Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Senate for indulging me; I'm just making sure that we're precise. We expect—and this is subject to the vicissitudes of the co-design process—that that process ought to take in the vicinity of 12 to 18 months to work through. The government anticipates that participants will then be moved across to the new system over the course of five years. That is around five years. It is a large reform task. We intend, consistent with what I indicated before, to carefully work through those issues with the disability community and with experts and service providers in terms of the framework.

There are people who are currently on the scheme and, as you've indicated, Senator Steele-John, there will be new admissions to the scheme, and we anticipate that it will be of the order of a five-year period to work through all of those people. That will require, over the course of that 18 months, attention to be given by government to ensuring that there is, in a stable and orderly way, the workforce that is required to undertake those needs assessments consistent with the co-design needs assessment tool.