David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to join with my colleague Senator Steele-John in supporting this motion. It is extraordinary, isn't it? If you cast your mind back two and a bit years to Labor in opposition and what they said about how government would be under Labor, I seem to recall, from the Prime Minister down, they had a mantra of 'transparency, transparency, transparency' and—quite rightly—called out the appalling dying days of the coalition government with its multiple secret ministries, secret deals and secret agreements. They pointed to the coalition and said: 'We won't be like that. We won't do these secret deals. We won't do this secret behind-closed-doors non-disclosure agreement stuff.' This was going to be a bright sunshiny day under Labor.

What do we have instead? We have layers of secrecy that, at different times, the coalition probably hadn't even dreamt up—new ways of doing secret national deals. At the heart of that is the NDIS financial sustainability framework secretly developed by the Albanese government, with Minister Shorten, no doubt, drafting in the dark, under candlelight somewhere on a Melbourne terrace in secret meetings. The only way you could come to a secret candlelit meeting with Minister Shorten was if you signed a non-disclosure agreement where you promised not to tell where you met, who you spoke to and what was discussed. Then they knock up a framework to cut billions and billions of dollars from people with a disability in this country—all done in secrecy.

As far as we understand, they created the framework in July last year and they then started a further series of secret consultations with premiers and chief ministers around the country. Then in April this year—Senator Steele-John will correct me if I'm wrong—in another secret meeting with premiers and chief ministers, headed by the Albanese government, they sign off on a secret deal, a secret framework. Meanwhile, it turns out that Minister Shorten has been having these candlelit, secret negotiations, and he's come forward with legislation that wants to, over the next decade, cut $14.4 billion from people with a disability. The legislation that they've introduced has been roundly opposed by those 4.4 million Australians who live with a disability, who have seen it proposed that $14.4 billion is to be taken from them, their friends, their supporters, their carers—all based on a secret deal and a secret framework.

We say: if there is any credibility to the financial modelling and if you want to stand by the financial modelling and the arguments that you say support taking $14.4 billion from people with disability, then show us the framework, show us the modelling, show us what it's all based on. Of course the Senate should see what it's based on before we vote on the legislation.

I come back to what this government said about transparency, in its election commitment. They persuaded about one-third of the country to vote for them on the basis that they were going to be different. Almost one-third of the country voted for the Labor Party on the basis that they would be different and would learn the lessons of the coalition government, which so rapidly drove the coalition into disrepute and saw millions of Australians reject that as a model of government. On the promise of transparency, about one-third of the country voted for Labor. About one-third voted for the crossbench, too, not necessarily believing Labor's promises in the election campaign. Very smart people those—