The SPEAKER (09:31): I present report No. 7 of the Selection Committee relating to consideration of committee and delegation business and private members' business on Monday, 27 February 2017. The report will be printed in the Hansard for today, and the committee's determinations will appear in tomorrow's Notice Paper. Copies of the report have been placed on the table.

The report read as follows—

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SELECTION COMMITTEE

REPORT No. 7

Report relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and of private Members' business

1. The committee met in private session on 14 February 2017.

2. The committee determined the order of precedence and times to be allotted for consideration of committee and delegation business and private Members' business on Monday, 27 February 2017, as follows:

Items for House of Representatives Chamber (10.10 am to 12 noon)

COMMITTEE AND DELEGATION BUSINESS

Presentation and statements

1 Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy

Living with fruit bats: Inquiry into flying-fox management in the eastern states

The Committee determined that statements on the report may be made — all statements to conclude by 10.20 am.

Speech time limits —

Mr Broad — 5minutes.

Next Member speaking — 5 minutes.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 2 x 5 mins]

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Notices

1 MR WILKIE: To present a Bill for an Act to amend the law in relation to parliamentary entitlements, and for related purposes. (Parliamentary Entitlements Amendment (Ending the Rorts) Bill 2017)

(Notice given 14 February 2017.)

Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes — pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.

2 MS PLIBERSEK: To move—That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) in the coming weeks, more than one million Australians will resume their university studies for the 2017 academic year;

(b) the Government's failure to release its plans for university funding and fees is creating uncertainty for students planning to commence their studies in 2018 and beyond;

(c) Australian students already pay some of the highest university fees in the OECD;

(d) increasing fees will leave young Australians with significant debt burdens; and

(e) paying off significant debt puts extra pressure on young Australians at critical times in their lives, like when they are saving for a house or considering starting a family; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) end the uncertainty facing students and their parents and finally make it clear, after nine months of inaction, what its plans are for higher education funding and fees from 2018;

(b) rule out significant fee increases;

(c) abandon its 20 per cent cut to university grants;

(d) reverse its short-sighted cuts to the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program; and

(e) confirm that it will prevent the Americanisation of our university system through higher fees and higher student debt.

(Notice given 14 February 2017.)

Time allotted — 50minutes.

Speech time limits —

Ms Plibersek — 5minutes.

Other Members — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 10 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

3 MR BROAD: To move—That this House:

(1) congratulates the Government on the success of the National Stronger Regions Fund (NSRF);

(2) acknowledges the significant and positive impact that the NSRF is having in rural, remote and disadvantaged regions around Australia; and

(3) notes that the:

(a) Government is investing $153,814,329 million in 53 projects around Victoria under 3 rounds of the NSRF; and

(b) NSRF is delivering infrastructure projects to create jobs in regional areas, improve community facilities and support stronger and more sustainable communities across Victoria.

(Notice given 21 November 2016.)

Time allotted — remaining private Members ' business time prior to 12 noon.

Speech time limits —

Mr Broad — 5minutes.

Other Members — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

Items for Federation Chamber (11 am to 1.30 pm)

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Notices

1 MS MCGOWAN: To move—That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) for more than eight years, regional communities in northeast Victoria have been frustrated by significant engineering failings on the Wodonga-Melbourne rail line;

(b) in 2016 the trains were on time 79.7 per cent of the time, with the rate dropping to 55.2 per cent in November, the train now takes half an hour longer to get from Southern Cross to Albury than 10 years ago;

(c) the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) maintains that it is meeting performance obligations under the terms of the 44 year lease agreement with the Victorian Government and under its charter;

(d) the ARTC has spent $134 million on remediation works that have not improved passenger rail services, with trains regularly slowed or replaced by buses; and

(e) the current arrangements are not meeting the need for reliable passenger rail services, instead regional communities are viewed as freight corridors; and

(2) calls on the Australian Government:

(a) as the sole shareholder of the ARTC, to update the ARTC Statement of Corporate Intent to ensure that passenger services and the transport needs of regional communities are considered core business;

(b) to direct the ARTC to release and review the current agreement between the ARTC and the Victorian Government for the Wodonga-Melbourne rail line, giving due consideration to the passenger rail services and the transport needs of regional communities; and

(c) to develop a long-term plan for passenger rail services that meets the economic, social and environmental needs of regional Australia.

(Notice given 7 February 2017.)

Time allotted — 20minutes.

Speech time limits —

Ms McGowan — 10minutes.

Next Member speaking — 10 minutes.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 2 x 10 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

2 MR WALLACE: To move—That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the 'EU-Australia Leadership Forum' was launched by Minister Bishop at Parliament House on 18 October 2016 following the European Union in Brussels, presented by Minister Bishop and European Union High Representative Federica Mogherini on 8 September 2016;

(b) the Forum will bring together a broad representation of talented individuals in government, business, academic and civil society from both Australia and the European Union to discuss common challenges and opportunities;

(c) Australia and the European Union are liberal democracies that share unwavering commitment to the rule of law and open markets to secure peace and prosperity for their citizens; and

(d) the Australian Government intends to encourage closer economic cooperation with the European Union through the negotiation of a European Union-Australia Free Trade Agreement; and

(2) welcomes these positive developments in the European Union-Australia relationship.

(Notice given 8 November 2016.)

Time allotted — 30minutes.

Speech time limits —

Mr Wallace — 5minutes.

Other Members — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

3 MR CHAMPION: To move—That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) On 20 October 2017 General Motors Holden will end automotive production at the Elizabeth plant; and

(b) on 3 October 2017 Toyota will end automotive production at the Altona plant; and

(2) acknowledges the devastating impact the end of automotive production in Australia will have on:

(a) workers and their families;

(b) the communities around Elizabeth and Altona;

(c) support industries;

(d) the national economy, and in particular the economies of South Australia and Victoria; and

(e) Australian manufacturing as a whole.

(Notice given 7 February 2017.)

Time allotted — 30minutes.

Speech time limits —

Mr Champion — 5minutes.

Other Members — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

4 MS MARINO: To move—That this House:

(1) congratulates the Government on the success of the National Stronger Regions Fund (NSRF);

(2) acknowledges the significant and positive impact that the NSRF is having in rural, remote and disadvantaged regions around Australia; and

(3) notes that the:

(a) Government is investing $66,336,110 in 34 projects around Western Australia under 3 rounds of the NSRF; and

(b) NSRF is delivering infrastructure projects to create jobs in regional areas, improve community facilities and support stronger and more sustainable communities across Western Australia.

(Notice given 21 November 2016.)

Time allotted — 40minutes.

Speech time limits —

Ms Marino — 5minutes.

Other Members — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

5 MR HART: To move—That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) poverty is an ongoing and serious problem in Australia;

(b) recent figures by ACOSS found that 13.3 per cent of the population is living below the poverty line of 50 per cent of median household income;

(c) Tasmania has the highest proportion of Australians living in poverty;

(d) poverty among Australians is on the rise and is a consequence of structural inequality;

(e) despite Australia's extensive and well-targeted social safety net, over 2.5 million Australians continue to face serious financial hardship, impacting their quality of life;

(f) the gap between rich and poor in Australia has been steadily rising. Since 1975, earnings have risen three times as fast for the top tenth of wage earners as for the bottom tenth;

(g) poverty is associated with worse health and education outcomes and a higher risk of exposure to both violence and prison; and

(h) the government's cuts to welfare payments and inaction on housing affordability and equitable tax reform are likely to increase Australia's poverty and inequality levels; and

(2) calls on the Government to explain to the House how it intends to reduce inequality and poverty in Australia.

(Notice given 7 February 2017.)

Time allotted — remaining private Members ' business time prior to 1.30 pm.

Speech time limits —

Mr Hart — 5minutes.

Other Members — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

Items for Federation Chamber (4.45 pm to 7.30 pm)

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Notices - continued

6 MR GEORGANAS: To move—That this House:

(1) acknowledges Australia's important role in building a fairer and more equal world through its contribution to international aid;

(2) notes that:

(a) while the global community is making progress towards ending poverty, hunger and the worst epidemics, global inequality remains a problem with many millions still living in extreme poverty;

(b) challenges such as the threat of global unrest and conflict, human slavery, refugees, terrorism and radicalisation, mass migration, humanitarian crises and climate change, all require global solutions and cooperation;

(c) Australian aid makes a significant contribution to addressing the root causes of conflict, helps prevent the factors that drive people to seek asylum and helps create stronger democracies, stable states and strengthen communities and economies; and

(d) nations that were once aid recipients such as China and South Korea now have fewer people living in extreme poverty and are now major economies and trading partners for Australia; and

(3) acknowledges the continuing need for Australian aid to increase to advance our common goal to eliminate poverty around the world in line with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals signed by former Prime Minister John Howard in 2000, and reconfirmed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015.

(Notice given 1 December 2016.)

Time allotted — 30minutes.

Speech time limits —

Mr Georganas — 5minutes.

Other Members — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

7 MRS SUDMALIS: To move—That this House:

(1) recognises the important work being done in Australia to support people with disability;

(2) celebrates the winners of the Tenth National Disability Awards 2016; and

(3) notes that International Day of People with Disability is on Saturday 3 December 2016.

(Notice given 8 November 2016.)

Time allotted — 30minutes.

Speech time limits —

Mrs Sudmalis — 5minutes.

Other Members — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

8 MS T. M. BUTLER: To move—That this House:

(1) notes the decision of the Fair Work Ombudsman not to fund the work of the Queensland Working Women's Service (QWWS) for vulnerable workers;

(2) recognises that the QWWS has:

(a) been providing free, specialist information, advice and representation to vulnerable women about work related problems since 1994;

(b) assisted thousands of women to access information, advice and advocacy in relation to employment matters or concerns, including over 4,000 specialist advisory sessions to vulnerable workers during 2016; and

(c) negotiated over $770,000 by way of settlements for outstanding entitlements or compensation for alleged breaches of industrial and discrimination laws for clients during the 2016 financial year; and

(3) recognises the important work that the QWWS has been providing to vulnerable Queensland women for over 20 years.

(Notice given 7 February 2017.)

Time allotted — 30minutes.

Speech time limits —

Ms T. M. Butler — 5minutes.

Other Members — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

9 MR T. R. WILSON: To move—That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) on Friday 11 November, Australia commemorates Remembrance Day;

(b) the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month is a significant anniversary for this country as it signifies the ending of a war where over 60,000 Australians lost their lives;

(c) of these 60,000, over 16,900 Australians remain unknown or unaccounted for on the Western Front;

(d) it is on Remembrance Day that the body of an unknown Australian soldier from the Western Front was laid to rest in the Hall of Memories at the Australian soldier; and

(e) in July 2016 six formerly unknown Australian soldiers were given Headstone Dedications at the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery;

(2) acknowledges:

(a) that many communities across the country pause to remember the sacrifice of Australian service men and women; and

(b) the significance of this day to all unknown Australians killed in action; and

(3) notes that during the 'Century of Service' that is occurring between 2014 and 2018 Australians are given a chance to remember the service and sacrifice of all who fought during World War I.

(Notice given 21 November 2016.)

Time allotted — 45minutes.

Speech time limits —

Mr T. R. Wilson — 5minutes.

Other Members — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 9 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.

Orders of the day

1 FUNDING FOR SCHOOLS: Resumption of debate (from13February2017) on the motion of Ms Plibersek—That this House:

(1) notes the Government's failure in school education policy, including:

(a) a cut of $30 billion from schools (Budget 2014-15 Overview, 13 May 2014, page 7), breaking an election promise to match Labor's funding plan dollar for dollar;

(b) a proposal to cut all federal funding from public schools; and

(c) tearing up agreements negotiated by the previous Labor Government, that required states and territories to:

   (i) maintain and grow their funding for schools, in return for increased Commonwealth funding; and

      (ii) improve teaching quality, literacy and numeracy; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) urgently share a detailed plan for future funding of our schools, including the funding each state, system and school will receive from 2018 onwards;

(b) reverse the cut of $30 billion from schools;

(c) explain why they tore up agreements that required states and territories to increase funding for schools as Commonwealth contributions increased, and improve teaching, literacy and numeracy; and

(d) prioritise funding for disadvantaged schools and introduce a proper students with disabilities loading, so all schools and students have the resources they need for a great education.

Time allotted — remaining private Members ' business time prior to 7.30 pm.

Speech time limits —

All Members speaking — 5 minutes each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day

THE HON A. D. H. SMITH MP

Speaker of the House of Representatives

15 February 2017

Mr JOYCE (New England—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) (09:32): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017 will help in our fight to manage biosecurity risks and further strengthen Australia's biosecurity system.

A strong biosecurity system contributes to a strong economy. Our agricultural industries are forecast to earn $60 billion in 2016-17.

Today threats to our biosecurity can emerge faster than ever before. The recent global outbreak of zika virus, spread by Aedes aegyptimosquitoes, has shown us how important control of disease-carrying pests is.

This bill will provide additional powers to control exotic mosquitoes and other disease carriers at Australia's airports and seaports, including on incoming aircraft and vessels.

This includes spraying insecticide to kill mosquitoes capable of carrying zika virus as well as other disease-carrying vectors so they do not establish populations in Australia.

The bill gives us the ability to direct airports and seaports to control such incursions.

The bill will strengthen Australia's ability to manage ballast water in ships. It will provide additional protection for fisheries and coastal environments from the risk of marine pest incursions by fostering new, more effective, ballast water treatment technologies, and phasing out ballast water exchange.

The bill will position us to ratify the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments.

This convention was adopted in 2004 and signed by the Howard government in 2005. It is a key international measure for protecting marine environments. It aims to stop the global spread of potentially invasive and harmful aquatic organisms that can cause havoc to marine ecosystems, especially diseases that are current, such as white spot in prawns. These organisms can be transported in the ballast water of ships travelling around the world and can effect biodiversity and lead to substantial economic loss to our maritime industries.

The convention is an important global initiative involving over fifty countries. It will come into force internationally on 8 September 2017. We hope to ratify it this year.

For Australians more broadly, these amendments mean there is much less risk of infection from viruses such as zika. It also means we can continue to enjoy the sea and all the joy that it brings us.

Strengthening Australia's biosecurity system through these legislative amendments means we can continue to enjoy our unique environment, and way of life.

Debate adjourned.

Mr KEENAN (Stirling—Minister for Justice and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Counter-Terrorism) (09:36): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Native Title Amendment (Indigenous Land Use Agreements) Bill 2017

Second Reading Speech

The Native Title Amendment (Indigenous Land Use Agreements) Bill 2017 responds to the recent full Federal Court decision in McGlade v Native Title Registrar. It provides certainty to indigenous and non-Indigenous parties alike where they have voluntarily made, or are proposing to make, agreements about the use of land and waters subject to native title.

The effect of the McGlade decision was to overrule an earlier decision of a single judge of the Federal Court in 2010 in a case called Bygrave (No. 2).

Bygrave settled the law in relation to the necessary requisites for an Indigenous land use agreement to be registered.

Bygrave held that it was not necessary for all members of the registered native title claimant (who are the authorised representatives of the broader native title claim group) to be a party to the ILUA.

Rather, Bygrave held that what was important was that the broader native title claim group, being those claiming to hold native title in the area, had authorised the making of the proposed agreement.

The McGlade decision has overturned this position, requiring that all members of the registered native title claimant be a party to the agreement.

This is a very significant development in relation to not only Indigenous land use agreements that have already been registered in reliance on the rule in Bygrave, but in relation to all Indigenous land use agreements seeking registration.

This is because the effect of the decision in McGlade is that the will of the broader native title claim group may be frustrated because not all members of the registered native title claimant have signed the agreement.

This may happen for any number of reasons including that the member of the registered native title claimant does not agree with the decision that the broader claim group has made, or has passed away or became incapacitated before being able to sign the agreement.

These amendments seek to return to the status quo ante as established in Bygrave (No. 2)for agreements that have already been registered or were awaiting registration at the time of the McGlade decision, and which were duly authorised by the broader native title group and which followed the law as it was at the time.

These particular amendments will operate retrospectively to counter the potential impact of the McGlade decision.

The amendments will give primacy to the decision of the broader native title claim group for agreements in the future, as it is the group who claim to hold native title within the area of the agreement who should ultimately have the right to decide whether an agreement should be accepted or not. Greater reliance on collective decision-making reflects the communal nature of native title rights under the act.

The amendments provide that the native title claim group may nominate one or more persons of the registered native title claimant to be a party to the agreement.

The group may also specify a process for determining who will be a party to the agreement. This will guard against the possibility that the person or persons they nominate become unable or unwilling to be a party to the agreement.

If the claim group does not specify a process for determining who is to be a party to the agreement it will be sufficient if a majority of the registered native title claimants are parties. This position is consistent with the recommendations made by the Australian Law Reform Commission in its Connection to country report that the registered native title claimant should be able to act by majority.

To give maximum flexibility to native title claim groups when making these key decisions, the bill also implements recommendations 10-1 and 10-2 of the Australian Law Reform Commission report, by allowing the group to follow a traditional decision-making process if one is available or to agree to another decision-making method. Currently a group must use a traditional decision-making process if one exists.

Taken together, the amendments in this bill will provide certainty to Indigenous and non-Indigenous parties who have already registered their agreements or whose registration is pending. These measures will protect the benefits and interests that have been granted on both sides, and provide certainty for parties who have commenced or are proposing negotiations for an Indigenous land use agreement. The amendments return the control over the realisation of such agreements for Indigenous parties to the hands of the wider group of native title holders, who can ensure that their will is carried out.

Debate adjourned.

Mr HILL (Bruce) (09:43): It is fair to say that I did not come to Canberra to talk about parliamentary entitlements and work expenses. Indeed, few people here would say that that was their motivation. I have been told it could be considered a little courageous, in the Sir Humphrey sense, to even speak on this and express a view, but I did want to share a few thoughts from three perspectives. Firstly, as a new member here, still adjusting in my transition to this chaotic and complex environment; secondly, as someone who, as a citizen with a deep interest in public affairs, has watched this mess of entitlements play out over many years and despaired at the lack of reform, the inability to fix the system and the damage that has been done to public trust and confidence in our national life; and, thirdly, relatively fresh from a long and hard fought campaign, where I spoke, for more than 12 months, to literally thousands of people. In the middle of the Bronwyn Bishop saga, I remember for a few weekends that I certainly heard the full gamut of views from the community.

Firstly, as a new member. When we are out of the spotlight of this chamber, it would be no exaggeration and fair to say that many of my colleagues, particularly us new folk—I see the member for Fremantle, a new member like myself—live in abject terror of making a mistake with a travel or expense claim. And there are two reasons for that.

The first reason is that the rules are a complex mess. The current system comprises a mishmash of legislation, regulations, rules, guidelines, determinations, unwritten conventions, ministerial decisions and so on, and it is almost impossible to get a definitive answer on some matters. There are literally hundreds of pages of documents and web pages to try and figure out what you are supposed to do. I noticed that the Prime Minister told us in the second reading speech that there are apparently eight separate handbooks that the Department of Finance has produced to explain the framework, which scared me even more, because I am still not sure that I have managed to find all of those handbooks. Like many people dealing with government, though, and we are no different in that regard, we usually just want a clear yes or no—simple: is this permitted or not?

Obviously, in the political realm, once you understand whether or not something is permitted, you of course need to overlay your own moral or personal and political judgements on that, and that is our responsibility. But you can only do that when you have a sensible understanding of what the rule actually is, what is permitted, within which you can exercise judgement. So, like all of us, I am hoping that the new framework will clear things up.

One caution, which I know still worries people, is that there will always be matters of discretion and judgement because it is impossible to codify everything in this or indeed most other businesses. And, while our first duty is to our electorates, which is where those of us who are new, in particular, spend the vast bulk of our time, I also believe that, if we take this role seriously, we have national responsibilities and need to develop national perspectives. People should expect us to be curious about developing and considering national views in the national landscape to engage with businesses, stakeholders, governments and so on. Parliamentary committees are a primary mechanism by which we do this, but at times it is necessary and legitimate to travel and meet with people elsewhere in the country to advance issues important to our electorates and to build a picture and understand how the country ticks.

