many of my Labor colleagues, represent those people earning low incomes. Those opposite think that this all makes sense—that they can keep wages flat, that they can increase taxes on wage earners, that they can cut penalty rates, that they can rein in pensioners' incomes, that they can hobble students with higher fees that must be repaid sooner and that they can wash their hands of the enormity of the affordable housing crisis—that they can do all this while at the same time backing $65 billion in corporate tax cuts. I genuinely shake my head that those opposite think the road to national prosperity lies in screwing down Australian wage earners and pensioners, and redirecting public funds to the wealthiest Australians and to banks and corporations.

The measures in this legislation would see a wage earner on $55,000 a year pay an extra $275 in tax a year. A wage earner on $80,000 would pay an extra $400 a year. These measures to raise revenue from Australians earning less than $87,000 a year come just months after the government handed revenue back to Australians earning more than $180,000 a year. So they're taxing people who earn less more and they're giving money away to those who earn more—take from those with less, give to those with more. It is the antithesis of Australian culture. Labor will seek to amend the government's measures to inject some fairness into them and we oppose them in this House.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should have left some money there in the first place.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll take the member's interjection. I didn't quite hear it but I'll take it and put it on Hansard. Labor proposes that the 0.5 per cent Medicare rise apply only to individuals earning more than $87,000 a year. And we will also seek to re-establish the framework that will allow the reintroduction of the deficit levy on individuals earning more than $180,000 a year. Independent research from the Australian National University shows that twice as many households will be worse off under the coalition's plan than under Labor's plan. The only winners will be the corporations and the banks.

Labor's measures are not only more fair; they are better for the budget bottom line, resulting in $4 billion more for the budget bottom line over the decade. The government claims this legislation is about funding the NDIS. We have established that it is not and that the NDIS is being used as a mask, a smoke screen, for corporate tax cuts. The government has, to its great discredit, claimed that Labor's opposition to these measures means we are somehow not fully committed to the NDIS and that is both laughable and obscene. Labor created the National Disability Insurance Scheme to meet the needs of nearly 500,000 Australians living with disability. It was created following extensive consultation with people with disability, families, advocates and sector stakeholders. We know how important a fully functioning, properly managed, properly rolled out NDIS is to improving lives.

The NDIS has been funded by both Labor and coalition governments, which have signed bilateral agreements with the states that contain the Commonwealth's commitment to full funding. As pleased as I am with the bipartisan support for the NDIS, I do take issue with the quality of the rollout under the government. My office deals often with constituents and stakeholders who are having trouble with issues such as packages being put in place without consulting with current services or carers to ensure that allocations match the client's needs, access to services, communication.

Earlier this year, the ABC reported—after a six-month freedom of information battle—that the NDIS had stopped processing thousands of applications, that critical staff were untrained and that NDIA staff were unable to access their own website to update information or keep clients informed. Of 550 local area coordinators put in place to roll the NDIS out, only 54 have done face-to-face training and another 150 have completed an online program. For the rest, it was learn as you go. This lack of training and experience has led to misunderstandings and changed plans with worse outcomes.

On top of this, the rollout has critically damaged smaller niche agencies that meet specific needs within the sector. They've neither had the financial resilience nor the staff to keep up with the constant changes in compliances, processes and IT. So for many smaller agencies with a smaller pool of clients, this has resulted in doors closed or services merged into larger, less personal and more corporate amalgamations. This loss of expertise is a gaping hole, and challenges ongoing options for people with disabilities and their carers. Last week was Carers Week, and the 75,000 carers in Tasmania deserve our thanks and our ongoing support for the tireless work they do for their loved ones, and we should be making life easier for them, not harder.

On top of this, we've seen a huge growth in church based community organisations. They often offer excellent services with committed staff, but they are limited in what they can offer. For example, CatholicCare, formerly known as Centacare, is not prepared to run sex education programs or to offer alternatives to pregnancy. It can have a significant impact on young people with disability in regional and rural areas if their only option is CatholicCare.

I recently attended a forum in Tasmania organised by the Health and Community Services Union, which represents members working in disability. At the forum a report was presented that had been prepared by the UNSW Social Policy Research Centre, following an extensive survey of workers in the disability sector. It's fair to say that workers' views about the NDIS under this government are underwhelming at best: 24.6 per cent agree that the NDIS is positive for participants, 14.6 per cent agree that families of participants are happy with the NDIS, 15.7 per cent agree that the NDIS is better than the previous system, 55.9 per cent report not having enough time to do their job, 72.2 per cent are worried about the future of their job and 52.6 per cent disagree that the NDIS has been a positive change for them as a worker. The most common concerns that workers reported to researchers were about the adequacy of resources being provided to people with disability under the NDIS and the impact of that on the quality of services. They conveyed the frustrations of clients and families about delays and inequitable and impersonal planning processes. Importantly, workers expressed deep concern about the effect on quality and safety of the use of casual and agency staff, and many were highly stressed about their pay and working conditions, including unsustainable workloads and time pressures, including unpaid work, and poor job security.

When clients are unhappy, when families are unhappy and when the workers who deliver services are unhappy, that should serve as a wake-up call to the government that the NDIS, while a vital program, is missing the mark. Complaints about the scheme have soared 700 per cent over the past year. Reports to the Ombudsman leapt from 62 in 2015-16 to 429 last financial year. The watchdog received 188 grievances in the three months to 30 June this year—more than it received during the scheme's first three years.

The tragedy is that the government was warned beforehand that this trouble was looming, but it did nothing. It should have listened to the member for Jagajaga, who knows more than perhaps anybody else in this place about social security and disability services. It should have heeded the warnings that she gave that the government was underprepared and wasn't approaching the NDIS nearly seriously enough.

The government's answer is to inflict a tax increase on the Australian people, saying that's the only way that the NDIS can be fully funded. But that's not true. The money is there. We know the money is there because the government wants to give that money and more to corporate Australia through a tax break. The resources exist. We just need a government that is prepared to put people with disability ahead of corporations and banks.

Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak today in support of the Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017. Every day, we meet local heroes who are dealing with a huge range of difficulties. One of the most touching is to meet a person with a disability who inspires and impresses with their attitude to life and their determination to make a difference. Among my local disability champions is Brad Rossiter, with his prosthetic legs and his kidney and pancreas transplants. He and his wife Lorrae are the founders and co-chairs of the Eurobodalla Renal Support Group. Brad is a star for kidney health awareness and diabetes awareness and a champion for organ donor registration. He's a recipient under the NDIS. Lauren Ball, only 11 years of age and already with a lung transplant, attends Huskisson Public School. Her aim also is to raise awareness for organ donation registration. Jackie Kay, from her position in a wheelchair, is the chairperson of It's Heaven Inclusive Tourism and Hansa Sailing Systems, and she is the first advocate for Sailability Shoalhaven. Luke Stojanovic and his mum, Kim, helped to raise over $77,000 towards the brain injury unit at Liverpool Hospital. Luke was a devil-may-care motorcycle rider who had the misfortune to have a very serious injury. He was hospitalised for many months. It's been a difficult journey for his whole family. They had to learn sign language. He had the use of only one hand and was told he would never be able to speak again. He's a cheeky young man with a great sense of humour. Last time we met he spoke, carefully. Clearly, it was taking an enormous amount of concentration, but he was speaking. He was speaking about his next quest. He's fired up and ready to fundraise again to get a disability access point for people to get to the water in beautiful Jervis Bay. 'Big Red' Brent Peter Kelly, is the one, would you believe? He keeps telling you: 'I am the one'. Brent's presence at any event is unforgettable, because he's so enthusiastic and loves life. He was at the launch of the NDIS in both the Illawarra and the Shoalhaven. He said in his opening comments: 'I just want to say thank you. I want to thank you, the Australian taxpayer, for paying the NDIS. I couldn't go out shopping and I couldn't go to the pictures.' His mother told me: 'Now I can have some time to do craft and meet my friends for coffee, and know that Brent is happy.' They are great fans of the NDIS.

Each time I meet a person with a disability or one of their carers I'm both inspired and humbled by their tenacity and their strength in the face of adversity. They are the reason for my absolute support for increasing the Medicare levy paid by taxpayers to increase the amount to be allocated to the NDIS. This is a government initiative begun under the previous Labor government and with bipartisan support. The NDIS should continue to have this support as it will help all those in our community in need of supported living. The NDIS is one of the largest social and economic reforms in Australia's history and is the best way forward to provide support for people with a disability, their families and carers in Australia. Eventually, the NDIS will support a better life for around 460,000 Australians under the age of 65 with a permanent and significant disability. It will help their families and their carers.

The NDIS represents a significant shift in the delivery of services for people with a disability, from the old ad hoc welfare model to one of empowerment and participation. It all began on 1 July 2016. It was a gradual three-year rollout across Australia. Conceptually, the existing Commonwealth and state based services are supposed to continue until eligible people start to receive their support from the NDIS. At times this continuity doesn't happen, it's hoped that people with disability will continue to live more independent lives, engage with their community, and enter the workforce for the first time or return to work while also receiving the services and equipment they need. Essentially, the NDIS is designed to give people choice and control so they can get the help they need when and where they need it to live an ordinary life. We know the greatest gains in people's wellbeing and independence come from living in a community that's accessible, inclusive and welcoming to those with a disability.

While the NDIS represents a significant and historic change to the landscape for disability, it remains only part of the story. Not all people with a disability will be eligible. There are 4.2 million Australians living with a disability. Governments and communities will continue to have a role in supporting people who are outside of the eligibility criteria. In just three months, up until June this year, the scheme grew by over 15,000 participants with an approved plan. More than 6,000 young children have entered the system via the early childhood intervention approach, which is available for littlies under six. I have to say at this point that I have a dream to try and resolve. In the regions, getting children to a point of assessment can be difficult and at times there's a waiting list, causing delay and frustration for the affected child and their parent, grandparent or carer. How good would it be to have a roving assessment team from the NDIS that could go to a child's home or school? It would be wonderful if that could happen.

Every person who has a compassionate heart knows the NDIS currently suffers from being underfunded. Every person with a compassionate heart knows that the pathway to alleviate this is to increase the Medicare levy by the tiny amount of 0.5 per cent. Recently the Prime Minister visited Yumaro, where we demonstrated a brilliant place for disability employment and celebrated 100,000 NDIS plans having been established.

It would be a rare thing indeed for any new program to come into being without a few teething programs. We all aspire to perfection but acknowledge that all rollouts, particularly from government, will have a few hiccups. We must have systems in place to address the bumps as they occur. The Commonwealth and New South Wales governments and the NDIA are working together to make sure that the NDIS stays on track.

It's well recognised that the NDIS will also be a major driver of new jobs and career pathways for the disability services as well as creating employment opportunities in the community. In New South Wales, it's expected that the number of jobs in the disability sector will grow from more than 24,000 to well over 48,000, some part time and some full time due to the different nature of demand. The bilateral agreement for the full scheme rollout was signed by the Commonwealth and state governments on 16 September 2015, giving certainty to people across New South Wales that this landmark scheme is on track and on its way.

Around 20 per cent of Australians have some form of disability. That's one in five. That's more than four million of us nationwide and more than 1.3 million in New South Wales alone. The NDIS targets people with permanent and significant disability who need help with the kinds of everyday tasks that each and every one of us takes for granted. To be eligible for that program, you have to have a permanent significant disability; you have to be less than 65; you must be an Australian citizen or permanent resident or a New Zealand citizen who holds a protected special category visa; and you have to be part of the area where it's being rolled out. One aspect of concern relates to the change from disability to pension age. In fact, if a person who meets the age requirements of the scheme joins the NDIS before turning 65, that person can choose to stay on the NDIS for life if necessary.

Everyone who enters the NDIS will first need to get the plan, the big plan. The first plan is the participant's entry point to the NDIS and the start of their ongoing relationship with the scheme. In addition, the plan will identify the reasonable and necessary supports required to meet the immediate needs of the participant and start to identify and achieve their goals. Once access to the NDIS is confirmed, the participant or nominee will be contacted by someone from the NDIS and then also pass that on to the NDIA to have an actual planning conversation. Most people's first plans will be completed over the phone. Sometimes it is not so; they'll go and have a visit, although the phone seems to be the major one. Everyone will have the same access to supports and services irrespective of how their planning conversation takes place. Once an NDIS plan has been established, it'll be reviewed periodically and, if circumstances change or it needs a further review, it can be requested at any stage.

We have heaps of people with disability in New South Wales—as I said, over 1.3 million as determined by the 2015 survey of disability, ageing and carers in New South Wales, compared to the more than four million nationally. Both of those figures are likely to be a great deal higher this year. There will be a significant and predicted growth in services required to meet demand, with an increase of more than 64,000 participants. Already there is an identified need for an extra $3.4 billion in services, as well as the increase in the level of annual expenditure, which is estimated to grow from $3.4 billion to $6.8 billion by the end of 2019.

This is why we absolutely must have bipartisan support to change the Medicare levy. Including all the people with specific needs and helping them to have a better quality of life, as well as helping the quality of life of the carer, is an essential moral and political responsibility. I ask every Australian to question the motives of those in opposition when this policy of a universal Medicare levy was okay while they were in government but isn't okay now. Why, when we know how hard life is for those with a disability, would we play with the source of funding to make the program more universally accessible? To quote the Treasurer:

Sustainably funding our most important programs—such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme—is real, tangible change, not just an empty promise or hot air. It's real, and it will be real to the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Australians who will be impacted by this scheme in a positive way.

We also know that Australians support this change because they believe in looking after their mates, no matter what their own individual means or circumstances are.

In our nation, we are most generous when people are going through the worst of times—flood events, bushfires, road tragedies and, more recently, idiot behaviour in city areas that puts people at risk. We gather around, we send support, we donate financially and we are at our best. Disability is not a transition occurrence, so the funding cannot be a transition arrangement, nor can it be an ad hoc appeal to the generosity of Australians. We look after each other as a country. We don't look to our ability to see how much we can do. We instinctively help as best we can. This is an essential part of our Australian character, our values and our community mateship, and it is that character that is the basis of knowing the general Australian population's support. Again I quote the Treasurer, the Hon. Scott Morrison:

It is that character that I have seen demonstrated around the country in response to our call for Australians to support their mates who live with a disability and the families who live with those Australians, and care for them, along with their workmates, their friends, their associates and those they randomly come in contact with on the street and in public transport. It is about the empathy and the care and the passion that Australians feel for their mates, particularly those who suffer with a disability.

Just last week at the launch of friends of Paralympics sport I met Dylan Alcott. He's an amazing athlete with his most recent achievements being gold medals in singles and doubles tennis. I can't play this game at all well, let alone in a wheelchair. He's such a bright and vibrant young man. Dylan thinks many people have major low self-esteem if they have a disability. One in five, as I said, has a disability, and we've got a long way to go to make that less of a problem.

Acknowledging the need for all Australians to help with the increased need for funding is another way of raising awareness for those with a disability. Australians place a great deal of faith in our government's range of essential services. No-one can truly prepare for the hardship or cost of these responsibilities.

I heard a few comments regarding the extra 0.5 per cent of Medicare not being needed to fund the NDIS. What government, particularly a Liberal coalition government, likes to increase taxes unless there's an absolute need to do so? Are the current and new Labor MPs unaware that the original NDIS did not include those people with mental health issues, that these people were added in during the final months of the Labor government in 2013? We absolutely must—and in my notes I've underlined 'must'—enable access to the NDIS for those suffering mental health issues. I mention this particularly as just this weekend we had yet another regional suicide, reflecting the absolute need for mental health investment as part of the NDIS.

So I say to those considering this weird idea of not voting for the very sensible solution of increasing the Medicare levy to fund the missing dollars for the NDIS: have a chat to your local disability constituents. Ask them for their opinions. Look them in the eye and tell them: 'I'm not voting for this. I'm not going to vote for this extension of the levy. I'm not going to ensure certainty for your funding, so you can't change your wheelchair next time you need one.' I'd be very surprised if you could do that.

Labor, get on board. You expanded the system to make sure mental health was part of the disability spectrum. It needs to be funded, so get on board, help fund it and give certainty to every single one of those people with a disability who are depending on that vote—absolutely depending on that vote—for certainty for their planning for the rest of their lives.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm not really sure that the member for Gilmore really understands how government programs are funded, but anyway. Today's debate is not about whether the National Disability Insurance Scheme should be fully funded but about how it is to be funded. We all want to see the NDIS in full operation as soon as possible, properly funded and transforming the lives of, ultimately, millions of Australians. I've already seen it transform the lives of many of my patients. The relief that their families feel knowing that their children with severe disabilities could be cared for long after they are gone is almost palpable.

The bills before us today, we shouldn't forget, are the Turnbull government's plan B for guaranteeing future funding to the NDIS. Back in February, the Treasurer's plan A—the plan that no longer dares speak its name—was to make the NDIS's funding contingent on the parliament agreeing to unfair cuts to family tax benefits, paid parental leave, Newstart and the energy supplement. No cuts, no NDIS, we were told. It was like something developed by the local schoolyard bully. That plan met with such universal public outrage that it barely survived a single 24-hour news cycle. Now, of course, the Treasurer is amongst the most fulsome of NDIS supporters. The would-be poacher has turned gamekeeper.

The NDIS was devised, approved and negotiated with all the relevant stakeholders, including the states and territories, by the Gillard Labor government. I will never forget the strength that Julia Gillard showed in getting this done, and we should be grateful for her commitment to the most disadvantaged. I remember meeting her at a lunch organised by the member for Fowler some considerable time before she became Prime Minister, and even at that time she told me she was committed to getting funding for those most disadvantaged people with disabilities in our community.

