Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Urquhart for her question and for her deep interest in this area of policy. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a great Australian success story. It's a scheme that exists only because of a Labor government. The NDIS is a scheme that will be protected by a Labor government.

The NDIS is an essential investment that supports those people living with disabilities and their families. The NDIS provides support for over half a million Australians with significant and permanent disability. Despite this, the Liberal and the National parties, through active disinterest, left the NDIS to wither on the vine during their long nine years of mismanagement and neglect of this position. They failed to do anything about cost increases; instead, they kicked the can down the road, as they did with so many difficult issues. They shuffled seven ministers through the portfolio over a decade and broke trust with the people and with the disability sector. And they let fraud and criminal activity sneak into the NDIS. Labor is committed to putting people with disability at the centre of this scheme. By establishing an independent review led by a panel of experts and people with disability, the Albanese Labor government is starting to rebuild this trust and get this scheme back on track.