Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government rejects the assertions in the motion. The government has outlined that we've claimed public interest immunity over the document, as disclosure would prejudice relations between the Commonwealth and the states and territories. Disclosure would harm the Commonwealth's ongoing relations with the states and territories on this and other matters.

The government and National Cabinet agreed to an NDIS Financial Sustainability Framework, which will provide an annual growth target in the total cost of the NDIS of no more than eight per cent by 1 July 2026, with further moderation of growth as the scheme matures. The first step in achieving the annual growth target was the announcement of the initiatives in the improving the effectiveness and the sustainability of the NDIS measure in the 2023-24 budget. This included investments in the NDIA's capacity, capability and systems to improve the experience of participants.

The government will work with the disability community and states and territories on achieving the annual growth target under the sustainability framework. This work will be shaped by the independent review of the NDIS, which is due to report in October 2023 and has involved extensive consultation with people with disabilities and other stakeholders. The government has publicly released many documents on the framework, and, for the benefit of senators, I do have available to table the National Cabinet media statement, the ministerial media statement, budget papers and part of the recently released 2023 intergenerational report that sets out the impact of the framework.

We have been really clear that there is a lot of work to do to deliver on the framework, including with the states and territories and the disability community. We will continue to work constructively with all parliamentarians as work progresses to deliver on the framework. It took a Labor government to create the NDIS, and this Labor government will secure its future. We're determined to make sure that every dollar counts and every dollar goes to improving the lives of the participants the scheme was established for.

Since coming to office we have already taken a range of actions, including appointing more people with a disability to the NDIA board, to bring representation to 50 per cent, including the appointment of Kurt Fearnley as chair; reducing the AAT backlog; cracking down on fraud; and significantly reducing average hospital discharge times for NDIS participants. The achievements of the Albanese Labor government are paving the way for a better NDIS for people with a disability today and for those who may need the NDIS in the future.

It is worth noting that there has been an exponential increase in the number of orders for the production of documents, and they have increased by nearly one-third, to nearly two per sitting day. Today we are dealing with another five of them. Yesterday there were 10. Public interest immunity claims should not be used as a measure of failure. They are the tool that is available to the executive to explain why documents cannot be provided. If the executive is discouraged from making legitimate claims then transparency will actually reduce, because such an approach is unlikely to elicit greater production of documents.

In half the cases where public interest immunity was claimed in response to orders for the production of documents, the Senate ordered the production of documents that would reveal cabinet deliberations or cause harm to relations between the Commonwealth and the states and territories or to our international relationships. The government acts to balance the demands of the Senate with the public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of these deliberations and our relationships with other governments and nations. I'm happy to table those documents.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

N () (): I move:

That the Senate take note of the documents.

As citizens in a democracy, it is reasonable to expect a high level of transparency around decisions that governments make, particularly in relation to decisions that shape the lives of people affected by the programs that it runs. It should go without saying that disabled people deserve the very same. The NDIS and its participants deserve to know the full details of the financial sustainability framework that all state premiers, chief ministers and the Prime Minister agreed to. Every single one of the hundreds of thousands of disabled people who are participants in the scheme, who rely upon the scheme for daily support, for the funding to get out of bed in the morning to have a shower, to meet with their friends and family, to go to work, deserve to know the details of the framework that was signed up to by their Prime Minister, by their premier and by their chief ministers.

This refusal to provide basic transparency to the Senate reeks of a captain's call that is being covered up. It is designed to serve a narrative crafted by government politicians who seem intent upon using the 4.4 million disabled people that call Australia home as a football to be kicked across the country.

Now, let us recount how exactly we came to be here. In April, state premiers, chief ministers and the Prime Minister met to secretly agree on the NDIS financial sustainability framework, which would map out the financial future of the NDIS. And they are refusing to release this document. In May, the Senate formally requested that the Albanese government table the framework. The government's response was that that document did not exist. To put it into more meaningful terms, the government admitted to having no actual foundational basis for their decision in May to impose budget cuts on the NDIS. For all we know they could have picked the eight per cent target out of the sky.

In June, the Senate again ordered that the government table the framework, the framework which in their budget they booked no less than $59 billion of cuts against. So something exists somewhere in Treasury or in Finance, because on the basis of that framework you booked $59 billion worth of cuts to our NDIS. Yet, you refuse to reveal the basis of that measure to the community. In June, the Senate again ordered that the government table the framework. It is, after all, suppose to be a document upon which the government planned these so-called saving measures. This time we were informed, as we have heard again today, that to reveal this framework would be to damage relations between the states and territories. Rubbish! Rubbish! All that would be damaged by the release of this information would be the Prime Minister's credibility.