Labor remains unswervingly committed to the NDIS, and Labor is as deeply committed to the NDIS as it is to the preservation of Medicare. Those on the conservative side, including a couple of now former state premiers, haven't always been so unreservedly supportive and committed to it.

The Productivity Commission has recently reaffirmed that the NDIS is the most significant social reform in a generation. It's an essential part of Australia's social safety net, and when it's fully operational it will be something we can all be truly proud of. The community recognises that. Seemingly no-one, not even the Treasurer, wants to see public faith in the NDIS undermined by corner cutting or underfunding. The government has recommitted to fully roll out the NDIS by 2019-20, even though the Productivity Commission, like many others, believes that that target can no longer be met. However, it is, hopefully, committed too to addressing the failings identified in this month's Productivity Commission report.

The NDIS is, of course, by any measure a massive undertaking. It will provide individualised services and support to at least half a million Australians with a permanent or significant disability, and that also does not include the families involved in caring for someone with a severe disability. That's an increase of about 16 per cent on the base number that the Productivity Commission used to calculate the cost of the NDIS for the Gillard government. The core feature of the NDIS is that participants will have a significant say in identifying the form that support takes and in choosing how their needs are met. Access to NDIS services is not means tested, and, like Medicare, it will be available to all Australians irrespective of their wealth or income.

To the extent that the scheme is not funded from designated sources, it remains a cost to the Commonwealth budget. The state and territory governments pay about half of that. The Commonwealth will be liable for the rest, hence this package of bills. The annual cost of the NDIS, when it becomes fully operational, is estimated to be close to $22 billion. It will be the biggest contributor to expenditure growth over the next four years and will reach about one per cent of GDP by 2020-21. About 70,000 extra disability support workers will be required. That target also is at risk of not being met. No-one on this side of the House underestimates the enormity of the task, and no-one here expects the government to get it all right the first time round.

The trouble with this government is that it blows so hot and cold on the NDIS, as it does with so many other aspects of public policy. That includes things like the debt and deficit, energy policy, education funding and an endless list of others including the NBN. You can't be confident that another U-turn isn't about to happen. It's still into the blame game and torn between its commitment to make the NDIS succeed, which I think we all want, and its free-market DNA, which tells it that any public enterprise is a mistake.

By the time the NDIS is fully operational, it will be close to a decade since the Productivity Commission conducted its inquiry into disability care and support and the heads-of-government agreement was entered into to establish and fund the NDIS. The Productivity Commission, as mandated by the heads-of-government agreement struck by the Gillard government with the states and territories—excepting Western Australia—has only recently completed a full review of the scheme, and not all the news is good. The states have withdrawn funding far in advance of federal funding for many programs.

I am constantly being contacted by my paediatric colleagues about the withdrawal of state funding for children with severe disabilities long before NDIS funding is available. Most recently my paediatric colleague from the Fairfield-Liverpool area, Dr Duc Van, has contacted me, very concerned about children being diagnosed with severe disabilities having months, sometimes even years, to wait before they can access NDIS funding and early intervention, yet we know these programs are the only ones that really work for these kids. So there is a gap, and that needs to be addressed. I've certainly approached the ministers involved, Jane Prentice and Christian Porter, about this.

Labor believes it's unusual to fully guarantee in advance the funding of any government policy or program, yet both sides of politics have done so in the case of the NDIS because it is so important. Even the recently enacted Medicare guarantee legislation, another Turnbull government face-saving measure, does not fully fund Medicare or the PBS. It merely makes more visible whatever level of funding happens to be determined by government from time to time. The NDIS is universally funded, and it's up to the government to provide the funding.

Labor fully funded the NDIS based on the information available to it in 2013, and the coalition government understands that. The coalition, for its own political purposes, says the scheme was underfunded. On the information available, it was not. We will disagree with the government, but we will support additional funding. However, here comes the crunch. The government wants to increase the Medicare levy on all Australians by a further 0.5 per cent as of 1 July 2019, a date selected because that's when the government had hoped the NDIS would be fully functioning. That appears to be wishful thinking at this stage.

Labor would also prefer to fund the NDIS by raising additional revenue rather than by cutting either the NDIS itself or other government programs. Where we differ from the government is that, given the current economic conditions, we believe now is not the right time to raise additional revenue by an across-the-board increase to the Medicare levy.

Labor also opposes the government's proposal to close the Education Investment Fund and use the balance remaining in that fund to support the NDIS. The Education Investment Fund forms part of a special government account to provide dedicated ongoing capital funding for tertiary education and research infrastructure. It was established by Labor in 2009 to address chronic problems in ensuring that the physical assets that sit on our university campuses are properly maintained and modernised where necessary. The need for such funding is felt most acutely by Australia's smaller regional universities. Abolishing the EIF is short-sighted and a false economy. Australia's tertiary sector is already reeling from what has been an ongoing, if not entirely successful, assault from this government to its baseline university funding. I remain unconvinced of the alleged merits of this proposal.

The government's case is not assisted by either absence of alternative government capital support or its 2016-17 budget decision to renege on its commitment to proceed with the creation of an Asset Recycling Fund for universities. That would have picked up around $3.5 billion of uncommitted education investment funds and deployed them on new government infrastructure, including in the education system. Again, like Canberra weather, it's hot one day, freezing the next.

Let me return to the main matter in contention: how best to raise an additional $4 billion to fund the NDIS. The government must rethink its plan to increase the Medicare levy by 0.5 per cent. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, the proposed across-the-board increase in the Medicare levy will be one of two major contributors to the government's personal income tax take rising from 11.3 per cent to 12.5 per cent of GDP between 2016 and 2021.

Labor believes that the added cost of the NDIS can be met without making life any more difficult for those on modest and middle incomes. We recognise that low- and middle-income earners are already struggling to make ends meet. The government's plan was announced in the Treasurer's budget on 9 May, and Labor's approach was announced a short time after. Labor would retain the budget repair levy on those earning more than $180,000 a year and restrict the proposed Medicare increase to those earning over $87,000, which is not a high income by any measure. Labor's plan keeps some pressure off low- to middle-income earners while providing a further significant source of funding for the NDIS. The government is more about extricating the Treasurer from his failed attempt at blackmailing the parliament into passing his omnibus bill back in mid-February.

Six months after budget night, we're still to hear a sensible reason for not adopting Labor's approach or some variant of it. The Treasurer's second reading speech was, as usual, short on constructive ideas. It was a rendering similar to Sir John Falstaff but with twice the bluster and half the wit. Indeed, while calling for Labor's cooperation, the Treasurer, running hot and cold, yet again, and blustering, yet again, spent a good portion of his time falsely claiming Labor was abandoning the NDIS. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Labor does endorse raising additional revenue, but not from the poorest. Put the NDIS on an even more secure footing before it's fully operational. We won't give this government political cover for a tax increase that will fall most heavily on middle Australia, the very group that has not had a tax cut from this government in four long years and can't expect one in the immediate future. I've already dealt with the Treasurer's claim that the coalition has been a consistent supporter of the NDIS. His specious argument that somehow Labor left office with the scheme unfunded and his claim that he wants to take the politics out of the debate are completely laughable.

Labor is being neither inconsistent nor obstructionist in not supporting an across-the-board increase in the Medicare levy. Labor had the political ticker to introduce the Medicare levy and raise it in small, manageable steps in 1984, 1993, 1995 and 2013. Labor recognises that social reforms and better health outcomes come at a price. So too do the voters. Like us, they want those costs shared equitably. Whenever Labor has raised the Medicare levy it has acted on the back of measures that ensure the least well-off and those not so well-off are protected. That's how the accord and the social wage concept functioned during the lives of the Hawke and Keating governments. That's why there are the carve-outs that the minister referred to in his second reading speech.

When Labor voted to increase the Medicare levy across the board in 2013, it was just after we reduced taxes on low- and middle-income earners. Labor had just trebled the size of the tax-free threshold and the groups that benefited most from that were those on low to middle incomes. The current Treasurer may not have adopted a similar approach this time simply because there wasn't enough time between his plan A sinking without trace in late February and the budget in early May. In all probability, the Treasury would also have warned that further increasing the tax burden and the Medicare levy on middle Australia at this time would dampen economic growth quite severely.

The Treasurer argues that low-income earners don't need to be protected from his further 0.5 per cent increase in the Medicare levy because they are already carved out of the system. Not true. It's only true for those at the very bottom of the income distribution graph. As ACOSS submitted to the Senate economics committee, most of those with taxable incomes above $22,000, or $37,000 in the case of families, would pay the extra 0.5 per cent flat tax on all of their income. Labor's plan protects all of those earning more than the princely sum of $22,000 annually.

Middle Australia simply isn't up for another hike to the Medicare levy. Private debt is at record levels and, as we all know, the cost-of-living pressures are bearing down hardest on ordinary working Australians. We can dispense too with the superficially appealing argument that because all Australians can access the NDIS, irrespective of income, each should pay the same proportion of their income to fund the scheme. We have a progressive tax system, not a proportional one. The government's plan doesn't even try to rework the tax scales to protect the most vulnerable. This is a bad measure by any account.

The independent Parliamentary Budget Office only a week or two back reported on the distributional effects of this government's continued failure to index the income tax scales. Not only that, the cost-of-living pressures are already disproportionately affecting those on lower to middle incomes. In four years of office, this government has not once cut marginal tax rates applying to those with an income of $80,000 or less. That stance is set to continue for the foreseeable future. Over the next three years, if there is no adjustment to the taxation scales, the middle 20 per cent of income earners will see their average tax rate rise very significantly. This government is helping fund the NDIS by further fuelling the impact of budget bracket creep. (Time expired)

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to support the Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017. We must, in this place, look beyond partisan politics and think about whom it is that this bill will help. This bill is about putting Australians with a disability and their families first. The scheme will transform the lives of around 460,000 Australians who are living with disability, and their families.

Before I get into an exegesis of the bill, I want to send a huge shout-out to the Wide Bay Swimming Association athletes who represented Wide Bay at the New South Wales multi-class swimming championships. Keasha Wilson, who is an S14, got one personal best, two silvers and one bronze, and she got a Queensland record for the 50-metre butterfly. Jackson Hughes got one personal best, four golds and one silver. He's also an S14. My own daughter Sarah Wallace—she's an S7 swimmer—got four PBs, three golds and two silvers. I want to give a shout-out to their carers: Keasha's carer, Carol Holmes; Jackson's carer, Danny Hughes; and Sarah's carer, Leonie Wallace. I congratulate the Wide Bay Swimming Association for their inclusive swimming policy. It's the first time that the Wide Bay Swimming Association has sent a team to a multi-class swimming competition anywhere in Australia and they should be congratulated. It is people like those who make up the Wide Bay Swimming Association, and the Keashas, Jacksons and Sarahs of the world and their carers, that this bill is all about.

I'm also a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and, in that role, I have seen the difference that the NDIS has made in the regions where it has been rolled out and the eagerness with which regions, such as the Sunshine Coast, are waiting for it to be rolled out. I've heard in particular about the impact the NDIS rollout is having on the mental health care of many of its recipients and also the families who look after them.

Disability does not discriminate by postcode, occupation, health or wealth. This bill is about fairness. It is about the NDIS as an insurance scheme. All benefit, so all can contribute. Those who earn more can pay more.

Making a significant and dignified difference for nearly half a million Australians and their families will come at a substantial cost. The Commonwealth expenditure on the NDIS for 2017-18 is $5.3 billion and it's projected to reach $10.8 billion when the NDIS reaches its full rollout by 2019-20.

Labor failed to meet that full cost. When Labor left office in 2013, they left a $55.7 billion funding shortfall for the NDIS, beginning with a shortfall of $3.8 billion in the 2019-20 year alone. Labor themselves admitted the shortfall. The then disability minister, the member for Jagajaga, said, in May 2013:

… around 40 per cent of the $5.4 billion will need to be found and we'll need to find that in our Budget.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard said, also in May 2013:

Now I do want to be clear, the amount raised from the additional Medicare levy will not fund the full cost of DisabilityCare when it's in full operation.

We now need to fix the black hole and give Australians with permanent and significant disability and their families and carers certainty that this vital service will be there for them into the future. So we are now asking all Australians to contribute.

As announced in the 2017-18 budget, the government will increase the Medicare levy rate by half a percentage point from two per cent to 2.5 per cent of taxable income from 1 July 2019, to ensure that the NDIS is fully funded. This measure is estimated to have a revenue gain of $8. 2 billion over the forward estimates to 2020-21. The government will use all revenue generated by the Medicare levy to support the NDIS and to guarantee Medicare. In particular, the government will credit $9.1 billion over the forward estimates period to the NDIS Savings Fund Special Account when it is established.

The government is committed to fairness and will ensure that the Medicare levy increase is fair. The general principle will be that all of us benefit from the NDIS as an insurance scheme, so all of us should contribute. However, for vulnerable Australians, this government will ensure that they are not impacted by the change. The following people will continue to be exempt from the Medicare levy, in part or in full, depending on their particular circumstances—namely: people who are entitled to full, free, medical treatment for all conditions under Defence Force arrangements or the Veterans' Affairs repatriation health card, the gold card; blind pensioners and sick allowance recipients; low-income earners; nonresidents for tax purposes; and Medicare exemption certificate recipients. The current low-income threshold means that no Medicare levy will be payable for individual taxpayers with incomes under $21,655.

The government has separately increased the Medicare levy low-income threshold for the 2016-17 income year to take into account movements in the consumer price index so that low-income taxpayers continue to be exempt from the Medicare levy. For single individuals with no dependants, the full Medicare levy rate would apply if their income exceeds $27,068. Couples and families will not be liable if their combined income is less than $36,541. The thresholds for couples and families go up by $3,356 for each dependent child. For example, if a couple has three children and is not eligible for the seniors and pensioners tax offset, they would not need to pay any Medicare levy if their combined income is less than $46,609. Couples and families eligible for the seniors and pensioners tax offset will not be liable to pay the Medicare levy if their combined income is less than $47,670.

It is clearly absolute bunkum that the government is not protecting the lowest income earners and most disadvantaged in our community by protecting them from having to pay this additional Medicare levy. Labor used to support an increase in the Medicare levy to pay for this vital insurance. A joint media release from the then Prime Minister, Treasurer and Minister for Disability Reform in May 2013 stated, 'A modest increase in the Medicare levy, $1 a day for the average earner, will ensure we can deliver and sustainably fund disability care in Australia.' At a press conference on the same day, they made a wonderfully clear statement of the principle on which this bill is based. They said, 'We all contribute and we all share. That is what the Medicare levy is all about.'

However, Labor are now opposing the same policy to fix their multibillion dollar black hole. In their usual practice, exactly what Labor's current policy is is not clear, but it seems they support an increase to the Medicare levy rate by 0.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent of taxable income only for individuals on taxable incomes above $87,000. If, as they seem to suggest, the Medicare levy increase were to apply to a taxpayer's entire income once income exceeds $87,000, it would lead to significant effective marginal tax rates immediately above the $87,000 threshold. A taxpayer may incur an additional tax liability of $435 on the first dollar earnt above $87,000.

The government's decision to increase the Medicare levy from 1 July 2019 reflects the fact that Australians have a role to play in accordance with their capacity to ensure this important program is secure for current and future generations. It is about putting Australians with a disability and their families first. This bill is about fairness and about protecting our most vulnerable people. The Labor Party claim to stand up for society's most vulnerable. It is regrettable that they are now opposing this measure. I call upon those opposite and the Leader of the Opposition in particular, as a father of a child with a disability, to put the politics aside. This is not something that we should even be debating or arguing about. This is something that we need to really get behind to provide assistance to our most disadvantaged children and their families and also adults who are suffering from a disability. This is something that is above partisan politics. I urge those opposite to do the right thing—because it is the right thing. If it was good enough for those opposite to increase the Medicare levy previously to initially get this NDIS scheme off the ground, surely it is good enough now to properly fund it into the years ahead. I support the bill and I commend it to the House.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are 5,000 people in my electorate who live with a disability and have waited their whole life for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The Productivity Commission report released this year commented that early evidence suggests the NDIS is improving the lives of many participants and their families and carers. Many participants report more choice and control over the support they receive and an increase in the amount of support provided. In my electorate of Oxley, I've seen this firsthand with the dedicated work that the carers do in our community. The story of Youngcare is a good example. They were established at Sinnamon Park in my electorate, where they opened their first residency in 2007. Youngcare Wesley Mission Queensland Apartments had a new approach to independent living. The residents have independence to live their lives the way they want and receive dignified and age-appropriate care. Both side of this House need to be committed to supporting organisations like Youngcare with a fully resourced and effective NDIS. In the electorate of Oxley, I am also privileged to represent wonderful organisations like the Endeavour Foundation. I recently met with the CEO, Andrew Donne, and a number of parents who see their children and family members go off to work everyday.

In the electorate of Oxley, I also have great educational facilities like Goodna Special School, Western Districts Special School and Mount Ommaney Special School. I was privileged to visit the Mount Ommaney Special School, along with other service providers, with Assistant Minister Jane Prentice a number of weeks ago. P&C President Liza Raggatt, Pat Tyrell and Susan Christensen, the principal, were generous to host a round table to discuss the issue of the NDIS rollout and, in particular, the issue of transport accessibility to transport students to services. At this round table, I listened to what parents go through every single day—the love, the care, the attention they give to their children and simply wanting them to lead normal lives, attend schools and fully participate in society. I commend them for their work. I know from listening to these parents and carers how important, how critical, the NDIS is.

