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

I think we're going to be here for days, in committee. If we can't get one simple actuarial question answered, we are going to be here for a very, very long time. Minister, I commend you. You've obviously read all four editions of the RedBridge research, because almost everything that came out of your mouth then was from the talking points provided by RedBridge to Minister Shorten and the NDIA. There was not a single fact about this legislation, about the impact of this legislation on 660,000 NDIS participants, but you managed to capture just about all the buzzwords out of this RedBridge research. I tell you what: NDIS participants and their families deserve so much better.

You might call $60 billion of money that has been cut out of the budget a 'moderated growth', but NDIS participants and senators in this place are not stupid, Minister. We understand that when the budget says it is a cut, it is a cut. Everybody in here, and certainly everybody on the NDIS and their families and carers, understand that in an insurance scheme, which this is, there are two drivers of cost, and they are the number of participants and the average cost per participant. There are things around the sides that you can improve to decrease fraud and improve administration, but the only way to realise $60 billion of cuts is through cutting participant numbers or the average cost per plan. You know that. Minister Shorten knows that. Every single state and territory minister knows that. Anybody who has ever had anything to do with an insurance scheme understands that principle.

Minister, over the next four years how much will intraplan inflation be reduced to and over how many years? My recollection is that it was about $8.5 billion. Could you please explain what data that is based on? So that $8.5 billion of intraplan inflation savings, where is that going to be coming from in terms of participants and plans?