Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We hear a lot about transparency in government from Mr Albanese, the Prime Minister, and we hear a lot about transparency in government from his representatives in this place. But talk is cheap. What we need to see is a government delivering on transparency in government.

There would be few, if any, better places for the government to start demonstrating transparency in government than by releasing the NDIS financial sustainability framework. The reason the release of that framework is so critical is that it's the framework the government relied on when it made its decision to set the growth of the NDIS scheme at eight per cent by 1 July 2026. Let's be clear about what that decision actually means. That means cutting $59 billion out of the NDIS over a decade. That is $59 billion that, in the absence of this decision, could be spent on improving the lives of disabled people in Australia. Some of the fundamental rights that they have could have been underpinned by the expenditure of that $59 billion.

Labor, disgracefully, has made the decision to undercut the supports that disabled people will receive in Australia into the future. In making that decision, they are relying on a secret document which disabled people and the rest of the country are not able to read and are not able to understand because Labor are keeping that framework a secret. That is disgraceful. It is insulting. And it's not just insulting to disabled people—although it clearly is insulting to disabled people—it's insulting to all Australians. Everyone has got a right to know what the government is relying on when it makes a decision to slash and burn such vital expenditure into the future.

That $59 billion cut was the biggest cut in the budget in which that decision was made. The Labor Party, which went to the election claiming it would do everything it could to look after disabled people, has turned around and massively cut the funding that would allow for vital and urgent supports to be given to disabled people in Australia. Of course the supports available to disabled people in their plans are now under threat, and many disabled people in Australia are rightfully nervous that their plans are going to be affected by this cut. They want to understand why the government has made this cut, but they can't understand it because they simply do not have access to the framework. That is the issue here.

I want disabled people to know that they have an absolutely staunch and passionate advocate in this Senate in Senator Steele-John. They'll have heard his speech today and they'll have heard a multitude of speeches that Senator Steele-John has made not just on this issue relating to disabled people but on a range of other issues. I want the disability community to know that it is not only Senator Steele-John who's an ally, although he shoulders a lot of the responsibility for this. In the Australian Greens they have a group of allies. They have a group of allies who are prepared to go to the wall and fight for the rights of disabled people—a group of people in this chamber who are prepared to be counted as allies and go in to bat for proper funding so that disabled people can lead dignified lives in Australia.

The NDIS was a critical reform in Australia that was brought in, I acknowledge, by a former Labor government. This is the time for Labor to rediscover itself, to actually not only release this framework but increase the supports available for disabled people in Australia. The Greens are with disabled people. We are—