Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'll make some very brief remarks. We made history with the election of Senator Jordon Steele-John as a proud disabled man. Some functional changes needed to be made to this chamber even to physically accommodate him. We have now re-established the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It is my firm belief, the belief of my party and perhaps a belief shared by others that, in fact, disabled people should be in charge of making decisions about themselves. We have sought to obtain support to have Senator Steele-John as either the chair or the deputy chair of this committee, and we have in good faith sought to reach agreement on that. We have been unsuccessful in that, and the reason for that is that the two big parties like to carve up the committees as the spoils of the two-party system.

We think, in this instance, it really would have sent a powerful message to the disability community that people who share a disability can be in charge of making decisions that set the rules for everybody else and that lived experience is crucial in decision-making. That is why we seek to have a more diverse parliament—so that we can make decisions that appropriately reflect people's different lived experience and therefore can make better decisions for them. It's for that reason that we sought to move this amendment. The two parties have a real decision here. Do you want to seek to just control this committee? I won't speculate on your motives; perhaps they're noble motives. But the strong and powerful statement that having a person with disability chair this committee would I think be a real step forward for Australia, would be a step forward for inclusion and would be the right thing to do, so we urge every senator to think deeply about their vote to allow our senator with a disability to chair the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.