Labor under Bill Shorten, the person who did so much to deliver this national reform under the former government, and every member of this House—in particular, every Labor member—is 100 per cent committed to rolling it out. This was a Labor initiative—a program implemented by the previous Labor government. I know from talking to people what Medicare delivered to this nation—that groundbreaking reform led by a former member for Oxley, then social security minister, the Hon. Bill Hayden. Medicare transformed the lives of thousands of Australians and, to this day, is world-known for delivering quality health care regardless of income or where you live.

But the key to this debate is how we fund it. The contrast is clear: the coalition will make low- to middle-income workers pay for it; Labor will make those on incomes over $87,000 pay. This government proposes a tax hike on people earning as little as $21,000 a year. This will affect seven million workers across the country. In my electorate, it will affect 45,000 of my constituents. For example, a young tradesman living and working in Redbank Plains in the electorate of Oxley earning $55,000 a year will be hit with a tax hike of $275 per year. A mid-career professional—the highest average earning occupation in my electorate—earning around $80,000 a year will face $400 extra in tax per year.

We all know stagnant wages, falling living standards and record levels of underemployment all mean that low- and middle-income Australians are less able to pay more tax than they have in the past. The effect of these measures, combined with the removal of the deficit levy by this government, is an increase of the marginal tax rate for low- to middle-income Australians and a tax break for those income earners at the top. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it doesn't make sense, it simply is not fair, and it runs contrary to the principle of progressive taxation.

Labor's plan is better and fairer. Labor will increase the Medicare levy for individuals earning more than $87,000 a year and keep the deficit levy on those income earners earning more than $180,000. Labor's plan would see the budget bottom line better off by $4 billion. As we've heard, independent research from the ANU's Centre for Social Research and Methods has shown that twice as many households will be worse off under the coalition's plan than under Labor's fairer alternative. That's twice as many households that will be worse off. This was confirmed by the independent PBO report, which showed that middle-income Australians will be worse off under government policy.

We know that the Australian Council of Social Service have stated in their submission to the Senate inquiry on these measures that it is their view that those with an ability to pay should be making fair contributions to the NDIS, and they agreed that Labor's proposal was more progressive than the government's. We've always said this: governments are about making choices. Governments have a crystal-clear choice. We can ensure that the NDIS is funded. We on this side of the House want to make it fairer—fairer for those people who can afford to pay it to ensure those who are living on middle to low incomes are simply not slugged through the nose with demands from this government that they pay more tax. ACOSS went further in welcoming Labor's policies to make people that can afford these measures pay for them. They supported Labor's holistic measures to crack down on income tax minimisation through reform to negative gearing—which I spoke about in this place last week—capital gains tax, trusts, superannuation funds and multinational tax avoidance.

However, what I find difficult to understand and comprehend is this government tying the repeal of the Education Investment Fund to this suite of legislation. As Disabled People's Organisations Australia rightly said in their submission to the Senate inquiry into these measures, there shouldn't be a trade-off between people with a disability and critical funding for Australian research infrastructure. Universities Australia has said closing the Education Investment Fund, which has $3.8 billion remaining, would make it harder for the sector to create jobs and generate world-class, innovative research. So it seems strange to me, given the government announced a National Research Infrastructure Roadmap earlier this year, that it would touch a measure to abolish $3.2 billion dedicated to research infrastructure. This is a Prime Minister that talks about an innovation agenda—except when it comes to the NBN—but, when he comes into this place, he does the complete opposite. It simply doesn't add up. We know that funding for research infrastructure makes our universities highly competitive in the international tertiary education market. Universities need capital research infrastructure to be successful. As Universities Australia has said:

Without capital funding, the renewal of teaching and research infrastructure needed to equip universities for today's competitive environment will slow significantly. The proposal to abolish the EIF is compounded by the Government's current proposal to reduce public investment in universities by $2.8 billion.

Australia's university education sector, as I know coming from Queensland, is one of our largest exports. It contributes around $22 billion to the Australian economy. The abolition of this program not only reduces certainty in the sector, as I said, it just makes no sense. And this is compounded by the fact that it's tied to a suite of legislation to make low- to middle-income workers pay more.

It's clear that on this side of the House we have a better and fairer plan to fund the NDIS. This government would do itself a favour to listen to what the community sector is saying and to listen to what middle- and low-income Australia is calling out for. When I visit shopping centres and do mobile offices and street corner meetings, people who are middle- to low-income earners don't ever come up to me and say: 'We've got too much. We're flush with cash.' They talk about the rising cost of the standard of living, they talk about not being able to make mortgage payments and they talk about not being able to get enough money together for their kids to play sport—on it goes, on it goes. We've all heard the same stories.

In my electorate, where there are a number of families doing it tough, I simply cannot look them in the eye and say, 'I'm going to increase your tax share.' At the same time, this government's priorities are to make sure that millionaires get a tax cut. So, on one hand, millionaires get a tax cut and large corporations are looked after, but people on low to middle incomes get a tax increase. So I don't want any more lectures, any more speeches or any more advice from members of the coalition, saying that in some alternative universe they are the party of low tax. We know that they are not, and middle Australia is seeing that.

The bill that we're asked to support today, and that the government is insisting on passing, will fund the NDIS, but at what cost? We have a fairer and more equitable plan to make sure that the NDIS delivers what it should. The government should not be increasing the tax burden on those most vulnerable Australians.

As I said in my opening remarks, the NDIS is incredibly important to the lives of people with a disability. But it's critical that it is fully funded. Labor will continue to fund this well into the future. However, we'll ensure that low- to middle-income earners aren't hit with an unfair share of the bill to fund the NDIS into the future.

Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017. Can I say to start with, in response to the previous speaker's conclusion just then, that it is actually not at all clear that Labor has a plan to fund the NDIS? They've changed their minds on their plans for how they might pay for it in the future, not two but I think three times now, by my count. They've crab walked away from every position that they've previously held when it comes to the way that they're going to fund it.

The NDIS is supposed to be a policy that enjoys bipartisan support, and it has done since its inception. This bill finds the way to fully pay, finally, for the NDIS. I guess it's an unfortunate sign of the times that more and more legislation is opposed these days by the opposition on the basis of political point scoring rather than for real policy or substantive reasons. Indeed, we can probably now add the NDIS to a list that, sadly, grows longer every month of commitments that Labor once made about their values and their promises before the election and how they actually vote post the election in this parliament.

The previous speaker talked a little about tax cuts, actually. That used to be a strong Labor belief—that tax cuts led to more jobs, more investment and prosperity. When this government, in this parliament, acted to reduce corporate taxes for small business, and when we voted to reduce taxes for middle-income earners in Australia, the Labor Party said that they aspired to cutting taxes and then they voted against doing so. They changed their minds. Labor opposed it; the coalition did it. We passed small business tax cuts for Australia, and now jobs are being created, exactly as was predicted both by us and by them—when they used to support it.

Similarly, Labor also used to talk a lot about David Gonski and school funding reforms. They used to say that they aspired to increase funding and to move to a system that treated all students the same, on the basis of need. Then the coalition found a way to finally do that in our budget and Labor changed their minds and voted against it. Labor used to talk about finding a bipartisan, expert-led approach when it came to energy policy and the challenges that confront our nation. Recently, that's exactly what this government announced with its support for the National Energy Guarantee, as recommended by the experts on the Energy Security Board, and now it seems Labor will walk away from their previously stated beliefs in that space too. It's a pattern of conduct from Labor that I genuinely hope has caught the attention of Australian families who are interested—indeed, invested—in the success of the NDIS. It used to be a Labor policy to find the money for the NDIS through a policy just like this, an increase in the Medicare levy, and, now that this government announced that in the budget earlier this year, it seems Labor are set to oppose it. They'll vote against giving the NDIS the funding security that they say it deserves.

I remember that time—I think it was a few months ago now—when a very strong delegation of disability advocates came down to Canberra to try to persuade the Labor Party to fully fund the NDIS in exactly this way. The former Labor MP John Della Bosca, from Every Australian Counts, said:

… the increase to the Medicare levy must happen, in order to secure a consistent, sustainable funding stream for the NDIS. That's what we're telling everybody. That's what we'll keep telling everybody until we get a result.

That quote was from exactly the same week that the Productivity Commission released its interim report into its inquiry into the NDIS. That interim report considered whether the rollout of the NDIS was on track and within budget, and indeed the Productivity Commission said, yes, it's on track; it's within budget. And that was, sadly, the week that the Labor Party went completely off track when it came to funding the NDIS. That was the week when it became apparent that Labor had changed their minds and would no longer support that increase in the Medicare levy to fund the NDIS, which was their former position. Mind you, they probably will still ultimately increase the Medicare levy if they ever take office. It just seems that they won't use the funds that they raise through doing that to pay for the NDIS. Chances are they'll fritter it away on something else.

I want to give a very real example from Brisbane about what's at stake, what we are really talking about here, and why this bill matters. In Brisbane, in my electorate, on a quite unassuming street in the beautiful suburb of Wooloowin, there's this unassuming house which you probably wouldn't even notice if you were just driving past it. It's a shared house run by the charity Youngcare, and I was pleased to hear a previous speaker mention them too because they do fantastic work across the Brisbane community in places just like that Wooloowin house. They're a charity that for many, many years has struggled as a small fundraiser to find the funds and build appropriate accommodation for young people with disabilities who have been stuck in the aged-care system in the absence of anything else being available. In 2005, 12 years ago, four mates vowed to change that considerable gap in care provision for young people with high-care needs. They did so when they saw that, at the age of just 33, Shevaune Conry, who has multiple sclerosis, ending up living in aged care. Now Youngcare is at the forefront of the NDIS and has been ensuring that its model of operations as well as its clients are ready for the rollout.

Australia, you see, has a severe shortage of appropriate housing for people with high-care needs, right across the country. At present, Youngcare estimate that there may be 700,000 people living in or at risk of entering aged care because of their disability. It's startling in some senses to think that, in a relatively wealthy country like Australia, a young disabled person's best chance of support and care is in an aged-care facility. For the young people currently living in aged care, the statistics are startling. Forty-four per cent of them, sadly, will receive a visit from friends less than once a year, about one-third of them will never participate in community based activities such as shopping, about one in five of them will go outside of that home less than once a month, and about one-quarter of them are the parents of school-aged children. Almost half are in partnered relationships.

And that's exactly what Shevaune and thousands like her faced. Youngcare was the only place that could provide for her needs 24/7. With the purpose to create brighter futures for young people with high care needs, Youngcare was born and delivered that. Since then, Youngcare and many great organisations like it from right across Australia have provided the care and the dignity that young people deserve.

Recently, I went back to visit Youngcare's Wooloowin share house to catch up with some of the housemates there. I took along this time the Minister for Social Services, Christian Porter, and I was able to show the minister some of the great facilities that the share house provides to the housemates, all of them with disabilities. I caught up again with Nick, one of the housemates there. He showed the minister around his room. Although Nick's confined to a wheelchair, he can control his entire room, from the television to the lights to the bed, as well as all of his communication equipment, all from his wheelchair's computer. Texting family and friends is something that we can often take for granted, but, for Nick, that ability to regularly message his family and friends without having to rely on other people doing it for him was an exciting milestone.

Nick didn't always have his freedom, nor has he always been able to enjoy the facilities at Youngcare. Just like Shevaune, who I spoke about, Nick was shipped around different facilities, including aged care. The common denominator, I suppose, of all of those experiences was that none of them were suited to Nick's needs.

By fully funding the NDIS through this bill, we're giving people like Nick the care that they need and that they deserve. Just as importantly, the NDIS gives power to these clients, which means we're giving them the dignity and the independence that they genuinely deserve. This legislation will fully fund our contribution to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, giving Australians with permanent and significant disability and their families and carers certainty that this sort of service will be there for them into the future.

The scheme aims to transform the lives of almost half a million people around Australia who are living with disability, and the lives of their families. To help fund that scheme, this government is asking Australians to contribute, with the Medicare levy to be increased by half a percentage point, from two to 2.5 per cent of taxable income—but not now, not this year and not next year. We're talking about 2019, when the full scheme rolls out and the full costs are finally incurred by governments participating in the scheme. It will mean that one-fifth of the revenue raised by the Medicare levy into the future, along with any other underspends in the NDIS system, will be directed to the NDIS Savings Fund.

The previous speaker said, 'Low-income earners will pay for this.' But low-income earners will continue to receive relief from the Medicare levy through the low-income thresholds for singles, families, seniors and pensioners. The current exemptions from the Medicare levy will remain in place. Don't get me wrong; good policy should try to spread the costs of a scheme like this as thinly as possible across society, because that's how insurance works. Ask yourself what happens when you set up an insurance scheme that relies much too heavily on just a few contributors. Potentially, in a policy sense, you set that scheme up facing some real risks, possibly setting it up to fail.

Commonwealth expenditure on the NDIS for 2017-18, the financial year we're in, is $5.3 billion. But that's projected to reach $10.8 billion when the NDIS reaches full scheme in 2019-20. As we all know, a scheme doesn't simply pay for itself. And clearly you can't take Labor at their word when they say they might fund it one way, and then they change their minds so many times and say, 'No, no, we're going to fund it this way instead,' and then, 'We're going to fund it this way instead.' When Labor left office, when they were voted out in 2013, they left a $55.7 billion funding shortfall for the NDIS. Labor can try to argue about that shortfall, as they repeatedly do in this place, but they know that it's true. Consistent with the usual budget practices in this place, they only ever really had to account for the money in their budget for the four forward years. They didn't have to explain where the money was coming from in the out years beyond the four-year forward estimates, when the true costs of this scheme would become apparent. That's a usual Labor trick. They do it all the time. They did it on schools funding and all sorts of things. It's just, I suppose, one more thing that this government had to fix up upon assuming office.

One can't help but reflect that we wouldn't be in this position if the proper planning had really been put in place when this scheme was designed. On 1 May 2013 the then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said:

Now I do want to be clear, the amount raised from the additional Medicare levy will not fund the full cost of DisabilityCare when it's in full operation.

The Government will need to make savings for that full cost and there will be no free ride for States and Territories. They will need to step up too.

But, in reality, none of those measures were implemented and now this government is stepping in to ensure the longevity of this insurance scheme. This is a big moment for all of the Australian families who are interested in making sure that the NDIS is funded and really works. It will be a revealing moment when the Labor side of politics choose to play politics and they crab-walk away from their previous policy position yet again. It is a revealing moment when the coalition assumes responsibility and does what is necessary to make Australia a better place. Now is the time to finally rectify the funding shortfall for the sake of Youngcare, for their many clients like Nick and Shevaune and for the sake of all the families who wish there was one more Wooloowin House. I commend this bill to the House and I urge the opposition to support it as well.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this cognate debate, I want to particularly talk about the Nation-building Funds Repeal (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017. Sadly, the Turnbull government's focus in this set of bills is on tearing down nation building, not on building our nation for the future. The Turnbull government has failed to invest in the infrastructure needs of our country. Of course, I'm not just talking about roads and rail, although those are important; I'm talking about the infrastructure that our higher education and vocational education sectors need to become the sectors that they should be for the future so that they can continue to play such an important role in our national economy and in our nation's life.

The Education Infrastructure Fund was a key plank in the previous Labor government's move to transform Australia's education and research capability and address years of underinvestment from the Howard era. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, Australia's international education sector is one of our great success stories. International education and international tourism are our greatest service exports and it's important to focus on what undermining the sector's ability to invest in infrastructure will mean for international trade. The Nation-building Funds Repeal (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017 will close the Building Australia Fund and will close the Education Investment Fund. These funds were established by Labor in 2008. They're managed by the Future Fund, with withdrawals and expenditure being overseen by independent advisory boards against the nation-building fund's evaluation criteria. This isn't the first time that this government has sought to get rid of the Education Investment Fund since it's been in office. The fund has been frozen for a number of years. There was a previous attempt to abolish it in the Asset Recycling Fund Bill 2014, but we were successful in removing those provisions from that bill, which is a very good thing.

As I have gone around the country meeting with universities, they have been very proud to show me examples of their investment in infrastructure that has been partly funded by the Education Investment Fund, the EIF. I have done that, obviously, in the course of my responsibilities as the shadow assistant minister for universities. I have had the opportunity to see the benefit that investment has had for local communities. For example, when I visited Rockhampton recently, the vice-chancellor of the CQUniversity spoke to me about how Labor in government had supported the university to create Queensland's first dual sector institution. The Labor government had supported a proposal by the university to bring together higher education and vocational education through a merger of CQUniversity and Central Queensland Institute of TAFE. They were very proud of the work that had been done in that regard, and they asked me to particularly pass on their thanks to the now shadow Treasurer, Chris Bowen, for his role in assisting with obtaining the support. The education investment funding that contributed to that project was $73.8 million. They leveraged a further $120 million in order to make the project work, because, of course, funding from the Commonwealth can often be supplemented and complemented by funding from other sources—in that case, Queensland government support and other funds. It was a groundbreaking transformation for the university, and it wouldn't have been possible without a significant injection of funds from the Commonwealth's Education Investment Fund and Structural Adjustment Fund.

It helped create the biggest regional university in Australia, with more than 2,000 staff and 35,000 students across 19 locations. It gives people living in regional areas seamless access to a full range of post-school education and training options and allows them to skill up for the workforce needs of the future. Some people used pathways from vocational education into higher education, while degree students in higher education can also access additional trade qualifications to ensure they're employable and comprehensively skilled. This has really been used to better integrate the university into the local community. Key infrastructure projects made possible through the EIF with that particular university include the Rockhampton health clinic, the Mackay city campus refurbishment, the Mackay engineering building, and interactive learning spaces and systems.

