Portfolio — 22 April 2026

Patrick Gorman's 22 April activity spanned two distinct policy domains — workforce skills in Western Australia and NDIS sustainability reform — with both streams carrying substantive announcements.

The headline employment action was the launch of the Big Sister: Advanced Mentoring WA Project in Joondalup, a two-year initiative targeting women's entry and completion rates in the electrical trades [TA-260422-dewr-400438589bfc]. The programme is designed to reach approximately 900 young Western Australian women, with a distinctive structural feature: participants begin pre-apprenticeships while still in high school, compressing the pathway into trade qualifications [TA-260422-pmc-cfd96fe4e70b].

The College of Electrical Training is identified as a delivery partner in the source records. The launch framed Big Sister alongside the government's $10,000 apprenticeship incentive scheme, which has recorded over 2,000 take-ups among housing construction apprentices in Western Australia — a pairing that positions the minister's portfolio as addressing both the gender composition and volume shortfalls in the trades workforce [TA-260423-dewr-19a4d0bb204a].

On the same day, Gorman appeared on Behind Party Lines in his capacity as Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister to defend NDIS reforms announced that morning. The government's stated goal is to reduce projected scheme participation from 900,000 to 600,000 by the end of the decade, framing the reduction as a product of sustainability measures and fraud removal rather than eligibility cuts [TA-260422-pmc-44b9977f609a].

Gorman's central argument was that the scheme inherited in 2022 was already on an unsustainable trajectory, that new assessments would be phased rather than immediate, and that exiting participants could be redirected to alternative support mechanisms — including school-based services — rather than specialist NDIS appointments. The Opposition offered conditional support for the sustainability objective but challenged the government's execution record, pointing specifically to delays in the Thriving Kids programme and questioning whether fraud safeguards in the reformed system would be adequate.

Gorman's response cited unchecked invoice payments under the previous arrangements as evidence of systemic control failures the reforms are intended to correct.

The two streams share a common thread in Gorman's ministerial identity on the day: both the Big Sister launch and the NDIS radio appearance involved the minister operating as a public face for government initiatives with announced delivery targets — 900 women over two years in one case, a 300,000 reduction in NDIS participants over roughly four years in the other.

The employment portfolio activity was Western Australia-specific; the NDIS content was national in scope.