Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased for Senator Carr to come in here and shine a spotlight on the failures of the Labor Party in their establishment of this scheme. I am pleased that he gives us the opportunity to demonstrate that, throughout the course of this year, this government has continuously implemented measures to clean up your mess. We have actually demonstrated real action and real reforms in this area that are absolutely starting to make a difference and will make a profound difference from 1 January next year, when the incentive arrangements will dramatically change for providers.

As I have indicated, we are contemplating and looking at further measures that we think may be necessary to address the mess that Labor left. Labor's sole policy on this is that they want to establish an ombudsman. They think that a new public sector official might be the answer to this. We think we should get the multimillion-dollar program right. We think we should fix the guidelines in it. We are proposing changes to the legislation, and we will make sure that we clean up the mess we inherited from those who had no idea how to structure a program. (Time expired)