Another university that I visited recently is the University of the Sunshine Coast, which showed us the flagship building that they had managed to build through appropriate investment from the Commonwealth and other sources. It's an amazing building. You go into this immersive kind of round virtual reality room, and you are immersed in whatever the images happen to be. At that point we were shown an interactive map, which was 360 degrees around us, of the university's footprint in the local area. This is the sort of new technology that Australian students should have access to. We should have world-class facilities for domestic students. It's also technology that helps to make our universities more attractive to students from outside our country but within our region, students that we want to attract to Australia to continue to build the really important service export that is higher education.

As you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker, higher education and vocational education trade exports contribute more than $22 billion every year to the Australian economy. So continuing to build up the institutions that we have and to make them world class is important if we want to continue to drive that international education spend, and it's important, as I said, for domestic students so that they can have world-class facilities and get the skills, knowledge, attributes and characteristics that you can get through world-class higher education and that they will need for the jobs of the future. We don't want Australians to be in low-paid, low-skilled jobs. We want them to be in high-paid, high-skilled jobs in the future, and that takes investment in vocational education and higher education.

This bill seeks to remove almost $4 billion in funds that were earmarked for investment in education. That's what this bill does. There was another bill before the House recently that also sought to remove almost $4 billion in investment in higher education. That was the government's higher education cuts package—the cuts to higher education of almost $4 billion in fiscal terms over five years. It had fee hikes for students and the reduction of the repayment threshold for the Higher Education Contribution Scheme payments. All of those things were a tax on this country's ability to provide a high-quality higher education system. So is this bill that we're debating today.

Since 2008, up until the Abbott-Turnbull government abandoned the EIF program, around $4.2 billion had been provided to co-finance measures to update and modernise Australia's vocational, higher education and research facilities across 71 projects. I've given the example of CQUniversity. I've talked about Sunshine Coast university. I should also talk about the University of Tasmania. These universities have been able to receive some Commonwealth support in relation to investing in infrastructure for teaching and research. I should also mention the University of Sydney, which is incredibly proud of the work it has done to build spaces that really generate collaboration—genuine multidisciplinary approaches to higher education and to research. You can visit these campuses and see the work that they have done.

Another example is the Advanced Engineering Building at the University of Queensland, which received $50 million as a contribution from EIF funding, raised $15 million from the Queensland Innovation Building Fund, $62 million from its own funds and $2½ million from private philanthropy. This is an iconic building for teaching and research in engineering. I have had the benefit of visiting this facility as well, and it is absolutely wonderful to get to go and see it. I could also talk about the University of South Australia's Materials and Minerals Science Learning and Research Hub. Materials and minerals are so important to our nation's economy and to trade, just like higher education and vocational education are.

There is Swinburne university's Advanced Manufacturing and Design Centre. As a nation we need to move more and more into advanced manufacturing. We need to have a manufacturing sector for the 21st century, and it's been really wonderful to see the work that has been done in relation to advanced manufacturing in Australia. The Leader of the Opposition and I were fortunate enough to visit Incitec Pivot in Brisbane during the week before last to see the advanced manufacturing work that is being done there, by way of an aside. But to return to the EIF: another example is at the University of New South Wales. It has the Tyree Energy Technologies Building, speaking of energy.

All of these are just examples of what can be done when we invest in higher education, vocational education and research infrastructure. It is a very great shame that the government is now closing down the EIF. Universities Australia has said that closing the EIF, which has $3.8 billion remaining in it, would make it harder for the sector to create new jobs, generate research breakthroughs and compete for international students. All of those things, with respect, are absolutely correct, and that is why this government should decide not to pursue the abolition of the EIF and instead to properly invest in education and research infrastructure, to stop attacking higher education and vocational education in this country and to do the right thing and invest in this very important sector for Australians.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's always a pleasure to follow the member for Griffith, but I just wonder whether she brought the right speech into the House? In the 10 minutes or so that she spoke on this bill—which is, crucially, about funding the NDIS, which those opposite didn't fund when they were in government—all she did was speak about higher education. Not once in her contribution did she speak about our looking to support people with disabilities and their families to lead a better life. But that just shows what those opposite are really all about.

It's my pleasure to rise in this House today to speak in support of the government's Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017 and related bills. This bill is about putting Australians with a disability and their families first, something those opposite seem to have forgotten. This is what this government cares about and it's why it is putting forward the strategy that is outlined in these bills that will see such needs met in our local communities, including in my electorate of Forde.

What a great time it is to be speaking about this bill, after celebrating National Carers Week just last week. Carers Australia organises and coordinates National Carers Week with the assistance and participation of the state and territory carer associations, and with the primary activities funded by the Department of Social Services. National Carers Week is about recognising and celebrating the outstanding contribution that Australia's estimated 2.7 million unpaid carers make to our nation each and every day.

I would like to acknowledge that carers make an enormous contribution to our local communities, as well as to our national economy. It is a contribution that cannot ever be overstated. Statistics show that, if all carers decided to stop performing their caring roles, it would cost our country some $60 billion each year to replace the work that they do. That is more than $1 billion a week, and the key message raised last week, as we know, was that anyone at any time can become a carer. This is why it's so vitally important not just to raise community awareness among all Australians about the diversity of carers and their caring roles but also to ensure that they and the people they care for are supported into the future. It is why this bill is so important, and it is why this government is committed to delivering that support.

This government has introduced legislation which seeks to bring about the full funding of its contribution to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, giving Australians with permanent significant disability and their families and carers certainty that this vital service will be there for them into the future. In the life of a disabled person and in the lives of their carers, the word 'certainty' takes on a whole new meaning. Certainty is not something that people living with a disability or their carers have experienced on a regular basis, but certainty is something that they long for. To help provide that certainty, to fully fund the NDIS and to know that the funding is there for these people at a very difficult time in their lives, the government is asking Australians to contribute, with the Medicare levy to be increased by half a percentage point, from two per cent to 2½ per cent of taxable income.

The decision will increase the Medicare levy from 1 July 2019. I think it reflects the fact that all Australians have a role to play in accordance with their capacity to ensure the NDIS is secure for future generations and to ensure that we leave our children and our grandchildren with the capability to support some of the most vulnerable in our society. The key message, as I've said, is that we're asking Australians to support this in accordance with their capacity. These changes will impact around 9.9 million taxpayers, who are estimated to pay slightly more tax in 2019-20 as a result of the decision to increase the Medicare levy. However, in 2019-20, people with income within the Medicare levy phase-in income range will continue to pay the Medicare levy at a reduced rate.

I would like to touch on and outline some of the key factors that this funding of the NDIS that we are seeking to guarantee and fully fund in this bill will cover, as outlined in the recent Productivity Commission report. It looks at funding the participants, the supports provided within the scheme for those participants, the quality of the supports received by participants, the proportion of supports in the plan that can be utilised by a participant, the price paid for those supports and the costs associated with operating the scheme. This is an investment in the lives of vulnerable Australians, and I think it is beholden on this parliament—a parliament that has provided bipartisan support for the implementation of the NDIS—to ensure that it is fully funded meet the expectations of the people who will be covered by the NDIS. This is where those opposite let down the people of Australia, because they never, ever fully funded the NDIS. When we look at families who require this support and assistance, we need to be able to tell them that those supports will be there when they need and require them.

It is important to remember that people will be paying the increased Medicare levy but the conditions of the levy won't change. There will still be those on lower incomes who will continue to not pay the Medicare levy or to pay a reduced rate of the Medicare levy, and there will still be the full range of exemptions that currently exist. In increasing the Medicare levy, we are not seeking to include people who are currently exempt from paying it. We are not asking people to give more than they can give, but it is important to ensure that the NDIS is fully funded once and for all. That is the responsibility that this government, through these bills, is taking. It is about ensuring that the government is protecting the essential disability supports that Australians rely upon. With this bill, the government is providing certainty—certainty for people with a disability, certainty for their families and carers and certainty to all Australians who may find themselves in a situation that requires these services—that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is fully funded for the long term. I'd like to say today that in these measures, which I fully support and commend to the House, we are giving Australians with a disability, and their families and carers, that certainty that they so desperately need.

This is always about people—in this case some 460,000 Australians who are living with disabilities and their families, because in each and every case there is a person. That is why this bill is so important and why it is so important that it receive the bipartisan support in this place that the NDIS has received to date. I call on those opposite to honour their commitments to fully fund the NDIS and to step up to the plate and support this bill. I commend the bill to the House.

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The fundamental question before the House today is whether we raise taxes on average Australians or whether we raise taxes on the top one per cent. That is the central question when it comes to income tax in Australia: should we slug average earners, or is it appropriate for the top one per cent to pay a rate of tax that they paid for the two years until 1 July this year?

The context in which we are debating this is one in which inequality has risen significantly in Australia and indeed across the advanced world. In his recent book with Mike Quigley, Changing Jobs, my parliamentary colleague Jim Chalmers notes:

All up, the top 1 per cent is wealthier than the bottom 70 per cent of Australians.

He notes there evidence from the Australian Bureau of Statistics of real wage growth three times as high for the top tenth as for the bottom tenth. In his important book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty outlines the way in which wage and capital inequality has grown across the advanced world. This has sparked a significant debate in the IMF, in the OECD and among economists of left and right about what to do about rising inequality. In his book Inequality: What Can Be Done?, the late Sir Tony Atkinson set out a range of proposals to tackle this, some radical and some more moderate. He talked about the importance of shifting the balance of power among stakeholders, the role that trade unions play in reducing the rise of inequality and the importance of getting policy right when it comes to tackling technological change, an issue that I know my colleagues Ed Husic and Brendan O'Connor are actively engaged in, among many others on this side of the House. The late Sir Tony Atkinson talks about the importance of minimum wages, about capital endowments, about the progressivity of the tax system and about overseas aid.

Yet in Australia we have the extraordinary spectacle of a government that has its head in the sand on the issue of inequality. In a speech back in August, we saw Senator Cormann suggesting to the Sydney Institute that inequality didn't matter in Australia and that anyone who was debating inequality was, by definition, a raging socialist. Well, you'd have to say that to the IMF, the OECD and the armada of experts who say that we have to tackle inequality. As Greg Jericho pointed out in a piece in The Guardian, it is almost a ritual in Australia for Labor leaders to be labelled:

… either a socialist or "more leftwing than [insert Whitlam or some other figure from the ALP past]".

We have seen the member for Curtin arguing that the Leader of the Opposition is more left wing than anyone going back to Calwell, echoing, of course, the comments of Peter Costello that Julia Gillard was more left wing than Jim Cairns. We have seen this tired trope from the coalition time and time again.

But it is pretty extraordinary to be told that Labor are in company with socialists because of our policy suite. Senator Cormann listed five Labor policies in his speech that suggested that Labor had become the new socialists. The first is the proposal for a top marginal tax rate of 49.5 per cent compared to the 49 per cent that was in place under the Abbott government. As Greg Jericho points out:

I always thought the gap between Friedrich Hayek and Karl Marx was greater than a 0.5% point top tax rate. I guess I was wrong.

Senator Cormann suggests that Labor's policy to limit negative gearing is another mark of 'socialism'. You would have to say that to the former member for North Sydney, Joe Hockey, who in his farewell speech from this place urged that negative gearing be restricted to new-build homes. That's a policy which has received praise from Liberals such as Mike Baird, the former New South Wales Premier; and Jeff Kennett, the former Victorian Premier. So they are presumably fellow travellers.

Senator Cormann suggested that Labor's 'attack on self-funded retirees with its planned ban on limited-recourse borrowing arrangements' is apparently another marker of socialism. You would have to tell that to the government's Murray inquiry into the financial system, which, of course, recommended such a move.

We hear from Senator Cormann that the Labor position on the company tax cut is further evidence of reds under the beds, a surprise to anyone who has been looking lately at the economic evidence on tax cuts and growth put forward by the Treasury themselves, which suggests that the boost to personal income of a company tax cut for the top end of town, funded by income tax rises, is 0.1 per cent. Not per year—total.

Finally, Senator Cormann suggests that Labor's policy to tax income distributions from trusts at 30 per cent to prevent income splitting will somehow see a resurgence of socialism in this country. That is, frankly, ridiculous. Every previous coalition Treasurer but this one has taken tackling trusts seriously. Labor's measures simply build on what then Treasurer Howard did when it came to distributions to child beneficiaries. We saw a former Liberal Treasurer, Peter Costello, have similar concerns about trusts and attempt to rein them in. Indeed, Joe Hockey spoke about the excesses of trusts. The current Treasurer is the only Liberal Treasurer who doesn't seem to think that income splitting is a problem. Frankly, worrying about income splitting isn't socialism; it's just good economics.

We have in Australia a level of inequality not seen for three-quarters of a century and yet we have a government that is unwilling to crack down on rising inequality. If you don't do it for reasons of fairness, do it for reasons of financial stability. The latest Reserve Bank statement on monetary policy sets out at the end a number of key uncertainties for the economy. It says:

… ongoing expectations for low real wage growth remain a key downside risk for household spending. The recent sharp increase in the relative price of utilities poses a further downside risk to the non-energy part of household consumption to the extent that households find it hard to reduce their energy consumption; this is likely to have a larger effect on the consumption decisions of lower-income households.

The Reserve Bank recognises that we need to ensure steady income growth in the middle part of the distribution for middle- and lower-income Australians if we're to ensure good growth in Australia. If you want to ensure that middle Australia does well then why would you slug it with a tax rise when you are giving a tax cut to the very top?

Let's be clear about the beneficiaries of the coalition's decision to reduce the top marginal tax rate for those earning over $180,000. The beneficiaries are adults in the top two per cent of the distribution but nine-tenths of the gain goes to the top one per cent—a group which, according to work by Tony Atkinson and me and Roger Wilkins at the Melbourne Institute, has almost doubled its share of national income over the last generation. The top one per cent have had a very good generation. This is important to recognise for those of us who are in the top five, two or one per cent of the income distribution. The top couple of per cent of Australians have done very well over the last generation. They don't need a tax cut.

But middle- and lower-income Australians have not done well. They have seen much slower wage growth. Wage growth has been much slower for cleaners and checkout workers than for financial dealers and anaesthetists. So why does the government want to raise taxes on cleaners and checkout workers and cut taxes for surgeons, barristers and anaesthetists? If you'd looked at the evidence on inequality in Australia—over dozens of studies, over hundreds of article, over many, many important books—you would know that inequality has been on the rise. It is important that policy address that fact. Yet we have a government that is leaving revenue on the table from multinational tax avoidance. We have seen the coalition refusing to tighten debt deduction loopholes used by multinational companies, a measure that would improve the budget by at least $4 billion over the decade. We have seen them fail to move on tax transparency for the top end of town.

We on the Labor side would like to see the tax transparency threshold for private companies brought down to $100 million. Before we brought in these tax transparency laws, those opposite came up with all sorts of excuses. In one particularly absurd suggestion they said it would increase kidnap risk despite the fact that the security agencies and the police had offered no evidence of that. Now that the laws have come in, we've seen them add to the public debate over which corporations are paying tax in Australia. But the threshold is too high. Raising it from $100 million to $200 million took two-thirds of the private firms out of the tax transparency net. Labor wants to see more transparency, not less.

We want to introduce public reporting of country-by-country reports—reporting high-level tax information about where and how much tax was paid by corporations with over $1 billion in global revenue. We want to see greater protection for whistleblowers, allowing them to collect a share of the tax penalty of up to $250,000.

In this government, we have no serious measures on multinational tax avoidance. We just have them trying to claim credit for laws they voted against. In 2012 the coalition voted in the House and the Senate against laws that tightened tax loopholes for multinational firms. If they'd had their way, the $340 million judgement against Chevron this year would not have gone through, the budget would be hundreds of millions of dollars worse off and net debt would be rising even faster than it is already.

The NDIS was fully funded by Labor. You only need to go to Labor's final budget, in which NDIS funding was clearly set out not simply over the forward estimates but over the long term. It is an absolute lie and an insult to Australians with disabilities and their carers to say that the NDIS was not properly funded by Labor. What this bill attempts to do—under the guise of pretending, incorrectly, that the NDIS was not funded—is increase taxes on low- and middle-income Australians. Labor has a better plan. We would close multinational tax loopholes. We would only raise the Medicare levy for those earning above $87,000 a year. We would reinstate the budget repair levy for those earning over $180,000 a year—because why should the income support cuts be permanent and the tax rises on the top one per cent be temporary?

Labor will always fight for low- and middle-income Australians. Labor will always fight for egalitarianism. It is not socialism to believe that inequality in Australia is too high. Sensible economists across the world are recognising this challenge and looking at ways of tackling it. Indeed, work recently released by the International Monetary Fund found that lowering tax rates for the rich will increase inequality. That echoes a series of studies done over recent years, including work by Tony Atkinson and me, showing that about a third of the rise in top income shares in Anglo-Saxon countries is due to changes in top marginal tax rates. Top marginal tax rate reductions increase inequality in Australia at a time when inequality has significantly risen over the last generation. The so-called trickle-down theory is just that—any benefits handed away to the very top won't flow down to low- and middle-income Australia; at best they will trickle. A better approach would be to look after low- and middle-income Australia. That is what Labor's amendments will do. They are fairer and they are better for the Australian economy.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member. Before I call the next member, I thank the previous member for briefly touching on the substance of the bill during his speech.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How about not going ahead with the $65 billion company tax cuts?