The second reason that we live in abject terror is that the media coverage and public perception is now so poisonous that there is no tolerance left for even the most honest of mistakes. Aside from the rules, the forms are complex and archaic; they are full of codes and little columns; you need to go back to the websites and manuals to make sense of it all; and they are the kinds of things that you do just infrequently enough to have forgotten what you read last time, because it really is not the most important thing in your day. But the reality is that, with the best will in the world and the most perfect systems, over hundreds of people in many years, some honest mistakes will be made. It is a pity, I think, that there is no tolerance or understanding left in the system for MPs as a species, particularly for those of us who try and do our best to do the right thing, and that is a bit confronting. But I hope that the new rules and the authority which are in the bill we will debate shortly will over time reset the environment so that there is some common sense and perspective available.

The second perspective I wanted to add is that of a citizen who has watched the mess of entitlements play out over the years. I have seen a long and slow but continuing degradation of trust in the political system and in MPs, which is distressing to watch, and I mean that sincerely. I say that as someone who confesses to being a bit of a nerd for politics, public policy and democracy. Unlike many, since childhood I have always had an interest in public affairs and public service and just how the world ticks, how we shape change and approach the future. Coupled with that, like many here, is a respect for this institution of parliament. As a keen observer it was as much of a surprise to me as anyone that I came to join this place.

Now, I do not respect and have not respected every member of this place or the other place, and I do not like and have not liked or approved of the way all members have approached order to approach their role, and I do not agree with all the ideas they put forward. But I have always deeply respected the office, and that is a key distinction based on which I hope we can start to rebuild some public confidence, and start to re-prosecute and establish a distinction between the person who occupies an office at a given point in time and the office itself.

I know that is not a fashionable view, with the prevailing cynicism. But my distress at watching the degradation of trust is not just an intellectual or personal thing; I believe that trust in our political system and elected members is part of the capital of our democracy. Many policy commentators have written in recent years about what is termed 'the trust deficit', and the real-world impacts and harms that that trust deficit does to our society and country, and that this trust deficit is hampering the ability of the political system, certainly in the last decade, to progress reform, to act in the national interest and to prosecute beneficial changes which may not be popular in the short term but are good for the country. It is the kind of thing we see where there is a lack of trust and capital, under the previous Labor government, in politicians as a species. It is certainly not the only reason, but unfortunately we end up with situations where you cannot prosecute a sensible policy conversation because it is too easy to rip down the politicians leading it about how we tax the resource industry and so on.

Of course, the media play a part in this, and the narrative is written—that sort of prenarrative that we all get stuck into that we are all on the take, we are all here on the gravy train and that is our sole motivation, and so on. But the system, combined with a few MPs who do stupid and unconscionable things, then feeds this narrative. So I dearly hope that these new arrangements can draw a line in the sand, reset the issue, rebuild some trust and focus debate on more meaningful things for the people we represent.

The third thing that I want to touch on is community expectations. Having doorknocked extensively, I think it is fair to say that there are a range of views out there, many of them strongly held, as to what is considered reasonable work expenses for members of parliament. Indeed, that is an understatement. I certainly heard the full gamut of views while out and about during, as I touched on earlier, the three weeks or so that the saga ran in relation to the previous Speaker and the infamous helicopter ride. There was utter community bewilderment that anyone could think it was appropriate to ride a helicopter—a luxury helicopter, I notice; it was the upper model—from Melbourne to Geelong for a political fundraiser on a golf course. In that sense, 'entitlement' is not a misnomer; it is a completely accurate use of the word. It is a kind of peak Tory Australian version of the British Tory moats, which I think was the archetypal example that finally forced reform—welcome, beneficial reform, so we hear—with the creation of an independent authority in Britain.

There is the view, of course, at one end of the spectrum, as I said, that we are all in this for the money or the pension. I just want to put on the record that I do not get a pension. I will not get a pension. I do not get a pension. I will not get a pension. I do not get a pension. There is probably a rule about repetition; I cannot remember the standing order, but you get the point. The majority of us here now, I think, will not ever get a pension. We do not get a parliamentary pension. But the number of times that people in the street still stop us and say, 'Oh, you'll be right; you're only in this for the pension,' is astounding. For people elected after 2004, there is no parliamentary pension scheme, yet still this persists. That raises some concern for me about how long, even if we fix this system once and for all and the authority works, it is going to take to wash these scandals out of the public consciousness and rebuild that trust. But we have to start.

As one former senator put it to us in some of the briefings of new MPs last year, his view was that the reality is that nothing we could do would make some people happy. Even if we were paid nothing and walked to Canberra while people lined up to throw fruit at us, he told us, it would still be an outrage. But I actually find that, if you spend a few minutes with people and get past that rightful anger and frustration, most people—that big bit in the bell curve, in the middle of the median distribution—are pretty reasonable. They believe that good MPs work hard, travel frequently and are away from our families more than anyone would wish on others.

As someone who has travelled a fair bit for work in my previous lives—more than some, less than others—my firm view is that work travel can seem glamorous except when you actually do it. I see nodding around the chamber. Most of us have around 150,000 people in our electorates, depending on the number of noncitizens and where the boundaries are drawn—put Tassie out of the picture. That is a fair number of people, and I think most people in the community seem to accept that, if they want us to be able to return a phone call, respond to the emails, read the letters, attend to the legislation and pressures of the job and so on, it is reasonable to ensure that, while people hold elected office, they should be supported to be able to work and move around the country quickly, efficiently and safely. Having worked with MPs and ministers from all sides of politics for many years, I have always held that view myself before coming here. Having seen the lives of ministers up close and personal, I know it is a very difficult life, and I have great respect for those opposite who currently hold that responsibility and the burden that they bear, and particularly for their families. I will hold that view when I leave, maintaining that distinction, as I mentioned before, between the person and the office.

I note, though, that community expectations now do not support generous benefits anymore for MPs after they leave elected office. That is being addressed, for example, with the abolition of the Life Gold Pass. That does mean that costs for transport and accommodation are absolutely essential if elected MPs are to do their jobs properly. Provided we are not using taxpayer funds to buy apartments or go on holidays and so on, work expenses are necessary.

And I do spare a thought for some of my colleagues who have copped, I think, some pretty unfair media—gratuitous and lazy summer media—just for doing their jobs. I did once have a job managing a couple of hundred staff across Victoria, which I know is not really a region compared to many in this place. But I have some appreciation for the difficulties of travel and transit for the MPs from regional seats. I know that my life in the city is so much easier, logistically. It is hard to comprehend for many opposite, but it is easy for some on our side who hold enormous electorates. The stories about MPs from regional seats chartering planes—shock, horror!—to move around their electorates are, I think, nonsense and lazy. I do hope to see an environment where those things are simply not media and are understood.

WA MPs always feature at the top of the travel list, as if there is something odd about that, because no-one has noticed that Perth is actually a long way away from Canberra and the flights cost more. Who knew? Or the foreign minister went overseas and therefore had a high travel bill! I would hope that an environment where the rules are clearer, where there is proper accountability and transparency, where things are audited and where these reforms strike a fair balance can start to restore public confidence.

Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (09:56): I also rise to speak on the Parliamentary Entitlements Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 today. I was keen to do so primarily because my views on the scrapping of the gold pass have certainly been grossly misrepresented by various media outlets that have not even bothered to check the facts or pick up a phone and speak with me.

I appreciate the comments that were made by the previous speaker in this regard. Quite frankly, there is lazy journalism and those with their own particular agendas, or those who see themselves as commentators rather than having an obligation to report the facts. Unfortunately, it is a growing trend. I thought I would take the opportunity today to set the record straight.

Most aspects of this bill I do not really have any issue with at all. I agree with imposing a 25 per cent loading on travel claims that require a subsequent adjustment, so long as they are found to be a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts and not an honest oversight, given the complexities as were described by the previous speaker. I think there needs to be the flexibility to accept that complexity can cause errors—quite often not in the favour of the member, but nevertheless errors. They should not be penalised for that. The bill also limits the travel provided to dependent children of senior officers to those who are less than 18 years of age. I have no issue with that either.

The bill makes other amendments to enhance parliamentary work expense frameworks, such as establishing an authority to make payments beyond entitlements in certain circumstances, and I agree that there needs to be, as I said earlier, a certain level of flexibility in this regard. So, again, I have no issues with that. And the establishment of a statutory authority to recover payments that are beyond entitlement from parliamentarians and impose that loading of up to 25 per cent on certain claims, in itself, I do not have an issue with—as long as there is clarity and transparency in any of the decisions that are made.

The bill also abolishes the Life Gold Pass for all pass holders, excluding former prime ministers and their spouses. It is the fact that this bill retrospectively removes eligibility for Life Gold Pass travel from 14 May 2014 that I have a very major issue with. To be absolutely clear, I have no issue with the abolition of the gold pass for all future travel. Members' and senators' remuneration today is very different to what it was 30 or 40 years ago. We have a new pay package now that no parliamentarian should be unhappy with, and it does not need to include side benefits such as a gold pass.

However, most politicians who are able to access that gold pass have earned it under very different conditions to what we have here now. I am talking about those that were in this place 30 or 40 years ago or more. There was an acknowledgement that a parliamentarian's salary at that point in time was very low. As a result, there were extra incentives for long service. For the average backbencher to earn the gold pass, they had to serve seven terms, a period of around 21 years. Most of the public and the media either do not know that or tend to overlook it: seven terms, or 21 years. It is a long time. We know how tough it is—and I say this to all of those that have come in here for the first time—to go through one election, let alone to earn the trust and the confidence of an electorate to win seven consecutive times. Very few politicians over the decades have managed to achieve this, given that the average political life is somewhere around six years. The overwhelming majority of people that serve in this place never, ever have access to that, and for that matter they do not have access to a lot of the other things that are often cited here—for example, even the previous superannuation scheme. Most of them never got access to that.

But we need to acknowledge that for those that did access it it was part of their package well before all of these changes happened. I accept that it should never be uncapped, and I understand that that uncapping was for senior executives and prime ministers, but nevertheless it should not have been uncapped. There is always a limit. There should be a limit, and it should be restricted to particular types of travel and be subject to regular reviews.

However, I have to say that the majority of passholders use it for the purpose it was intended for and ensure that there is some level of community benefit. The issue is that, where there have been breaches, people have not been prosecuted. If passholders have abused it, they should have been penalised, rather than there being the kneejerk reaction that we have seen here today. In 2014 there was a high-profile incident where a handful of individuals were identified by the media as excessively using the system. Have a look at who they were. They were all former prime ministers, former senior cabinet ministers or former Speakers, all of whom had accelerated access in gaining the gold pass over the average member of parliament. In the case of the Prime Minister, the fact that you were appointed Prime Minister gave you automatic entitlement. In the case of senior cabinet ministers, you got an acceleration of three to one. So the value to those earning that was significantly less than for those that had done their seven terms, their 21 years to access it, and I think that needed to be recognised.

The decision to scrap the gold pass, in my view, was a kneejerk reaction. Instead of addressing the problem and actually defending the rights of those who in previous parliaments had earnt that as part of their employment contract, now we are going to see that this decision is going to have an impact on people that have long since left this place. At the same time, the people making this decision have made sure that they are not going to be impacted by it. It is a rather interesting scenario. For all those backbenchers who earnt it over an extended period of time, I think it is shameful to take it away from them after they have left the parliament. They are not being given the opportunity to express a point of view to defend it or put forward their case.

So my argument is on behalf of those on all sides of the chamber who have already served and are no longer with us. Yes, by all means abolish the gold pass, but if it is going to be retrospective let's take it off everybody, including former prime ministers, or let's set some time frames. Let's argue that if you have not done five years as a Prime Minister then you are not eligible. I understand that there will be some effort in the other place to make amendments of this nature. That would save even more money for the taxpayers by ruling the member for Warringah ineligible, along with the former members for Lalor and Griffith. Even the former member for Blaxland, Prime Minister Keating, would also be ineligible. Let's have it for long-serving prime ministers—five years or more—to be able to gain that eligibility.

Let's go back for a moment. We talked about the gold pass and the outrage that is expressed by the broader public about the fact that gold passes were actually attached as part of an employment contract for members of the parliament. This is not a unique situation. I am going to reflect on my own father, who joined the Queensland railways in the 1950s and spent his entire working life working with Queensland Rail. He retired in 1982 due to illness, but the thing that he was most proud of was that he had earned a gold pass, which was presented to him on his retirement.

My dad died 20 years ago, but my mum, who is now 87, still has that gold pass which allows her free travel on Queensland Rail. She does not use it, but still has pride in the achievement of her husband. Should we take it from her now in retrospect? I would argue no. And there are lots of other incidences where gold passes have been allocated for service that has been given over extended periods of time. Why should the service of members of this place it be any different—and I am talking about extended service—from anywhere else? And why should we, after they have served their time and left this place with a great deal of honour for the work they have done here, suddenly say, 'Well, we've changed our minds. Now we're going to go back and take that from you.'

As I said, gold passes are still being handed out to Queensland Rail employees, as they are across the country in many other areas. In the case of Queensland Rail it is after 25 years of continuous service. As I said, other professions also reward longevity for one company. Their spouses and dependents aged up to 16 years, or 21 if they are full-time students, are also eligible. I know it is hard for the younger generation to comprehend, given how people expect to chop and change between jobs and industries these days, that in those days things were very different.

I have also spoken to a number of former colleagues about this. Alex Somlyay, a good friend of mine—I would like to highlight his situation. Alex retired four years ago after 23 years in this place. He was one of the whips when MPs salaries were increased from $140,000 to $190,000 a year. The superannuation of previous members remained calculated on the lower level because of the benefits that were included in the package, such as gold passes and study leave. For the new members, it was calculated at a higher level because they did not have access to these additional benefits. Alex tells me that he has used his gold pass twice in four years. The first time was to come to Canberra for a function in the parliament. The second time he travelled to Melbourne to speak at a seminar about his work in the parliament. When I talk to the majority of ex-members there are similar stories.

The thing that the general public has to realise is that for most of us when we finish in this job, the last thing we want to do is get on another aeroplane! I have spent 20 years travelling to this place for up to about 20 weeks of the year, and then flying around my electorate. It is about eight hours of travel from when I leave my home to when I get down here. And then of course there is all the committee work by aeroplane. And in my electorate—as the previous speaker mentioned, one of the larger ones—I have to travel from my home base in Cairns up to the outer islands of the Torres Strait, which is only four kilometres from the mainland of Papua New Guinea. So I spent a lot of time on small aeroplanes. I spend a lot of time in helicopters and on dinghies, and on a whole range of other transport to get to these places. In my retirement, I can assure you, the last thing that I want to see on a regular basis is an aeroplane, unless there is a good cause for me to travel!

While I think it is disappointing that the government has removed the gold pass in this, at least I am still here to make noise in this parliament about this issue. My key concern is that we are establishing a very dangerous precedent of retrospectivity that can apply to anything in the future. When governments see themselves with a problem and they can just take away something that individuals have earned over the years, that is something the Liberal Party has stood against. It has certainly argued against retrospectivity.

Next time, it may not be the politicians who are affected—and yet we are allowing this to happen. The prospect of retrospectivity has now been established through a Liberal government, with the full support of the opposition. Let me assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, you never know where this is going to end.

At the same time, it is interesting that we have another piece of legislation that has just been introduced and this is the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Bill 2017. In light of the controversy regarding the former minister for health, this bill aims to prevent future inadvertent or purposeful misuse of entitlements. It has been raised after numerous travel claim controversies et cetera. What is interesting about this one is that it is going to cost more to establish this than what they claim the savings are in relation to the abolition of the gold pass—which, over a short time, would have died out naturally with those who have received it in the past. I just find it amazing that they would actually do this.

I have to say that Ministerial and Parliamentary Services have always done a pretty good job, and if there are any issues it is because of the ambiguity of the guidelines. I have always thought that the Remuneration Tribunal was an independent body responsible for determining financial packages. So I think we had it pretty well okay. This legislation would establish another bureaucracy.

To conclude, the most disappointing thing about this is that I am accused of arguing purely in my own self-interest. People forget that I argued against retrospectivity in the superannuation debate, and people applauded that—the public and the media. As a result, we had some success in getting changes. Now I stand to make the same argument and people criticise me, because this one is different—no, it is not different. I am being consistent. But I also point out that at the same time as the government and the opposition are freely allowing retrospectivity on this issue, the government is working hard to avoid the same sort of reform in the paid parental leave legislation, where they are actually deferring it to avoid retrospectivity in that case. There is no consistency. I know my vote will not make a difference on this issue, but I think it is important to put my objections on the record. I do not support this bill.

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (10:12): I rise to speak on the Parliamentary Entitlements Legislation Amendment Bill with mixed feelings. I am heartened to see that the government is finally taking some action to impose penalties which would provide a disincentive for parliamentarians to rort the system. But I am frustrated by the many years of inaction; the endless reviews and reports that have served to delay any action or change. In reality, it is too little, too late. In fact, it could be described as a kneejerk reaction; a form of damage control in response to the most recent scandal, with further legislation foreshadowed to be introduced later in the autumn sitting.

The last time a Prime Minister took decisive action about travel rorts was in 1997, when then Prime Minister Howard took only three days to sack three ministers over inappropriate travel claims. Of course, Prime Minister Howard was bound by a code of conduct which set out an expectation that all action by a minister should be calculated to give the public value for its money, with an expectation that they would not abuse any of their privileges. It is a sad indictment of the state of play that the code of conduct has long since been abandoned.

Since that time, the pattern in relation to expenses scandals has been predictable. Firstly, an expenses claim that has failed to pass the 'pub test' comes to light. Then there is increasing public outrage, magnified in recent times by the proliferation of social media as a mechanism to spread the story. The Prime Minister of the day toughs it out for as long as possible and the person at the centre of the controversy makes a statement that they 'acted within the guidelines'.

Sometimes money would be repaid in accordance with the `Minchin protocol'—that is, pay back the incorrect amount and no further action will be taken. If the situation festers with the public even after repayment, on a couple of occasions people have resigned from the ministry or from an office of the parliament. Then the government of the day responds by announcing a review of parliamentary entitlements, with an implied or explicit promise to implement the changes recommended in the review. Or it hastily introduces legislation to implement changes which were last announced on 9 November 2013—yes, that is right; a major part of this bill is giving effect to changes announced almost four years ago.

To be fair, almost a year after the changes were announced, the government introduced a bill to implement them—you cannot rush these things, can you?—but it failed to give it a high-enough priority, and the bill lapsed without being passed before the last election. The Nick Xenophon Team is committed to greater accountability and transparency in relation to parliamentary entitlements. It is part of our core values, the DNA of our party. In fact, I fear that my colleague Senator Nick Xenophon must feel like he is trapped in a version of the movie Groundhog Day in relation to parliamentary entitlements. In 2015 Senator Xenophon introduced a bill that would have meant harsher penalties for breaches of the entitlement rules but it was rejected by both the coalition and Labor. Senator Xenophon's bill would have led to more transparency, an independent watchdog, greater financial penalties, the public having a right to complain and monthly disclosure of pollies' perks. Significantly, he proposed a penalty of double the amount claimed if MPs are found to breach the rules, increasing to four times the amount for repeat offenders. That would have provided a much greater incentive to do the right thing than the 25 per cent loading proposed in this bill. It also amazes me that the only time the major parties agree on anything, such as rejecting Senator Xenophon's bill, is when they are acting out of self-interest.

So that claim brings me to the proposed 25 per cent loading on incorrect travel claims. In my view that it is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough. It is marginally better than the current system, which Senator Xenophon recently described as 'like being slapped in the face with a piece of wet lettuce'. It is a stronger disincentive if we can double the penalties of those overpaid and, as proposed in the 2015 bill, also then have extra penalties if you are a repeat offender. I want to foreshadow that I intend to move an amendment during consideration in detail to substantially increase the penalty for submitting incorrect claims. I believe this is in keeping with public expectations, and also it serves to benefit all of us as we all then have greater integrity in our communities.