We all know what is actually happening here. The Labor Party were more than happy to march arm in arm with disabled people, to proclaim their willingness to defend the NDIS from the slashes and the cuts of the former government. They were so happy to take the votes of disabled people at the election on the basis that they would protect our NDIS. In fact, now what we are seeing is the laying of the groundwork for them to implement the very same cuts, the very same measures, that were being cooked up by the previous mob. If I am wrong, if there is nothing to fear from this financial sustainability framework, then cough it up; share it with the public. (Time expired)

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to agree with Senator Steele-John with regard to this. There should be an explanation, but we're not going to get one from the Labor government with regard to the NDIS. With the way it is being operated now, it is an unsustainable scheme. In 2016, the scheme had approximately 30,000 participants. Now we have 610,502. It is unsustainable. In the last budget of the Labor Party, at the moment it is about $35 billion a year. You've added another $21 billion to it over the next four years, and it's going to be costing $56 billion. It's estimated to rise over $90 billion in less than 10 years. It is unsustainable.

The people we have on this scheme are not means tested. We means test for pensions and disability pensions, but we don't mean test for the NDIS. I can't understand why. It should be means tested. The number of children we have put on this scheme has blown out terribly. As of June 2023, we have 99,395 children younger than seven with an NDIS plan, and a further 14,556 accessing Early connections. This is unsustainable. We are getting more kids on it for autism—what level of autism? We need a government that actually controls who goes onto these schemes. You can't have doctors just willy-nilly looking after friends and families and ticking off on it—'Yes, go on the NDIS.' It cannot happen that way. It should be government doctors only, responsible to the taxpayers, advising who gets onto these schemes. As I said, it needs to be means tested. That's the only way we will be able to have this scheme into the foreseeable future. The number of people getting onto the scheme on a daily basis is astounding. I don't have those figures here with me at the moment, but I know it is to the tune of thousands who are getting on it every day.

And then you read reports like this one, about an $11 million NDIS rort. The rorting in the scheme is unbelievable. We've know about this for years, and large numbers of people have complained about it. I have to say, I'm impressed that Bill Shorten has actually jumped on this to rein the scheme in. In this report I mentioned, the woman is in New South Wales. They spent a quarter of the money in real estate. It was found in bank accounts, and they did a raid on their office. But what penalties are we going to have? That's what I ask. There were another two fellows in South Australia who were caught up with rorting the scheme, and they got two years. Two years! How much money did they get out of it? Are they going to keep those proceeds? Doing two years in prison is nothing if you're walking away with millions of dollars. It is pathetic—absolutely pathetic—if you do not do more to rein in the fraud that is happening with the NDIS. It's the same as my efforts to get you to rein in the fraud that is happening in the Aboriginal industry—you turn a blind eye to it. You're not interested. You don't care about the taxpayers' dollars.

It is important to rein in the frauds that are happening with the NDIS. When the whole scheme was first sold to me, I questioned it right from the very beginning. In the very beginning, they said it was going to cost $2 billion, and that was the administration cost. I questioned that. I spoke to those parents and they said, 'We need to know that our children are going to be cared for and looked after and have a decent sort of life.' I could understand that. But the people we are putting on the NDIS scheme are bloody ridiculous. I heard of a prisoner who got out of prison and, because he can't handle life by himself, he's on the NDIS scheme—$100,000 a year because he can't go out and walk the streets by himself. He doesn't want to do shopping by himself. This is what we're paying for. We're paying for people to go horseriding. We're paying for them to take holidays to places that that average person can't go to. We're actually paying for them to have these holidays. Sex workers are being paid as well.

This is why you will not expose what this is costing. You don't want the Australian people to know this. But we have to know this, because the next thing you will be wanting to do is to tax Australians more. Why don't you cough up and let us know what your plan is? With most things, you haven't got a plan at all. (Time expired)

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

Not even the writers of Utopia could possibly have imagined up the last 18 months under the Labor government and their mismanagement and lack of transparency on the NDIS. That lack of transparency has again been there for all to see in Senator Gallagher's response—or in fact her nonresponse. I commend Senator Steele-John for pursuing this motion—you can rest assured that we on this side of the chamber are with you all the way—to get this information from the Labor Party.

For those of you who are not familiar with the background, let me fill you in. Before the election, when I was Minister for the NDIS, I went to Bill Shorten and said, 'Let's take a bipartisan approach on this.' He basically gave me the two-fingered salute. Instead of working with the government to fix what clearly ailed the NDIS, he started saying, 'There's no sustainability issue,' and he started riling up the sector for political gain.

