Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Under standing order 74(5)(a), I rise to seek an explanation from the Minister representing the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Minister for Government Services, Senator Ruston. Clause 74 of the Senate standing orders provides that a minister has 30 days in which to provide an answer to a question. As at midday today, 15 March 2021, there were 29 overdue questions on notice lodged by the Table Office, but I would point out that, at 9 am today, there were 125 outstanding questions on notice. Much like a primary school student, Minister Robert seems to be hurriedly doing his homework.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you putting the list of the outstanding questions?

Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The portfolio question numbers are as follows: 2943, 2944, 2945, 2946, 2947, 2948, 2950, 2951, 2952, 2953, 2954, 2955, 2956, 2957, 2958, 2959, 2960, 2961, 2962, 2963, 2964, 2965, 2966, 2967, 2968, 2969, 2970 and 2971.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Kitching, for your question. Across the whole of the Social Services portfolio more than 500 questions on notice have been lodged for response, and many of them have had quite complex data and analysis requirements. We've also attended numerous COVID committee hearings and responded to an additional approximately 80 questions on notice as a result of attendance at that committee. As part of the response to the COVID committee, the department, across both portfolio areas, agreed to provide comprehensive fortnightly datasets to the committee to ensure that we were providing information in the most timely way possible to assure transparency and to ensure that the information was available for anybody to see.

I understand that, as a general rule, my department is regularly on time with questions on notice; however, with the COVID environment as it has been over the past 12 months, there has been a significant increase in the amount of information that has been sought from the departments that sit within the Social Services portfolio. We obviously are very keen to be able to provide the necessary information to this place and to ministers who ask questions on notice, so, in requesting that information, we thought the provision of fortnightly datasets and the like would be of assistance, but, Senator, I will certainly take the request that you've provided in relation to ensuring that the remainder of the questions that are still on notice and are yet to be answered are answered and are tabled as soon as possible.

Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister Ruston, for your response. I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister's failure to provide either answers or an explanation.

I have to say that this department is doing better than the Prime Minister's office and the Prime Minister's own department. They really lead by very poor example. This department isn't anywhere near the Prime Minister's office, it being 151 days overdue. These are slightly less than that. I am going to refer to the answers that were provided by the minister this morning. This morning the minister returned a single answer for 98 questions that were overdue, and I'll read you the answer:

The Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Government Services meets with a range of government and community stakeholders on a regular basis.

Providing a response to this series of ninety-eight Parliamentary questions on notice (2833 to 2930) would be an unreasonable diversion of resources.

How can it be an unreasonable diversion of resources to tell the Senate that Minister Robert has actually been doing nothing? Let me read you an example of one of these 98 questions that were responded to this morning with that 'it would be an unreasonable diversion of resources'. My question was:

Can details of all official duties undertaken by Minister Robert on 5 July 2020 be provided.

But apparently that's an unreasonable diversion of resources. To answer that, I would hope that the minister or his office kept a diary somewhere. The reason I'm asking this is that the minister claimed travel allowance, so he should want to answer that question because it would prove that he was actually doing something to claim the travel allowance. I think that he would want to answer every one of those 98 questions and that someone in his office would keep his diary and could tell what he was doing that day, for which he has claimed travel allowance.

Senator Ruston interjecting—

I'll take that interjection. I'm not yelling at you, Senator Ruston. You are the representing minister here. If you could, convey to Minister Robert that he might like to respond to some of these questions for his own benefit.

While we're on the subject of Minister Robert—and I'll keep in mind standing order 193(3)—I can't really go past robodebt. Let's look at Minister Robert and what he did there, to see what a wonderful exemplar of a minister he's been. Robodebt is not just a failure of this government to provide for Australia's most vulnerable but an example of this government's agenda to punish people who need support the most. I think we're a pretty lucky country here, and we should share that luck. It should not suit more affluent people in a society to want other people to be downtrodden. We don't want great disparity in societies, I think. Robodebt was an example, really, of trying to degrade people who actually need support.

Robodebt, of course, was a plan cooked up by the Prime Minister when he was Minister for Social Services and carried on by his former flatmate Minister Robert. In order to build the illusion of a budget surplus, in 2015 the then social services minister and now Prime Minister, the member for Cook, put together a plan to raise unlawful debts using a Centrelink robot that calculated debt using unreliable averaged ATO data. It wrought terrible destruction on some of the community's most vulnerable. More than 2,000 people died after receiving robodebt notices. Thousands more dealt with the stress of debt collectors and the shame of wrongly being called a thief. One point two billion dollars of taxpayers' money—$1.2 billion!—was spent in settling a class action.

The Prime Minister expanded the scheme when he became Treasurer and now refuses to take responsibility with a robodebt royal commission. The government ignored at least 70, if not more, AAT decisions spelling out robodebt's illegality. In November 2019 the government admitted it was unlawful and paused the scheme. Even then they continued to fight robodebt appeals at the AAT—there's nothing like throwing good money after bad—and they've failed to deliver on their promise to refund victims of the scheme, with 3,000 dead people's estates still owed robodebt refunds.

As the minister responsible for the NDIS, the member for Fadden has also overseen widespread neglect and misery. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a vital national service, but after seven years of this government it has been slashed and mismanaged to such an extent that people are now dying of neglect in their homes. In early 2020 it was revealed that, over three years, 1,200 Australians with a disability had died while waiting to be funded for the scheme. Imagine that you're a person with a disability, you hear of this scheme and you think it's something the government is doing to help you, yet you are one of 1,200 Australians with a disability who will die before they are funded by this scheme, which was brought in supposedly to help them. Minister Robert denied anyone had died waiting, even though this was cold, hard data provided by the National Disability Insurance Agency.

