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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

Here we are again, at the start of a new parliamentary year, and we have had 18 months worth of the minister defying the will of the Senate and not providing the documents that the Senate requires on the NDIS. If only Labor had put in a fraction of the effort that they used to hide all of these documents from not only the Senate but Australians and NDIS participants, we may have got a much better outcome for the NDIS than what those opposite have delivered in the last 2½ years.

They're a complete failure in this area, in terms of not just transparency but the mismanaging of this scheme. They're just trying to eke out their time after this terrible legislation was passed and after the hiding of the budget figures and all of these figures. They have just one strategy. It is a strategy to get them through to the next election. Then, surprise, surprise, whoever is the minister, whoever is in government, shock, horror, will have access to the documents they've hidden and will find out just what a farce they've been perpetrating.

So now we've got a new minister, and have we got something new? Nope. We've still got the same old Redbridge research marketing lines that Bill Shorten, with his half-a-million-dollar speechwriter, was trotting out. What are we hearing again? We're hearing: 'We're cracking down on fraud. There are "green shoots". We're working with states and territories to deliver foundational supports.' Well, what a joke. What a joke, coming out here and repeating these lines yet again. I'll tell you what: this debacle that those opposite have perpetrated on NDIS participants and their families is so emblematic of the complete systemic failure of those opposite to govern and their complete lack of standards of effective governance. When it comes to real action on the NDIS, those opposite have done nothing.

Remember, before the last election, when I was the NDIS minister, I came to this place and publicly said: 'This is a scheme in trouble. We have a sustainability issue. We have to tackle it.' I talked to the states and territories, and they were well on the journey to agreeing to having to do more. But Bill Shorten—'No, there's not a problem here. There's no sustainability problem. It's all Liberal lies.' And, three years ago, he refused to support proper legislative reform to put this scheme on a financially sustainable track for the future.

Then he comes into government: 'Oh, my goodness me. I didn't understand what the budget documents said. I didn't understand any of this, and we've got a problem. We've got a sustainability problem.' Then what did he do? He did what Labor always does. They don't get in there and tackle the problem. He didn't say, 'Oops, I got it wrong.' He then had an 18 month-to-nearly-two-year review—another review—to tell us exactly what we already knew: this is a scheme in trouble.

Now what have they done? They haven't come to an agreement with the states and territories, not a single one of them; yet they have pushed off billions of dollars worth of NDIS supports to states and territories in foundational supports. But guess what? The states and territories have not agreed to fund them. The states and territories haven't agreed to this at all. They haven't spent the last 2½ years doing new intergovernmental agreements with the states and territories. Now we hear—revealed on the weekend by the new minister, trotting out the same old lines—that they're now seeking a one-year pre-election bailout from states and territories to pay for the foundational supports that they should have been discussing with them!

So this is it. We know from the figures that, despite all their talk of 'green shoots', this is still a scheme that is running out of control and well over the budget forecast. Total payments continue to increase due to two drivers of costs: participant numbers are still skyrocketing, despite everything those opposite have done, and the average payment per participant is still going up. Total payments are on track to exceed last year's total payments.

Despite all of the rhetoric and all of the budget fudging that they have done, they're now coming to states and territories, saying: 'We 've stuffed this up. We couldn't get your agreement, but can you please give us enough money to get us through the next election?' Shame on you. (Time expired)