Another major element of this bill is the discontinuation the Life Gold Pass for travel of all former MPs except Prime Ministers. I support this wholeheartedly. I cannot think of any reason why former MPs should be entitled to have business class travel funded by the taxpayer. There is no other circumstance that I am aware of where a retired or sacked employee has their ongoing travel paid for them by a former employer. No wonder members of the public have consistently expressed outrage over this particular perk. I listened intently to the member for Leichhardt's speech, and I would just say to him: in what other job, 20 years on, do you still get airplane travel? He did mention Queensland Rail, but let us remember: that is a business; that is not the taxpayer paying for that travel.

I would like to turn my attention to the travel entitlements for current parliamentarians. As many of you know, the Nick Xenophon Team members choose to travel economy class even though we are entitled to travel business class. We believe that travelling business class is a waste of taxpayers' money. Certainly, for flights of less than two hours it is an unnecessary indulgence. I have done a back-of-the-envelope calculation and I estimate that if parliamentarians who travel on flights of less than two hours travelled in economy instead of flying business class for sitting weeks, we would be saving over $2 million a year. That is right: we could be saving more than $2 million per year if we were required to have a seat at the back of the plane. Some people might say, 'It's only $2 million; it's not much'. In my book, that is a lot of money. My mum used to say to me that if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves, and this change to entitlements is something that I believe is worth pursuing. Again, it will restore public confidence in us.

I want to focus on the term 'entitlements' for a moment. The term itself is problematic, because it clearly leads to the expectation that one is 'entitled' to have travel paid for by the taxpayer, rather than it being related to a work expense. This creates a mindset of privilege and is partly what leads to people claiming to attend weddings, to claim New Year's Eve parties, sporting events and to fund family holidays. The most recent review, released in February 2016, recommends changing this terminology to refer to it as 'work expenses'. I hope that the foreshadowed legislation to be introduced later in the autumn sitting will take up this recommendation.

I would also like to spend a bit of time focussing on the rules or guidelines. There is no doubt, as has been observed in the reports of both 2010 and 2016, as well as the National Audit Office report of 2015, that the rules are complex, confusing, contradictory and difficult to follow and administer. They also allow claims that are legitimate under the rules which do not pass the pub test. The 2016 report recommended adopting a new principles based system allowing the parliamentarian flexibility to apply judgement, choice and personal responsibility when using it. If parliamentarians were able to apply judgement and personal responsibility, we would not have the travel rort scandals we are seeking to address in this parliament!

On a personal level, I am absolutely appalled that people who have sought public office with the level of public trust and personal ethics that that should entail seem to be incapable of asking themselves the simple question, 'Is this a legitimate work expense?' or that, when considering putting a claim in to attend a friend's or colleague's wedding, or a sporting event, they do not ask themselves: 'Would taxpayers expect to pay for my travel to this event?' This is at the heart of the problem with the current system. While something such as a family reunion visit might be allowed within the rules, taking one's family to Central Australia or a beachside resort is not in the spirit or the intent of the provision; neither is manufacturing business appointments to coincide with personal business. It is simply not ethical.

So I have to confess that I am sceptical about moving to a principles based system. However, the aspect that might curtail inappropriate travel expenses would be the requirement to publish travel expenses on a monthly basis on a publicly accessible website—which is the subject of another bill before the House. These provisions would provide for public scrutiny and lift the public's perception of us all. Our standing with the public is very low because of the rorting by some. I think we are actually below used car salesman. We must work towards restoring the confidence and trust of the public in us.

In summary, I think that the current system needs a complete overhaul. The Parliamentary Entitlements Legislation Amendment Bill is tinkering at the edges. It does not fundamentally change the rules around the parliamentary entitlements. We will still be operating under a system that is complex and confusing, where people make claims that are allowed under the rules but that are not in line with public expectations. Senator Xenophon recently said:

… the current rules are a joke, and they need to be changed.

I support this legislation, recognising that it is a step in the right direction, and I look forward to the next phase of reform, which has been promised in the autumn sittings, ensuring greater accountability and transparency in parliamentary entitlements. This has been a personal mission of Nick Xenophon's for many years and is now firmly embedded in the ethos of the Nick Xenophon Team as something we are 100 per cent committed to and something we will continue to fight for. I invite every member of parliament here to join me in economy class; it is really not that bad.

Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (10:22): After three years of broken promises, the government has finally found the courage to abolish the Life Gold Pass travel perks for former politicians. The end of the gold pass scam really is a victory for the strength of public opinion. This scam has been hanging around like a bad smell for years and would still be in place had it not become untenable for MPs to be associated with what really is an elitist scheme. Whilst this is an important step and one the Greens will support, we think it should go further. We do not understand what reason there is for an exemption so that some members of parliament should still continue to get it.

More importantly, there does need to be a thorough overhaul of the so-called entitlement system. Really, members of parliament should not be expecting to get additional entitlements—allowances for work related expenses that are in the public interest, yes, but entitlements, no. We need to clean up and reform electoral funding so that big business cannot make big donations to political parties. As we are seeing at the moment in parliament, then they get to write the laws and in some instances get to rewrite the laws of this country. If we really want to restore public confidence in our democratic institutions, we need to get the big money out of politics, we need to get it out of donations during election campaigns, we need to ensure that expenses that are claimed by parliamentarians are legitimate and we need a much more thorough overhaul of the system than we are currently seeing from this government. Members of parliament, of course—it should not have to be said—use public money to do their job, and they are doing it on behalf of the public and for the public, so accountability to the public should be an integral part of any allowance scheme.

This gold pass scheme that is the subject of this bill has been a long time under our blame. It was first introduced in 1918 and originally provided unlimited domestic travel to former members of parliament, but since 2002, in response to growing public disquiet over the scheme, the reach of the gold pass has been reduced, but not always with the unanimous support of current and former MPs. In that year, the pass was changed to limit retired MPs to 25 return flights a year. In 2012, this was further reduced to 10 return flights. The Gillard government wound up the whole scheme for MPs who retired after 2012. Last year, four former federal members of parliament lost a High Court challenge that they were hoping would ensure they retained their Life Gold Passes that entitled them to free travel. In the notorious 2014 Abbott-Hockey budget, the government committed to further reduce the gold pass for all former members except prime ministers, but the changes under this plan were not due to be in place until 2026. But, even with that extended time line, the government failed to take the legislation through both houses, despite having cross-party support that would have ensured the passage of the bill.

When current Prime Minister Turnbull became Prime Minister, he continued to drag the chain, and the government was all over the place. Then, in the second half of 2016, the then Special Minister of State promised the bill would be introduced before Christmas, and that did not happen. But after a woeful summer, during which the rorting of the system was exposed for all to see, even this government was no longer able to sit on its hands and was forced into action. At the end of last year, before the scandals broke, the Prime Minister claimed that his government was too busy to deal with the gold pass legislation. When you remember that there was a period towards the end of last year where the Senate ran out of legislation to deal with, you really wonder whether the government would have done this at all had it not been for the exposure of so many scandals.

But the good news is that the government has come to its senses. It has been dragged there kicking and screaming by the public and by parties in parliament who have been calling for reform in this area for a very long time, including the Greens. The gold pass repeal is no longer on the shelf gathering dust while the government dithers. The gold pass itself is now going to be consigned to the dustbin of history, and this will be a small step in restoring public confidence in how members of parliament undertake their work.

On the question of penalties that has been raised and was going to be agitated further, and on the question of amendments that will come up in this bill and another bill, I say that, when these bills come before the Senate, the Greens will be pursuing amendments consistent with our policy that there needs to be greater scrutiny and accountability of expenses that are claimed and that there ought to be fewer perks paid to members of parliament who have retired. So we will be pursuing those amendments when we get there, and we will be having a lot more to say about the bills when the matters come before the Senate.

I will end my contribution here, but I will say more during the amendment stage. I foreshadow that here in this place I will be happily supporting the amendments moved by the member for Mayo. You will find that, when it comes to the Senate, we will argue that it should even go further, but the amendments that are to be moved by the member for Mayo here are a good step in the right direction and they deserve to be supported. But I will say that, if the government were serious and really wanted to restore faith in our institutions, we would not have to be dragged kicking and screaming and then taking the minimal action possible. What we would be saying is, 'It's time for a thorough overhaul of the relationship between money and politics,' and we would be looking around the world at how they do it elsewhere. We would be saying, 'Perhaps the answer lies in public funding of election campaigns with limits on how much can be spent.' That would be a discussion that we would have to have with the Australian people, because it would involve putting more money into elections. But, if you said to people, 'Look, you're already tipping in an enormous amount of money into elections anyway,' and if the quid pro quo of publicly-funded elections is that donations are excluded and private money has less of a sway over what happens, I think a lot of people would accept that. That happens in other countries around the world, so perhaps we ought to look at that.

We ought to look more broadly at caps being made on donations into the electoral process and, perhaps, even as they do in some states around the country, caps on how much you can spend in a particular electorate. That would level the playing field, and that would stop some of the incentives for money coming in, in the first place—if there was less that you could actually spend during the course of an election campaign.

Until we reform this system, everyone is forced to play by a set of some pretty broken rules. It is the rules that need to change. It would give the public much more confidence if we were able to have that kind of rigorous examination of the connection between money and politics, in this place. Until we fully fix that, a lot of people are going to have a lot of doubts about the integrity of this place, and that is enormously disappointing for Australia, for us and for democracy as a whole.

This bill is worthy of support. We have been calling for this for a very long time. We could have seen action on this a while ago if the governments, at the time, had supported the Greens, but, in some senses, on this bill, better late than never. But we should be amending it so it goes further.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (10:31): I would like to thank all members who have contributed to the debate on the Parliamentary Entitlements Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. This bill implements changes to the Parliamentary Entitlements Act 1990 and Members of Parliament (Life Gold Pass) Act 2002, consistent with reforms announced in November 2013 and in the 2014-15 budget respectively.

In addition to previous announcements, the bill accelerates the termination of access to travel under the Life Gold Pass scheme. The bill ceases Life Gold Pass travel on the day it commences for all current pass holders, including spouses and de facto partners, other than retired former prime ministers and their spouses or de facto partners, and renames the remaining benefit as Parliamentary Retirement Travel. The bill continues Parliamentary Retirement Travel for qualifying current and future retired former prime ministers and their spouses or de facto partners; however, the amount of travel and the purpose of the travel will be limited even further. The bill reduces Parliamentary Retirement Travel by retired former prime ministers from 40 to 30 domestic return trips per year and from 40 to 20 domestic return trips per year for their spouses or de facto partners. The bill requires that parliamentary requirement travel undertaken after 14 May 2014 be for the public benefit.

In relation to the changes to the Parliamentary Entitlements Act 1990, the bill reduces the qualification age for travel provided to the dependent children of senior officers, ministers, presiding officers and opposition officeholders from under-25 to under-18 years of age. The bill also imposes a 25 per cent loading on any claim for a prescribed travel benefit that requires subsequent adjustment, unless the adjustment is as a result of an administrative error made by the administering department or the adjustment is made within 28 days of the original claim. The bill establishes a mechanism to minimise the risk that payments made in the course of administering parliamentary-work expenses will breach section 83 of the Constitution. The mechanism includes a statutory right for the recovery of payments that are beyond entitlement as well as the 25 per cent penalty loading where applicable.

This bill contains sensible reforms to improve accountability, in the spending of taxpayers' money, which strengthen the parliamentary work expenses framework. Once again, I want to thank all members for their contribution, and I commend the bill the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (10:35): I move:

(1) Schedule 2, item 7, page 23 (lines 31 to 33), omit subsection 10C(4), substitute:

(4) The recipient is liable to pay the Commonwealth, by way of penalty for the contravention of section 7A (the current contravention), an amount equal to:

(a) if the recipient has not contravened that section, or has contravened that section once, during the period of 12 months immediately preceding the day on which the claim to which the current contravention relates is made-200% of the amount to which this section applies; and

(b) if the recipient has contravened that section 2 or more times during the period of 12 months immediately preceding the day on which the claim to which the current contravention relates is made-400% of the amount to which this section applies.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are you going to speak to them?

Ms SHARKIE: I would certainly like to. The amendment relates to the penalties, and it is fair to say that a 25 per cent penalty is inadequate. The public will roll their eyes and they will see it for what it is. It is a slap in the face to the public and their hard-earned taxpayer money.

In essence, a $1,000 rort would mean a penalty of just $250. A penalty under my provision would see that if you take $1,000 of the taxpayers' money inappropriately, in the first instance, you would have a $2,000 penalty and, for three offences or more, within 12 months you would be paying $4,000 back on top of that $1,000 rort. I think that is a fair penalty, because what we want to do here is restore, for the public, our integrity.

The Nick Xenophon Team is committed to greater accountability and transparency, in relation to parliamentary entitlements, and I believe that a much larger penalty is needed as a greater deterrent. We have greater deterrents in the criminal system. We do not give somebody who murders another person just three months. We recognise that there are aggregated offences and, for the same thing, what we are looking at here with repeat offending is aggregated offences. If an invalid claim is made, the penalty would either be 200 per cent or 400 per cent depending on the number of transgressions.

This amendment would increase penalties significantly, and I would like to think that both of the major parties would support this and see this for what it is. This is us being far more accountable for our own behaviour, because, when we have one person who decides to take their family on a holiday to Central Australia or they decide that they are going to take their family to Noosa, it affects us all. For those of us who do not stop and ask ourselves whether it is appropriate to spend taxpayers' money in this way, the larger penalty may force them to stop and think.

I urge this House to support this amendment, as it sends a message to our communities that says that most of us are honest, that most of us do the right thing, and that we are prepared to impose harsher monetary penalties on those of us who do not.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (10:37): I thank the member for Mayo. The government's position is clear: we have introduced this legislation to amend the act and we feel that the 25 per cent financial penalty for members and senators who decide to make a repayment is an appropriate penalty in the circumstances. In a sense, these changes are providing additional penalties that, to date, have not existed. So, whether or not one accepts the premise of the circumstances that the member for Mayo describes, these are penalties that will be put in place that hitherto have not been there. So our position is that these are sensible changes and a 25 per cent financial penalty will provide a significant incentive for people to ensure that their claims are correct.

Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (10:38): As foreshadowed in my speech, the Greens will be supporting this amendment because it is a step in the right direction. When the bill comes before the Senate, we will be arguing for a targeted and potentially harsher approach because, in our view, there should be a much higher penalty for members of parliament who knowingly misuse entitlements. An inadvertent mistake might be one thing, but, when you knowingly misuse your right to travel somewhere or to claim overnight accommodation and you have gone to a place—for example, the Gold Coast—just for personal reasons, to improve your own personal financial position by perhaps buying an investment property, that is beyond the pale.

If you fleeced the company that you worked for you would go to jail, or you would face going to jail. If you took money out of the coffers of a company to improve your own personal position and your own personal standing, you would face the full force of the law—and rightly so. So the question arises: when you have a member of parliament who knowingly does something wrong and knowingly says, 'I can get taxpayer entitlement X, Y or Z and use it to improve my own personal situation,' what is the appropriate response? Why should it be any different to someone who defrauds their company or the boss that they work for and who could potentially find themselves in jail? That is a very simple question that the government should answer.

Should we not at the very least—and this is an argument that we will be pursuing in the Senate—be increasing the penalties for those members of parliament who intentionally do the wrong thing? When it comes to the following bill, we will have more to say about the expenses authority and the situation where members of parliament might get the rules wrong. We think there are steps that could be taken to fix that so that you do not incur the expense in the first place. But, if you knowingly do something that is really for personal benefit, surely the consequences should be much higher. Slipping up—okay, let's deal with that in a certain way. But, if you knowingly do something wrong, the penalties should be higher.

This government, in particular, should have some even-handedness, because, if you happen to be someone in this country who has lost their job and is reliant on Centrelink or Newstart to get yourself by until you get back on your feet again, if you miss an appointment, your money gets turned off and you go without. This government says, 'We want to make it even worse; you might have to go up to a month without any money at all'—not for having done the wrong thing but just because you find yourself unemployed. So this government is quite happy to turn around and say to people who find themselves out of a job—and it might because you are living in a town where unemployment is over 20 per cent—'You get no money at all, because you didn't turn up to an appointment,' but then effectively give what could amount to a slap over the wrist to people who have a lot of money and who are in a position to afford this kind of penalty.

So you really have to ask whether this government is prepared to be as even-handed and as tough on politicians as it is prepared to be on people who are unemployed. I reckon the answer is probably no, and that is probably why the government is not going to support this amendment. In moving this amendment, there are some very valid questions as to whether the government has the balance right, particularly when it comes to people who make claims they know in their heart were not right from the beginning.

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (10:43): Labor supports the implementation of the panel's recommendations unaltered and unhindered. On that basis, the opposition opposes the amendment and supports the timely passage of the legislation in its current form.

Parliamentarians of every political persuasion have acknowledged that the complicated and often disjoined system of work expenses can generate genuine error by parliamentarians seeking to utilise work expenses in the course of their duties. The suite of bills proposed to reform entitlements seeks to ensure the system for claims, advice, monitoring and auditing is clear and concise. The intent of these reforms is to remove the incidence of incorrect claims altogether, following the implementation of the Independent Review of Parliamentary Expenses, led by John Conde and David Tune. We have been awaiting the government's response to that review for over a year. It was undertaken by a group of respected and eminent Australians with experience and knowledge in this area. That is why Labor will be supporting the implementation of those recommendations, unaltered and unhindered.

Importantly, for those who might seek amendment, the provisions in this bill allow for review every three years, which is, in the opposition's view, the opportune moment to reconsider changes and improvements. So, again, Labor supports the bill in its current form.

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (10:44): I would just like to briefly respond to the minister's comments in relation to my amendment. I appreciate the minister's acknowledgement that this has never been done before; we have never had a 25 per cent penalty. And so I say to the minister: do it once, do it right. Let us not go back in three years' time. I think that we are missing the community's expectation here, if we think the 25 per cent penalty is enough. It is not enough for this, and particularly if you are a repeat offender and you are rorting—this is using taxpayers' money; this is not using your own money. And so, I think the community expectation for this would be that, if this is your second, third, fourth, fifth or eighth offence of this kind, then you should be receiving a higher penalty. I think the community's expectation is that 25 per cent is far too low. We should be looking at least 200 per cent—because nothing else will ensure that we do the right thing here. We have had so many examples of this.

I have to say, I feel very strongly about this. When one of us is betraying the trust of the public, we all suffer. I know that when the recent controversy was being reported—and it was being reported relentlessly—people in my community looked at me differently. They spoke to me differently. They made requests of me differently. And I felt the contempt that they had for politicians generally being directed at me personally—even though I was not guilty of anything. It was guilt by association. And they seemed to be wondering how much I had my snout in the trough, just like other members of parliament who have been found to be doing just that. And so I would urge both sides here—our two major parties—to show some leadership in relation to this and to support this amendment.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (10:46): I thank the member for Mayo. I think we are all in violent agreement that a penalty regime is appropriate; we are disagreeing on where the line should be drawn. It is our position—and I fear that we are covering old ground—that the 25 per cent financial penalty is appropriate in the circumstances. I welcome the opposition's support of that penalty regime and the 25 per cent penalty—that is the position of the government and we think that it strikes the balance. Again, we will have an opportunity in the legislation to review this in due course, but I am confident and the government is confident that this penalty regime will provide the incentives necessary to ensure that all members—and can I just put on the record that the absolute bulk if not all members are very honest individuals, including those in the opposition and on the crossbench. This is an appropriate penalty regime. However, I thank the member for Mayo for her contribution.