Just before the election he also said that he didn't need any more money for the NDIS, because he thought it was fully funded. After the election—surprise, surprise!—he'd clearly never read any of the budget documents or quarterly reports and never heard anything from estimates to actually see what was happening with the NDIS. Instead of taking action—because it is very clear, for the reasons I'll go through in a minute, what needs to be done with the scheme—he has commissioned an 18-month inquiry. Basically, he's Nero fiddling while the scheme is burning. We'll get the report sometime later this year. They've done a good job so far in identifying the problems that another 30 reports before this one had already identified. There is no indication that this government has any clue or any desire to take measures to fix this scheme.

What happened? After the April National Cabinet, it was announced:

Whilst the Scheme remains demand-driven, the NDIS Financial Sustainability Framework agreed by National Cabinet will provide an annual growth target … of 8 per cent …

This is for a scheme that is already increasing by 14 per cent per year. I think the NDIS financial framework, unicorns, dragons and fairies have one thing in common—they actually don't exist. At estimates in May, I asked the officials if there were papers for the National Cabinet—'yes'. They agreed National Cabinet wasn't cabinet-in-confidence. Then I asked, 'Could the papers, or at least the strategy framework, be tabled?' It was: 'Oh, no, we can't do that.' Then they came back and said that the first ministers would need to agree on the release of any documents. I don't see that as a reason in the PII that the minister has just claimed as a reason not to provide it.

In the response to the order for the production of documents on 3 July, a letter from Jim Chalmers was tabled by the minister. He wrote:

I continue to claim public interest immunity over the document prepared for the National Cabinet meeting … as its release would be detrimental to relations between the Commonwealth and the states and territories.

The release of a document that consists of four words—the title—would be detrimental, I suspect, because it simply does not exist.

I'll come to the PII response from the minister today. What the minister didn't read out is that if the minister concludes it's not in the public interest to provide the information, the minister must do two things: first of all, provide a statement of the ground for that conclusion. Tick! That was provided. However, the guidance also says the minister must specify the harm to the public interest that could result if the information is provided. The Treasurer and, now, the Minister for Finance have not met that threshold. There is no reason at all for them not to provide this. I bet you it's something to do with the fact that they've got a 14 per cent annual increase, they've said they're going to take it down to eight per cent and in fact cut by $15.3 billion, but they haven't said how. There are two drivers of costs for this scheme: participant numbers and average cost per participant. They have no plan to deal with both, but they must have some idea because they've said they're going to reduce it from 14 to eight per cent.

They are not being honest with the Australian people and particularly with the 610,000 Australians who rely on the NDIS with their families. Shame on you! I call on everybody in this place to keep the pressure up on the government, because they have not met the PII test. (Time expired)

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government rejects many of the assertions in the motion, although—and I will come back to this later—I think, Senator Steele-John, we share a commitment to the NDIS and its importance in the lives of people with disability. I will speak about that briefly.

I want to start by reflecting on the role of public interest immunity in the way the Senate historically has sought to manage its business. This government is committed to transparency. I made a contribution in the chamber just an hour ago, running through our record since coming to government in responding to the questions that are placed on notice here in this chamber and in the estimates process, and also running through the statistics that you can observe from the previous government, who took a very different approach. Public interest immunity provides an important avenue by which governments may protect the interests of the public in the service of good government. The minister representing the Treasurer has outlined that the government has claimed public interest immunity over this document. Disclosure would prejudice relations between the Commonwealth and the states and territories, and the harm that would be caused is this: that disclosure would harm the government's ongoing relations with the states and territories on this and other matters—and these are important matters.

I recognise that there are people in this chamber who, on this occasion and other occasions, seek to dismiss the importance of public interest immunity. I question the motivation for this, particularly for those that are members of parties that claim to be parties of government. I'll just run you through the grounds that are conventionally accepted by the chamber: disclosure of cabinet deliberations; Commonwealth and state relations; disclosure of privileged legal advice; damage to commercial interests; prejudice to international relations; protection of personal information; commercial confidentiality; and prejudice to legal proceedings. These are matters that parties of government should think about when putting information into the public domain. People on the other side who wish to assert that these matters are not of significance should, I think, reflect on the consequences for our system of government and the capacity of governments of all persuasions to undertake the business of government in the public interest and to protect that.

