Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Preventing Family Violence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Every government senator voted against a disability royal commission just four days ago. Why won't the Prime Minister just tell the truth and admit that he opposed this royal commission but has been forced to backflip because he lost control of the parliament? Isn't it clear this Prime Minister will say and do anything to desperately cling to power?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I was going to thank the member for her question, but I had specifically made a request of the opposition that they would not seek to engage in partisan politics on support for people with disabilities.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my left!

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But we've seen that this is beyond a Labor Party obsessed with the politics of the Canberra bubble and seeking only to try and score political points off people with disability. Now, I'm not going to do that. We're going to continue to take action to put in place the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We're going to continue to fund it. We're going to continue to work through all the issues, and there are many in implementing what is a very significant scheme. We're going to continue to ensure that the commissions that are in place to be able to receive complaints and act on those complaints will continue to operate. I'll be working with stakeholders and state and territory governments to take further action in this area.

I am disappointed that, when the Labor Party raised this issue for the first time in almost two years, they come in here and seek to play partisan politics over people with disabilities. I would simply ask them to refrain from that, and the government will simply get on with the job.