Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer.

This is getting ridiculous. This is getting actually ridiculous. Month after month after month, the Senate has demanded that the Australian government cough up the documents required to give the disability community the certainty over what their plans are in relation to the NDIS. And, month after month after month, the government has trotted in here and given the same flat non-answer. It is actually becoming beneath this government that these answers keep being given. It is a parody of the transparency that was promised when they were elected.

Let's be really clear: the Senate is asking the government to make public the documents, the projections, that were agreed at a National Cabinet meeting now all the way back in July of last year. All the way back in July, this government got together with state and territory ministers, made a deal and announced something called the NDIS Sustainability Framework. And, based on that framework, they booked some $50-plus billion worth of 'changes'. We in the disability community know what a $50 billion 'change' means. It means less money in our plans. It means fewer hours for our support workers. It means fewer job opportunities. It means fewer opportunities to make friends, to participate in the community and to utilise our human rights. And so this Senate has come together repeatedly to demand the actual documentation.

And what has the government response been? 'We're not going to give it to you.' Why? 'Because we don't want to.' It is the logic that you find in a moody teenager that hasn't done their homework. We have asked them again and again, if their claim of public interest immunity is based on the risk of prejudicing the hallowed relationship between the states and Commonwealth government, to give us a letter from one state or territory minister objecting to the release of this documentation. They can't do it. They've had months to do it, and they've failed again, again and again.

The minister, in their contribution, spent about half of their time referencing the independent review into the NDIS, which is irrelevant to the question before the Senate. The independent review contains none of the information requested by the Senate. I know because I've read it multiple times. This is the equivalent of being asked to submit your homework and instead going: 'No, I'm not going to submit the essay I was required to. Instead, here is a paper swan.' It's absolutely ridiculous. It makes a mockery of the transparency promised to the Australian disability community by the Labor government.

We in the Greens will continue to work with all parties in this place to ensure that these documents are made public, that this Senate's demand for transparency is complied with and that the message goes forth from this place that embarrassment is not a reason to claim public interest immunity. I do not care and the Australian disability community does not care if the release of these documents make some in the government feel uncomfortable. It is, nevertheless, our right to know what your intention is in relation to our NDIS. You promised collaboration and co-design, and we in the Greens will hold you to that promise.