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

Here we are again: yet another Monday, with this government showing a scandalous disregard for not only those in this place but also all Australians. From me as the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the Labor Party, Senator Steele-John and the entire disability community asked for more transparency, and I delivered it. I delivered far more transparency than there had ever been before. It's not comfortable, sometimes, having all of that information out there, but it is incredibly important.

What has this government done? They've got rid of the monthly reports. They're not now releasing the actuarial data that is so important for those in the sector and in this place to actually understand where they have made those $74 billion of cuts. Somehow, magically, they're going to reduce scheme growth, which is still going upwards and is now 15 per cent per annum. They're magically going to cut $74 billion out of this scheme over the next decade and reduce that growth rate to eight per cent. It will not happen.

Sadly, despite the Albanese government having bipartisan and, in fact, multipartisan support to engage in the discussion that is required to save this scheme—because that is where the scheme is at now: it is on an uncontrollable and unsustainable trajectory of growth—and instead of working together to fix the scheme, they've tried to perpetuate the biggest ever fraud on Australian taxpayers and on people with serious and permanent disability by saying that they can somehow cut $74 billion out of the scheme and not cut participant numbers and participants' plans. It is a complete nonsense.

With this public interest immunity claim, there are two tests. They haven't even bothered to try and meet the second test. And they've got this tiny little fig leaf of an excuse for the first test, and that is the reason. Well, the only reason they've been able to provide is that it may jeopardise Commonwealth-state/territory relations. Well, it will only jeopardise them if you have something to hide. I tell you what: from having a look at the papers, as Senator Hughes has said, over the last week, that ship has sailed. Minister Shorten and the Prime Minister have completely and utterly stuffed the process with the states and territories on the NDIS.

Now, over the last 18 months, they could and should have been having productive discussions with all in this place, with the sector and with states and territories, to fix the endemic structural issues that are putting this scheme on a pathway to failure—and nobody in this place wants to see that happen. But, until those structural issues are fixed, the scheme will continue to run out of financial control, and that is a fact. The government has to find a way to repair its relationships with and to regain the trust of the sector and of those in this place—and of the state and territory governments, who are also equally responsible for the scheme being where it is today.

So let's have no more of this coming in here for 10 seconds—in fact, less, this time, the minister spoke for. It is wrong.

Well over three years ago, as minister, I offered the hand of bipartisanship, on behalf of the coalition government at the time, to Bill Shorten and to the Labor Party. Instead, what did Bill Shorten do?

He denied there was any problem with the scheme. He made promises to the sector and participants. He made promises that he knew he could never keep. And now he's trying to, very duplicitously, hide what they are actually doing with the scheme, because they are cutting this scheme. They are cutting this scheme in a way—