Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Manager of Opposition Business from moving the following motion forthwith:

That the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme be required to come into the House immediately and withdraw his factually incorrect claims about the issue of media releases concerning the NDIS and fraud under the previous coalition government, and apologise for misleading the House.

This is urgent, because what we have seen is the most cynical and deliberate misleading of this House. I'm going to ask my colleague to—

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

Manager of Opposition Business, please resume your seat for a moment. The Leader of the House?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order. The word 'deliberate' was just used. It is not possible for that word to be used during a suspension motion. That is highly disorderly and should be withdrawn and ought not be said again during the suspension debate.

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

I'll get the manager to withdraw that word and ensure that that's not used—deliberate.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to withdraw the word 'deliberate'. Let's just remind the House what was said by the minister for the NDIS. He made the factually incorrect claim that none of the seven ministers for the NDIS under the previous coalition government had issued a media release in relation to fraud. He went on to emphasise that statement with the use of words like 'zip' and 'nada', but what he said was completely, factually incorrect.

I want to make the point that on 18 October 2018 a media release was issued by the now Leader of the Opposition, together with me, then Minister for Families and Social Services, and the minister with responsibility for the NDIS at that time, headed 'NDIS taskforce makes first arrest'. It read:

The Coalition Government established the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Fraud Taskforce in July to tackle potential fraud against the NDIS.

Today we can announce that the Taskforce has made a significant arrest.

That was not a one-off. That was not the only media release issued over a period in which a number of coalition ministers had responsibility for the NDIS. For example, on 22 April 2021, a media release was issued by the then Minister for Home Affairs and the then Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. That media release was headed 'Morrison government moves to protect NDIS from organised crime'. It read:

Operation Pegasus is a months-long NDIS Fraud Taskforce investigation into an alleged criminal syndicate …

It was an investigation being carried out in relation to alleged fraud against the NDIS, and a media release was issued by two coalition ministers, including the coalition minister then responsible for the NDIS. On 31 July 2021, a media release headered 'Extended crackdown on NDIS fraud' with the then Minister for the NDIS Senator Reynolds said:

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is extending the NDIS Fraud Taskforce …

We had a media release on 15 November 2021, which said:

More than $10 million of incorrect or non-compliant payments from National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) providers has been identified since July.

The media release spoke of the specialist National Disability Insurance Agency Compliance Response Team. Then, of course, there was a media release on 7 December 2021—again, a joint release between the then Minister for Home Affairs and the then minister with responsibility for the NDIS reporting:

… the Australian Federal Police (AFP) executed search warrants across three premises—

working jointly with the National Disability Insurance Agency fraud team. That is just a handful, a sample, of the releases that were issued by coalition ministers in relation to fraud and the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the National Disability Insurance Agency.

I inform the House of that to allow the House to then consider the accuracy of the statement that was made by the Minister for the NDIS some 30 or 40 minutes ago here in this place in question time. He had this to say:

I went through my file about when did the ministers of the government start talking about fraud. I went through all of the seven coalition ministers for the NDIS. They never put out one press release on challenging or detecting fraud, not one—zip, nada—

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Zilch!'

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Hansard says 'milch', but I think it might be 'zilch'. That statement is completely incorrect. It is entirely incorrect. It's not something that he just made up on the fly. He told us he prepared for this. He told us that he'd gone through his files.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

His speechwriter has been working at it!

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He may well have had the assistance of his $620,000 speechwriter in preparing those remarks, which he has just made in this House!

The fact is that the member for Maribyrnong has form in being highly misleading. The workers of Chiquita Mushrooms, for example, thought that he was acting, in an unqualified way, in their best interests when he was the secretary of the Australian Workers Union. But, in fact, we know that there was a deal done under which Chiquita Mushrooms workers, represented by the AWU, ended up with terms that were not as good as many other workers'. There were unusual payments to the union. The union received a $4,000 payment per month over six months in return for what the union, then led by the current member for Maribyrnong, claimed was for health and safety training.