Mr WILKIE (Denison) (10:47): I just want to put on the record my strong support for what the member for Mayo is trying to achieve here, which is to make the penalties much harsher. I agree with the member for Melbourne: the penalties should be much harsher. Let us put this in perspective. If someone—anyone; a member of parliament, a business, a welfare recipient—if anyone knowingly and deliberately takes a sum of money from the Commonwealth—steals a sum of money, effectively—whether it be a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars, that is theft. That should be regarded as a criminal matter. For some reason, we have this idea that if an MP effectively steals a sum of money from the taxpayer, then we might shame them and we might ask them to pay back a little bit extra as a fine, but otherwise it is okay. How would we treat someone who tried to defraud Centrelink of a thousand dollars? The police would go after them, and put them in front of a judge. What would we do if a business tried to defraud the Commonwealth for $1,000? The police would go after them and we would try and drag them in front of a judge in a court. There is no reason for this exemption for members of parliament—that they should pay some paltry little fine, and maybe get a slap on the wrist, and maybe named and shamed.

No wonder the community is sick and tired—they have absolutely had it up to here—with politics and politicians and most of the political parties. Because they think that we have got our snouts in the trough. And they think that we think we are above the law. And how can you blame them for thinking that—when we think it is okay, when the government thinks it is okay, when the opposition thinks it is okay, to have some token penalty for what amounts to theft? If a member of parliament trips around this country and, on that trip, does what any reasonable person would say is substantively a private matter, and then they sign a form to say it was for official purposes, then that is theft. That is a criminal matter. The police should be called in.

Regrettably, I am not surprised at this half-baked approach by the government and the opposition when it comes to penalties, because all of the evidence is that the government and the opposition have been dragged kicking and screaming to this day—kicking and screaming. The fact is that when former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop got into strife over the use of a helicopter and other matters—and there was an inquiry into that—there were something like 36 recommendations. It was early last year that the government announced that those recommendations would be implemented. And here we are, a year later, and they have not been implemented, and the only reason the government is moving now is because of the political pressure as a result of the former health minister. I make the point again: the government and the opposition have been dragged kicking and screaming to this point. Neither side is beyond fault here—the Labor Party: you were in government for years, you did not do anything; the Liberals and Nationals: you are now in government, and it was only the former health minister's scandal that forced you to act. What I would like to see done is exactly what the member for Melbourne has foreshadowed—that is, much tougher penalties.

How dare the government and the opposition come in here and say they will not support the sensible amendments from the member for Mayo? While I agree for the member for Melbourne—we should go much further, and it should be a criminal matter—how can you not bring yourself to support the member for Mayo's amendment? It really goes to demonstrate that you have been dragged kicking and screaming to this point in time, and that what you are doing is the bare—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Rob Mitchell ): I would ask you to address your remarks through the chair, Member for Denison.

Mr WILKIE: My apologies, Deputy Speaker. It just goes to show that both the government and the opposition have, indeed, been forced to come in here most reluctantly—totally against what they would rather be doing right now. They do not have their hearts in it. If Labor had their hearts in it, they would have acted on this years ago. If the government had their hearts in it, they would have acted on the 36 recommendations a year ago. They do not have their hearts in it. They do not care about this. They will keep working together to diminish reform in this area—because, quite frankly, too many of them have got their snouts in the trough. We see it all the time: members of parliament gallivanting all around the country, maybe meeting some colleague in their office for 20 minutes and then spending a weekend in that town, probably with their partner and having a lovely old time, and racking up thousands of dollars of bills on the taxpayer. That is theft and that should be a reason for the Federal Police to be called in.

Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (10:52): I would like to add words of support for my colleagues and briefly add a couple of other salient comments. When we had the election in 2016, a quarter of the population of Australia voted for nonparty members of parliament. In this parliament there are five of us on the crossbench who represent that quarter of voters of Australia who do not want and did not vote for parties. What we are hearing today, exactly as my colleagues have said so well, is a strong voice from the crossbench. We are saying to the parties: 'You have got it wrong.' We are saying that a quarter of the population in Australia want something done about this particular issue and it is significant. So I am adding my voice of support from the people of Indi, a traditionally conservative electorate in the country. We have seen what has happened and we do not like it. We would like the government and the opposition to do exactly what the member for Denison has just said: come together and absolutely show the people of Australia that you get the serious nature of the problem of how we behave.

There is something about bringing on the crossbenchers that makes us a little bit sensitive about this topic. Particularly for the Independents, but I also know this from my smaller party colleagues, the scrutiny that is applied to us is enormous. The scrutiny by the major parties that is applied to every single act I do is so particular. So, as other members have said, we pay particular attention to make sure we follow the rules. We pay particular attention, but not because we want to follow the rules; we do this because we know it is right and proper. We do this because we respect that taxpayers' money—paid and earned so hard by our electorate—needs to be accounted for. So I say to the very good members of parliament, the members of the government and the opposition, 'This is at your peril. If you do not listen to us, it will be upon your shoulders.' There is nothing in this particular bit of legislation for us other than representing our communities.

I bring my comments to a close and say that this debate is going to go on for a bit of time today. We have put an enormous amount of work into working with our communities. We have spoken to them, we have consulted with them and we have asked: 'What would you like us to do as Independents?' What you are getting here today is heartfelt representation. We are saying to the major parties, 'Listen to us. Listen to the quarter of Australians who don't want what's happening.' You have all heard the big debate in Western Australia about preferences and what is happening there. The community is getting behind it and saying, 'There's a pox on your parties. We don't like it.' Here is your chance today to actually do something that would be really popular with the community—really popular—to show the communities of Australia that the major parties get what they are trying to say. Hear the strong message from the crossbench. In adding my comments, I acknowledge the representation of my colleagues and I thank them for the amendments they have brought through. I am absolutely committed to supporting you on those amendments.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (10:56): I thank the members for Melbourne, Dennison, Indi and Mayo. The government does not propose to immediately introduce criminal penalties to this legislation. There are already provisions in place for members and senators, like any citizen, who genuinely defrauds the Commonwealth, but to suggest that a member or senator who genuinely makes an incorrect claim based on very ambiguous rules should face criminal penalties is nothing more than a stunt, in my view. One strong reason for introducing the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority is to provide clarity and certainty for parliamentarians about whether something is within or outside the rules. The government believes this is a better way of approaching things, along with other measures including increased transparency, than continuing to have the system we now have, with vague guidelines, and simply adding criminal penalties to help some on the crossbench get a headline.

Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (10:57): That has to be responded to because that is the biggest strawman argument that I have ever heard. This portrays how this government is not serious about it. When I first got elected to this place and wanted to use a travel entitlement, I rang up everyone I could find to ask, 'Is this trip that I want to do within the rules? I'm new here and I want to know whether it's in the rules.' What I was told by the departments who were just doing their job is, 'We can't tell you whether it's in the rules. You have to make your own assessment about that, and there's no way of it being judged.' That is why, for a very long time, we have pushed for an independent authority that you are able to go to before you incur the expense as an MP and ask for a ruling about whether it is in or out. If we had an independent authority like that, I bet former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop would not have got the tick for a chopper flight to Geelong and I bet several other former ministers would not have got the tick for trips to places where they were about to purchase investment properties or the like. So there is a strawman argument being put up here. There have been pushes for reform for a very long time saying, 'Let's make the rules crystal clear and let's have an independent umpire you can go to before you incur the expense so that you've got absolutely no excuse if you get it wrong.' If we did that, the public would have an enormous amount of confidence in us because they would know that someone was overseeing what we do.

The government have finally heard what the Greens have been pushing for a while—an independent umpire who can make those assessments—and they have come part of the way towards it with their next bill that is coming up. We will have a few things to say about that. That is a good step in the right direction, but it is something they have been dragged to, kicking and screaming, because some light was shone on the behaviour of their own frontbench and backbench and the public said enough is enough. But the minister said, in his comments just then, 'No-one should go to jail for a slipup.' None of us are arguing that. We are saying two things. We are saying: make the rules clear so that there can be no excuse, and put an independent umpire in place before you incur the expense so that members of parliament have no excuse if they do the wrong thing.

We are arguing that there are people who do not unintentionally slip up. Everyone makes mistakes; whether you are working for a private company or for the public, it will happen from time to time. We are not talking about unintentional slip-ups. You can fix the rules so that they are clear and so that people have no excuse but, if—once the rules are clear—you deliberately go out and flout them, then surely you have to be held to a higher standard than someone who makes an innocent mistake. If you go out and say, 'I will use public money to get myself an investment property,' or if you say, 'I will use public money to go to a personal event that has no connection with my work,' then surely that has to be held to a higher standard than someone who just slips up because they filled in the wrong form or did not dot their i's or cross their t's.

If you want to have this argument, Minister, do not build up a straw man. Do not suggest that those of us here are saying that we want people to face potential prison sentences for making a simple mistake. No, we are not saying that. We are saying that if you know what the rules are, you have clarified the rules, and if you then use public money for private gain, what standard should you be held to? If you were working for a private company and did so, you would be charged and hauled in front of a court. If you were a welfare recipient and you did not meet the government's test, you would lose your payment. If the government is seriously saying that the penalty for someone who slips up accidently should be the same as the penalty for someone who intentionally rorts the system, then they are massively out of touch. They are massively out of touch, and they should go and listen to the kind of reform that people around this country want.

Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (11:02): I too would like to respond to the comment from the government. Absolutely, it is true that there is confusion, but there is no argument about how broad this particular area of work is. There was a really good recommendation in the report that was tabled in February 2016—that we should overhaul the system and have one act of parliament that would bring it all together with really clear purpose, and go back to the drawing board to get rid of the confusion.

Minister, I would be really keen to hear your response to that. What is the government's plan for giving us an act of parliament to cover off on this topic? I have not seen in any of the literature I have been reading, nor in any of the briefings that we have had, that there is any commitment from the government to implement that recommendation in the report—one act of parliament that covers it all off and makes it clear. So often in this parliament, when we try to fix things up, we make something like a smorgasbord of everything. I think in this particular instance we need to do exactly what your report has said—develop one act of parliament. Let's clear it all up, let's simplify it and let's stop trying to fix it by adding little pieces at the side that will make it even more confusing and more hard. I welcome your comments, and I would be really keen to hear your advice on when the government is going to accept that particular recommendation.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (11:03): Thank you to the member for Indi. The government is conscious that we want all senators and members to have a very clear understanding of what is within and what is not within entitlement. I think we can all agree that the current set of arrangements certainly provides for a lot of grey area, and that is one of the reasons the Special Minister of State is doing a lot of work at the moment—to try and make that as clear as possible. That will be expedited, though I cannot give an exact time frame.

As for the criminal penalty regime that has been proposed by some members, if anybody, any citizen, knowingly defrauds the Commonwealth, ordinary criminal provisions will apply. But it is our view that a penalty regime of 25 per cent, that could include inadvertent errors, is appropriate and is enough of an incentive to ensure that everybody gets their own house in order and makes sure that those mistakes are not made.

Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (11:05): In that case, I have a question for the minister. If the minister says that the existing arrangement is enough, does the minister believe that the recent scandals that we saw over the summer—where members of parliament used public money to improve their own personal position with investment properties—amount to something that should attract the attention of the criminal law, or does the minister believe that that is the kind of activity that should only be dealt with by a 25 per cent penalty?

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (11:05): I thank the member for Melbourne and, as I passed him in business class when walking down to my economy seat on a plane from Melbourne to Canberra, I did not realise he was such a bastion of purity on these issues—not to mention your carbon footprint, member for Melbourne, in a business class seat compared to mine in an economy seat. Our position is very clear. We think that a 25 per cent penalty regime which, up until today, has not existed, will provide sufficient incentives for members to ensure that they do not make those inadvertent errors. And, if any citizen, senator or member knowingly, deliberately defrauds the Commonwealth, the ordinary criminal law will apply. How hard is that for the member to understand? It will ordinarily apply.

Our position is very clear. A penalty regime of 25 per cent will provide the incentives to ensure that all of us scrutinise our entitlements in a way that, clearly, in isolated circumstances, has not been the case in the past.

Mr WILKIE (Denison) (11:07): I would like to bring a different perspective to this, if I may. I am confident that, by doing this, I will be speaking for a great many Australians. Yes, the rules have been difficult to decode and understand. Yes, there has been ambiguity. Yes, often people have in their own words complied with the rules, they have acted within their entitlement.

I fear that many people in this place have failed to understand that all that sort of talk though just appals the community. For the community, it is about what is right and what is wrong. In some ways it does not matter what the rules are, because there are some fundamental measures of right and wrong. Some people call it the pub test; I would actually rather call it the test of what is ethically right: what is the behaviour of someone with integrity versus something that is ethically wrong or the behaviour of someone who lacks integrity?

In some ways this whole discussion is irrelevant, because it really comes down to what is right and wrong. If someone travels around Australia and, on that trip, the substantive activity is private—even if they are doing some official duties around the margins and then they claim allowances for that trip—then I think any reasonable person would say that claiming those allowances is the wrong thing to do. I think that is the way a lot of people in the community are viewing this. In fact they see our preoccupation with the rules, fines and penalties in some way as a cop-out, because we are suggesting that, by needing to tighten up the rules—and we do need to tighten up the rules, unfortunately—and the time we are spending on debating this, we do not have an understanding of right and wrong and that we need these rules. Unfortunately, we do need these rules in this place, because some people do not have integrity—many people do; there are a lot of good men and women in this place, in all the parties. I am not picking on all of my colleagues. I am not saying I am better than that or I think I will have a cheap shot at the member for Melbourne for where he was sitting on the plane. I think this is an important thing, and it is in the public interest to, as we have generally done, keep the debate and the discussion at a good and civil level.

I want to make that point. It is a little vague what I am saying, but I think people get it. It is the sort of feedback I am getting in my electorate and as I travel around. It is not about the rules. It is not about whether or not the former health minister was within entitlement or outside entitlement. It was about whether or not we are doing the right thing, whether or not we are acting ethically and whether or not we are acting as leaders in the community by setting a good example.

I will talk about the business class point. I think that, if the community had confidence that we are good and competent people in this place—people of integrity, people who are focused on good public policy and we work hard—they would probably forgive us if some people sit at the front of the plane and some people do not. The problem at the moment is that respect for us is rock bottom. When they look at these things—like the former Speaker, the former health minister or other people—they sense that we are not men and women of integrity and that we need to act as people with integrity, because that is ultimately what this is about. It is about right and wrong and, if this place was populated by good people with integrity, you know what? We would not need any rules, and the community would have confidence in us that we were always trying to do the right thing.

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (11:11): I just wanted to make a couple of extra remarks. I would like to ask the minister, through you, Deputy Speaker Goodenough: does the minister recognise that a flat penalty of 25 per cent for the first offence, for the second offence and for the 20th offence will not restore the community's faith in us, which they currently do not have? We are at such a loss in this place as far as community respect for us goes. It will provide very little thought or understanding within the community that we are trying to address this.

Does the minister believe that that is an acceptable penalty when there are repeat offences? It could happen; it has happened before. We only just saw it in the summer where, unfortunately, we had a health minister who was found to have travelled many, many times. Even though that was within the rules of entitlements, it affected every single one of us in here and it brought us down below choppers. It brought us down, and people have such little respect for us so that I think we need to, as a parliament, look a little closer at ourselves and be a little tougher on ourselves for the benefit of all of us, for the benefit of the wider community.

As the member for Denison said, this is about right and wrong. This is about us being able to very clearly see when something is right or wrong and act as leaders in our community, which is what we are supposed to be when we walk into this place. At the moment, the community has very little faith and very little trust in us, and these measures are about restoring that trust.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (11:13): Thanks again to the member for Mayo. I do not think it helps us to get into a debate here about who is more righteous. I think the reality is that the requirement of a repayment of any incorrect claim plus a 25 per cent penalty in my view in a rational sense should not lead to repeat offences. The whole idea that we are imposing a penalty regime that does not exist at the moment for any sane or rational member of parliament would mean that you will not have those repeat offences, and I think, in most cases of what we are talking about today, we are looking in the grey area. I take the member for Indi's point around making the regime clearer for members, and that is what the Special Minister of State is doing now and it will be in the next round of legislation that he will be proposing.

The government's position here is that we are taking a big step in trying to restore, by imposing a penalty regime, the confidence that you rightly say is lacking. We can all try to outbid each other on who is more righteous by saying it should be 100 per cent, 200 per cent, 400 per cent. In my view, in a place where we think most members and senators should be acting rationally, if not honestly, I do not think there will be those repeat offences, because a strong penalty on any overclaim will apply. It is the wish of the government that we do not see a single offence, let alone repeat offences, and I think we are in agreement that a penalty regime is the best way of doing that. We perhaps disagree on where we would draw that line, but I do not think any number of questions to and fro are going to change where we both sit. We think a 25 per cent penalty is appropriate—indeed, the opposition believes that a 25 per cent penalty is appropriate. Obviously, we will have an opportunity to review this in three years time.

Can I just say more broadly: I have been in parliament for probably less time than many of you—perhaps not you, member for Mayo—and far be it from me to defend all the members of this House or the other place, but I think, overwhelmingly, members of parliament work very hard. I do not think any of us are particularly excited about being away from our spouses and, in some cases, children. I do not think there are ministers or shadow ministers who are desperate to spend another night away from their families. I think these are duties that we take very seriously on behalf of Australians and, again, that is why we believe that a 25 per cent penalty regime is appropriate in the circumstances.

I agree with the member for Denison that, ultimately, if all members and senators act with the integrity that the Australian people expect of us then we will not even have circumstances where a penalty on the first strike is cast, let alone further penalties as you have described, member for Mayo. Our position is clear: a 25 per cent penalty regime is appropriate.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ): The question is that the amendment be agreed to.

A division having been called and the bells having been rung—

The SPEAKER: As there are fewer than five members on the side for the ayes in this division, I declare the question negatived in accordance with standing order 127. The names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.

Question negatived, Mr Bandt, Ms McGowan, Ms Sharkie and Mr Wilkie voting aye.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ): The question now is that the bill be agreed to.

Bill agreed to.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (11:22): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (11:24): Perhaps the most poignant thing to come out of the tragedy that took place in Bourke Street on 20 January this year was a letter by Henry Dow, which was read at the Federal Square remembrance for the victims. He told the story of Lou, a taxi driver. He said: 'Administering first aid with me under that skinny little tree is a man named Lou. He's everything great and courageous you've seen, heard or read rolled into one authentically humble bloke.' He talked about how, having seen the car fly by, he managed to help some passers-by, and he said that was the moment at which Lou came over. 'Lou grabbed my hand and firmly told me to "keep it together", that I was okay and that we needed to keep strong for this woman. In a level and loud voice Lou barked orders at other pedestrians standing by, having not fled but still too stunned to think or move. He directed assistance to several of the victims lying on the pavement around us, all whilst keeping me calm and speaking lovingly to this woman: "I'm Lou. You're going to be okay. We are looking after you."'

Lou, in his white shirt and neat, dark tie, was a taxi driver. He had been smoking a cigarette, waiting for his next ride, and this story that Henry Dow told was not one of tragedy but one of courage. As he said, 'There was only kindness in the voices of the police who came to relieve us. I felt only love when an older man hugged me, having just told a father he had lost a daughter. Many images and sounds will stay with me much longer than I might like, but I am glad to see, and I hope never to forget, just how brave and loving strangers can be.' As Henry summed things up, 'Hundreds responded with the love and sense of community that makes Melbourne such a beautiful city and Victoria such a great state.'

In this chamber during this parliamentary sittings fortnight we have acknowledged the victims: Matthew Si, a son, a husband to Melinda and a father; Jess Mudie, a daughter, and a twin sister to Emily; Bhavita Patel, a daughter and a sister; a 25-year-old visitor from Japan whose family have asked us for privacy in their grief; and, most painfully for those of us who are parents, Talia Hakin, aged 10, just a week away from starting grade 5, and Zachary Bryant, who was just three months old. We always look for our own stories in these situations and, as somebody whose eldest son started grade 5 and whose youngest son is named Zachary, these hit me particularly.

We are here today speaking on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Bourke Street Fund) Bill 2017 because this bill ensures tax deductible gift recipient status for a memorial fund that has been established for the victims. There are those who stepped forward on the day—such as Lou—who were there as heroes in the moment, but there are many other Australians who, in their generosity, have given more than $1 million to the Bourke Street Fund. That fund does not automatically receive tax deductible gift recipient status—it does not fall into the established categories—and so this bill allows it to do so. A permanent memorial garden will also be established.

