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

My question is to the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Minister for Government Services. With shocking revelations out of budget estimates last night that illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, speed and ice are being trafficked through the NDIS, with the NDIA officials admitting, 'You name it; it's on the list,' why has the minister allowed illegal drugs to be trafficked to Australia's most vulnerable and paid for by taxpayers under the scheme that you designed?

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Members on my right will cease interjecting. The Deputy Prime Minister will cease interjecting. The minister for climate change. The minister doesn't have the call.

The member for McEwen is warned. Interjecting before a minister even begins her or his answer is highly disorderly.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the member for Deakin's inaugural question to me on the NDIS in this term of government. The NDIS is changing lives. I actually think that most members of the House are very committed to seeing the NDIS deliver the outcomes that it was designed to deliver for people with disability. But the NDIS needs to be got back on track.

The member goes to one of the questions about the future of the scheme, which is making sure that every dollar gets through to the participants for whom it's designed. I agree that there are issues in terms of fraud in the scheme. But these issues of fraud did not start yesterday. The reality is that this scheme was initiated by Labor, and then the Liberals came into power and there's no doubt that they increased the size of the scheme. But I would have to mark their stewardship of the scheme as incompetent and naive because they failed to create systems—

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will pause. Order! Members on my right will cease interjecting. The Minister for Home Affairs will cease interjecting, and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy is not helping the situation. The member for Deakin is entitled to raise a point of order and he has the call.

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

Thanks, very much, Mr Speaker. The point of order is on relevance. The minister should stick to his very expensive script. It can't be relevant to be speaking about drugs that are being sold—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Resume your seat. I'll deal with it. I thought this was clear yesterday when I dealt with the member for Fairfax. The minister will pause and resume his seat for a moment. We're not going to have points of order with statements and have the standing orders being abused. I made that crystal clear yesterday with the member for Fairfax. As I just indicated to the member for Deakin, he was entitled under the standing orders to raise a point of order—of course, he's allowed to do that. I think he knows that the next course of action is that he will leave the chamber under 94(a) for abusing the standing orders.

The member for Deakin then left the chamber.

The minister's going to return to the question. He wasn't asked about alternative approaches. He wasn't asked about the opposition. He was asked a specific question regarding estimates and issues raised through the estimates process. I'm going to make sure he's remaining directly relevant to the question.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks for your guidance, Mr Speaker. I was asked about fraud in the scheme and I'm explaining the origins of it.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Barker is warned.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reality is that the NDIS is a good idea, but under the coalition it was badly managed. One of the naive mistakes they made is that, whilst they paid out money to participants and service providers, they failed to do anything about the system into which they were paying it. We have 87 per cent of service providers who are unregistered. We have no way of knowing what they do when they put in their invoices.

We also have a scheme where they didn't set up proper monitoring of the payment system. As I explained recently to the House, to my shock and horror upon becoming Minister for the NDIS, I discovered that, under the previous government, when payment applications, or requests to be paid, were made, the agency—we've rectified this now—would only check 20. That's 20 out of hundreds of thousands of claims daily. I then found out in particular that, between 5 pm and 6.30 pm on any given day, nothing got checked. They literally decided to get the money out so quickly that if you made a claim between five and 6.30—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will pause. He's had two minutes, and I gave an instruction before. I can understand he's bringing some history into this issue, but the question wasn't about the history of what he's talking about. It was about a specific matter raised in the estimates. He's going to have to address that, otherwise he'll be resuming his seat.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are getting on with fixing up the fraud. We have got 500-plus compliance matters under investigation. We have 222 investigations underway. We have 20 prosecutions in the court. We have another 12 matters currently with the DPP to consider. Clearly, it is illegal for anyone to claim items which are not allowed under the scheme. The one difference between us and those people opposite is we're doing something about fixing up the scheme. You did nothing.