The fact is that it may be the case that the member for Maribyrnong is used to operating in environments where he could get away with making statements that are entirely factually wrong and, by consequence, make claims against individuals and indeed people who have had significant positions of responsibility in this nation which are entirely factually incorrect. He may be used to working in environments where he's able to do that. But this is not such an environment.

If you make a statement in this place which is clearly demonstrably and factually wrong, and if you make that statement and preface it with clear evidence that you have prepared making that statement and that you've gone through your files, you can hardly then say, 'It was an accident; I somehow managed to miss the five media releases—' which I was able to find with the assistance of my hardworking staff and other hardworking coalition staff in about 15 minutes. Five media releases—there may very well be more. We haven't found just one that proved that what he said was factually incorrect. We haven't found just two. We haven't found three. We found five in literally a few minutes. I doubt there has been, certainly in this term of parliament and perhaps for a very long time, such an exercise in making a statement which is clearly untrue and which is clearly calculated to provide political advantage.

What the minister was seeking to do was position himself as some kind of holder of virtue on this matter as the person who has solely twigged to the fact that there may be a risk of fraud. He should have twigged to this a very long ago, because he was the genius who created this in the first place. Every one of those coalition ministers worked very hard to try and clean up the mess he created. In the two years that he has been in government, he has done very little about it. The best he can do is make statements which are entirely factually incorrect about the record of coalition ministers. So this minister needs to return and apologise.

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

Is the motion seconded?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The motion is absolutely seconded. The suspension of standing and sessional orders is very important because we now have one hour and 15 minutes left of parliament this week and it's so important that the member for Maribyrnong, the Minister for the NDIS, responsible for one of the most important parts of government, comes back into this chamber and explain why he has, accidentally or otherwise, misled the House on this very important issue.

He cannot have gone through his files and found that the coalition, when in government, did nothing about fraud in this important space. To say otherwise is to malign those very good, hardworking ministers of the coalition who did absolutely everything to make sure that any fraudulent activity was not only addressed but brought to heel by the then government. The member for Maribyrnong has been here since 2007. He knows better than to go to that dispatch box and suggest that something otherwise was done. Indeed, we put in place measures to absolutely crack down on fraudulent activity. You heard from the member for Bradfield, who feels slighted by the fact that something else was suggested, that the member for McPherson produced a media release that absolutely said that not only were we cracking down on fraudulent activity but there was a fellow who was arrested for that very thing.

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

Order! Member for Hasluck, it doesn't help to have continual interjections.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble—maybe he's thinking of adventures in gay Paris! Maybe his speechwriter has suggested otherwise and he has his mind on other things, maybe ambassadorial roles. But he knows better than to go to that dispatch box in question time, where the truth is important. The truth is important. When you are a minister, you have to tell the truth. Whether it was an accident or otherwise, we do believe he has absolutely misled this House. It's important that he has an hour and 12 minutes to come back into this chamber. The House Practice absolutely demands he do so. We are requesting that he does so. Convention of the Westminster system absolutely makes it crystal clear that he should come back into this House and explain himself, come back into this House and admit that he was wrong. It's not hard to say you were wrong. It's up to him to say that he was wrong. He knows that he was wrong. He can't suggest that the coalition never put out a media release and his file suggested there were no media releases, because we know and have proven in these statements that the actual fact was otherwise. It is absolutely plain as day. The member for McPherson, the then home affairs minister said:

All Australians suffer when public money is defrauded. That's why this Government—

the coalition government—

is serious about taking strong action to protect against fraud.

It's rather damning to suggest that the coalition when in government did not do anything about fraud in the NDIS space. The minister, the former opposition leader who led Labor to the 2016 and 2019 elections—not quite sure how that went for him!—is very senior. He's been in this place as the member for Maribyrnong since 2007. It's incumbent upon him to come back into this chamber, explain himself, admit that he got it wrong and admit that perhaps that speechwriter to whom we're paying $600,000 worth of taxpayers' money got it wrong. Somebody got it wrong, but the buck stops with him because he was the one who said it. He was the one who erroneously claimed that the now opposition—the then government—did nothing to crack down on fraud in the NDIS. We did, and we've had minister after minister say that very thing. We've got the media releases.