We hope that this fund will help to assist the many victims—the many who were injured and the families of those who were killed. In this parliament we are united in supporting the families, the friends and the relatives of those who lost their lives. We are also united in supporting the Victorian government's fund and the Prime Minister's announcement that donations will receive deductible gift recipient status.

Ms O'DWYER (Higgins—Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) (11:29): Firstly, I would like to thank those members who have contributed to this debate. As we are all aware, on 20 January this year a senseless and vicious attack took place in central Melbourne that resulted in death and injury to innocent people and shocked our nation. The crime was evil and incomprehensible. What remains for us as a community is to remember those whose lives have been taken and console and support those for whom life will never be the same. Australians are overwhelmingly good and kind. In difficult times, I am always buoyed by the unfailing generosity of people, who simply want to help.

To facilitate this desire, the Victorian government announced the creation of a fund to provide financial support to the immediate families of the deceased as well as the injured and their immediate families. To ensure that donations would be tax deductible, the Prime Minister and I announced that the fund would receive deductible gift recipient status and committed $100,000 from the Australian government to the fund. This bill ensures the deductible gift recipient status of the Bourke Street Fund and will assist the fund to attract public financial support. In doing so, this is but one way in which we can demonstrate our care, empathy and support for those so tragically affected. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ms O'DWYER (Higgins—Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) (11:31): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (11:31): I rise to speak on behalf of the opposition in support of the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Bill 2017. This bill seeks to establish an independent authority to monitor and manage travel and work expenses of parliamentarians. In 2015, the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, announced a review into the expenses of parliamentarians following the impromptu helicopter ride from Melbourne to Geelong taken by former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop. The understandable public outrage following that incident prompted the former Prime Minister to act, and he promised the review would fix the system. The government received the recommendations of that review and formally accepted them in February 2016. There were 36 individual recommendations and many related to the travel undertaken by parliamentarians. We are aware, based on the comments of the Prime Minister and the Special Minister of State, that further legislation is on its way to implement the recommendations of the Conde review.

In addition to supporting the recommendations, the Prime Minister has announced an independent authority, similar to that which currently exists in the United Kingdom, to monitor, manage and audit parliamentarians' work and travel expenses. This announcement was again prompted by scandal, following the member for Farrer's failure to appropriately manage her travel expenses. The authority established by this bill would assume many of the responsibilities of the Department of Finance and would require the resources to process claims by parliamentarians and staff. The authority, managed by a chief executive officer, would be led by a chair, the President of the Remuneration Tribunal and members including a former judicial officer, a former parliamentarian and people with experience in corporate governance and auditing.

Labor supports the establishment of such an independent authority to oversee the system, but the coalition's dithering on these important reforms—I remind members that the review was brought down a full year ago—has contributed to further undermining Australians' confidence in those they elect to serve them. Australian families should not have to wake up to the news of another Bronwyn Bishop. They should not wake up with another reason to be fed up with what is going on in Canberra. These scandals and misuses of work expenses damage not only the individual or party but all of us in this place. From day one, the opposition has supported the recommendations of the independent review into parliamentary entitlements and the creation of an independent tribunal. The government has been sitting on the recommendations of the independent review of the expenses system for almost a year. It has been shamed into action only because of the revelations of the actions of the member for Farrer.

Today's legislation is an important step. The Labor Party has and will always stand for increased transparency and accountability in the political system. We know and respect the importance of this place, and the importance of the public's faith in those of us who are fortunate enough to have been elected to work in this place. A lot of luck goes into being elected into parliament, and those of us who are here feel lucky every day that we have the privilege to work in this place. But we have to work together on reforms to address the community's lack of faith in the existing system. It is absolutely critical that we restore that faith because, as we have seen, the numbers of rusted-on supporters and the deep tribal loyalties are not what they once were. People have become more disconnected from community life. We see this not just in the waning public membership of our mass membership organisations, declining church and union membership and declining engagement with friends and neighbours but also in disengagement from politics. The problem of us becoming disconnected is reflected in declining party membership, declining rates at which Australians cast a valid vote and declining support for major political parties. We see this not just in Australia but around the world, where the vote for centrist parties has declined and the support for populist parties has risen.

Too many Australians believe the political system is broken, and all of us in this place have a duty to fix it. We must ensure that we debate what matters and focus on the issues affecting millions of Australian families—families who have felt at times that some in this place have been acting out of self-interest, instead of for the interests of those whom we serve. These scandals make it easy for Australians to think that politicians are in it for themselves. When you look at the surveys that have been conducted by the Australian National University through the Australian Election Studies, you see a rise in disenchantment in politics. It is a problem which I wrote about back in 2002 in a book I coedited with David Burchell called The Prince's New Clothes, which was about why Australians do not trust their politicians. But since that book came out we have seen further decline in the degree to which Australians have trust and confidence in politicians. We do, collectively, need to lift our game.

Of course, the vast majority of parliamentarians respect taxpayer money, respect their duty to represent the voters, and do the right thing. But the exceptions are those that hit the front page and tarnish us all. Labor wants to see these recommendations implemented without further delay, and I commend this bill to the House.

Ms HUSAR (Lindsay) (11:38): I rise to make a contribution to the debate around entitlements reform, and I do so because this is an issue that my constituents often bring up with me in my electorate of Lindsay. And I also note a lack of speakers from the government on this bill, the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Bill 2017. I think the conversations of my community with me reflect the broader views around the country on this issue: they want to see more accountability and transparency from their parliamentarians, and rightly so, and they want to know what their tax dollars are being spent on and spent in a way that actually benefits their issues and their lives.

We all know that Australians are losing faith in our political system. They are losing faith in our collective ability to represent the issues that matter to them, as my colleague the member for Fenner has just pointed out. Too many people see parliamentarians as self-serving and self-indulgent, removed from the stresses and strains of ordinary life and too concerned with fringe issues that impact very little on their lives. I know this because, prior to entering this place, I was a single mum struggling to get by, and I was raised by a single mum who struggled to get by also. So I understand how people can look at parliamentarians and wonder how connected they are to ordinary people. In my former life before entering here I also ran a charity, and every cent that was spent in that charity was directed to the right causes.

The recurring scandals around entitlements do nothing to help people's faith in the system. It is up to us to prove to our constituents that the things we do as their representatives are valuable to them. It is up to us to improve, and to prove to our constituents that they get value for money in everything that we do.

From Bronwyn Bishop's 'choppergate' scandal to the former health minister's Gold Coast getaways, these kinds of self-indulgent abuses of taxpayer funds undermine the important work that members of parliament do, and, at a time when the average family's pay packet is stagnant and the cost of living is going up and up, the last thing Australians want to see is parliamentarians wasting taxpayer dollars. Likewise, at a time when this government is cutting support to pensioners and throwing our unemployed young people under a bus, the last thing Australians want to see is parliamentarians who are addicted to tightening the belts of others but cannot tighten their own. That is why Labor has been committed to entitlements reform for quite some time, and that is why Labor has offered to support the government to pass this important legislation.

Now this is an incredibly important point: if we do not act to improve people's faith in our political system, we leave ourselves open to extreme fringe groups who would rather spread hate and fear through our country instead of doing the important work of building and supporting our communities. So both sides of this chamber have a job to do in rebuilding people's faith in our political system.

That is why the then Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, established a review into MPs expenses some time ago. The recommendations from that review have been sitting with the current Prime Minister for almost a year. There were 36 recommendations given to the Prime Minister, all of which I will not go into, but it seems recent circumstances have hastened this government's overdue response to those recommendations.

In particular, the move to establish an Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority is welcome, and it promises to provide greater accountability and transparency and more uniform advice to parliamentarians about their work expenses in this place. And, as a new member of parliament, I have got to say: I personally welcome this as well. Currently the system is governed by a multitude of different acts, regulations and ministerial directions, which contributes to the opaque perception—the sense of confusion—that undermines people's trust in the system.

Of course, at the heart of the new authority has to be value for money for the taxpayer. That must be central to these reforms, because that is the expectation of the community. And that has been made very, very clear to me.

The authority will assume many of the functions of the ministerial and parliamentary services when it comes to parliamentarians' work expenses and claims, relieving the pressure on the Department of Finance and shifting the responsibility to an independent body. The independent body will be in charge of providing clear advice to MPs and their staff and remove much of the ambiguity that currently exists.

Another issue that is often brought up with me is the Life Gold Pass, which can only be described as an anachronism that fits very poorly against the backdrop of modern budgetary household pressures. Labor has been clear and unequivocal in our support for removing the Life Gold Pass because we recognise that it sits so far outside community expectations.

While I appreciate that some people will be unhappy with this change—probably the beneficiaries of the pass, I suspect—we have to remember that this is taxpayer money: money that has been earned and forfeited by someone else, quite often earning far less than a parliamentarian. We should recognise that every dollar spent in the course of our jobs representing our community is a dollar that was hard-earned by our community. I know that there are an incredible number of hardworking MPs in this place who understand this fact, and that is why there is broad support to scrap the Life Gold Pass—apart, of course, from a few rogue coalition MPs who have decided to defend it.

Now, as I mentioned before, much of this debate centres around people's faith in the system and their faith in the idea that we parliamentarians should expect from ourselves what we legislate and regulate for others. And—at a time when this government is ruthlessly chasing innocent people for fake debts, cutting pensions, ripping money out of schools and making unemployed young people live off nothing for five weeks—the absolute least we could do in this place is to subject ourselves to proper scrutiny when it comes to spending taxpayer money. This is why ordinary people are so obsessed with MPs' entitlements, because they are constantly being attacked by this Liberal government and they do not think it is fair that they end up footing the bill for the same MPs who vote to reduce their benefits.

These reforms are long overdue, and I am proud to say that I understand why they are necessary—I get it—and I represent a party that understands why they are necessary, too. We have a job ahead of us, but it is fundamentally important that people have faith in the system and faith in their elected representatives to spend their money wisely. That is the aim of this bill, and I support it.

Mr HILL (Bruce) (11:44): I would like to make a few brief remarks building on the comments of my colleague the member for Lindsay, with which I wholeheartedly agree. I did speak earlier for the full time on the Parliamentary Entitlements Legislation Amendment Authority Bill 2017. I said on that bill that it could be considered courageous, in the Sir Humphrey from Yes Minister sense, for any of us to get up and say anything about entitlements in the current environment. It is a bit less so on this one, as I cannot imagine that anyone in the community or anyone in this place would have any opposition. Indeed, I think there is far less room for debate about where to draw the line in relation to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Bill 2017.

I would say at the outset that I am entirely unclear as to why the bills were not debated concurrently, given it is possible to traverse pretty much the same ground on each bill. All I can conclude is that it helps fill the airtime here, given the government's lack of any substantive policy agenda. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that most of us, if not all of us, did not seek election to talk about expenses or to talk about ourselves—although in recent weeks we have seen those opposite spending more time talking about themselves than about the nation. I would certainly prefer it if we could focus on other issues, substantive issues, that relate to people's daily lives. I am sure everyone in the chamber would agree.

As the member for Lindsay pointed out, if the government had done its job properly in the time before I arrived in this place last July and acted on this quickly after the Bronwyn Bishop scandal then this would have been dealt with in the last parliament. We know that in August 2015, after three weeks of prevarication and a national scandal, former Prime Minister Abbott finally called an end to it and commissioned a report. We understand that that report was received by the government in February last year, a full 12 months ago. It went round and round in circles, and it was only when the member for Farrer became the January news story and some of her travel records were exposed that all of a sudden the government decided that she had to walk the plank—presumably to protect the member for Curtin and the polo misadventures—and so the story goes.

Nevertheless, we are where we are. We have had a sense in recent days as to why the delay, given the public tantrum from Senator Macdonald in the other place about the outrageous suggestion that we could see the Life Gold Pass removed. Presumably there is one ray of hope in that tantrum for the rest of us in that perhaps he is thinking about leaving the parliament soon and is focused on the next phase of his life, however long it may be.

I spoke in my earlier remarks from three perspectives. I spoke from the perspective of a new member—someone trying to make sense of all of this in a chaotic, complex environment with the incredible mishmash of rules. I also spoke as a citizen who has watched this mess unfold from outside this place for far too many years and seen it, year after year, bleed trust in this parliament and its elective representatives. I spoke of the impact that that trust deficit has on our ability to prosecute more complex arguments for national reform, which are in the public interest but which may not be popular in the short term. It is hard to get up in front of people and be taken as credible when you keep being blindsided by outrageous and stupid expense scandals. And I also spoke from the perspective of the community's expectations.

I will not further traverse that ground, lest I be cast as Mayor Quimby, one of my favourite characters from The Simpsons, who is known for quoting himself. But I do want to add one other dimension to my remarks on this: as someone who worked for over 10 years—after 10 years in a place you start losing count, but I think it was about 12 or 13 years—as a senior Victorian public servant. Generally, my time in the Public Service has been one of working within a culture of prudence and with an expectation of public scrutiny of everything you do. Notwithstanding some shameful examples that have arisen—and that are now quite rightfully being prosecuted in the courts—of education bureaucrats ripping off the taxpayer and some other incidents that have occurred, my experience in all the departments that I worked in, under all the secretaries that I worked for, was one of high integrity. That culture of prudence and the expectation of scrutiny drove a desire for clear rules. When something was not clear, there were always processes to work it out and gain agreement. It drove you insane at times, because you would say to your boss, 'I have to go here and I have to get a cab, and then we would sit down and try to figure out how it fitted within the rules. If it did not then there were always mechanisms whereby you could go to the corporate department and figure it out. If necessary, you would change the rules, because in the Public Service there was such a high value placed on making sure things were done correctly, as the taxpayer expects.

I spoke earlier about the complex mess and the lack of clarity. From my perspective, one of the most welcome things with this new Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority will be the ability to get frank, clear advice and rulings. Hurrah! No doubt the other new members I see here have been frequent callers—the member for Mayo over there is nodding—to the Ministerial and Parliamentary Services folk in the Department of Finance. They are great people and they are there to help you understand the new administrative environment you are in. They are very helpful, they are very professional, but even they are not able, in the current system, to give clear rulings. They do their best. I have taken the advice to send queries in writing so I have a record of what was said, and generally they give you a lovely, polite reply into which have been cut and pasted the impenetrably unclear rules that you have just read. Everyone in the chamber is smiling and nodding because we have all been on the receiving end of those emails.

The other issue that this will hopefully solve is that new MPs have been warned firmly and sternly by old hands that unfortunately, despite the best efforts, the department over many years is famous for contradictory advice. You ask an officer in one state, you will get an answer; you ask an officer in another state, you will get a slightly different answer; you ask someone in Canberra, and they say something that is particularly impenetrable but very wise. One MP asks for a view on something; another MP gets a slightly different situation. It is like consulting Yoda for wisdom: on one hand, you could do this; on the other hand, you could do the other. I am going to give you three Yoda quotes, because I do quite like the character of Yoda. I did not have time to Google and refresh my memory on how to do a Yoda voice, so please excuse me!

Mr Broad: Oh, have a go!

Mr HILL: I know, I know! It would really be of no benefit because Hansard would not record my fantastic imitation of Yoda, even if I could do it! When you call the departments, trying to understand, they say: 'Do or do not. There is not "try".' If I am worried I may get something wrong, then, as Yoda would say, 'The fear of loss is the path to the dark side.' The last person I spoke to told me that was okay: 'It happens to every guy sometimes this does.' But let us hope these reforms provide clarity.

The final point I would like to make is that the world that I and many people here have come from—the world of corporate environments, government departments—is one where there is a priority placed on efficient and sensible systems. I have been stunned to discover that this area of government still runs on hard copy forms with tiny little columns that you cannot actually write in properly, and impenetrable codes that you cannot read properly on the bottom of forms, many of which say you have to fax them. I inherited an electorate office with a fax that no-one actually uses. We plugged it in, and I thought, 'We'll send off the fax.' Who uses a fax these days? But you had to fax the form back. The forms get faxed in and then lost, so we have started scanning them and emailing them. We unplugged the fax machine in the end, because some of the anti-marriage equality people were sending particularly horrid broadcasts around sodomy and all sorts of things. So we thought we had best unplug the fax in the end. We did not really need that. There is no online claims system. It is truly bizarre. I hope this is remedied quickly with the new authority as it wastes an incredible amount of time sitting there as a member of parliament—when you have got so many other things to do—trying to fill out these silly forms and fax them somewhere.

Accountability and transparency are also important, and I firmly believe that transparency improves culture and behaviour. Quite simply, it is human nature that, if we know our actions will be watched, if we know that people will see and scrutinise them, then that positively influences them. We have certainly seen that in more tragic places—for instance, in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, where a lack of transparency and accountability clearly drives unacceptable behaviours in all sorts of institutions. But I think it is true in any human collective endeavour. So it is good that, among other accountability measures, the authority will assume responsibility for the publishing of members and senators' expenses in a helpful format. That is currently done every six months in a weird sort of PDF format, but the authority will establish first quarterly and subsequently monthly reporting in a more accessible and searchable format, which our friends in the media will delight in, but I think that is actually an important part of holding us to account—that transparency in real time. There is also the requirement that, if an adjustment to certain travel plans is made or required, there will be a 25 per cent penalty.

In summary, I look forward to the establishment of the authority and dearly hope, like others in this place, that it draws a line in the sand and that in coming months and years we can start to rebuild some public trust and perhaps have a little bit more capital to prosecute things which are of great importance and in the national interest.

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (11:55): Firstly I would like to congratulate the government on bringing forward this legislation, the Parliamentary Entitlements Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. It is always pleasing when the government adopts a Nick Xenophon Team policy and embraces it as its own. In 2015, following the helicopter scandal, Senator Nick Xenophon introduced a bill designed to provide greater accountability and transparency in the use of parliamentary entitlements. The bill provided for an independent watchdog to administer claims, with monthly disclosure of all MPs and senators' expenses published online and the right of the public to make a complaint to the watchdog.

Back in 2015 the major parties did not support Senator Xenophon's bill, because they thought it was unnecessary at the time. It took yet another scandal, yet another time when we were all shamed by the inappropriate action of colleagues, yet another time when the community's trust in politicians was eroded, for them to change their minds. I believe we are in a precarious position with the public that we serve—and that is it: we serve them. They no longer trust us. They no longer respect us. We have had too many travel rort scandals for them to take us seriously. They look at their own lives, the rules they operate under, the way they work out their own work expenses and the way they are managed, if they are lucky enough to actually have access to work expenses, and they cannot believe the sense of entitlement that some of us have displayed. We all remember being lectured by the government, particularly by the former Treasurer, that the age of entitlement was over. Of course, they were referring to others, mainly to welfare recipients, and not particularly to members of parliament. So is it any wonder that the public rejects this message comprehensively?

How do we regain the trust and respect of our communities? I believe that establishing an independent authority to administer claims for parliamentarians' entitlements is certainly a step in the right direction. If parliamentarians know that every travel claim they make will be made public then perhaps we will stop seeing attendances at sporting matches, particularly when they are interstate, or attendances at New Year's Eve parties or family holidays being billed to the taxpayer. Public scrutiny and potential embarrassment are powerful deterrents. The proposed authority has been modelled on the UK Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which has operated successfully for a number of years. In a parallel situation to our own, the UK authority was established in response to a huge expenses scandal in 2009, primarily related to claims of a second residence. The UK scandal generated significant public anger and resulted in a large number of resignations, sackings and retirements. Several parliamentarians were prosecuted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment. That makes my proposal of a 200 per cent penalty pale into insignificance.

I want to focus on the composition of the board of the authority, which has been copied directly from the United Kingdom. My concern is that we do not have any representation from the community on the board. We have the President of the Remuneration Tribunal, a former MP, a former member of the judiciary and an auditor. I think, if a member of the public were looking at the composition of the board, they would be sceptical about them being out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people. We are talking about elites, essentially, looking at elites. We know that there will be self-selection, and I firmly believe that within this parliament we could legislate to have a member of the community, an ordinary Australian, as part of that board. So I intend to move an amendment in the consideration-in-detail stage, to change the composition of the board, to add an additional member who is a community representative. When I look around Australia, when I think of regional electorates like Indi and my electorate of Mayo, I am sure that we would have a community representative who would gladly put up their hand, somebody from regional Australia who would say, 'Yes, I would like to be on that board and I could provide great value to it.' I think it is very important that we involve the community in this process and that we open ourselves up to the community for that very reason.