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

One of the members opposite mentions company tax cuts. They supported them when they were in government, and now they come in here and they don't support them. We saw the best job figures in 25 years last week. Those figures show that more people have got into work, and it shows that our plan for jobs and growth is working. But I'm getting off topic.

The members opposite, especially the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, racked up all this debt. The Deputy Leader has done nothing with her Senate colleagues to help get the deficit down. Now she comes in here and says, 'You guys have increased it.' Well, of course we increased it—we only got 29 out of 76 senators. It's very hard to get things through if you only have 29 out of 76 senators. The opposition is totally irresponsible when it comes to this nation's finances. They should be supporting the government with a lot of the issues that we took to the election. They couldn't even come in here and vote for their own savings that they banked at the last election, for goodness' sake!

This insurance scheme gives Australians peace of mind. It gives those Australians that most need it, those with a disability, certainty that it will be funded into the future. We know that those opposite have come to this position of not supporting it, but there are many that would have, from what I understand—the member for Jagajaga and others. But, no, they decided, 'No, let's be obstructionist.' Of all the things that the Australian people hate about parliaments, one is that there is not enough bipartisan support. Once again we see the Labor Party, on this important issue, not supporting the government to make sure that the scheme is fully funded.

Recently I hosted the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services, the member for Ryan, in my electorate for a chat with mums and dads of particularly those people who have a disability, people from the Woody Point Special School and also other people with disability and kids with special needs in the electorate. We spoke about how this scheme will benefit them, and they raised many concerns about the current system and the lack of support they currently receive. One of the main issues raised was after-school care and holiday care. It was very difficult for them to access these programs with only one special school in that local area. I've got three special schools in my electorate.

Now, with the NDIS, individuals will have the opportunity to access services that were not possible before. Small businesses will be created as the needs for services can be catered for. People will be listened to, and they'll be able to create their own plan, not being told, 'This is what you can and can't access.' It's meant to give these families choice. In my electorate of Petrie I met with families who would greatly benefit from the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

For those who are unaware of exactly what the NDIS aims to do, we know that it gives people a choice so that those people with a disability are able to choose how they best spend that support that comes from government for them in their own lives. The scheme will transform the lives of around 460,000 Australians who are living with a disability, and the lives of their families. For those Australians who may one day need access to it: it will be there for you.

Those who earn more, currently, under this bill, will pay more. Someone earning $200,000 a year will pay $1,000 additional funding. Someone that's earning $40,000 a year will pay half a per cent of that. It's a couple of hundred dollars. I think that many Australians want to support people with a disability. They actually want to be part of supporting this National Disability Insurance Scheme. The members opposite don't want to give them that opportunity. They did when they were in government, but they don't now. They want to say, 'No, no, you don't need to be part of this.'

We know that low-income earners will continue to receive relief from the Medicare levy through the low-income thresholds for singles, families, seniors and pensioners. The current exemptions from the Medicare levy will remain in place. Through our proposed changes to the Medicare levy, low-income earners will actually be better off. A single person earning $26,000 will pay $435 as opposed to $467, saving them $32 a year. I question the member for McMahon: have you read that? Earlier today, he stated that everyone earning over $21,000 would be worse off. But it shows that people earning under $26,000 will actually be better off. For everyone above that, yes, they'll pay a little bit more, but it will make sure that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is fully funded.

What we see from the Labor Party is a continual attack on medium-income earners and high-income earners, as though they do not pay enough. But, the way our tax system works and the way the Medicare levy currently works, those people that earn more currently pay more, and it is the same with this bill that we're debating here before the House. Under this bill, high-income earners will pay more. As I said before, if you earn $200,000, there'll be an additional $1,000 that is paid. If you earn an additional $30,000, it will be a lot less. That's fair. Everyone gets to contribute. Everyone will get to contribute, to make sure that those people with a disability can rest assured that this will be fully funded, not just now or in three years time but in 10 and 20 years time for future generations of Australians with a disability.

But, no, Labor wants to play politics with this—the politics of envy. They want to make sure that those people who have a disability or those people who are on a low income grit their teeth and say: 'It's all the rich's fault. It's all the high-income earners. They're not paying not enough tax.' People on over $180,000 a year currently have a 47 per cent tax rate—they pay 47c in every dollar in tax—but under Labor that's not enough. They want to snuff out all opportunities and incentives for people to earn more. They want to raise it to 49c; they want to take half of everything you earn, if you earn over $180,000.

Those people who are wealthy will pay more under our scheme. For those listening, in my first job out of school I was on the minimum wage, earning about $25,000 a year. Those opposite, the Labor Party, think that just because you're on a low-income wage today in the future you'll remain there, and I say to people that it's not true—you can get a higher income and you can achieve your goals. We want to reward effort in this country; the Labor Party want to keep you down. They don't want to reward effort. They don't want to reward incentives for people to work harder. They want to keep you down.

This bill is fair. It makes sure that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is fully funded. It covers the gap that the Gillard and Rudd Labor governments left—the gaping hole in this scheme. They left that gap and now the Labor Party come in here and plays politics. I say shame! Shame on the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and everyone opposite if they vote against this bill.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very glad that I got to catch the end of the member for Petrie's speech, because I think that here is the fundamental difference between Labor and those opposite. We think that there are a lot of people who earn a lot less than $180,000 a year who work hard too, who are achieving with their lives and who are contributing to society. The measure of a person is not whether they earn $180,000 a year but what they contribute to their family, to their country, to their community and to their society.

This idea of asking people who are earning more than $180,000 a year to contribute a little more has been called by those opposite a 'success tax'. I tell you who I think the successes are: those parents who are looking after their kids with disability in the family home, struggling for them, advocating for them, arguing for them and demanding better services. They're the successes in my eyes, not necessarily people who are earning $180,000 a year. That is a measure of just about nothing. It's a measure of picking the right job. But I tell you that there are a lot of people working in kindergartens who contribute a lot more to society than people who are working in merchant banking.

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

They're successes in my eyes too, Deputy Leader of the Opposition! Don't put words in my mouth!

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, don't run them down in this place!

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

I don't; I visit them regularly!

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Sydney has the call.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. Here we have a package of bills that attempts to jack up taxes on those who can least afford them in order to pay for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which has already been paid for.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Petrie on a point of order?

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

Don't worry about it, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You've got to make up your mind, mate! Come on! This is the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which has been paid for by Labor once, and now those opposite are pretending that all of these cuts to essential services and tax increases on ordinary Australians are about paying for the NDIS again. What? When you've spent this are you going to make people pay for it again, and maybe again after that? What a ridiculous proposition!

We know from the Productivity Commission that spending is tracking just as we expected for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. What's lagging, though, is the implementation. What we know from the most recent report is that the implementation is being botched by those opposite. We are hearing report after report from families who are stressed, who are describing the difficulties of interacting with a telephone planning service and with a computer system that doesn't work. It's not the costs that are the problem; it's the botched implementation. As they've done with the NBN, as they did with the census and as they did with NAPLAN online, it's botched implementation from those opposite.

The government has capped staffing at the NDIA, preventing people who should be able to access this service from accessing it. They've bungled the implementation of the IT system and clients are having enormous difficulties in accessing it. This means delays in the take-up of the scheme. There's the Nadia project, the virtual assistant that would be making a big difference to people ringing up or using their computer to get information from the NDIA. That's stalled, despite the government already spending $3.5 million on it. So let's be clear: this is not a funding problem for the NDIS; it is an implementation problem.

When we were in government, yes, we did put up the Medicare levy by half a per cent, but you can't put it up by half a per cent one year, and then put it up by half a per cent the next year and then put it up by half a per cent the following year. When does it stop? How often do you have to make people pay for this? We didn't just put up the Medicare levy; we also made some very difficult cuts, including some that were vociferously opposed by those opposite. I remember, because I was the health minister, how we means-tested the private health insurance rebate and had all of those on the other side saying that it was an outrage to means test private health insurance and that they were going to remove to means testing as soon as they were in government, as soon as they possibly could. I'll tell you what: it's still means-tested. I haven't heard a peep from those opposite about getting rid of means-testing private health insurance. In fact, what I have noticed recently is those opposite trying to further constrain spending in the area of private health insurance. They didn't try to do that when we were in government trying to deliver those savings. In fact, they opposed us at every step of the way. The tightening of eligibility for family tax benefit was not easy in the face of the opposition of those opposite. We made a range of savings because we didn't think it was fair that the NDIS should simply be funded by continually increasing the Medicare levy.

You know, the National Disability Insurance Scheme is a magnificent project. This is something that Australia has to be proud of, must be proud of, should be proud of, should be telling the world about. People with disabilities have been advocating for many, many years for such a scheme, and I think it first really came to national prominence during the 2020 summit. Those opposite like to say, 'Whatever happened from the 2020 summit?' The NDIS is a pretty great example of something that hit the government agenda through the 2020 summit. It was picked up and—

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Henry tax reform: what happened to that?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister at the table's talking about tax reform. I remember when everything was on the table, but suddenly it's not, hey?

Mr Fletcher interjecting—

The—I don't know, what are you? The communications minister is now badmouthing Cate Blanchett, one of our most distinguished Australians. That's a proud moment for you. Good on you.

We had the 2020 summit that first brought this onto the national agenda. We had the work of the member for Maribyrnong, the then parliamentary secretary for disabilities, who did a very widespread consultation. We had the member for Jagajaga designing, implementing and doing the patient policy work of getting this to the stage where every Australian could expect to be supported in reaching their full potential by being given—not meted or doled out access to the services that they relied on to fully participate in society and the economy, but whatever they needed to reach their full potential, to meet their dreams. Without their patient policy work—the member for Maribyrnong, the member for Jagajaga—and the commitment of the then Treasurer, the member for Lilley, to funding this extraordinary program and the leadership first of Prime Minister Rudd and then of Prime Minister Gillard bringing this home, we would not see this scheme today. It's very important to acknowledge the contributions of all of those people in the development of this magnificent scheme.

But the truth is, you know, that these bills that we are discussing today are not before us because the NDIS needs them. These funding cuts, these savings, these tax increases are before us because of the economic incompetence—the utter and absolute economic incompetence—of those opposite. Do you remember when those opposite used to talk about the debt and deficit disaster? Well, since those opposite have come to government, they have managed to triple the deficit. Then Treasurer Hockey did a deal with the Greens to get rid of the debt cap, and we now have gross government debt past half a trillion dollars.

How proud those opposite must be, having finally addressed the debt and deficit disaster that they spoke so movingly and so tellingly about during the election campaign that I recall in 2010. It is incredible seeing those opposite facing ever-increasing debt and deficit, and what is their response to ever-increasing debt and deficit? A $65 billion big business tax cut and a $19 billion tax cut for those on incomes of over $180,000 a year. I can tell you how you can deal with debt and deficit without slugging ordinary Australians. How about we give up on $65 billion of big business tax cuts, mostly going to multinational companies? How about giving up on the $19 billion of tax cuts going entirely to people on incomes above $180,000 a year? How about we do something about negative gearing and capital gains tax to save $37 billion a year instead of holding people who are hanging out for the National Disability Insurance Scheme to ransom with these rancid bills?

This legislation is here because this government thinks that giving a $65 billion big business tax cut is more important than properly funding the NDIS or protecting ordinary Australians from the sorts of tax increases that are before us. Our alternative proposal protects seven million Australian taxpayers from the Medicare levy increase. Our alternative policy raises more money more fairly by retaining the deficit levy and by applying the increased Medicare levy only to those in the top two tax brackets. This is supported by independent modelling from ANU's Centre for Social Research and Methods which shows that twice as many households will be worse off under the Turnbull government's policy and that our approach will raise $300 million more over the forward estimates and $6.8 billion more over 10 years. By taking this approach we protect Australians on low and middle incomes and we place the greater burden on those who have the greatest capacity to pay.

The tax hikes and cuts in these bills form the centrepiece of the unfair 2007 budget. That budget also included increases in university fees and lowering the HELP repayment threshold to $42,000 a year so that Australian students would pay more for poorer quality education and would repay fees sooner. Budget analysis published in The Sydney Morning Herald showed that for a couple renting, where one partner had left uni and the other was still studying, the effective marginal tax rate is over 97 per cent once they clear an income of just $37,000. That's what those opposite are talking about. They're super keen to give a tax cut to those on incomes above $180,000 a year, but, if you're a couple on $37,000 a year, their measures would see an effective marginal tax rate of 97 per cent.

The member for Petrie talked about people on $180,000 a year—the smallest violin in the world, and worrying about them and the tax they pay. He said it was on their whole income. I presume he knows that it's only on the share above $180,000 a year. But he's not worried about the couple on $37,000 a year. He's not worried about the analysis that was done by the National Foundation for Australian Women that found that women on around $50,000 a year would face an effective marginal tax rate of more than 100 per cent out of the 2017 budget. A woman graduate who works and earns $51,000 a year, relies on child care and receives family payments would actually have less disposable income than a man on $32,000 a year. We hear so much from the Prime Minister about how he and Lucy believe that women hold up half the sky. Well, they don't get half the tax benefits when the government is thinking about making tax changes, do they? They don't get anywhere close to half of the tax benefits.

We know that increasing inequality in this country is a problem. I'm actually gobsmacked that every now and again the Treasurer says, 'Yes, the real problem is that wages aren't growing,' and he is actually right about one thing. The trouble is that everything that he and this government are doing is exacerbating the problem of stagnant wages growth, leading to greater inequality in our country.

The collapse in aggregate demand that is the result of stagnating wages growth is a problem for us all. Those opposite say the solution is trickle-down economics and, if only we put our faith once again in trickle-down economics, we will fix this problem. We say that instead we should restrict negative gearing to newly constructed homes, remove the capital gains tax subsidy on housing, tax at a minimum of 30 per cent family trusts that are used primarily as tax minimisation vehicles, redress the imbalance in the industrial relations system to restore a bit of power to those who are bargaining for greater pay, crack down on multinational profit shifting and reverse the cuts to penalty rates. These are the sorts of measures we should be taking to strengthen our economy.

I'll finish with this. Trying to get rid of the Education Investment Fund is so short-sighted. Those opposite have tried before to do this, and they have turned their backs on the excellent projects that have been funded out of the Education Investment Fund. They tried to do it in the 2014 budget. We fought them off. We will fight them off again because the sorts of projects that were funded through this when the government was still spending money from it were extraordinary. I tell you what: a heap of them were in National Party-held seats, and it is extraordinary that not just the Liberals are turning their back on the investment in higher education but those National Party members who have seen the benefits in their electorates are turning their back on this spending too.

Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very proud to speak here today on the Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017. In contrast to a number of my colleagues, my electorate of Dunkley does not yet have access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but it is hotly anticipated. My perspective on the funding for the NDIS is therefore somewhat different to some as, rather than looking so much at the needs of existing services in Dunkley, our entire community is looking at the potential that the NDIS has to aid Dunkley constituents. April 2018 is an eagerly awaited time in the Mornington Peninsula. As part of the lead-up, a number of local disability support organisations and providers have hosted NDIS transition forums which have been absolutely packed out due to the extent of interest. I recently had the privilege of speaking at one.

We also have on the peninsula a large number of carers, a number of whom have come to me previously with their concerns, wanting to know who will care for their children, siblings or friends once they are gone. These people are the face of what we are trying to do here and they are the reason it is so important for the NDIS to be a success. This is not a warm and fuzzy social justice crusade. These people need the NDIS and the support that it will provide to their loved ones.

Last week, as many of my colleagues will know, we marked National Carers Week, acknowledging the incredible work that the 2.7 million unpaid carers do in their cumulative 36 million hours of care work a week. There is absolutely no doubt that the NDIS is an absolutely critical program, and I appeal to my colleagues on both sides of the House to back its funding so that all Australians can be confident that, should they suffer a debilitating injury, whether physical or otherwise, they will have access to the support and funds they need and their families won't be made to take on a burden that is inconceivable to many of us.

An example is a recent group I have met with and helped to support. It is a kinship carers group around Frankston who look after a number of children in a kinship relationship. In late September I also attended and spoke at an information forum in Frankston hosted by Mentis Assist, which is based in Mornington. Mentis Assist strives to provide opportunity for people living with mental illness or complex needs to enjoy a meaningful life by strengthening self-identity, personal responsibility and hope. The room in which the forum was hosted was full, attended by Mentis Assist clients as well as families, carers, service providers and interested community members. Mentis Assist representatives as well as those from Victorian NDIS authorities and the Brotherhood of St Laurence, as our local area coordinator, spoke to those gathered, and the information was received with optimism. I was very pleased to be able to be part of the conversation, a conversation that I'm thrilled to continue here today. I bring with me the hopes and anticipation of my constituents as I speak to you all to stress the importance of this Medicare levy amendment to ensure that the funding sustainability and certainty of the NDIS is there when it arrives in Dunkley in just under six months.

Mentis Assist, as a registered service provider, plays a crucial road in supporting people with severe mental illness in my electorate as well as those with psychiatric conditions that inhibit social and economic participation. The services they provide all focus on increasing inclusion, independence, self-responsibility and participation. They are all about providing people with the support they need to address participants' needs and to work towards current and future goals. Forum attendees were reassured their current services with Mentis Assist would be continued until they were approved for a National Disability Insurance Scheme package, of which the access requirements are being assessed as early as now to work towards a seamless and efficient rollout.

I have no doubt that I am not the only MP whose constituents are awaiting the NDIS with bated breath. The NDIS not only began as an ambitious project but it has continued to enjoy bipartisan support and I know all members of this House will be very keen to see that it is a success and that it provides a comprehensive plan to look after some of our society's most vulnerable. This bill is about putting Australians with a disability and their families first. It is an insurance scheme where all benefit so all can contribute.