I hear the member for Watson. We've proven it. We can table those media releases, obviously. The member for Maribyrnong says he hasn't got them in his files, but he would have. He only had to ask his department and they would've produced them. To suggest anything else is breaching convention. It is breaching the Westminster system. It is breaching House of Representatives Practice and it's breaching the good grace of this parliament, where truth is important.

Labor came to office in May 2022 and they said, 'We will restore integrity. We'll let the sunshine in. We'll be transparent.' This minister, today, has not been any of those things, and it's up to him to come back into this chamber now, and if the member for Watson, or whoever is following me in the speech, has even an absolutely slight consideration of how important House Practice is, how important the Westminster system is—and here he is, thankfully! Hopefully, he's going to make that truth be accountable.

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

I said in question time that the now opposition, when they were in government, did nothing to tackle fraud and allowed the circumstances to dictate whether crooks could come in. Did I hear in this motion any outrage about that? No! I also said that they didn't reform the NDIS and that they allowed a set of circumstances where participants were not getting a good deal or being looked after. Did they complain about that? No, they didn't. But what I should've realised is that the only way you can get something more than a heartbeat out of the opposition is to say that they didn't issue a press release.

I apologise for missing the five press releases you did in nine years—or the six or the 10.

But what I'm most amused about—and I don't know if there is a capacity for insight and self-reflection on the part of whoever dreamed this tactic up—is that there was no outrage about the NDIS, no outrage about their lack of effort in reform and no outrage about the payment systems they allowed to occur, but, 'Goodness me! I will fight to the death if you insult me for not putting out a press release.' How do you find a lost coalition politician in the forest? You stake an allegation that they didn't issue a press release and they will find you!

I listened to the Manager of Opposition Business and I waited for him to go through all of the actions they took to fix up NDIS fraud. But, to be fair to him, he couldn't talk about it, because you did nothing. You did absolutely nothing. This is what we found out upon coming to government. We found out that, under the current opposition, they had a payment system in the NDIS where thousands of invoices were submitted, and each day they would check 20—20 out of thousands—before they paid it. On a really good day, apparently they could go up to 21.

Of course, we also found out—and I'm sure, when I say this, the little voices inside some of the coalition members' heads are going to say, 'How could that have happened?'—that between 5 pm at 6.30 pm on any day when these characters were mismanaging the NDIS, if an invoice whistled in—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Oh, you can give it, but you can't take it.

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

Order! The minister will pause.

Order! The member for O'Connor will cease interjecting. I want to hear from the member for Riverina.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Point of order. The member for Maribyrnong, the minister, hasn't said whether he's voting for or against the motion. I just want to clarify that.

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

With these debates, there is no indication of what he needs to say.

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

What we're debating here is: you're outraged about the allegation that you didn't put out a press release, but you've got zero outrage about being crap at managing the NDIS for nine years.

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

Order! The minister is going to withdraw that part.

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

I withdraw the word 'crap', but you know what I mean.

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

No, no.

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

I withdraw the word. I apologise. I'm sorry I hurt their feelings, absolutely—terrible.

An opposition member interjecting—

No, mate. It's written from your speechwriter: 'I resign.'

On the payment system—this is important, because, if you ever get to be in government again, it's important you learn from your mistakes—we have discovered that between 5 pm and 6.30 pm on any day, under the coalition, the crooks could put in an invoice, and there was zero chance, zero-out-of-a-hundred chance, that you would have your invoice checked. Isn't that a dumb way to run a system? Isn't that a shocking way to run a system? You call yourself the economic supermen. I get the gender point but not the 'super' bit. And what you were doing was running a payment system—

Rick, listen and learn.

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

Order! No.