In closing, I do support this bill. I am very hopeful that the government and the opposition will consider opening up this authority to be real, to be part of the community and, hopefully, by doing so, we will start to claw back some of the confidence of our community.

Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (12:00): Colleagues, it gives me pleasure to speak to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Bill 2017 and also to give notice that I will be supporting the amendments from the member for Mayo. This entitlement issue is one of great concern in my community, and I am absolutely delighted that the government has brought on this particular bill to establish the authority. But, overarchingly, I want to say, 'Government, you haven't gone far enough. There's a lot more that needs to be done.'

In setting the scene for what more needs to be done, I would like to go back in history a little bit and talk about the MP for Calare, Peter Andren, when he was an Independent in this House. He did a magnificent job, as an Independent, taking up the battle, on behalf of Independents at that stage, for much closer scrutiny of what was being given out to members of parliament under that entitlement. To Peter Andren—who has since passed—one of those very wonderful early members of parliament, I just want to acknowledge your work, Peter, and say, 'Up here, in the crossbench, we are flying the flag with real passion because we know there is a long way to go before this particular unpleasant part of how parliament works is addressed.' Up here, in the crossbench, we acknowledge this legislation, and we are going to basically vote for it, but we are going to move amendments to make it better.

In moving those amendments, we are going to pick up some of the work that those us here, on the crossbench, have already done a lot of work on. The member for Denison, last year, moved a very strong motion. He absolutely called on the government to commit to meaningful reform of the entitlements act. That was back in October. I totally support his work there. Since then, the member for Denison has taken the lead for introducing a private member's motion, an act of parliament to actually do some work on this, to audit all members and senators travel claims during this and the previous parliament and for all of us to list substantive activity taken as part of official travel. In the process of making sure we do the work to clean up the past, we will move forward to making the future better.

In making the future better there is no shortage of advice to the government. When you do the research for this particular bit of legislation you can see that there are numerous reports that the government has commissioned—but we still have not gone far enough. In 2015, there was the ANAO report; in 2011, there was the Review of the administration of parliamentary entitlement by the Department of Finance and Deregulation; and, in 2010, there was a report as well. So we have a lot of background telling us what to do.

Today I would like to concentrate on the latest report: An independent parliamentary entitlement system:Review:February 2016. In it there is a classic quote from these really wise people who did the review, and I would like to read it into parliament, because I know there are many people in my electorate who are watching this broadcast. The quote is from page 2, section 6 of the government's report. It goes:

Broadly speaking, these reviews concluded that the system, having evolved piecemeal and without adequate rationalisation, is complex, confusing, incomplete, contradictory and immensely difficult to follow and administer. The problem has worsened as demands on, and external scrutiny of, parliamentarians has increased.

It goes on:

The complexity of the system’s rules and regulations imposes stress on parliamentarians and their staff, and on those who administer the system. Parliamentarians can too easily run foul of rule interpretations or eligibility requirements. This has undermined public confidence, not only in parliamentarians, but also in the system itself.

That is true, and that is why it is really good to see that the government is taking some action. We agree.

Then this review goes on to make some very practical recommendations, and I would like to take a few minutes of the parliament's time to read, again, into the Hansard. This is the major recommendation, and I fully support it:

The system should—

The new system—

ensure that the relationship between the public and their representatives is one of respect and mutual support. It should be understood by all and simple to use and administer. It should ensure expenses are appropriate, sufficient and fair, be in accordance with reasonable standards and the overarching principle of ‘value for money’.

And section 12:

We believe the best way to achieve this goal is a principles-based system allowing the parliamentarian flexibility to apply judgement, choice and personal responsibility when using it, but obliging him or her to report publicly and be subject to reasonable standards of auditing so as to provide transparency and public accountability.

What wisdom! But how do we do that? Here is where I am really calling on the government to go to the next step. This report says:

To provide clarity, the rules should, to the extent possible, be consolidated into a single Act of Parliament.

One single act of parliament. So we end the piecemeal, complex, confusing, incomplete, contradictory and immensely difficult to follow and administer system and we replace it with an act of parliament. Colleagues, we have not quite got there yet. We have an authority being set up, which is this particular legislation that I support, and we have some changes made to how we administer it, but I am really calling on the Prime Minister and the government to do what his own report says and give us an act of parliament that is principle based, systemic, easy to read and well-followed.

In bringing my comments to a close, I want to talk a little bit about trust and trust in the system. To do this I want to bring to the notice of the parliament a report that has been prepared by the Museum of Australian Democracy called Who Do You Trust to Run the Country? Democracy, Trust and Politics in Australia. I acknowledge the authors of that report and the institutions: the University of Canberra, the Museum of Australian Democracy, and the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis. It tells us what we have been talking about today in this parliament, in the previous debate: that Australians no longer trust their politicians. What an extraordinary thing to have to say in this House: that the research of these highly respected institutions tells us that our population no longer trust us.

What we saw just a few minutes ago in this House was an effort by us crossbenchers, four of us, to say, 'We can do something to help restore trust and faith in our democracy. We saw this thing happen in this parliament, where there were 'four lonely voices'—as I think The Guardian said—against the might of all the political parties. So I say to the people of Australia: 'It is not that you cannot trust parliamentarians; I think you need to pay particular attention to that last vote, because there are clearly some people in this House that you can trust.'

The research shows us that in the 2016 election about a quarter of Australians gave their first preference vote to non-mainstream parties. The people of Australia are actually getting that the major parties are not doing a good job representing then and that, in fact, it is the crossbenchers and the minor parties that really have this sense of close relationship with our communities, a commitment to represent them and a great ability to stand up in this House, to think for ourselves and to be able to represent what our communities are saying.

What I think is so special about our independence is that the people of Indi know that I am speaking forcefully, boldly and strongly directly for them. This opinion has not gone through any party machine. I am not putting it through any personal ambition to be a minister. I am not doing deals to make this happen. I am absolutely here speaking for my community, as I know my colleagues on the crossbench are. As to this sense that we do not have the trust of our community, I say to my colleagues in the major parties, 'Get a copy of this report and have a read of it and really and seriously pay some attention to what the parties need to do to follow the leadership being provided by the Independents on this entitlements bill.' What I think would make such a big difference is if we could actually do the work that needs to be done to have one act of parliament.

In bringing my comments to a close, I speak in strong support of the amendment that is going to follow from the member for Mayo. Having the community voice on this authority is one small step to get this through the pub test—the ordinary Australian person who we represent getting their voice heard on this authority. I will bring my remarks to a close at this point and speak later when the amendment from the member for Mayo is introduced.

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (12:10): This legislation, the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Bill 2017 and the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2017, is part of a series of measures that the government is bringing into the parliament in response to criticism about the way members of parliament use their entitlements or allowances. It follows some legislation that was debated only this morning on a similar subject.

The purpose of these bills is to establish the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority as an independent statutory authority. The bills provide that the authority's functions include advising parliamentarians on travel expenses, allowance and related expenses; monitoring parliamentarians' use of travel expenses, allowances and related expenses; administering travel expenses, allowances and related expenses, including processing of these claims; reporting on work expenses; auditing of work expenses claims; and making rulings about travel expenses and allowances where authorised by a law to do so. The authority will have up to five members, consisting of a chair, the president of the Remuneration Tribunal and at least two, but not more than three, others. I understand membership of the authority would also have to include a former judicial officer, a former member of parliament and a member with substantial experience in auditing.

The advice, monitoring, processing and rulings given by the authority to MPs will be restricted to travel expenses. The authority will be able to recover overpayments, repayments and cost-recovery payments in relation to travel expenses. I also note that there will be financial implications of this bill, which are not quantified but which will be considered as part of the 2017-18 budget.

Having said that, I want to make some general remarks about the entitlements, expenses or allowances—however one might wish to define them—of members of parliament. All members of parliament come into this place knowing full well what their remuneration is going to be and what is expected of them if elected to office. While some parliamentarians could earn better remuneration outside of parliament, it is my contention that the current remuneration is fair and reasonable.

It is also my view that that has not always been the case. By 2004, MPs' remuneration had become an election issue. Mark Latham, then Labor leader, promised to make changes to MPs' entitlements if Labor won office at that time. Prime Minister John Howard responded in a similar vein and, for all MPs elected after 2004, the rules and benefits changed. Today, there are only nine senators and 22 House of Representatives members—a total of 31 parliamentarians of the 226 in this parliament—who are on the Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Scheme and who will receive a lifetime pension on retirement. The other 195 MPs, having been elected after 2004, regardless of their length of service on leaving this place, will not receive a pension or generous travel allowances. I want to stress that—and other members have made the same point—because there is a very clear misunderstanding out there in the community about the entitlements or allowances that members of parliament receive and, quite often, it is a misunderstanding based on what previous members of parliament receive, not what the current ones are receiving. There have been changes, and those changes affect the absolute majority of the members of this place. In fact, if we use percentage figures, some 87 per cent of the current parliamentarians in this term of parliament will not receive many of the benefits which the public believe they do. Of course, I cannot speak for MPs elected to the six state and two Territory parliaments, who are all on different remuneration packages and whose allowances, at times, cause confusion with the allowances of federal MPs.

For today's federal MPs, it is not the remuneration that I believe is wrong but the deliberate misuse of allowances through an unintended interpretation of the guidelines. It is that deliberate abuse of allowances which has led to the widespread mistrust of members of parliament, something which other members speaking in this debate have also alluded to. I believe that there is a mistrust of members of parliament, and there has been, without any question of a doubt, widespread criticism of MPs and the use of their entitlements. My view is that the intent of the current guidelines is clear—and I emphasise the word 'intent'—and that the allowances provided are reasonable if MPs are to conscientiously fulfil their role. The ramifications for abusing the allowances are already serious. In today's world, where public scrutiny is easy, and where media and other MPs are quick to discredit any parliamentarian who has abused or rorted the allowances, anyone rorting the system is likely to be caught out and to then pay a heavy price. That heavy price can include the loss of parliamentary positions, including perhaps a ministerial position, and then also jeopardises the future election of that person. Those are very strong deterrents, which I believe are more effective than the 25 per cent penalty provision proposed in the Parliamentary Entitlements Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 debated earlier, and more effective than provisions proposed by crossbench members earlier as well. If the public humiliation, loss of ministry or possible loss of office is not sufficient deterrent, then nothing more is likely to make a difference.

I want to talk just for a moment about the authority itself. I welcome the establishment of the authority. If nothing else, I believe it will add some clarity to the definitions of what is an allowance or expense and what is not, and it will offer a reference point for MPs to go to. Time will tell how effective the authority will be. It is also my concern that the costs of oversight may well be higher than the savings made. But then that is the cost of transparency. However, I stress: my view is that the intent of the guidelines we have at the moment is fairly clear. Indeed, I believe the majority of members of parliament adhere to those guidelines in an honest way. Much has been made—both by the media and by those who wish to gain from it in one way or another—of the abuse of allowances. The truth of the matter is that members of parliament cannot fulfil their role as parliamentarians if they are not properly supported, and the allowances are intended to do just that—support the members of parliament in their role and in doing their work. In many cases, this is work that is done on behalf of their constituents and the people that they serve. It is a sad reflection that members of parliament are now held in such low regard by the community as a result of the actions of those members of parliament who have chosen to rort the system. And it is a choice that they make—because every member of parliament can make a decision about which expenses they claim and which they do not. Hopefully, as a result of the authority being established, there will be not only greater scrutiny but also the reference point that I referred to earlier—because it is also true that, at times, the definitions of what one can and cannot are not absolutely clear.

Labor supports this legislation because, if nothing else, it will add to the transparency and the oversight that the public has been calling for for some time. I believe that will also go a long way towards restoring public confidence in the allowance system that is provided to members of parliament.

Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (12:20): Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! I must say, it is a pleasure—after having called for an independent parliamentary expenses authority for years; after having said that there needs to be an independent umpire that MPs can go to to find out whether or not a future claim is within the rules or not—that finally the government and the opposition have listened to the Greens.

This has been longstanding Greens policy because the rules up till now have been vague. That has been no excuse for members of parliament or ministers who have deliberately done the wrong thing—when just any simple test would tell you it is not right to use entitlements for your own private benefit, as opposed to for the public good. But we have said that there is a case—and we have made this case for many years—that, before an expense is incurred, there should be someone that members of parliament can go to. We have said that for a couple of reasons. One is that—as I said in a speech earlier today—when I first came into this place, I wanted to get some guidance as to whether or not a flight that I was about to pay for was within entitlements. I went and asked the department, and the department said: 'We cannot tell you. You are going to have to make that assessment.' And I said: 'Who determines whether I am right or wrong?' And they said: 'No-one.' That is not a situation that members of parliament should be in. There should be clear rules, and in most other workplaces that is the way it is. It is clear what is in and what is out. That should be the case here. It is not just from the perspective of members of parliament that this will make a difference; it will make a big difference for the public because, if the public knows that there is a place you can go to first, whenever anything is in doubt, to get advice or a ruling—if the public knows that, then there is absolutely no excuse for someone who then does the wrong thing afterwards. I bet that if former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop had gone to this body and asked, 'Can I get a chopper down to Geelong?' they would have said no. And I bet that if some former members or ministers had asked, 'Am I allowed to do a trip to look at an investment property or go to a wedding?' they would have said no. So, if this new body does its job, it is not only going to be helpful for people here but, more importantly—and this is the reason that we have advocated this for so long—the public will know that there is no longer any excuse.

What is concerning about this bill is that, as is often the way with these things, the government picks up an idea, picks up the concept of having an independent watchdog, and then defangs it. With this bill we see an advisory authority that, sadly, will not have the teeth that it should have. We should be doing more than giving advice to members of parliament, because if we want to do the second thing that I spoke about, regarding giving the public confidence, the public needs to know that the body that oversees the politicians has some teeth. Sadly, it does not at the moment. There is nothing in this bill about compliance and nothing about penalties. Without some muscle the authority might look good on paper, but, in terms of consequences, if there is misuse, it will be a failure. There needs to be a clear distinction drawn in the public mind between a slipup—and there would not be many excuses for a slipup after this body comes into place, but of course slipups will still happen; everyone accepts that—and intentional misuse of what is, at the end of the day, public money.

Given the lack of oversight in how expenses are incurred in this job, there is a very strong case for this body having some teeth—not just having advisory and audit aspects but some teeth. When this comes to the Senate we will be making the case that the legislation needs to change so that the body has some teeth. The government may find, if all it does is the minimum it thinks is necessary to get the public off its back from its perspective, that is not going to be enough because people can smell whether what you are doing is genuine. People will know whether this is just a sop to try to get past the latest issue of parliamentary entitlements and scandals and there is hope that the media and the public debate will move on to something else or whether it is genuine reform. As I said, the idea is very good, because it has been a Greens' idea for some time, but we want it to have some teeth. So I would urge the government, as this bill progresses through the parliament, to consider some sensible amendments to the bill to ensure that the body does have teeth and that it is a watchdog, not a lapdog. We have to make sure that the body has the power to not only do some investigations but do something if they find that there has been some wrongdoing.

As I said at the start, when it comes to the Liberal government, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The time has come for them to pick up a Greens' idea. I am glad that they have seen the merit in something we have been arguing for for a very long time, and arguing for publicly, but do not just pick up half the idea; pick up the whole idea because then you will go a very long way to restoring the public's trust in all of us here as politicians.

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) (12:26): In summing up the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2017, I would firstly like to thank the members who have contributed to this debate. As noted previously, politicians must be held accountable for the use of taxpayers' dollars and the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Bill 2017 is the first step in the biggest reforms to the management of parliamentarians' expenses in more than a generation. This new authority will provide clear and consistent guidance, advice and rulings for parliamentarians to ensure that our spending of public money meets the expectations of the Australian public.

As the government has announced, we will also continue to implement the recommendations of an independent parliamentary entitlements systems review in order to improve the legislative and administrative framework of the existing parliamentary work expenses system. I look forward to working with the opposition and other members and senators to ensure that these important and timely reforms are delivered. The consequential amendment to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 contained in the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2017 will ensure that the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, which will be established under the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Bill 2017, will be able to provide confidential advice to parliamentarians and their staff with respect to travel expenses and allowances. This will ensure that parliamentarians and their staff engage early with the authority which will be able to provide frank and independent advice with respect to travel expenses and allowances.

Once again, I thank all members for their contributions. I commend the bill to the House.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): I thank the minister. There being no further speakers, I put the question that the bill be now read a second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (12:29): by leave—I move amendments (1) to (5), as circulated in my name, together:

(1) Clause 10, page 12 (line 28), omit paragraph (c), substitute:

(c) at least 3, and not more than 4, other members.

(2) Clause 15, page 20 (line 6), omit paragraph (c), substitute:

(c) at least 3, and not more than 4, other members.

(3) Clause 16, page 20 (after line 22), after subclause (4), insert:

(4A) One appointed member of the Authority must be a person (the community member) who the Minister is satisfied represents community expectations about the ethical standards to be followed by members of parliament in the use of public money.

(4) Clause 16, page 20 (line 23), omit "5 members", substitute "6 members".

(5) Clause 16, page 21 (line 4), omit "subsection (2), (3) or (4)", substitute "subsection (2), (3), (4) or (4A)".

I am moving this amendment because I think that the proposed composition of the board of the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority sends the wrong message to the community. It tells them that the people we want to make decisions about our parliamentary expenses are in the top 10 per cent of income earners in Australia. We are talking about elites here. It is elites, essentially, making decisions about elites. Let's be honest—that is how the community would see it. If we proceed with the board as it is currently structured, I think we are saying collectively that we have a tin ear—we are saying that we are not aware of the growing discontent in the community of our perks and the frequent abuse of our entitlements; we are saying that we do not want to give the community a voice in determining what is a reasonable work expense for parliamentarians. We need to look for every opportunity to let the public know that we are prepared to listen, that we are prepared to implement structures that ensure a lay person can have a say about our entitlements on behalf of our ordinary people. This is about engagement. This is about transparency.

In discussions about this amendment I have been told by some that it is too hard to work out how to select a person to represent the community views. Really? There are many precedents that use a variety of procedures, including calls for expressions of interest and assessment against criteria that would enable the minister to be satisfied that the person to represent the community has ethical standards in the expenditure by parliamentarians of taxpayers' money. I do not believe that the implementation of a community member within this authority should be a problem. So I urge both sides to support this amendment, to send a clear message to the community that we are prepared to listen, that we are prepared to seek guidance about acceptable practice in expenditure on our entitlements and that we realise we have had it wrong for too long.

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) (12:31): I thank the member for Mayo for her contribution, both in the early debate and also in proposing the amendment. The government does not support the member for Mayo's proposed amendment to this bill. The government believes that, by setting up this independent authority, the government is moving swiftly to ensure that public confidence is restored. I do take the member for Mayo's caution in relation to public confidence very seriously, but the government is moving swiftly to ensure that public confidence is restored to the parliamentary work expenses framework by having an independent body that is able to give authoritative advice to parliamentarians about what is within the rules.

This body will also have the ability to audit the travel expenses of parliamentarians and their staff and will have the ability to withhold or recover payments of expenses that have been claimed incorrectly. Most importantly, the significant increase in transparency, by moving to monthly reporting in a searchable database format, demonstrates the government's clear commitment to creating a system which the public can have that confidence in. In practical terms, this amendment contains a significant amount of ambiguity about what qualifications a community member who the minister is satisfied represents community expectations, about the ethical standards to be followed by members of parliament in the use of public money, would need to be appointed to that board, in contrast to the other positions specified by the Prime Minister, which are more clearly defined and are reflected in the bill before the House. I understand, and I pass on to the member for Mayo, that the Special Minister of State has advised the Nick Xenophon Team that he is willing to have further discussions regarding the composition of the board 12 months after the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority is up and running.