I met earlier today with the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services and she made a good point that the NDIS is like going into a restaurant—it caters for individual needs. You get a menu when you go into a restaurant. You say, 'I want this entree, this main, this side.' The NDIS really caters for the individual needs of the participants involved. And the NDIS will indeed transform the lives of around 460,000 Australians who are living with disability, not to mention their families, who invest so much in the care and in the pursuit of success and happiness for their loved ones.

The government is asking Australians to contribute to help fund the scheme to ensure that our fellow Australians—our friends, our families, our neighbours, our colleagues—are taken care of to the extent they need. The Medicare levy increase of half a percentage point asks Australians to contribute according to their capacity to guarantee the NDIS's success and longevity. The current Medicare levy exemptions and relief measures would remain in place, as has been made clear by my colleagues before me; however, we need to be realistic about the costs of the NDIS, hence why I make this appeal to my fellow members of parliament.

The Commonwealth expenditure on the NDIS for 2017-18 will be $5.3 billion and it is projected to reach $10.8 billion once the rollout has been completed in 2019-20.The coalition government inherited a $55.6 billion funding shortfall when Labor left office. Now is the time to rectify this gaping hole and not put the services that the NDIS provides into jeopardy. I call on those opposite to meet the government on this in a bipartisan nature and join with us to support our constituents and all those living with a disability across Australia.

Earlier this month, Biala Peninsula hosted a launch of services in anticipation of the NDIS rollout within my electorate and beyond. Biala is a service provider with over 35 years experience, which has a focus on children under the age of 12 who have a range of intellectual disabilities. It provides core services of group programs, individual therapy sessions, parent programs and support coordination with wraparound services for music therapy, counselling, stay-and-play holiday programs, riding for the disabled and sibling groups. Biala, as a registered NDIS provider, is a critical part of the communication regarding the NDIS—what the NDIS will cover, who will be able to access NDIS funded services and so forth.

Contrasting with the forum hosted by Mentis Assist, there was a degree of concern and nervousness in the room as well as some confusion regarding how the rollout of the NDIS will impact the families who attend Biala. This is why certainty, particularly around funding, is so important. The service providers in Dunkley need to be able to accurately inform our local stakeholders, whether they be counsellors who attended the Biala event, GPs or family or carers, what will or won't be available, which will ultimately come down to the funding available for their programs. Biala in my electorate is fulfilling its responsibilities to our community. Now we as a government need to do our part to demonstrate to Biala that it will be able to operate to the extent that it has told its clients by ensuring the NDIS has sustainable, secure funding that will meet the needs of as many people as possible.

I am here as a representative of Dunkley constituents to ensure the success of one of the largest social and economic reforms in Australia's history. We have secured agreements with the states and territories to ensure a full and thorough rollout of the NDIS to support a better life for around 460,000 Australians under the age of 65, as I mentioned before, including 105,000 people in Victoria. Of course, the NDIS will not be the answer to facilities and services for everyone living with a disability. However, the NDIS is one part of a broader story of governments and communities continuing to have a role to play in the provision of services, including making mainstream services more accessible to those living with a disability.

This is a significant shift in the delivery of services for people with permanent and significant disability. It is a model based on empowerment and participation. The NDIS supports include daily personal activities; transport to enable participation in community, social, economic and daily-life activities; workplace help to allow a participant to successfully get or keep employment in the open or supported labour market; therapeutic supports including behaviour support; help with household tasks to allow the participant to maintain the home environment; help by skilled personnel in aid or equipment assessment, set-up and training; home modification, design and installation; mobility equipment; and much, much more.

If any member of this House has any doubts about the importance of this funding, I ask them to go back to their electorate and speak to the people who are either benefiting from their services or who will benefit from their services. Then return and look me in the eye and tell me if you think this funding is important or not. Without various aspects of the NDIS, Australians with permanent or long-term disabilities risk their condition inhibiting them from living their day-to-day lives. It is important that we do all we can to ensure that people living with a disability can participate socially and economically to the greatest extent possible. We owe it to our fellow Australians to make this possible.

As an example, today I had the privilege of joining with the Tourette Syndrome Association of Australia in running the second meeting of the Parliamentary Friends of Tourette Syndrome. This is the friendship group that I set up last year to draw attention to Tourette syndrome, to raise aware about what it is and to be an example for others with Tourette's, as a person with Tourette syndrome myself, as well as to ensure that those with Tourette's gain the support from government and community organisations that they need. We had a very successful meeting with Minister Hunt. Some of the issues revolved not only around health and education but also around the NDIS and ensuring access to the NDIS for those with Tourette syndrome who need that access.

Tourette syndrome is something that impacts one in 100 children and one in 200 adults, so it is quite a common thing which affects many people, so it is very important to have that NDIS access. Tourette syndrome varies in severity. For people like me, it's quite mild, but it can be very severe for others. In the media in particular, Tourette's is sometimes framed in a particular way. The tic around swearing is often portrayed as being Tourette's. That is one tic that can be part of Tourette's, but only about 10 per cent of people have that tic.

The fact is that Tourette's is a broad spectrum. It can vary from mild to severe, and it can wax and wane. That's why it's important to raise awareness of Tourette syndrome, as was done today with the Minister for Health and other MPs and senators. I was very pleased to have cross-party support from the co-chair, Senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore, as well as attendance from members from the Nick Xenophon Team, the Labor Party and the Liberal Party in support of Tourette syndrome. As I've noted, that is why access to NDIS is so important, whether a person has Tourette syndrome or any other disability and they are in need of support.

I spoke earlier as well, when the Medicare levy amendment was announced in the 2017 federal budget, about the contact that I had had from many Dunkley constituents, and this has not ceased. The NDIS will make a huge difference to people's everyday lives, and the time has come to ensure that that is now. The coalition has devised this measure to help fill the NDIS savings fund special account to futureproof the NDIS and lock in specified funding for years to come. Sustainability is the critical element to this funding model. We are making up not only the shortfall; we are providing a substantial basis for the financial backing of the NDIS, with one-fifth of the revenue being raised by the Medicare levy and any underspends within the NDIS being directed to the NDIS Savings Fund.

The NDIS will change lives. It will change the lives of many of the children who attended the Parliamentary Friends of Tourette Syndrome meeting this morning. But, beyond that, it will change the lives of many children, adults and others in my electorate and across Australia. Now is the time to secure long-term and sustainable funding. In introducing such a prominent reform, we owe it to the nation to ensure it will be here to stay and to get it right from the outset. We know that Australia supports what we are trying to do. We know that those opposite once professed that they supported it also. I urge all members of the House to see that support through and, in support of our mates, to help build this National Disability Insurance Scheme in the spirit of good faith and unanimity, because that's Australians do—we look after one another, and we will continue to do so for generations to come through the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017 and 10 related bills. I thank the member for Dunkley for his contribution. I hear constantly how we on this side should do this and we should be bipartisan. But then I hear those opposite tell us how we think and feel about the NDIS. It is a shameful moment when those opposite use the NDIS as a political football.

I rise to speak on this because, sadly, this government continues to shamefully use people with a disability and the NDIS as a political tool rather than a tool for increased care and equality for Australians with a disability. Labor funded the NDIS while we were in government. This was outlined in the 2013-14 budget, which was a time when I wasn't here. The government's assertion that Labor did not fully fund the NDIS is complete rubbish. Labor has funded it, continues to support it and is committed to continuing the NDIS rollout. I'm proudly a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS and I have spent many, many hours travelling and taking evidence about the NDIS from people right across this country, and it is quite disgraceful for those opposite to make those comments.

The fact is that the previous Labor government's 2013-14 budget clearly set out how the NDIS would be funded for 10 years, far exceeding the transition period to the fully functioning scheme. The Labor government put forward a suite of savings and revenue measures which paid for the NDIS well beyond that transition phase. Sadly, there has been mismanagement of the savings measures we put in place and continue to put in place, including giving $65 billion in corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks. Some of the measures we put in place to fund the NDIS included the phase out of the net medical expense tax offset and reforms to the retirement income schemes, the private health insurance rebate and tobacco indexation.

The NDIS should not be used as a political football. This government now says that it can fund a $65 billion corporate tax cut but does not have enough money to support the NDIS. What we always see from the Turnbull government are cuts, cuts and more cuts to those who can least afford them and gifts and handouts to the top end of town, and now the Turnbull government wants to increase the Medicare levy. A worker on $85,000 will be worse off by $200 a year. We have an alternative plan, which the member for Sydney went through in quite some depth earlier, so I won't go back through it. We would see the Medicare levy increase for individuals earning more than $87,000 a year and we would keep the deficit levy on those earning incomes of more than $180,000 a year. Those people may not like it, but it is a much fairer system for everybody.

Let's remind ourselves what the NDIS was intended to do: provide support to around half a million Australians with a disability, their families and carers. The NDIS has a broader role in helping people with a disability to access mainstream services such as health, housing and education; access community services such as sports and libraries; and maintain informal supports such as family and friends. I don't see anywhere in the NDIS's charter or purpose the desire to make people who are receiving help from the NDIS feel like a political handball or a burden or feel that their own government cannot prioritise their need over the giving of $65 billion in corporate welfare to big business.

Australia cannot afford to stumble on the implementation of the NDIS. It is indeed groundbreaking. It makes a real difference and creates better outcomes in people's lives—and I should know. The Australian Disability Discrimination Commissioner has said:

Yes—the NDIS is big, it is complex, and it changes everything, but it is the change that we need. And when we think about what life might be like for people with disability without the NDIS, I think it becomes clear that it is the change we cannot afford to prevent.

…   …   …

If we want real and lasting change for people with disability, we cannot absolve ourselves of our responsibility to make the NDIS work.

As a National Disability Services report states:

The principles on which the NDIS is founded remain compelling and inspiring.

Australia cannot afford to fall down on the implementation of the NDIS or quibble over political point-scoring over who did what or when.

Labor has confirmed that a Labor government would continue to fund the NDIS. So, apparently, has the coalition. It is a lie—an outright lie—to say that Labor will not fund the NDIS, and shame on those opposite in any position of power who mutter those words. It is a lie that is scaring people with a disability and their carers. Bilateral agreements with states and territories prove that long-term commitments are in place. Labor is 100 per cent committed to the NDIS rollout. And this government is scaremongering yet again.

In the Productivity Commission's report, they acknowledged the level of commitment to the NDIS is extraordinary. To the Productivity Commission, the New South Wales Council for Intellectual Disability has stated:

… we have been strong supporters of the development of the NDIS and we continue to see scheme as having a fundamental capacity to improve the lives of people with disability around Australia.

And the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations emphasised their 'unwavering support' for the NDIS, saying that AFDO and its members:

… regularly hear from people with disability and their families about the difference the scheme is making to their lives. People … now have the dignity of appropriate and timely support, the opportunity to be more involved in their communities, the chance to move out of home, the economic freedom of a new job.

These are the kinds of differences the NDIS is making. It is important to keep in mind that the NDIS is making real differences in people's lives and real changes that benefit everybody in our community.

The Productivity Commission again has found that the National Disability Insurance Scheme, at the end of the trial, 'came in under budget'. Based on trial and transition data, scheme costs, it said, 'are broadly on track' compared to the National Disability Insurance Agency's long-term modelling. At this stage, early cost pressures, such as greater than expected numbers of children in the scheme, are being more than offset by lower than expected levels of utilisation.

That is not to say that the NDIS is without creases that need to be ironed out. We all want to see the NDIS fully operational. The NDIS is a program that is close to my heart. In fact, I think it's the greatest example of government providing dignity and protection to its citizens. That's why I will defend it to its end. And full disclosure: I was an early supporter and advocate of the NDIS; I rallied about it; I held my first placard. And my son—who today turns 11—is the beneficiary of it. And I'll shout out a 'Happy birthday!' to my little boy who's 11, who has had his fair share of challenges and triumphs over the disability that he was born with.

Fundamentally though, the NDIS is a once-in-a-lifetime, generational reform package that must be defended. In my own electorate, Afford is a dedicated team of experts in disability support that has operated for more than 65 years. It offers a broad range of support, including community support, shared living, supported and open employment, respite, transition to work, Club Afford social club, Afford Getaways and support coordination.

Let me tell you about one of their clients, who we'll call Dean, who's from Penrith. Finding a place to call home where he was able to live the life he wanted on his own terms was very important to Dean. Prior to the NDIS, Dean's living arrangements placed many restrictions on his freedoms and limited Dean's ability to pursue his own life goals. The inflexibility of the old block funding model made it very difficult for Dean to pursue alternative housing arrangements, as his funding was essentially locked in with one support provider only. After receiving his NDIS plan, Dean was able to take control over the supports he received in a way that he was never able to do under the old model. In December 2016, Dean was able to move out of the group home he was unhappy with and into a new, purpose-built, group home. By all accounts, Dean was instantly transformed into a new man and has continued to flourish ever since. In his new home he was able to do the little things that so many of us take for granted. He was able to choose his own meals, come and go when he pleased, enjoy the outdoors on his own terms, and manage his own mail and money—little things that were out of the question with his old service provider. Dean values being able to have a say in the furniture and routines of the home and continues to develop his independent living skills.

I know firsthand the difference the NDIS can make to the lives of people with a disability and their families. Let me also tell you about Chris. He was born without a disability. He was challenged by a spinal cord injury 38 years ago. Since then, Chris has been determined to remain independent and live on his own. In April last year, he had a setback to his independence and ended up in Royal North Shore Hospital for an extended period of time. He developed major sores, which required extensive surgery. Although he had his NDIS plan, he was unable to leave hospital due to inadequate support. He missed spending Christmas and his birthday at home with his family and began to suffer social isolation. During his time in hospital, three service providers tried to assist Chris, but all three ended their support agreements with him and explained that his case was simply too difficult for them to support. Within two weeks, Afford's NDIS planning specialist arranged in-home staffing and for extensive home modifications to be carried out at Chris's home, including the installation of a hoist, a sling and a suitable bed and mattress. Earlier this year, he was able to return to his home. Prior to the NDIS, if Chris's service provider was not adequately assisting him, it would have been a very, very difficult process for him to apply to be supported by another. Under the NDIS, Chris was able to shop around, speak to and find a service provider with a genuine interest and ability in supporting him back to his home environment.

These people are inspirational. The government should wake up to itself and concentrate on making the NDIS a success rather than taking every opportunity to undermine its future. That is what Australians voted for and that is what they expect. In a dissenting committee report by Labor senators, Labor mentioned—and previous speakers talked about this—the alternative proposal to this bill which would increase the Medicare levy for individuals earning more than $87,000 a year and keep the deficit levy on income earners who are earning more than $180,000. This plan would see the budget bottom line better off over the medium term by $4 billion.

Associate Professor Ben Phillips also give evidence that showed that twice as many households would be worse off under the Turnbull government's plan as opposed to Labor's plan. In addition, Mr Phillips indicated that the Turnbull government's plan might have an adverse impact on workforce participation rates for those on low and middle incomes, relative to Labor's plan. The Parliamentary Budget Office showed that middle-income Australians would be worse off under the government's policy due to their commitment to increase the Medicare levy on middle- and low-income earners.

We often hear how the government calls on bipartisan support. By opposing this measure, we are not saying that we don't want too support the NDIS; we are saying that we should do it in a way that is fair and sustainable. The measures that we've outlined in our amendments and those that we seek for this government to adopt make it fairer for everybody and ensure that the NDIS continues to be the scheme that was envisioned: a scheme that actually helps people. Currently, we have a government that wants to play political football. They accuse us of not wanting to fund the NDIS, which is completely untrue. I am proud to stand up here and to always advocate for a good, strong, solid, working NDIS for every one of those half a million Australians around this country who rely on it—as well as their families and their carers who depend on it—especially after families and carers have left.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I begin, I want to wish Emma's 11-year-old a very happy birthday. I also say to the member for Lindsay that I'm very pleased to be able to follow her remarks today. She has personal experience of dealing with disability and I think the way in which she contributed tonight in explaining to everybody the importance of the National Disability Insurance Scheme was very, very well put, so congratulations.

I want to also speak tonight on the Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017 and the 10 related bills. First of all, I want to send a very, very clear message to people with disability, their families and carers: Labor created the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Labor funded the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and a Shorten Labor government will continue the full rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Full funding of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is secure under Labor and we will not be playing the sorts of political games that we've seen over the last four years from this government. I am also confident that a Shorten Labor government would fix the problems currently being experienced with the National Disability Insurance Scheme rollout. So for this government to try and claim that Labor does not support the NDIS is a disgrace. It is a disgrace and an untruth, and of course it is leading to people with disability and their carers being frightened. It must stop. It is completely and utterly irresponsible.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme has been budgeted for in the bottom line of every budget presented since 2013-14 by both Labor and coalition governments. The bilateral agreements signed with all states and territories contain long-term commitments by all governments—federal, state and territory—to the full funding of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Let's be very clear about this. Before the last election, the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, or PEFO as it's known, that's conducted independently by Treasury, did not say that there was a funding gap for the NDIS. Treasury were very clear about this. When Labor proposed the NDIS ahead of its creation in 2013, we clearly identified savings in the 2013-14 budget, and these included some very difficult savings decisions. We introduced a means test on the private health insurance rebate, reforms to retirement incomes, changes to fringe benefits tax concessions, tobacco excise indexation and increases to import processing charges, and these are just some of the major changes that we introduced to make sure that we could afford to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The figures underpinning these budget measures were developed by the Treasury—led at that time by Martin Parkinson, who is now head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet—but the Turnbull government now says, somehow, that the scheme is unfunded. The vast majority of these measures were passed by the parliament, so the money is in the budget. If the money isn't earmarked for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, you might ask, 'What has this government spent it on?' The government says that it can now afford to fund a $65 billion company tax cut but it cannot afford to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme. So it can find the money in the budget for a $65 billion company tax cut but not enough money for the NDIS. The Treasurer frequently says that the revenue that will be raised through the increase in the Medicare levy in the bill that we're debating today will go into a locked box to help pay for the NDIS. The Treasurer is wrong. Clause 81 of the Constitution says:

All revenues or moneys raised or received by the Executive Government of the Commonwealth shall form one Consolidated Revenue Fund, to be appropriated for the purposes of the Commonwealth in the manner and subject to the charges and liabilities imposed by this Constitution.

