MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator STEELE-JOHN (Western Australia) (17:32): Folks, let's just take a breath. There's a lot of political noise going on at the moment in this place. Let me step out very clearly what is occurring in this moment.
The Liberal Party, for the last six weeks or so, has been engaged with me in a Senate inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. The members of that committee—ably contributed to by Senators Liddle, Askew, Kovacic and others—have heard directly from the disabled community and our families, as well as allied health professionals, service providers, disability experts, legal advocates and the Disability Discrimination Commissioner.
The evidence has been overwhelming; the verdict has been unanimous. The bill in its current form should not pass. The bill in its current form will enable multibillion-dollar cuts not to the fraudsters and the big providers, not to those massive corporations that are ripping people off and not to the criminal CEOs and the abusive service providers that are responsible for so much of the pain that is experienced by disabled people.
The bill doesn't really touch them. The bill cuts, over the next four years, nearly $40 billion from the vital supports needed by disabled people and provided under the NDIS. These are the supports that enable you to go outside, go into the sun, help your kids get to school and be part of your community.
This bill grants sweeping powers, we heard, to the minister of the day to take control over a disabled person's life and to dictate what accessible supports they may be able to utilise. It enables the government to subject people to medical interventions before they enter the scheme, regardless of the waitlist for those interventions. Therefore, how long might they be asked to sit in the dark and wait for the supports?
As committee members, we were pretty much of a unanimous view that this bill is something, in its current form, that should be chucked in the bin or shredded and that there should be an additional inquiry. The disabled community and our families very clearly said to this chamber, to this parliament, the bill shouldn't pass in its current form. The Greens and I, with me being the only physically disabled person in this chamber, talked with everybody in this place to achieve the best outcome for the community.
What we saw announced yesterday was an additional two months for the inquiry in order to allow more evidence to be gained and more pressure to be built on this government to chuck their bill in the bin and, if they won't do that, to persuade the Liberal Party—who, up until that point, had been listening with great concern to the experiences of disabled people—to join with us in chucking that bill in the bin.
That's where I thought we were some 48 hours ago, and now we have this motion from the Liberal Party, which asks the chamber to pass these reforms in this sitting fortnight. These reforms, this bill, will put disabled lives at risk. You're now 'team ram it through in the next fortnight', are you?
This is not a serious proposal. This is not a serious party in this moment. I am not sure, quite frankly, what's going on here, folks.
Some could say that you're a little bit mean in this moment. I reckon some of you, on an individual basis, are better than that. I hope to be proven right in the next few weeks.
(Time expired)