At this point the government does not believe an increase in the size of the board is necessary. The abolition of the Life Gold Pass, the extra penalties for voluntary repayments and the establishment of the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority are the first steps in, as I described earlier, what are the biggest reforms to the management of parliamentarians' expenses in more than a generation, and the government is acting decisively in this matter.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the amendments be agreed to.

A division having been called and the bells having been rung—

The SPEAKER: As there are fewer than five members on the side for the ayes , I declare the question negatived in accordance with standing order 127. The names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings .

Question negatived, Mr Bandt, Ms McGowan, Ms Sharkie and Mr Wilkie voting yes.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): The question now is that this bill be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) (12:38): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) (12:40): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Ms MACKLIN (Jagajaga) (12:41): Today I am speaking on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Funds Special Account Bill. This bill proposes a new savings fund sitting within the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and I emphasise that this new account that is being debated in this bill will sit within consolidated revenue. The government claims that this new special account is needed to help the Commonwealth meet its funding obligations for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

I must say I am a little surprised that the government has brought this bill on for debate today, given the disastrous week it has had by linking cuts to social security to the future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Even this morning, we see a report from Michelle Grattan that the Prime Minister's Office warned the Treasurer and the Minister for Social Services against the timing of making the outrageous link between the cuts in the omnibus bill and the National Disability Insurance Scheme. So there is already all this finger-pointing going on within the government about who is to blame for the reprehensible decision to link the omnibus bill and all the cuts to some of the most disadvantaged people in Australia to the future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. In addition to the most reprehensible nature of that announcement, of course what this all demonstrates is the government's complete and utter incompetence.

The one thing this week did confirm is that this new savings fund is just a transparent attempt to pretend, yet again by this government, that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is not fully funded. It is clear that the government has not created this special account for the purpose of good policy. No, they have created this account for political purposes. The Turnbull government wants to use the NDIS as a bargaining chip in its negotiations with the Senate crossbench to pass unfair cuts through the parliament. How did that go?

We saw all of this on display this week in a press conference with the Treasurer and the Minister for Social Services. We saw the government emphasise the importance of giving big business a $50 billion handout. Then the Treasurer and the Minister for Social Services revealed their shameful plan. What they want to do is link the $5.6 billion in cuts to some of the most vulnerable Australians to the future funding of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

This $5.6 billion of cuts include $2.7 billion in cuts to family tax benefits—money straight out of the pockets of some of the poorest families in Australia—and $1 billion of cuts to the energy supplement. That means cuts to pensioners, people with disability, carers and Newstart recipients. There are cuts to 70,000 new mothers and cuts to young people, including making young people wait five weeks to get access to Newstart, telling them that they will have absolutely nothing to live on for five weeks. The Turnbull government has decided to hold the National Disability Insurance Scheme hostage to its unfair cuts to family tax benefits, paid parental leave, the energy supplement and cuts to young people. That is what this government is doing. Linking the future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme to a range of 2014 and 2015 budget cuts is just an appalling political trick by this government—nothing but an attempt to try to blackmail the Senate crossbench into accepting harsh cuts including from the 2014 budget.

I want to say to this Prime Minister and to everybody opposite: this government has no right to pit one group of vulnerable Australians against another. As Laura Tingle, writing in The Australian Financial Review, said, 'The government's latest attempt to pass their savings playing off poor people against disabled people is just appalling,' and it is just appalling. The respected five-time Paralympian, Kurt Fearnley, said yesterday of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, 'I wish the Government would fight for it with as much vigour as fighting for its $50 billion business tax cut'. He went on to say that the government's attacks on the National Disability Insurance Scheme were 'just wrong'.

Labor will oppose this bill today. But we do more than that. Today, we call on the Turnbull government to take these unfair cuts to families, pensioners and young people out of the parliament and out of the budget for good. We also call on this government to stop playing politics with the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Be proud of it. Do not talk it down. Do not put fear into the hearts of people with disability. This legislation and the fund that it seeks to announce are a sham. The National Disability Insurance Scheme will be funded from consolidated revenue and the government knows that. The Minister for Social Services and the Treasurer have even said so. This legislation even makes that plain.

The Turnbull government repeatedly fabricates the story that Labor did not fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and now they are wasting the parliament's time by establishing an account with no other purpose than to try to support this untruth. They are seeking to present a false choice between cutting payments like the disability support pension and properly funding the NDIS. It is a false choice. The former government's 2013 budget set out a 10-year funding plan for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This included but was not limited to an increase in the Medicare levy. A number of other budget measures were proposed and legislated, and these funds currently sit in consolidated revenue. Together, these measures provided sufficient funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme well past the transition to the full scheme. The figures underpinning these budget measures were, of course, developed by the Treasury, led at that time by Martin Parkinson, now the secretary of the Prime Minister's department, and yet the Turnbull government continues to say that the scheme is underfunded. This is nothing more than a sham.

You do not have to go any further than the Treasurer himself. As The Australian newspaper reported last year, far from using its proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme savings fund for the NDIS, the Treasurer said that it could use the funds to spend money on anything it wants. It says, 'Scott Morrison told The Australian that the fund'—that is, the fund we are debating today—'while quarantined could be used by any future government for any of its spending whims.' That is what the Treasurer said. So what is this all about? Why are we debating this bill today? We have already seen the government use this special account as an excuse to play politics and engage in a disgraceful game of political brinkmanship.

In the last 48 hours, this government has tried to link the delivery of the NDIS to their attack on families, pensioners, people with disability, carers and Newstart recipients. Now it is crystal clear that the Turnbull government is using this fund as a smokescreen for their 2014 budget cuts. Both the Treasurer and the Social Services Minister have now confirmed that this fund will be financed through cuts to payments for the most vulnerable Australians. What the Treasurer and the Minister for Social Services are saying is that this government wants to abolish the energy supplement for those on Newstart, the disability support pension and the age pension. They want to cut paid parental leave. They want to force young people into poverty with a five-week wait for Newstart and cut family payments to 1½ million Australians, many of whom, of course, live in Liberal and Nationals Party electorates. So is the government seriously saying that, if these unfair cuts are not passed through the Senate, the NDIS will not go ahead? Is that what those opposite are saying? This week the government has shown its true colours.

What we cannot allow is for the government to use the NDIS as an excuse for more cuts to social security payments. That is not in the spirit of the NDIS and not in the spirit of the bipartisan and consultative approach committed to by both parties for the NDIS. The NDIS continues its full rollout across the country. It is a completely contradictory idea that we would use its implementation as a means to cut other sources of support for people with disability, but that is exactly what people opposite are trying to do.

My good friend the member for Bruce helped shine a light on a terrible story of young man with a severe and permanent disability. Andrew Johnson has profound autism, bipolar disorder, attention deficit disorder and epilepsy, cannot talk and needs a stomach tube to help him eat. Yet Andrew's mother has been asked by Centrelink to prove Andrew's eligibility for the disability support pension, despite his being eligible for support for many years. Andrew is one of the thousands of disability support pensioners that the government is trying to make subject to medical reviews to test their eligibility for the DSP. However, someone like Andrew, who has no capacity to work and was granted the DSP on manifest grounds, was supposed to be exempt from these DSP reviews. The government must explain what it is doing to ensure that people like Andrew are not harassed by Centrelink about their eligibility for the DSP again. This is just one example—I must say a very moving one.

Last year's budget papers make clear that the government wants to review the eligibility of 90,000 people who are currently on the disability support pension. The government expects that it will cut a number of people off the DSP through these reviews and then put whatever money it gets from this process into this National Disability Insurance Scheme savings fund. The government is doing the most horrible thing, robbing one group of people with disability to pay another group, robbing Peter to pay Paul, when it comes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and this bill.

On top of this we see the appalling treatment of people with disability over the summer months by the government's Centrelink robo-debt debacle, a complete mess that has seen many vulnerable people with disability incorrectly issued with debt recovery notices. One example highlighted in The Guardian was of 21-year-old Jack Rogerson, who learned he had a $3,000 debt with Centrelink through a private debt collector. Jack is autistic. He was confused and unsure of how to explain himself. Fortunately for Jack, his mother, Nicole, intervened. Nicole is the head of Autism Awareness Australia, and she said, 'This hard line of the government is just heartless to the core.' Labor continues to be deeply worried by stories like this, and I again call on the government to suspend the Centrelink robo-debt program until the problems are fixed.

Since the NDIS's inception, I am pleased to say it has had bipartisan support across the parliament. I see the assistant minister at the table, and she has been a great advocate. This has been an important feature of the scheme's success. So why are the Liberals holding the NDIS hostage to harsh cuts to vulnerable Australians? Why, I say to the assistant minister, are you trying to rob Peter to pay Paul? Because this government has never given up on the 2014 budget cuts. It has never given up on the whole idea that there are lifters and leaners in this society. It has never given up on the idea of depriving young jobseekers of access to Newstart for five weeks. It seems to think that children growing up in very low-income families who receive family tax benefits do not deserve support, because fundamentally, it seems from the legislation that is before us, the Liberals think that Australians that need support from our social security system are somehow less worthy. So they thought: 'Let's use the NDIS as a way of forcing these unfair cuts through the parliament. Let's try to blackmail the Senate crossbench. Let's threaten the future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme by linking it to the fate of a series of unfair cuts.' That is what they thought, but of course it has backfired dramatically.

In Australia we do not set up a special fund to allocate for schools, hospitals or our Defence Force. Peter Martin in The Sydney Morning Herald was right this week when he said, 'There are no locked boxes.' That is not how governing works. Governments fund their priorities through the Commonwealth budget. So why should the funding of disability services be treated any differently? That is the question that this government has been unable to answer. Departmental officials confirmed that consolidated revenue is used to fund government priorities, which is hardly surprising.

What we also heard at the Senate hearing last October was a chorus of objections from stakeholders in the disability and community advocacy area who are very cynical and confused about the seeming lack of purpose in this bill, and I would like to quote some their observations. Peter Davidson from the Australian Council of Social Service stated:

… it is not obvious why this new fund is needed. Its purpose, apart from the generic one of funding the NDIS, is not clear, and we do not believe it should be supported in its present form.

The Young People in Nursing Homes National Alliance said:

… the alliance does not support the savings fund as constructed in the bill … the notion of a funding shortfall, portrayed in the bill and the minister's speech is, actually, concerning and perplexing.

Stephanie Gotlib from Children and Young People with Disability Australia said:

It is believed that the creation of this special account … places essential disability services and support as non-core business of the Australian government, with their full funding being dependent on other budget-saving measures identified by the government of the day.

Queensland Advocacy Incorporated, in their submission, crystallised this issue by saying:

This is a political strategy that will be at the expense of the most vulnerable Australians.

That really is what it is all about.

This is a government that is neither consulting with the disability sector nor providing stability during a time of change and transition for people with disability. These organisations truly understand the difficulties people with disability face, and the financial pressures that they are under. They also understand the NDIS and the purpose it serves. Their testimony speaks volumes about the actions and motivations of this government. The community can see through the petty politics that lie at the heart of this proposal.

It is time for the government to come clean with the Australian people and acknowledge that the NDIS is fully funded. Yes, it is true that Labor created a special account, the DisabilityCare Australia Fund, in 2013. But, unlike the government's special account, this was an investment account, credited with funding from the Medicare levy increase and used to assist the Commonwealth and the states in meeting their funding agreements under the NDIS. The increase to the Medicare levy was one of numerous funding arrangements and savings that the then Labor government introduced in order to pay for the NDIS over a 10-year period. I have to say I was very pleased at the time that we had bipartisan support. Everyone in the parliament voted for the NDIS, voted for the increase in the Medicare levy and, except for on one occasion, voted for all of these savings measures. So the then opposition, the Liberals, actually voted for these savings that of course went into consolidated revenue. They believed it was adequately funded then; why not now?

This government has signed agreements with the states and territories for the full rollout of the NDIS, and I do congratulate the government for securing these agreements. In the documentation that the Prime Minister has signed, it sets out how much the Commonwealth and the states and territories will contribute to the cost of the full rollout of the NDIS. Of course the money for this is in the federal budget. Don't tell me or anyone on this side of the parliament—or, I would hope, even on the other side—that the Prime Minister signs agreements to spend billions of dollars that he does not have or that he has not accounted for. Such an idea is just not believable.

Minister Porter needs to understand that people with disability actually need a minister who is committed to delivering the NDIS, not one who is asleep at the wheel, creating redundant, politically motivated accounts.

This legislation does not make the NDIS more secure. It does not give it certainty. What happens to the NDIS if these cruel cuts contained in the omnibus bill before the parliament do not pass either the House or the Senate? Is the funding of the NDIS not guaranteed? This is a false choice as well as a terribly cynical one.

This is a government with a very clear agenda to take money from the pockets of vulnerable Australians, and clearly they are prepared to use people with disability as blackmail to see these cuts passed. People with disability, and their families, deserve better. They need a government that puts them first and honours the spirit in which the NDIS was created: to create a fairer society where people with disability are valued participants, able to make their own choices about their care and future.

Let's be clear. The NDIS is fully funded. Labor secured that funding over 10 years. This last week has proved that this legislation, more than anything, is a political stunt from a government with no agenda other than a political one.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is already transforming the lives of thousands of Australians right across the country. People's lives are being dramatically improved. Yes, there are problems—problems with the IT system, inadequate resourcing of the National Disability Insurance Scheme by the agency and so on. Today is not the day to go through the problems. Of course we are all aware of them, and we will continue to hold the government to account to make sure that we all get it right. But what we all want to do, I think, is make sure that people with disability get the best possible NDIS, the kind of NDIS that people with disability deserve. Accordingly, Labor moves the following amendment:

That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the House declines to give the bill a second reading because:

(1) the National Disability Insurance Scheme was fully funded when Labor left office;

(2) this bill is nothing more than an attempt by the Government to use the National Disability Insurance Scheme to justify further cruel cuts to the most vulnerable in our community; and

(3) this Bill has unnecessarily caused significant concern in the disability community and threatened community confidence in the future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme—a scheme that Labor created and which will help hundreds of thousands of people with a disability when fully rolled out."

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Irons ): Is the amendment seconded?

Mr Snowdon: I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Jagajaga has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan—Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services) (13:06): I rise today to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill. It is understandable if people listening in perhaps thought that this was about the omnibus bill from listening to the words of the previous speaker, the member for Jagajaga. However, this bill establishes the NDIS Savings Fund special account, which will help the government meet our financial obligations in relation to the NDIS and secure the funding future for NDIS.

I need not explain the importance that this government places on the success of the NDIS. However, unlike those opposite, we recognise the criticality of making sure the scheme is appropriately funded. Let me make it very, very clear: the Prime Minister and the coalition government are completely committed to the full funding of the NDIS. This bill is testament to the government's commitment to establishing a sound basis for the fully funded scheme. Indeed, the Australian government is committed to ensuring the success of the NDIS. People with a permanent significant disability, their carers, their families and thousands of disability service providers and their staff are dependent on a properly funded scheme.

As I have said before, the NDIS is a life changer for those eligible for the scheme. It will support a better life for around 460,000 Australians under the age of 65 with a permanent and significant disability through individualised and tailored packages of support of their choice. Since my appointment as the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services, I have met with more than 300 disability sector stakeholders all around Australia. Through these meetings I hear firsthand the opportunities and challenges facing people with a disability. As I move around Australia, speaking with stakeholder groups, I am regularly asked, 'What funding arrangements are in place for the NDIS and will those arrangements be good enough to support eligible people with disability?' More importantly, 'Is the NDIS sustainable, particularly as demands on the scheme increase?'

By 2019-20 the Commonwealth, state and territory governments will be jointly spending around $21.4 billion, with the Commonwealth contributing just over half of this amount. In 2019-20, when the NDIS reaches full scheme, funding from the federal government will come from three main sources: existing programs, the DisabilityCare Australia Fund and the repayment of Commonwealth funding to the states and territories for their existing specialist disability services. This totals around $7 billion.

Unfortunately, Labor failed to specifically set aside adequate funding, and any savings they said they were going use to support the NDIS went into consolidated revenue. Labor's actions have left us with a $4.1 billion funding gap each year. This will rise in future years. Once again, we see typically fiscally irresponsible Labor. That is why the passage of this bill is so important. It will help us identify savings and set those savings aside for the NDIS. The coalition is a responsible government. We are not want to fund this gap by increasing taxes. We do not want to fund this gap by borrowing more money. We do not want to fund this gap by charging a levy. Instead, we want to systematically and transparently identify savings and underspends to plug this gap and guarantee the future of the NDIS. I would also like to note that in November last year, the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee acknowledged the importance of this bill and subsequently recommended its passage. The passage of this bill will give me the ability to confidently respond to stakeholders and say 'Yes, the NDIS is sustainable, and yes, the NDIS is adequately funded.'

I appreciate the opportunity to meet many people with disability and their service providers, and to hear the stories they have to tell. I continue to be impressed when I hear stories about how the NDIS is making a real difference to people's lives. For example, I heard from a young man with a disability who had previously required assistance every morning to get ready for work, and then required someone to drive him to work. Later in the day, he needed the same support in reverse to get home. For this young man, the NDIS meant that he was able to have his car modified so that he could drive himself. Now, with increased confidence, he no longer wants assistance every morning and every afternoon. Not only does he drive himself to work but he now has freedom on the weekends to drive wherever he likes. This new-found freedom empowered him even further, to the point where he no longer needs any assistance. Mr Deputy Speaker, leading an independent life is taken for granted by many people. It is not until you experience the hardships faced by people with disabilities that you appreciate the small things, like driving yourself unassisted to and from work.

The return on a properly funded NDIS is invaluable, but that does not mean we do not need to take steps to ensure there are enough funds available to support it. It is true that the NDIS is having an impact on service providers. In some cases, it means a change to their business model. To me, this is a chance for innovation and a chance to do things better. I saw an example of this in Western Sydney, where a group of service providers banded together to establish a consortium, Disability MacArthur. They have thought outside the box and identified a more efficient and cost effective structure by cooperating together. They provide a range of services, all from the one location, sharing back-of-house overheads and expenses. Disability MacArthur has created a sort of menu of day plans and activities that NDIS participants can choose from according to their individual preferences. They can even include the transport to and from the activity. Not only is this an efficient way of maximizing the skills and qualifications of the staff but it also provides flexibility in balancing participants' needs and cost effectiveness of services. This is just one example of the innovation we are seeing across the sector.

Another important point to mention is the jobs that the NDIS is creating. We estimate that the NDIS will create more than 180,000 new jobs across Australia. More jobs means a better economy. But for this to happen, the NDIS must be properly funded.

Labor failed to properly fund the scheme when they had the opportunity. If they are serious about supporting the NDIS, they will support this bill now. Naturally, the growth of the NDIS and the growth of demands on its resources over time will be the greatest challenge to the scheme. As an advocate for this sector it concerns me that those opposite are unable to grasp even the most basic of economic principles: when the money runs out you cannot just keep spending.

The savings fund is a fiscally responsible, forward-thinking strategy. However, this is not a revolutionary concept. The Howard government established the Future Fund with the initial objective of financing the superannuation obligations of Commonwealth public servants. The NDIS must provide a level of certainty to maintain public confidence in the capacity of the scheme to fulfil the requirements of those who are reliant on it. This government would be abandoning our duty if we failed to secure the possible sources of revenue for the scheme. The coalition acknowledges the significant financial commitment required for the scheme to reach its maximum potential, and we are taking necessary steps to achieve this.

I have mentioned it before and I will mention it again: I am appalled at the economic havoc that drives the opposition—a drive to make a political point regardless of the facts—demonstrated by their failure to properly fund the NDIS when they left office in 2013. They produced a lovely, glossy 2013-14 budget document and they identified savings. Unfortunately, those savings were not specified. And, indeed, at the Senate estimates that year, when Treasury was asked whether these measures could be listed in detail, Treasury's response was no. So even Treasury could not identify where Labor had created these savings, and as I would suggest probably another one out of thin air—their magic pudding approach to economics. In fact, if you look back through their budget you will notice that supposedly they funded the NDIS from their surplus of $1.5 billion. Great, except that in the year they identified a $1.5 billion profit, or surplus, they actually delivered a deficit of $18.8 billion—another Swanny special.