That means there are no locked boxes inside the consolidated revenue fund for specific expenditure, whether it's defence, schools, hospitals or the NDIS.

We never have a debate in this country about whether or not defence spending is fully funded, so why should funding for people with disability be treated any differently? As the Australian newspaper reported last year, far from using its proposed NDIS savings fund for the NDIS, the government should use the funds to spend money on anything it wants. I quote from the Australian newspaper at the time:

Scott Morrison—

that is, the Treasurer—

told The Australian that fund—

that is, the NDIS savings fund—

while quarantined, could be used by any future government for any of its spending whims.

'Could be used for any of its spending whims'—that's what the Treasurer said last year. So the money from the Medicare levy rise will go into the consolidated fund. This government's assertion that the revenue raised from increasing the Medicare levy will go directly to fund the NDIS is false. Even worse, the government's false argument is creating needless uncertainty about the future funding of the NDIS.

We shouldn't forget that this government has for years tried to make massive cuts in the social security system—to the disability support pension, the carer payment and the age pension—and tried to justify these cuts by saying, 'That was the only way to pay for the NDIS,' and they, of course, still want to axe the energy supplement to 1.7 million Australians. If the Prime Minister gets his way—and of course everybody over there has voted for this cut—new single pensioners will be $14.10 a fortnight, $365 a year, worse off. That's what pensioners will lose.

Unfortunately, the government continue to play off one group of vulnerable Australians against another. They have no credibility on this issue whatsoever. Of course, there is a legitimate debate for the parliament to have about equity in the tax system and how best to raise revenue for the budget. But there is no debate about the future of the NDIS. Both major political parties have agreed to fully fund the NDIS, and for that we should all be very pleased. The task for the parliament is to determine if revenue and expenditure measures are justified and in the interests of all Australians. And there's of course no doubt that the NDIS is justified. The NDIS will transform the lives of 475,000 people with a disability. That's exactly why the Labor government created it. The question before all of us in this parliament is: what's the fairest way to raise revenue for the budget?

This government's plan to increase the Medicare levy would increase the tax burden on people earning as little as $21,000 a year. It means a worker on $55,000, for example, would pay an extra $275 in tax, while someone on $80,000 would face an extra $400 in tax. That's how much all of the people opposite are going to increase taxes on low-income earners in this country. This is at a time of stagnant wages, falling living standards and record levels of underemployment, all of which mean that low- and middle-income Australians are less able to pay more tax than they have in the past.

Independent research from ANU's Centre for Social Research and Methods shows that twice as many households would be worse off under the coalition's plan than under Labor's plan. Labor's approach is fairer for the budget and fairer for families and individuals. Labor's plan also raises over $4 billion more over 10 years than the government's proposed tax rise, because we would increase the Medicare levy for individuals earning more than $87,000 a year and keep the deficit levy on those earning more than $180,000 a year.

Significantly, the Parliamentary Budget Office has shown that middle-income Australians will be worse off under government policy because of this change to the Medicare levy. The PBO says that personal income tax will hit a 20-year high of 12½ per cent of GDP by 2021 in part because of this across-the-board increase to the Medicare levy as proposed by the conservatives in this bill.

In the remaining time I want to re-emphasise why it is that we need the NDIS and to really reinforce just how important this is. I was the minister responsible for introducing the National Disability Insurance Scheme in 2013. I personally have met thousands of people with disability and their families. I want to finish with one very significant story—a story that had a big impact on me. I'll call the woman I'm talking about Tracy for the purposes of this speech. She has young twin boys, both of whom live with severe intellectual and other disabilities. They don't have any speech. They require intensive assistance for toileting, feeding, dressing and bathing. They need constant supervision.

Tracy, at the time I met her, was desperate for help. She'd had nine case managers and nearly 50 carers in the six years of her children's lives. Under the old system of disability the crisis package she was getting only provided support for one child. The old system was not based on the needs of her children or her family. And the reality was that there just wasn't enough money. So we have set about making sure that Tracy and her boys, and families like Tracy's, are actually able to get the support they need so they can live a better life.

This story highlighted to me then, and highlights to me again as I tell this story to the House, why we need the NDIS. Of course there are a lot of problems. I'm the first to acknowledge that what many people are experiencing at the moment is not good enough. But these problems need to be fixed and there certainly should not be any political games as, together, we go about fixing them. First and foremost, we need more planners and better trained planners. We need to make sure that people with disability and their families have in-depth conversations with the planners—none of this over-the-phone planning. We need to make sure, as the Productivity Commission recommended just last week, that the staffing cap on the National Disability Insurance Agency is lifted so that the waiting times, the poor plans, the lack of planners—all of this gets addressed.

The other really serious problem facing the NDIS is of course the botched IT system. This also needs to be urgently fixed. This is where the problems began in earnest—with the new IT system. It's meant long delays and there are still serious problems with the IT system for people with disability and for providers. It is a mess and it needs to be fixed urgently.

Of course, there are also many examples of people's lives being improved—for example, a mother going back to work because her child is now supported by the NDIS. In another email, a mother from northern Tasmania told me how the NDIS has changed the life of her teenage son, who has learning difficulties. The scheme has given him a level of confidence and independence that, she said to me, was unimaginable before the introduction of the NDIS.

So we all need to come together to make sure the NDIS is as successful as we all hoped it could be. And I just want to reinforce the point again that a Shorten Labor government will continue to fully fund the NDIS. People with disability and their families can be secure in that knowledge. (Time expired)

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a very important social and economic reform for our nation. For too long, people living with disability in Australia have been treated as second-class citizens. They've faced unnecessary barriers to their full participation in Australian society and the realisation of their economic potential and contribution to the nation. Those barriers have been associated with issues that have held back their living standards—difficulties in accessing transport to get around; difficulties in accessing education to improve their knowledge and their understanding of how society works and their ability to work in paid employment; and support for people living with a disability to ensure that they can participate in the community and, importantly, that those that look after them, their carers, particularly parents who care for children with disabilities, have the support they need to make a contribution to society as well.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a very important social reform but it's also a very important economic reform. That's been recognised by the Productivity Commission in the report that laid the foundations for the establishment of the NDIS in Australia. In that report the point was made very well that the NDIS, in providing support for people to fulfil their potential within our community, will generate productivity improvements for the nation and ultimately improve jobs growth and boost economic growth and national incomes for the country. So the economic benefits are there. The NDIS makes sense from both a social perspective and an economic perspective.

I'm sick of hearing this undercurrent theme, if you like, that's developed from some conservative commentators in Australia that the NDIS is becoming a burden, that it's too expensive for our nation to fund and that it can't be funded. Other nations with lower living standards have put in place insurance schemes funding disability. If they can do it then so too can Australia. What is required is the political will to overcome the excuses that people have put in place and ensure that a National Disability Insurance Scheme works and works well.

It's well known that Labor established the National Disability Insurance Scheme when we were last in government. There was a lot of lead-up work that went into the legislation introduced by the shadow minister for social services, Jenny Macklin, when she was the minister, and that lead-up work was done by the Leader of the Opposition, principally, who was the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services at the time. The Leader of the Opposition spent much time travelling around the country, consulting with people with disabilities, their parents and carers, the community organisations and not-for-profits that provide them with support in the work that they do, and dealing with the experts who have written and worked in this space for many years. He consulted with the states, which principally had the responsibility for providing disability support services in our community. He worked with experts, looked at international examples of best practice and formulated a policy that was well researched, well thought out and well consulted throughout the country. Subsequently, the NDIS had the support of the Australian community when it was announced by the Labor Party.

The NDIS was designed to make the system better so that it improved the lives of those living with a disability in Australia. When it was made law, Labor ensured that it was fully funded. We made sure that, in the budget after it was announced and during the announcement period, we fully funded the National Disability Insurance Scheme to the year 2023. Now, many have asked how we funded that. It's all there in the budget papers from the year in which it was established. It included increases to the Medicare levy, it included a contribution from the states and territories, it included changes to fringe benefit tax arrangements, it included increases in the tobacco excise and it included changes to things like import processing charges to raise additional revenue in the budget. It was signed off by Treasury as fully funded and met the commitments of the NDIS through to the period of 2023. So the claim by the Turnbull government that the NDIS was not funded when it was originally proposed by Labor is a furphy. It's simply not true. It's all there in the budget papers from that year, endorsed by Treasury.

To ensure that we on this side were on the money when it came to the proposed funding, we didn't roll the scheme out immediately. We trialled it in several local communities before it was rolled out across the nation. One of those trial sites was in the Hunter region in the state of New South Wales, where it worked very well. It met the guidelines and the budget proposals that were proposed by the Labor government, so that indicated that we were spot on the money when it came to the budget costings that Labor had prepared in ensuring that we were fully funding the NDIS.

When the Abbott government were elected, they began to undermine this notion that the NDIS was fully funded, and we began to seek leaks to conservative media outlets beginning the undercurrent and theme that I mentioned earlier that the NDIS was too costly and couldn't be properly funded. That undercurrent did not align with what Labor had established when we were in government. The reason why the Abbott government began that undercurrent and that theme of underfunding and the reason why they couldn't properly fund the NDIS was that they didn't adopt the budget savings measures that Labor had proposed in the budget when we established the NDIS. They didn't adopt a lot of those savings measures, so is it any wonder there's a funding shortfall when it comes to properly funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme?

At the moment it's proposed that the funding shortfall is in the nature of $4 billion from 2019 onwards, when the NDIS is fully operational in Australia. We could go on forever about who's to blame for this, but that's not going to help people living with disability in Australia at the moment who are facing the prospect of coming onto the NDIS —or, indeed, their families and their carers. They really just want the parliament to sort out the mess and ensure that the scheme that was established works properly. And if there is anything that we can do as a parliament, that we should be able to overcome party differences on, it is on something like this.

I have had cause to meet with many in my community, the community of Kingsford Smith, over recent weeks who've had some difficulties with the National Disability Insurance Agency and the plans that are being put in place for people living with disabilities in our communities. I've sat down with many, many parents who are facing the anxiety and the terrifying thought that their kids won't get the coverage and the support that they need to be able to participate in society. And the promise that was made by both Labor and the coalition was that no-one should go backwards when it comes to this, that all of the supports that are there at the moment should be properly funded and covered by the NDIS. But, having spoken to a number of people living with disabilities in the community I represent, I can tell you that's not the case at the moment unfortunately.

I met with several parents of kids with disabilities who have a terrible anxiety at the moment that the plans that have been drafted for their kids don't adequately meet the current coverage that they have in terms of support services. They're really worried that their kids are going to regress, that they won't be able to participate in their communities. When you're talking about a mother who's just gone back to work because her son who is living with autism has been able to participate in the community because of the support that he's getting, and that support faces the prospect of being removed because it's not properly funded in the plan that's been put together for him, then I can certainly understand their anxiety and their concern. Having the NDIS say, 'Okay, we'll review the situation, but it'll take us two months to review it,' quite simply is not good enough. It's not good enough and it's not the proposal of the parliament by which this was established or the intent of how it was meant to work—the intent of both sides of the parliament, I might add.

So the issue becomes how do we fix the problem? Definitely additional resources are needed. We all recognise that. The government's got a proposal; we've got a different proposal. And through these, we get a good insight into the different philosophies of the major parties in how they come up with providing adequate social services in our community, particularly for those living with disability. The Labor approach has always been one of a progressive taxation system, that those who have the capacity to pay should contribute a bit more than those on lower incomes. We see that through a progressive income tax system. We see that through a fair dinkum company tax system. We see that through our proposal to reduce concessions for negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts, ensuring that there's a safety net of services there that we can provide for people who live with disability or are pensioners in our community.

The Liberal Party and the National Party philosophy is a different one. Their philosophy is one that's colloquially known as 'trickle-down economics': the notion that if you provide tax cuts for the wealthiest and biggest corporations in our community, then they will earn more profit and that will trickle down to those that are in lower socioeconomic positions within society. The problem with that philosophy is that it simply doesn't work. It does not work, and history has shown that. The greatest example of the fact that it does not work is the United States of America. If you look at the incomes, the real incomes, of middle-class Americans, they have not increased since the 1970s. There's been no increase in the middle incomes of people living in America since the 1970s, and there's certainly no prospect of that increasing under the Trump administration. We take a different approach, obviously, but that philosophy of trickle-down economics is what we see here in this bill. It's the philosophy of the Liberal and National parties and the typical conservative approach to economics that we see internationally being implemented in this bill, because the majority of the burden from the increase in the Medicare levy will be borne by low- to middle-income Australians.

The effect of this bill is to increase the Medicare levy from two to 2½ per cent of taxable income from 2019-20 and beyond. Some would say this is reasonable given that this is what Labor did when we were in government, but you need to put it in context and look at what the government is doing in a number of other areas to see that what they're proposing here is unfair. Labor has a different approach.

The government is, of course, providing tax cuts for multinational corporations. The biggest, largest multinational corporations, including the banks and some of those big IT companies like Google and Apple, will get a tax cut under this government's proposal, and it's to the tune of $60 billion over 10 years. The government is proposing to continue negative gearing and capital gains discounts which benefit the top 10 per cent of income earners. Fifty per cent of the benefits of negative gearing goes to the top 10 per cent of income earners, and 70 per cent of the benefits of the capital gains tax discount go to the top 10 per cent of income earners. They have abolished the budget repair levy in their budget papers. They support cuts to penalty rates for people who work on weekends in the hospitality industry, and many on that side of the parliament are cheering on the fact that this will flow on to other areas of the economy through the award system. We've seen massive increases to private health insurance premiums and increases to energy costs at the same time as they're removing the pensioner supplement for energy in this country, all resulting in stagnant real wages. Similarly to the United States, the phenomenon is occurring in Australia at the moment for working-class people.

So that's the theme of the Turnbull government's approach to tax reform. The result is that in the budget, if you're a millionaire, you get a $16,000 tax cut, but, if you're on the average income of about $75,000 a year, you pay an additional $350 a year in tax. Labor thinks that that's unfair and inefficient. That's why our approach is to increase the Medicare levy, when it comes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, only for those people who are on more than $87,000 a year, and we will keep the budget repair levy in place. Our system raises an additional $4.8 billion over the course of the next decade, so we achieve a better result than the government in fully funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme. But, once again, there is a different philosophy. We don't seek to take that money off low- to middle-income families. We ensure that the progressive nature of the tax system works well and funds the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

In conclusion, Labor is committed to fully funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but we want to make sure that this important reform is done in a manner that is fair by increasing the Medicare levy on those above $87,000 a year.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to follow the member for Kingsford Smith in this debate, because I totally agree with what he said. Before speaking on the Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, I listened to the contributions made by other speakers from both sides of the House in this debate. I particularly took note of the contribution from the member for Jagajaga. The member for Jagajaga was the minister in the Rudd-Gillard governments who was responsible for the introduction of the scheme and would know as much about it as anyone in this House. I particularly noted her comments, which I endorse and totally agree with, not only that it was Labor that was responsible for introducing the scheme but that the introduction also included fully funding the scheme. Labor has always been committed to the NDIS and continues to be.

The real difference in this debate between Labor and the government is not our commitment to the scheme. There is no question about that at all—albeit I have always doubted the true commitment to the scheme from coalition members. Indeed, I suspect they came on board only because they knew that it would be political suicide at the time to oppose the National Disability Insurance Scheme. But the difference right now is how the scheme will be funded going into the future.

The first point I want to make is to concur with the comments of the member for Jagajaga: the scheme was fully funded during our time in government and it was in the forward projections of the budget. If the coalition government since taking office in 2013 has redirected those funds, used them for other purposes or not adopted the funding mechanisms that Labor had proposed then it's a matter for the coalition government to explain that clearly to the Australian people, not to simply say that the scheme was never funded.

The other point of real difference in respect of this matter is that what we are seeing—consistent with so many other decisions and proposals that come into this place from the Turnbull government—is that low-income Australians are once again being hit with additional costs and being asked to fund this government's economic incompetence. I say 'economic incompetence' because the reality is that this is a government that has come into office, has been in office now for over four years—it's into its fifth year now—and still can't get its budget in order. Last year's deficit was, from memory, $38 billion. This year it's looking like $29 billion, if things go as projected. This government has overseen our national debt hitting half a trillion dollars.

It is because the government cannot balance its budget that it is looking for other ways of doing so, and those ways of doing so include increasing the Medicare levy by half a per cent from its current level. The government is coming into the House and doing that under the pretence that this is all about compassion and that this is about supporting people who are in need and whom we should be supporting. I totally agree that we should be, but that's not what's driving this government's increase in the levy. What's driving this government's increase in the levy is its need to increase taxes in order to balance its budget. There is no question about it whatsoever: this is a tax increase. The government can call it a levy and anyone else can call it whatever they like, but the truth of the matter is that whether it's called a levy or a tax increase it will hit people who are on incomes above $21,000, and it will come out of their pocket.

