Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the Minister for Government Services. Will the minister outline to the House what actions the Morrison government is taking to protect Australians living with a disability from the outbreak of the coronavirus?

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moncrieff for her question and acknowledge her hard work in supporting 1,380 participants in her electorate—and, of course, 61,000 right across Queensland. The Morrison government is committed to supporting Australians with disability, with an unwavering focus on ensuring that participants will receive continuity of care should the risk of a global pandemic outbreak be realised. In fact, all of the agencies, including Services Australia and the NDIA, are preparing intentionally. Over the past few weeks we've focused on the readiness of the agencies, and last week they were instructed to commence their emergency response capability. Activities are focused on building resilient and sustainable service capability in the face of different scenarios.

The NDIA has appointed an incident controller to support preparedness activities, with a fully dedicated and resourced team to implement the response, and the NDIA is in the process of rolling out a crisis communication system. I know the Leader of the Opposition isn't interested in the crisis communication system and incident controller for the NDIA, but it might help if you listen rather than be a Twitter troll!