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

The member for nuclear will—

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

No. The minister is going to pause. I'm just going to pause. I'm just going to settle this. The minister is going to put down what he's holding up. We're not going to handle this debate this way. It's a serious issue. The Manager of Opposition Business was entitled move his motion. Members are going to be referred to by their correct titles, and language is going to be used with the decorum of the House.

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

What we discovered, and what Mr Dardo gave evidence about at Senate estimates, is that there were immature payment systems. 'Immature' is nice. I think that's a generous term. But, for nine years, you were the soft touch. Crooks and fraudsters and rorters saw the coalition coming.

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

Order! The Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the issue before the House is whether standing orders should be suspended to require this minister to apologise for his factually incorrect statement. That is what he needs to be addressing.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, Mr Speaker: if it is the position of the Manager of Opposition Business that, under a suspension motion, it's never to be a wideranging debate, then the implications for the opposition, who are much more likely to move motions of this nature than government are, will be long lasting. I'd simply caution against a strictness on suspension motions that hasn't been applied in this House for a very long time.

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

On the point of order, Member for Wannon?

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speeches have to be either for or against, Speaker, and we don't know whether it's for or against. Could you please tell us whether it's for or against?

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

Resume your seat. We're just going to get through this debate in an orderly way. The language that we use here is important. I just remind the minister, under standing order 65, about directing comments through the chair.

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

Mr Speaker, if they haven't worked out that we're voting against this suspension motion, then they're even dimmer than I already thought.

We had a payment system which, as you know, wasn't working. So what we've done since we came in—and it was up to the now opposition, then government; they could have done everything that we've done; they just didn't do it. But what we've set up is the Fraud Fusion Taskforce. We are investing—

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

You renamed it!

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

Oh, my Lord. Don't say too much, Member for Deakin, before you show us what you don't know.

We set up the Fraud Fusion Task Force. It's $126 million. That wasn't there when we came to government. We've now got 19 different government agencies talking to each other. What Mr Dardo has discovered—and this all was set up under the somnolent, sleepy, incompetent, negligent gaze of those opposite when they were running the NDIS—

Oh, Darren, I know you secretly agree with me. Under their somnolent gaze, they never tackled all of the agencies talking to each other.

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

No. The minister will refer to members by their correct title.

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

You know, these people were the NDIS rorters' best friends, and they just never knew it. I'll give them that credit. I don't say it was deliberate. I say it was just genuinely incompetent. If it's between a conspiracy and a stuff-up, these people are the stuff-up, not the conspiracy, on the fraud.

What we did was to set up our Fraud Fusion Taskforce—$126 million. That's a good idea. Why didn't you have it? We got all the agencies talking to each other. That's a good idea. Why didn't you have it? We put extra people in the investigation teams. That's a good idea. I don't know why you didn't do that.

We had the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission—the poor old NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. For those of you who aren't students of history, we called for a disability royal commission in 2017. The former Prime Minister Mr Turnbull panicked and said, 'Oh, we can't have a royal commission.' That didn't work so well for him. He said, 'Instead we'll set up a quality and safeguards commission.' It opened its doors on 1 January 2018. The problem was that they put only 350 people into it. Then what happened was that those people weren't able to do their job properly. What we've seen since we came in, on top of our Fraud Fusion Task Force, our extra investigators and the range of other measures I've already outlined, such as changing payment system so we scrutinise them—that's a revolutionary idea!—is that we've now doubled the staff in the safeguards commission.

Here are another couple of fun facts which the amnesiacs opposite me seem to forget. When I became the minister, there was $231 million of NDIS payments under scrutiny. There's now several billion. When I came in, they had 41 investigations underway. There are now 220. There are now 510 compliance actions underway. We have 20 matters in court and another 12 matters with the DPP waiting to be progressed to court.

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

Order! The time for the debate has expired.

A division having been called and the bells being rung—

Order! The Manager of Opposition Business and the Minister for the NDIS are quite enjoying the conversation, but I don't need to hear it on the floor of parliament. The question before the House is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be agreed to.