DOCUMENTS
Senator REYNOLDS (Western Australia) (10:17): For 18 months, senators in this place have been coming to ask those opposite for the most basic of information on the NDIS. I heartily endorse Senator Steele-John's comments that this government, shamefully, not only have a complete lack of transparency but have basically given a one-fingered or two-fingered-salute to senators and to the over 650,000 Australians now on the NDIS.
Apart from the colossal failure of those opposite to actually deal with the problems, time and time again in this place, when I approached Bill Shorten as the minister and said, 'We have some serious structural issues with the NDIS that we need to fix, and we need to be able to control both drivers of cost: the number of people on the scheme and also the average cost per participant on the scheme,' we heard Bill Shorten say, 'There's nothing wrong with the scheme; you're just making it all up.' He comes into government and says, 'Oh, dear; I never read the budget papers or any of the reports from the NDIS, and the scheme is in trouble.' Instead of saying, 'Oops, we got it wrong,' he just doubled down.
He had another review that was completely unnecessary. He said, 'We can't really do anything until after the review's finished,' and 18 months later he said, 'Well, we're not going to make any cuts to the scheme.' Well, that was just a big fat untruth. I'll go through the numbers in a second.
They have been cutting on this scheme as if there were no tomorrow, indiscriminately. What we haven't really heard—and Senator Hughes touched on it—is that foundational supports, as they're now called, are what was called tier 2 supports when the Commonwealth government went into interim intergovernmental agreements with states and territories. The states and territories were always responsible for community based support for those who were not going to be eligible for the NDIS.
Don't forget that this was a scheme for Australians who had the most serious and permanent disabilities—those Australians who lived miserable, horrible lives in state and territory facilities and who were denied the most basic human respect and dignity. Those opposite now have a strategy just to get themselves through the next election. No wonder Bill Shorten scarpered off before the election and before his financial fraud was exposed.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Minister, on a point of order? Senator McAllister: I'd ask Senator Reynolds to reflect on the way she just characterised the former member for Maribyrnong. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Just reflect on it.
I don't think it was an adverse reflection but be measured in— Senator REYNOLDS: I was mentioning him by his name. 'Former minister Shorten', then—I'll say that. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: It was the 'scampering away'. But I don't think—I think that was what you were suggesting, Minister.
Senator McAllister interjecting— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: It's not a debate. Senator McAllister: Senator Reynolds is persistently referring to Mr Shorten incorrectly. He should be referred to as 'Mr Shorten', notwithstanding the fact that he's no longer serving.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Please take that on board, Senator Reynolds. Senator REYNOLDS: Former Minister Shorten has left prematurely and left every single NDIS participant and their family with an almighty mess, which is impacting on their lives in the most profound of ways. But the biggest of so many things in the mess that he has left behind, which Labor are now scrambling to make sure doesn't come out before the election, is that they've cut $60 billion out of the scheme.
They've forced tens of thousands of participants through reviews. They've delayed plans. They're still hiding budget figures.
They commissioned Redbridge and spent an enormous amount of money on how to spin this through. Let's have a look at what they're actually hiding. Total payments continue to increase due to both increased participant numbers and a higher average cost per participant—the two drivers of cost.
That's despite everything they say—this mythical eight per cent, which is what is in the budget. Senator Hughes last week was talking about an $11 billion black hole. Well, I'll tell you what, when you have a look at the fiction of the NDIS figures you see it is far more than that.
This is the fact: total payments continue to increase due to both cost drivers. In the first quarter it was $11.5 billion of expenditure. This total payment level is actually on track to exceed last year's expenditure on the NDIS, which has not been budgeted for in this year's budget.
So now the government are desperately talking to the states and territories: 'Can you give us a loan?' They've had 2½ years and there is no agreement with the states and territories on foundational supports. Why would there be? They vacated the field, as Senator Steele-John said, for nearly a decade.
Not only are they not going to find the money but it's already a thin provider market. Where are these people going to come from? Plan inflation also continues to rise, with the annualised inflation level at 12.8, not their mythical eight per cent.
This is a fraud on people with disability and on all Australian taxpayers. Question agreed to.