Since then, reports have emerged of NDIS participants who have died due to the failure of the government to properly oversee the scheme and the providers that deliver its services. One of these Australians was Ann Marie Smith. Ann Marie Smith was a 54-year-old Adelaide NDIS participant who died on 6 April of severe septic shock, multiorgan failure, severe pressure sores, malnutrition and issues connected with her cerebral palsy, after being confined to a cane chair 24 hours a day for more than a year. Imagine sitting in a cane chair 24 hours a day for more than a year. Just pause and imagine that. Ann Marie Smith's NDIS package included six hours of support per day. Reports are that she received only two hours of care per day and had not been outside her house in years. How could she? She was in her cane chair 24 hours a day. Ann Marie's terrible demise is nothing short of a tragedy. She should be alive and thriving. Instead, she was neglected and abandoned and she died in the most terrible and degrading circumstances. Ann Marie Smith died after years of neglect on 6 April 2020. A year on, and the government still hasn't taken any tangible steps to stop something like this from happening again.

Another victim of this government's and Minister Robert's neglect is David Harris. NDIS participant David Harris was dead in his Parramatta unit for two months before his body was discovered by police. After he was found by authorities, his grieving sister, who is based interstate, learned David's NDIS funding had been cut off because he missed an annual review meeting. This meant cleaners and other NDIS funded supports stopped visiting the 55-year-old, who was schizophrenic, diabetic, incontinent and in need of regular injections. How many Australians with a disability must die in their homes before Minister Robert admits that there is a problem?

The minister and his office have also been briefing out to a journalist that he will become Australia's next Minister for Home Affairs. That is what his office is briefing out to journalists upstairs. What he really should do is concentrate on the portfolio he has now and fix the problems in this system. No-one wants another Ann Marie Smith. No-one wants another David Harris. Yet, as I stand here talking today, I bet there's another Ann Marie Smith. I bet there's another David Harris who, because of some bureaucratic bungling, is not receiving the support they need, even though they may well be an NDIS participant.

There are certain things that people say that aren't great about the Gold Coast, but I'm afraid that Minister Robert probably exemplifies some of those more terrible characteristics of the Gold Coast.

An honourable senator interjecting—

The white shoe brigade! And, like any grifter, Minister Robert wants to move on to his next victim, which seems to be the Department of Home Affairs. He'd really like to move on to Defence, I hear, where he'd be given the opportunity to grift with defence contractors, but I'm sure the Prime Minister is willing to put him in charge at some point. But, for people who rely on some level of support provided by our social welfare system and for those living with a disability who just want a life of dignity like any other Australian, Minister Robert cannot in good conscience be left where he is.

I'm going to read out some of the questions on notice that I put in, and the chamber can judge for itself whether these are really difficult questions on notice or if they could have been answered some time ago, within the 30 days as provided by the standing orders, or whether there's some excuse for Minister Robert to be taking more time and delaying these questions on notice. In the 2017-18 financial year, how many new National Disability Insurance Scheme providers were registered? This is not a hard question. With reference to the figure to be provided to question A above, how many new NDIS providers were registered within 30 days of lodgement? Obviously, this is to see whether there is efficiency within the department. With reference to the figure to be provided to question A above, how many new NDIS providers were registered within 30 days of lodgement without additional information or documents being requested from an applicant? With reference to the figure to be provided to question A above, how many new NDIS providers were registered within 60 days of lodgement? I'm not going to read through, but I wanted to know 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, 150 days, 200 days, 250 days and 300 days. If it took 300 days to lodge a new NDIS provider as we understand it, I wanted to know how many of those there were.

Now, I've asked up to how many new NDIS providers were registered within 400 days of lodgement without additional information or documents being requested from an applicant, because my understanding is that, as it takes longer for an NDIS provider to be registered, that means there are people in the community who should be on the NDIS but cannot actually get to an NDIS provider. That's why we want this information. I asked that for 2018, 2019, from July 2020 to 31 December 2020 and as at 5 February as well. These are not difficult questions; these are questions that are in a database that the department will hold. I want these questions answered.

For example, can a current organisational chart for the National Disability Insurance Scheme Quality and Safeguards Commission be provided? Apparently it takes longer than 30 days to find an org chart. That's what I'm after. I still don't have an answer to that, and I have no idea how long it is going to take to get an org chart.

Senator Wong interjecting—

I'll take Senator Wong's interjection. It's a secret org chart. I would also like information on the historical status of registered providers and the dates of registration. Apparently, they're also very difficult questions. Apparently, some of this information isn't available.

I'm happy to share with Senator Ruston why I'm asking for this—to understand what the NDIS is providing and where the gaps are for people in the community who should be on the NDIS. That's why I am asking these questions. It's not out of idle curiosity. I would like these questions responded to. It has been over 30 days, as provided by the standing orders. I would really appreciate it if Senator Ruston would speak with Minister Robert and ask him to respond as quickly as he is able. I take Senator Ruston's point that during COVID they have been regularly providing information. Obviously the departments have been busy. I'm a reasonable person. I do expect these questions to be answered.

Question agreed to.