Senator Steele-John, at the heart of your argument today is a set of arguments about the significance of the NDIS to people with disability. Labor is proud of its record on the NDIS. We created it, and, under Labor, it is here to stay. There are now almost 600,000 NDIS participants, and they report increased freedom and control over their lives to be in their community to work, to make friends and to spend their time as they choose because of the scheme. There are things we need to do to get the scheme back on track, and our core purpose in doing that is to improve outcomes for participants and ensure the sustainability of this scheme for current participants and future generations. It's why, since coming to office, we've invested in NDIA capacity, capability and systems to improve participant experience. As the budget papers outlined, this has helped reduce further growth in the scheme by $15.4 billion over the forward estimates. We've increased the number of people with lived experience of disability at the heart of decision-making in the NDIA. Fifty per cent of the board and 30 per cent of the NDIA executive now consists of people with disability. Our core purpose is this: we want to make sure that people get the help the system was designed to provide, and we are committed to doing the work to make sure that is the case now and into the future.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This public interest immunity claim is just another shameful episode by this government. What about the participants? What about the families that you are causing a huge amount of angst to?

Let me point out to the government—and, while Senator Pratt scoffs over there, I'm the mother of a participant. I've worked with an awful lot of participants and their families. I'm the Deputy Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS. I spent four days last week across Victoria and Tasmania meeting with NDIS participants.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hughes, just a reminder to direct your comments to the chair.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through you, Acting Deputy President: perhaps you can remind that scoffs from those opposite are disorderly. We got a lecture on disorderly behaviour today, so perhaps we could see that upheld by their own behaviour.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Reflections against other senators is contrary to standing orders, so I would ask you to reflect on your comments but also to direct your comments through the chair.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was responding to an interjection. Through you, Madam Acting Deputy President: families that are involved in the NDIS, participants that are involved in the NDIS—families and people rely on the NDIS to be an important part of their life going forward so that they know their child will be taken care of when they are no longer there, able to care for them themselves. Absolutely shame on you, hiding behind this PII claim when you are undermining something that is the most important thing in many families' lives and many people's lives to ensure that they are able to participate every day.

They hide behind states and territories, saying the government's relationship might be damaged. Let me tell you what the problem is with the states and territories relationships. The Labor government may have introduced the NDIS, but they completely mucked up the design by protecting the states and territories from any increase in costs, saying: 'Don't worry about it. Just sign on, and the Commonwealth will pick up the tab for every increase in cost.' You know what the states and territories did? They said, 'Excellent; the Commonwealth's going to pick up the fees, so we're going to vacate the field.' There's no more community health speech therapy. There's no more community health occupational therapy. Teachers' aides in classrooms? You've got to be kidding me! There is no support in the education system. The states and territories have vacated the field. So, if those opposite are hiding behind a relationship with the states and territories, I'll tell you why they are hiding behind it. It is because the states and territories don't care about people with a disability. The Labor government introduced the NDIS, and this Labor government continue to give them a leave pass.

If the government were serious about sustainability, any conversation would include how states and territories need to be brought back to the table. They need to be shown a copy of the Constitution. You're big on the Constitution at the moment; maybe you can show the states and territories what they're responsible for delivering. That includes health, education, mental health—all of those things. Do you know a lot of people go on the NDIS for psychosocial disorders? This lot, when they got into government, couldn't wait to cut the number of services that were available through the Better Access to mental health care, because they don't care. It's all about helping their unions.

I come to this because we know it's not about making sure we have better services, choice and control for participants; they're trying to push as many people and as many providers as they can through to a union platform because they've got to give their pound of flesh back to their union masters. This is what we're seeing in their IR reforms. The IR reforms are almost a blatant attack on Mable, which is a horizontal platform that people with disability use every day to get support workers.

What those opposite don't understand is that it's actually a platform that people with a disability use to allow themselves to get into the workforce. Remember when it was called same job, same pay? It's now some loophole thing; clearly it didn't poll well as a slogan. What happens to people with a disability who have negotiated agreements with an employer? Say there's a cleaner who takes a third or two-thirds longer to provide that service and a company is now forced to pay someone with a disability and a cleaner without a disability the same. Do you know what's going to happen? The person with a disability is going to lose their job. But they don't care about that over there, because that person is probably not a member of a union. They don't care. They will continue to hide.

We keep seeing these media drops, and they're going to start excluding conditions. Is autism out? Are we going to start doing something about just cutting out autism? We know what Minister Shorten wanted originally. Rather than looking at taking data from the early childhood pathway and looking at functional assessments like Vineland and the Mullen scale to actually determine what level of assistance a child needs and whether or not, in a very objective way, you can say to a family, 'You've made great gains, and your child does not have a permanent lifelong disability, so we can move them off the scheme,' these guys have no interest. They have no understanding and no capability to manage this scheme, which they built. All credit to the scheme; it's absolutely life changing for people. But they mucked it up in its implementation and they're continuing to destroy it.

Question agreed to.