I have listened to members opposite, who have continuously come into the chamber and tried to paint a picture that the problem we have with the NDIS is that Labor not only didn't fund it properly but mismanaged the whole process. It's becoming a hallmark of this government to blame Labor for everything that is wrong with society today—not four years ago; today. We saw it again in question time today. The Prime Minister in response to questions on one hand would brag about the NBN rollout but then simultaneously say that problems that are associated with the NBN are all Labor's fault. We see from this government that, regardless of the issue, it likes to take credit for matters, but then as soon as something goes wrong it blames Labor, just as the Prime Minister did again today with respect to jobs. He came into the House, boasting about how many jobs were created but then, in the next breath, said that higher power prices are killing jobs in this country. You can't have it both ways and nor can you blame the opposition, which was in government over four years ago, for what is happening in society today. The government has had four years to fix up those issues and it simply hasn't done so.

I said from the outset that Labor has always been committed to the NDIS. It's always been Labor that has introduced social policies in government. It was Labor that introduced the minimum wage in 1907. It was Labor that introduced the old-age pension in 1909. It was Labor that implemented the Medicare system in 1984 after the Fraser government, when it came to office, dropped the original Medibank system that the Whitlam government had brought in in 1974. It was Labor that brought in compulsory super, it was Labor that brought in paid parental leave and it was Labor that brought in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. And what we have seen from this government is consistent attacks to somehow try and dismantle those social schemes, which were brought in to act as a social net for people in this country. And we saw it again only recently when this government turned its back on people who are going to lose their penalty rates.

I can well recall when the NDIS was first mooted. The member for Maribyrnong was the parliamentary secretary at the time. I organised a community forum in my electorate. It was held at Tyndale college. We asked people who had a disability or their carers to come along and talk to us about the problems they faced. I very clearly recall that occasion because a young girl came along who touched everyone in the room that day. She was having to stay home from school—from memory, she was 13 or 14—because she had to care for her sick mother, who had a disability. To see a young person have to forgo her own career and her own future because she loved and cared for her mother was an injustice that needed to be corrected. The member for Maribyrnong and I walked out of that meeting both absolutely committed to doing something about this. To the credit of the member for Maribyrnong, he certainly did. He took it back to the cabinet and, with the help of the member for Jagajaga and other members in this place, the NDIS finally got off the ground.

Few if any people struggle through life more than people with a serious disability or the family members who may have to care for them. For most of my life, I lived across the road from a family who had a person with a serious disability. I watched that young person grow into adulthood. I watched the mother and father sacrifice their lives every single day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year, year in, year out, in order to care for their son, whom they dearly loved. When they grew much older and couldn't care for him anymore, they put him in a residential care facility and he was looked after there. The sacrifice that was being made was a social injustice that had to be redressed—and Labor did that by introducing the scheme that we did.

What is wrong with this legislation is simply this—and I go back to one of the comments I made from the outset: the real difference between Labor and the government on this matter is no longer the difference about the need for a National Disability Insurance Scheme but, rather, how it's going to be funded. Only last week we saw legislation debated in this place that offered corporates a $65 billion tax cut, yet the government is saying it cannot afford to find the funding to pay for the NDIS scheme. The tax cut that was being put forward last week by the coalition government, as we all know and as has been made absolutely clear time and time again, is a tax cut that in most cases will go to corporates who are paying very little tax right now or to shareholders who live overseas—and, therefore, the beneficiaries will be people who live overseas or in turn invest their money in offshore low-tax jurisdictions. So we have a situation whereby there are opportunities for the government to find the funds if it chose a different source of funding. But the government is saying, 'No, we want to offer tax cuts to the corporates but we'll ask people on low incomes, people who earn above $21,000 a year, to pay for it through an increase of half a per cent in the levy.'

The other issue that this levy paints very clearly is the government's incompetence with respect to the budget. I quoted some figures earlier on in terms of how this government simply can't balance its budget. Last week we had the debate about the closure of GMH. The closure of the auto industry in this country will hit the economy by about $29 billion. It was one of the stupid decisions that this government made, turning its back on the auto industry, which is now going to cost the government tax income stream. Again, these are examples of the government showing its incompetence and therefore having to turn on people who are still earning some wages to try and balance its budget by increasing the levy.

With respect to the people that have a disability in this country, the member for Jagajaga made this point quite rightly. I recently had a constituent come to see me who was on a disability pension. The constituent had managed, after many years, to finally take a break and go overseas, was overseas for just over four weeks—I think it was five or six weeks at most—and came back and found that the disability pension had been cut and stopped because that person had exceeded the four weeks. The person, who I understand now has to go overseas for an essential matter over the coming months, is in fear of losing the pension that was being received because for the next 12 months, having already exceeded the four-week limit, that person cannot travel overseas. This is the injustice that is being done. When the members opposite say that they care about people with a disability, perhaps they should start thinking about people like the person in my electorate who was treated that way.

I understand that the funds need to be found. No-one disputes that. As I said earlier, we had budgeted for the NDIS into the future. The government's changed the rules. It came into office four years plus ago, changed the rules and now needs to find the funds. We accept that. That's why we're saying that, if we were in office, we would only increase the levy for people earning $87,000 or more, because they are the people that can possibly still afford it. This is at a time when last year average wage growth was 1.9 per cent, exactly the same amount as the rise to the cost of living. So wage earners in this country are no better off today than they were 12 months ago. We know that corporate incomes over that same period of time—and the corporates are going to get the tax cut—have never been higher. So the injustice is being perpetrated every day.

So we're saying that, if the government needs to find the funds, at the very least it should look to the people that are going to get a tax cut, because in many cases those people were paying the budget repair levy and they won't have to in the future because this government's going to drop that. At least set the rules so that the people on the lowest incomes, who are probably struggling the most with their cost of living expenses on a day-to-day basis, don't have to pay the levy. That would be the fairness that I believe most members in this place would want for themselves if they were in the shoes of the people that are going to get hit hardest by this tax.

Time does not allow me to speak at length about this, but in closing I say this: the government's attack on the lowest income people in this country is shameful. It's one issue after another, and this levy is just another example of the way this government treats low-income Australians.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on this cognate debate on the Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017 and related bills. With my colleagues on this side of the House, I declare that we will oppose this package of legislation. This is a package of 11 bills which gives effect to the government's budget measures to increase the Medicare levy from two per cent to 2½ per cent. The Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill directly changes the Medicare levy rate, and the remainder of the bills make consequential changes to other taxation rates in line with the increase in the Medicare levy. As I say, we will oppose this bill. We oppose the notion behind it of having a tax hike on the over seven million Australian workers that are earning less than $87,000 a year.

Looking around the room tonight, I see that, other than perhaps the member for Swan, most of those here are a little younger than me. They may not recall that, when we grew up, we saw very few people with disabilities in our communities. It wasn't because they were healthy in those days or they weren't there. The truth is that kids with disability were kept in somebody's back room. They were kept out of society. They weren't involved in our schools, they weren't involved in our sporting clubs and we didn't see them. Other than the good work that was performed in those days by the organisation known as the Spastic Centre in respect of a number of those people, we just did not see kids with disability. I think that's a reflection on the society.

Now we're in a community that embraces diversity and embraces change. But I think the real challenge for us in parliament is to ensure that our legacy is a situation where we embrace young people and people who live with disability into what we would say is our normal life. The truth of the matter is that, if you look at the distribution of disabilities in our community, it follows the same bell curve as the distribution of intelligence. I know that's not the right way to put it, but disabilities will always be a factor in our community. It is important that we engage with and incorporate into our way of life the way we deal with and work with families and people who live with disability. I can speak from some personal experience in this regard given that I have a grandson on the autism spectrum. I know how this impacts on a family. I love Nathaniel, as does the rest of the family, and I know he's probably going to have a challenging life ahead of him. I want the best for him, as I do for my other 10 grandchildren. I want them to go out and reach their potential in this world and feel that their lives are appreciated.

I'm happy to be part of that Labor government, with the member for Jagajaga and the member of Maribyrnong, which championed the issue of the NDIS. I think that that did show a turning point in the way we look at disabilities. We saw engaging with and providing for the inclusion of people with disabilities as something that we should be doing in a modern society. However, we oppose this legislation. We think that this government has really lost its notion of fairness—particularly after it inherited an NDIS position that was, regardless of what's been said on the other side, fully funded. At a time when utility costs are rising and when the general cost of living is higher than wages growth, the merit of putting additional financial pressure on the most vulnerable households and widening the economic gap is questionable.

Labor understands the significant role Medicare plays in funding our universal health system and what it does in terms of funding the provision of disability services. After all, it was a Labor government, under Prime Minister Hawke, that ensured everyone had access to a doctor and a hospital when needed. We're all beneficiaries of our universal health system, and we contribute through the tax system to the extent that we can afford to do so. That's the important aspect—'to the extent that we can afford to do so'. The approach being adopted by the Liberal government in this respect fails to take into account the ramifications of a one-style-fits-all approach to this pretty significant policy position of funding the NDIS and what it will do to those who cannot afford the additional financial burden.

I think the ACT Council of Social Service got it right when they said:

Regressive measures have the potential to impact on low-income households and the cost of living. Cost of living research commissioned by the ACTCOSS over the past three years has revealed the present and widening gap between income and living costs for individuals and households.

We see this day in and day out, and you don't just have to be in question time to acknowledge this. We have very low wages growth, record high underemployment, high cost-of-living pressures and a government that seems to salivate at the prospect of cutting penalty rates not only for those who are subject to awards in the hospitality and retail industries but for those who have made the point that there's no difference between shiftworkers working on weekends and those working at any other time. For those people, the Treasurer comes in and says, 'We need to reprioritise and we're going to give them a tax hike.'

This is a government that's determined to increase income tax for every Australian earning above $21,000 a year while, at the same time, giving a $65 billion tax cut to millionaires and big business—all those overseas corporations. Some of them, by investing in corporate lawyers, pay little or no tax, despite what they write in the newspapers—his own newspapers, that is. How is that fair? How can we simply afford to do it? There's a simple lesson in this: if you can't afford to do it, don't. Don't do it at the expense of battling and middle-class working families, people who are already suffering from the rising costs of living. To put it into perspective, under this proposal, a worker earning $55,000 would pay an additional $275 a year, while someone earning $80,000 would be forced to pay an extra $400 in tax.

I was reading an interesting article the other day in the Australian Financial Review, and I know my colleagues will hate the fact that I'll have to quote from comments made by none other than President Trump. This is the first time I have ever referred to him, so we'll note the occasion. The article's all about President Trump's view in respect of taxation. He was talking about his new tax plan. This is what he said:

The rich will not be gaining at all with this plan.

…   …   …

If they have to go higher—

this is referring to the taxes—

they'll go higher.

He's certainly taking a different view about the capacity to pay. He's saying that, at the top end of the scale, fair enough, progressive taxation means that they will pay more. What is being advocated in the House today, under the Turnbull government, is, quite frankly, the exact opposite to what is being advocated in the United States on this occasion by President Trump, whom those opposite seem to like to quote pretty often. The Turnbull government proposes increasing tax on vulnerable lower-paid and middle-income wage earners while rewarding those at the top end of the scale. While I don't refer to President Trump's views in this place and I haven't done so previously, that Australian Financial Review article must be food for thought for those opposite. Maybe it says a little bit more about what they appreciate about progressive taxation.

When this bill was first introduced into the House, the Treasurer asserted that the government's position on the Medicare levy meant that it would be following the same practice that was adopted by the Gillard government. What he said was, 'I can't understand what has changed.' Let me tell you what has changed in the fifth year of this government. In 2013, wages growth was at three per cent, whereas now it has flatlined at around 1.9 per cent. We have underemployment and casualisation at an all-time high, stagnation in living standards, a diminishing number of apprenticeships and a housing affordability crisis, and the government's only plan to help battling Australians is to increase their income tax. Those opposite used to lecture us on a budget emergency. Yet, since then, the deficit has gone up by a factor of 10, and the gross national debt is projected to hit three-quarters of a trillion dollars. This is a government that has certainly moved off the notion of budget emergency, and it now wants to give us a new dose of hysteria in respect of an NDIS emergency.

I'm sure that, across the aisle here, they really know in their hearts of hearts that to give corporates, multinationals and big business a $65 billion tax cut with a default position to increase the tax for hardworking Australian families is not the right thing to do. But they are wedded to this notion of trickle-down economics. I suppose that, to some extent, we will wait for election day to work out what the Australian people think about trickle-down economics. It is not that I want to wish those on the other side well, but for the benefit of hardworking Australians and all those that actually need assistance, including low-income workers, I think they should revise their view of trickle-down economics and probably have a look at what Pope Francis had to say about that. He arrived at the conclusion that it has never been proven.

Labor have always taken an approach to fully fund the NDIS. We have a plan that will do that and continue to do that. Under Labor's plan, we will raise $4 billion more than the government proposed tax rise over the next 10 years by increasing the Medicare levy for those earning over $87,000 and by reinstating the deficit levy on those earning more than $180,000. I find it odd that the Prime Minister, when he wants to comment about the deficit levy, calls it a tax on success. I'm not sure what he means for those seven million Australians who would be affected by this bill who earn under $87,000. Does he refer to them just not being successful? Or, going back to a slightly earlier time, are they 'leaners', as Joe Hockey used to refer to them? I remind the government that Labor does not define Australian success by the size of your pay packet or what's in your wallet. A childcare worker, police officers—whom I had the honour of representing—or nurses might not earn $180,000, but they're still pretty successful in my book.

Recent research by the ANU shows that twice as many households will be worse off under the coalition's plan with respect to NDIS funding as under Labor's plan. Labor created the NDIS, and Labor is committed to fully funding the NDIS and supporting families and people with disability. I go back to the position of my grandson Nathaniel. As I said, I want the best outcomes possible for him. I want him to be able to reach his potential, which may be different from other people's views. We owe it to those that live with disabilities to give all the support possible.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the member for Maribyrnong was elected to the Australian parliament, he was also appointed to the position of Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services. I have known the member for Maribyrnong since my 20s, and I knew that, with that appointment, there was going to be significant change in the disability sector. I knew that the member for Maribyrnong would drive change in this area, would drive significant improvement and would drive a rethink and major reform in the disability sector. And what we're talking about today is the results of the effort from the member for Maribyrnong and also the member for Jagajaga. They had the vision to improve the lives, the potential and the choice for those Australians living with a disability, through a scheme that was actually tailored to their needs. That's what I love about the National Disability Insurance Scheme: it's actually tailored to individual need.

When I was in my teens, my mother worked with the Victorian Autistic Children's Association. We spent many a school holiday volunteering in the op shop there; wandering around the board table, collating roneoed newsletters; and giving parents of autistic children relief from their children by taking their kids away on holidays with us so that their parents could be given some respite. At that stage—and I'm talking here about the seventies and eighties—there was a little bit of respite around, but it was a pretty boutique market then. So that's why it was really up to friends and family to provide those parents and carers of people with a disability with the opportunity for respite, which is what my mother did. That's what we did over our school holidays.

So I've seen the systems that were around in the seventies and eighties, and—I suppose as a very small child and just by hearing from what my mother spoke about—what was around in the fifties and sixties, which was kind of Dickensian. In some parts of Australia in the fifties and sixties there was an outmoded kind of Dickensian view of people with a disability. There was very much the theory that people should be institutionalised and through that process essentially forgotten. How times have changed—dramatically!

Now we've got this fabulous scheme as a result of the efforts, the vision and the hard work. It's a complex scheme; it took a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of vision and a lot of hard yakka by the member for Maribyrnong and the member for Jagajaga to come to realise this incredible vision: the NDIS. Now, as a result of that, we have Australians with a disability actually choosing the services that they want, choosing how they want to spend their money, choosing what they're going to be doing on a Saturday night and choosing how many sessions of physiotherapy they go to. They are choosing, in many ways, the kind of wheelchair that they have.

I know that there have been significant challenges in the NDIS. Here in Canberra, we are at the vanguard of it: we piloted the scheme, and so I do know just from talking to constituents and from the many phone calls I've had that there are a range of issues. There's the issue of service providers actually being paid. There's the issue of service providers actually putting their homes at risk as a result of the fact that they haven't been paid. There's the issue of management plans being submitted and then basically just falling into this huge abyss, with people not hearing anything from the NDIA. As you know, Deputy Speaker, management plans are meant to be open to consultation with the carer, the person with the disability and the NDIA so that they can come to a kind of bespoke solution that is beneficial to everyone. And yet what is happening is that people are putting in their management plans for consultation with the NDIA and then basically just getting it back with, 'Thanks very much, stamp, off we go with the management plan.' There's been no form of consultation and no discussing what options are available; it's essentially, 'Okay, send in the management plan and that's the final version.' That has never been the case. Families in Canberra have always known that the management plan is a negotiated document. It's a document to be negotiated with the NDIA, rather than just a cookie-cutter solution.

I know that there have been challenges, particularly at Marymead. Marymead is going through some real funding challenges for those with chronic disability—again, back to respite: providing respite over a lengthy period of time. The NDIA has a range of categories of assessment in terms of the level of disability, but there's a significant shortage of those services that provide respite for families with members with a chronic disability. I know that Marymead has been going through that challenge.

Wayne Herbert, who is a friend of mine and a great member of our community, asked for a second pair of shoes and was told by the NDIA that, essentially, one pair of shoes should do him for the year. I know that there have been challenges for families who in the past have had services that are no longer provided because people have left town because they just don't find the business manageable enough.

Debate interrupted.