Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Minister Shorten, who was then shadow minister for the NDIS, spent months, if not years, saying that there was no problem with the NDIS. He denied us any bipartisanship to implement significant and sensible changes to the scheme. I note that the Leader of the Opposition has offered that bipartisanship, which has not yet been taken up.

The contempt which Minister Shorten has now for transparency is breathtaking in its hypocrisy. Before the election he was talking about transparency. I agreed with him, so I introduced a monthly NDIS statistics summary in July 2021, to provide great transparency to everybody, not only participants and their families but also members in this place, families and anybody else interested in the NDIS. We produced monthly reports to show what the changes and trends were year-on-year.

Guess what? What was one of the first things Minister Shorten did this year? He removed the monthly reports. No more transparency for everybody who is interested in, engaged with and relies on the NDIS. Even worse, on the website it says that they've stopped providing the monthly reports; they're now putting out quarterly reports. They've gone from monthly to quarterly reports, but guess what? There hasn't been a quarterly report published this year, and the last one was actually in December 2022. So since February this year there has not been any transparency. I think it is no coincidence that the NDIA keeps refusing to appear and is finding every reason under the sun for why it won't appear before the JCPAA to talk about its financial reports. I don't think that is a coincidence. So much for this great man who believes in transparency!

The questions on notice that are the subject of this motion today are not the only ones. I have pages and pages of questions that he has simply refused to answer. When he does, the responses are contemptuous of this parliament and this place. For example, there are still many unanswered questions from March not only for Services Australia, which he is also responsible for, but also for the NDIA. When the minister came in, he launched an 18-month review—which has pretty much put the whole scheme on hold, including a lot of the reforms that we implemented—with almost no transparency. When we ask questions about that in this place, he does not answer. Not only did the minister pause the entire scheme for 18 months, even after 30 reviews of the scheme; he doesn't answer questions. While he put the whole scheme on pause for 18 months, he did actually carry out quite a very long night, or month, of the long knives.

I asked questions in relation to the resignations of the chair, Denis Napthine, and the CEO, Martin Hoffman. These were very important questions in terms of how their resignations came to be and whether the minister had actually suggested to them that they might like to resign. The minister still has not responded to those questions. In fact, one of the responses I got in relation to that was quite gobsmacking in its contempt of this place. I asked a question on the time line, and I got a response that said absolutely nothing. I followed up with questions in March. We still do not have answers. This is such a critically important scheme, the third-largest expenditure of our national budget, and he refuses to answer any questions. Shame on him. (Time expired)