The bottom line is they did not provide for NDIS into the future. This is the problem we have now. This government is serious about funding for NDIS, for securing the future and once again we see Shorten using the scare tactics on the most vulnerable people in the community. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the coalition government are committed to funding the full scheme.

Like my responsible colleagues, I am delighted to support this bill. By establishing a stable financial platform for the NDIS, we are demonstrating commitment to a scheme that is one of the most important social reforms seen for many years. I am particularly pleased that the fund will draw from underspends from the NDIS and other portfolio savings. As I demonstrated before with that young man with a car that was changed so that he could drive it, whilst that was an up-front expense, it has now over the longer term meant a lower cost to NDIS.

Over the next 10 years the NDIS Savings Fund Special Account will be able to receive credits, which will be available to fund the continuing operations of the NDIS. These savings accounts provide a secure mechanism to isolate and preserve these funds so they can be specifically directed to the NDIS. This means that money designated originally to be spent on this sector will remain within it.

I look forward to the successful passage of this bill and encourage those opposite to make the responsible choice to support it and to show their commitment to the full funding of NDIS. I commend this bill to the House.

Mr HILL (Bruce) (13:18): After listening to that, I have to say, if the member's speech were filed in a bookshop, I think it would be in the science fiction/fantasy section—but nevertheless. I want to refer briefly, before commencing my substantive remarks, to the comments of the member for Jagajaga, who spoke before. She recounted the case of constituents of mine: Mrs Johnson's sons, who were being reviewed. I note to the House and draw the House's attention to the fact that I wrote to the Minister for Human Services on 7 October regarding this tragic case and systemic issues arising. I received an acknowledgement on 20 October from the department saying a response would come. I wrote a letter to the minister on 20 January asking if he proposed to respond to the letter. In desperation, after listening to his kind offer in question time last week to raise constituent matters with him, there are now some questions on the notice paper today asking if he proposes to respond and, if not, could he resign and give someone else a go, thank you.

The NDIS is one of the most significant social policy reforms of recent times. It is a remarkable initiative introduced and fully funded by Labor. It joins the list of social policy reforms that will stand the test of the ages. Indeed, it was first proposed through a major inquiry by the Whitlam government. But, unfortunately, as history records, that government was felled before reforms like an NDIS could be fully delivered through legislation. The Hawke and Keating governments instituted Medicare, which those opposite have done their best and continue to do their best to smash. And I note that a Fraser government refused to back an NDIS or Medicare.

This bill purports to allow the Commonwealth to meet its funding obligations in relation to the NDIS. Given Labor had that sewn up three years ago, the very purpose of this bill is redundant and it is a political stunt. It is one more pointless pieces of legislation by a government intent on incremental cuts to social security measures that hit the most vulnerable. If only they would put a fraction of this effort into budget repair that was fair. But, no, sadly, it is no surprise that the Senate inquiry by the government dominated Community Affairs Legislation Committee recommended that this bill be passed despite the number of submissions calling every aspect of this bill into question. It built on ominous signs, under this government, of the first stages of the rollout: mounting government stuff ups, the failure to resource the rollout, stuffing the IT rollout, failing to reach agreement with the states on time—although they do seem to have eventually got there—and the outrageous report in the ACT of secret caps on government services.

To summarise our concerns with the bill, the first one is the Liberal lie that we left government with the NDIS unfunded. The basis of the bill is deceptively simple. It seeks to establish a special account, and what can be credited to it to fund the operation of the NDIS, but it is a flawed starting point. In 2013 to 2014 Labor set out the funding arrangements for the first 10 years of operation—well past full implementation. There were various reforms—and those opposite actually voted for most of them—to the private health insurance rebate; to retirement incomes; an increase in the Medicare levy, which all Australians pay; and a number of other long-term savings measures, most of which were supported by those opposite. They have been clearly outlined and there is no shortfall. Consolidated revenue is used to fund the NDIS in accordance with expenditure priorities.

Clearly what is lacking is not the funding that was provided at the time but this government's commitment to the NDIS as a national priority. Listening to the previous speaker, the member for Ryan, I heard much talk of the economy. It is a separate debate to try and explain to those opposite that fiscal management of the budget is actually a separate thing from management of the economy, but that difference is lost on the small-minded bean counters that seemed to populate the ranks opposite. History shows they cannot manage the economy, much as they spend their time focusing solely on the budget. Really, the government's complete mismanagement of the budget is a separate issue and a debate for another day. It is true that the budget situation has deteriorated under this government, with outrageous spending commitments that they did not offset and did not fund. If only they had had the same fiscal discipline as the previous Labor government and the member for Lilley when he was Treasurer, we would not be in this situation.

Mr Craig Kelly interjecting—

Mr HILL: You can have a look at it!

Ms Ryan interjecting—

Mr HILL: That is true; exactly. Let the Hansard not record laughter. The Productivity Commission, in its inquiry report Disability care and support, at page 85, recommended:

… year to year through the NDIS should be viewed as a core funding responsibility of government and met from claims on general government revenue …

That is from the Productivity Commission. In its submission to the inquiry by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee into this bill, Children and Young People with Disability Australia said, 'This,'—that is, this piece of legislation—'puts funding for the NDIS in a precarious position.'

There are two funds for the same purpose, because this bill would muddy rather than clarify funding arrangements for the operation of the NDIS. The Disability Care Australia Fund established by Labor is credited with funding from the 0.5 per cent increase in the Medicare levy. So we will have two accounts for the same purpose, if this bill passes—to what end? It is worth noting that the NDIS special account will sit within the Consolidated Revenue Fund, according to the explanatory memoranda, so it is even more pointless.

In its submission to the Senate inquiry, Children and Young People with Disability Australia said:

… it is critical to recognise the Scheme as a core area of government spending.

…   …   …

The need for a 'special account' in addition to the DisabilityCare Australia Fund to hold funds for the NDIS is therefore unclear.

Those on this side of the chamber know that the real reason for this legislation is as a further excuse to dismantle the Australian social safety net and to pick on the vulnerable, and to try and park those savings there. It is really no different from the pea-and-thimble trick that is the childcare reforms they introduced recently. It is an excuse to prosecute the 2014 budget which was roundly rejected by the Australian people. It is no surprise—

Mr Dick: In the back door.

Mr HILL: That is right—through the back door. It is no surprise that the savings measures proposed thus far for possible credit to the special account include $1.5 billion of cuts to welfare recipients. This includes $62 million the government believes that it will get from the conduct of up to 90,000 eligibility reviews of disability support pension recipients as well as 30,000 medical reviews—something that I have raised once or twice before and that we will keep on about.

The 2016-17 budget papers note:

These measures demonstrate the Government’s ongoing commitment to ensure that those who need assistance receive that assistance, with savings from increased integrity contributing to the sustainability of important welfare programmes such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme …

It sounds very reassuring, except that these measures relate to people with Down syndrome, the severely intellectually disabled, those with paraplegia and those with multiple diagnoses so impaired by their disability that it was accepted decades ago by the very agencies now conducting the reviews under government duress that they would never work again. This is an extraordinary and avoidable burden on the carers forced to adhere to ridiculous demands for specialists reports, IQ tests and documentation spanning diagnoses that will never change. I wonder whether that $62 million of supposed savings actually takes into account the cost to the budget in Medicare of running around and collecting multiple specialists reports—I would almost bet that they do not, but that is another matter which we are pursuing—or the cost of the staff required to implement this flawed policy. Really, you have to wonder what those opposite actually hope to achieve by linking the conduct of eligibility reviews for the most severely disabled in our society with their capacity to access the NDIS. If the government is serious about reducing welfare fraud it needs to take a much more sophisticated approach to undertaking these reviews and to the selection of targets for budget savings.

We have all been talking about and will continue to highlight the matters of the robo-debt scandal. These kinds of measures demonstrate not only the government's commitment to disabled Australians—or lack thereof—but its commitment to the wholesale pillaging of their critical income support. I will quote from another submission to the Senate inquiry, that from Disabled People's Organisations Australia:

Creating trade-offs between income support and disability support is counter-productive, short-sighted and does not promote the human rights objectives of the NDIS. It is unconscionable to shift people on low incomes, including people with disability, further into poverty in order to create savings for the NDIS.

That is what this government is doing.

I will turn to the issues of ministerial responsibility and the governance arrangements. One of the few things that this three- to four-page bill actually does is hand responsibility for determining what is credited to the account to the Minister for Social Services. The explanatory memorandum mentions that the minister:

will be solely responsible for the day-to-day policy and management of the special account—

and that credits might come from various areas, such as:

underspends and net savings from the NDIS and other portfolio savings, as determined by the Minister for Social Services;

discretionary decisions by the Prime Minister or the Cabinet—

or—

decisions by the Prime Minister or the Cabinet about identified savings from other Commonwealth portfolios.

This is badly conceived. Young People in Nursing Homes National Alliance said in its submission to the Senate inquiry:

The fact that the Bill enables the Minister alone to decide ‘deposits’ to the fund; and the PM and Cabinet to make discretionary payments to the fund, make this a poorly designed long term funding mechanism for the scheme.

A related problem … is that it casts the NDIS as a program of the Minster rather than a truly independent scheme … This is one of the key reasons the Productivity Commission recommended an insurance model that would be free of the budget related political tussles that plagued the old disability system:

…   …   …

… the NDIS needs a funding formula that is transparent, predictable, viable and sufficient.

In the Productivity Commission's wide-ranging inquiry into disability care and support, it was noted:

… the Insurance Council of Australia … identified four significant sources of managerial risk for a scheme — ignorance, self-interest, ideology and political interference.

Every single reason comes to pass with this construct and with the passage of this legislation. It is sadly prescient. Yet here is the government, so early into the implementation of the NDIS, proposing to build these very risks directly into the NDIA's external rules, the legislation and the governance model that frame the scheme's operation. This is exactly what the Productivity Commission and those inquiries which informed the scheme said they had to avoid.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Coulton ): The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member for Bruce will be given an opportunity at that time.

Mr HILL (Bruce) (16:20): Ignorance, self-interest, ideology and political interference—they were the four principles that Insurance Council Australia outlined in the Productivity Commission report that informed the disability scheme. They were the big risks, and they are exactly what this bill breathes life into. I will take independence—ACOSS. ACOSS said to the Senate inquiry that this arrangement:

… gives greater control to the Commonwealth and removes independence from the management of part of the Scheme's funding base. This has rightly caused concern amongst the disability sector, as a core part of the NDIS is the independent management of Commonwealth and State government funds by the NDIA.

The Disabled People's Organisations Australia also pointed to the concerns undermining the arrangements and the neutrality and the independence of the NDIA's structure. But do not worry—the government plans to review the operation of this special account by 30 June 2027. That is right—10 years on and seven years after the NDIS reaches full scheme, the government will finally get around to having a look at it to see whether it is working or not. ACOSS points out that waiting 10 years is too long and will lead to perverse outcomes.

At the start of my remarks I outlined a range of concerns: IT, the ACT rollout, the stuff-ups in the agreements with the states. I would also draw the House's attention to the Auditor-General's report and, again, I quote:

… there was no published overall work plan which sets out timeframes and deliverables.

That:

There is limited evidence of a strategic approach to the use of the Commonwealth’s $146 million Sector Development Fund …

And:

Within NDIS’ intergovernmental governance arrangements, the processes and timeframes for collective decision-making have been inconsistent with the timeframes for the rollout of the Scheme.

So, in summary, this bill is unnecessary. It is built on the lie that the NDIS was not fully funded. It is a distraction—a distraction from the failure of the government's own budget management and, listening to the speakers opposite, you would forget that they are actually in government. It is smokescreen and a charade. It is a charade to disguise welfare cuts which pick on the vulnerable, especially the disability support pension reviews. It is an excuse for more nastiness to come by setting up a fund and then pretending: 'Oh shock! Horror! We can't fund the NDIS. We've got to run over here and take a few more bucks off people who have nothing.'

It undermines the key principles of the scheme: independence—funded from general revenue, free from political interference. This is what the Productivity Commission said was necessary for the scheme, and it is confused. How does it relate to the fund that Labor set up with the extra Medicare levy, the DisabilityCare Australia Fund? No-one knows. It is creeping politicisation of the scheme but it is consistent with this government and that side of the House's pattern of great social reforms: we build it; they stuff it up. Medicare—let's freeze it; let's cut it. Superannuation—let's stop the rises; let's protect the rich's tax rorts in the scheme and now the NDIS.

Mr WALLACE (Fisher) (16:23): The bill before the House is a simple measure, but it is smart policy. It is a clear example of the sensible, pragmatic approach to policymaking that characterises this government and another demonstration of our commitment to following through on our promises.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a noble idea and one close to my heart. As the parent of a daughter who lives with disability, I take a passionate interest in getting it right when it comes to delivering these services. I know that Australians with disability want security, excellence and choice in the support that they access. The NDIS should be a world-class means of delivering that support. It should become an increasingly critical part of our nation's provision of health care, supporting hundreds of thousands of Australians with security and dignity. However, without urgent action, all of that is at risk from a funding black hole that threatens the sustainability of the entire system.

While Labor sought to deny the problem, the coalition recognised this shortfall from the very beginning and we have consistently proposed commonsense measures to meet the Commonwealth's NDIS obligations. The government is on record as committed to properly adequately and sustainably funding the scheme, and the present measure is an important part of following through on that commitment.

Behind the technical terminology of this bill is a very straightforward idea: good governments listen to the people and they learn from the commonsense ways that families adopt and by which they prosper. To any of us who have ever had to manage a household budget—or, as I have, operated a small business—the good sense of the measure before us today is immediately apparent. I think most families around the country would recognise this approach. How many of us have a jar on the kitchen bench at home, or an extra bank account—a place where we save what we find we have left over to pay for the big costs and investments? When we have a little spare money, when the water bill is not as we expected or there is some change left in a pocket at the end of the day, we all know what the best thing to do is: we drop it straight in the jar or we deposit it into that extra account.

But we also know that just having the jar is never enough. The other lesson we all learn early, hopefully, is how quickly that money, whatever our good intentions, can disappear unless we decide beforehand exactly what we are saving for and we stick to that resolution. It is these practical lessons and that pragmatic attitude that informs this bill.

No forecast is ever exactly right, and few budgets are met to the dollar. In the course of the tens of billions each year, which will flow through the National Disability Insurance Scheme, some items of expenditure will not be as large as the department anticipates. With the economies of scale generated by the full national scheme, there will be other savings which the Department of Social Services will identify. As the minister announced in May last year, savings of $711.2 million over five years have already been achieved through the timely finalisation of transition arrangements with states and territories. There will be many more to come.

By providing the ability to determine amounts to be credited to this savings fund special account, this measure will allow the minister to bank those savings and underspends, and make sure that they are locked in as major contributions to the National Disability Insurance Scheme in the future. However, we are going to need more than that.

An investment as large and important as the NDIS will encourage all ministers and departments to work together and consider carefully whether any economies can be made in other portfolios. The bill therefore also provides for the minister to channel funds to this account deriving from savings in other departments. These savings would result from decisions by the Prime Minister or cabinet in other areas of government. For those times when banking day-to-day savings is not enough and to get the fund going, the bill also rightly allows for extra credits to be made based on discretionary investment decisions by the Prime Minister or cabinet.

In May of last year, the Minister for Social Services laid out some of the specific discretionary savings and investments this government will make to start the account off on a healthy basis. The government has committed to allocating $1.3 billion over five years to the NDIS Savings Fund Special Account from closing carbon tax compensation for new welfare recipients. It further committed to another $67.2 million saved by closing that same compensation for single-income families not already in the system from July of this year and to another $62.1 million over five years from additional reviews for disability support pension recipients. All of these are in addition to the $711 million saved through the finalising of state and territory transitionary arrangements.

The closing of compensation for a Labor carbon tax that has been abolished is exactly the kind of common sense saving that this bill will allow to be redirected to paying for the NDIS. And these savings continue. Just this week, the government announced a further $3 billion that will be allocated to the fund from the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Omnibus Savings and Child Care Reform) Bill 2017—that is, if the other side agree to its passing. But, like any household saving, we need to do more than find the money. We need to ensure that it is locked in to paying for the NDIS and nothing but the NDIS. We need the funds to be quarantined and protected as predictable forward contributions to the scheme; otherwise, there is a risk that additional funds may be announced one day but redirected for short-term political expediency the next.

The NDIS Savings Fund Special Account is therefore necessary as an instrument to guarantee that money once committed is available only to the Minister for Social Services to spend on meeting funding shortfalls in the NDIS. This is also why the bill's provisions regarding the long-term commitment of credits to the account is so important. All credits to the saving fund will be publicly announced, calculated consistently with the Budget Process Operational Rules and committed for 10 years. With these provisions, we can ensure that the additional funding available to the NDIS is consistent, predictable and available when it is needed.

Sadly, we know that this additional funding is going to be all too necessary. Members opposite like to claim the NDIS as their own, but the reality is that their version—your version—of the NDIS was half-baked, half-finished and fatally compromised from the beginning by a lack of funds. A report into the capabilities of the agency set up by Labor to run the scheme said in 2014 that it was 'like a plane that took off before it had been fully built'. It has been left to this government to complete it while it is in the air. In the first quarter of operation under Labor, the average cost of an NDIS package was a full 30 per cent higher than it was anticipated. If this situation had been allowed to continue, the total blowout in costs would have been immense and unmanageable. As it is, this government inherited from Labor a shortfall of $4.1 billion a year between the Commonwealth's NDIS commitment and the funding set aside for it in concrete dollars and cents. Over the next decade that funding gap is expected to grow to more than $7 billion a year.

The need for a special fund was highlighted again this morning in stark terms. The Labor Party continue to this day to be wilfully blind to the disaster they left behind. The Leader of the Opposition said this morning on the radio that Labor had funded the NDIS and that their plan to do so was 'to find other savings'. What other savings? We were never told. In fact, what we do know is that any savings that the Leader of the Opposition did identify he had already promised to other projects not once but repeatedly. The Labor budget that supposedly funded the NDIS predicted a surplus of $1.5 billion but in reality delivered a deficit of $18.8 billion. The need for a special account could not be clearer. The money needed for the NDIS must be clearly and irreversibly committed to be spent only on paying for the NDIS. One wonders why those opposite would challenge such a view.

This dire funding situation could not be allowed to continue, and this government has taken a series of practical and decisive steps to repair Labor's NDIS black hole. The government committed immediately to properly, adequately and sustainably funding the NDIS without yet more of Labor's deficit borrowings or increased taxes. We have maintained that commitment ever since. Before the last election, we made it clear that we intended to establish this Savings Fund Special Account. As I have suggested, in the 2016 budget, the government even laid out some $2.1 billion of additional funds that would be channelled into the fund. We took that plan to the Australian people last year, and we are now seeking to make that plan into a reality through this bill.

As we have seen, this plan has been diligently worked through and planned for by the government. It has been discussed with stakeholders and put to the Australian people, but it has also been considered at another place. The Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee produced a detailed report on this bill, with a single recommendation. What was that single recommendation? That the bill be passed. That was a Senate recommendation.

The NDIS Savings Fund Special Account will allow the government to lock in underspends and savings from across all departments across future years and reserve them for the NDIS alone. With the 10-year commitment of funds, it will also grow consistently over future budgets, moving us forward in a transparent, predictable and responsible way to meeting the Commonwealth's NDIS contribution.

When it is fully operating in 2019-20, the NDIS will be injecting more than $24 billion each year into the Australian economy and making a difference in the lives of around 460,000 Australians with disability.

The NDIS is not due to roll out until 2019 in the seat of Fisher on the Sunshine Coast, and it will not be before time. Many families I speak to that have a family member living with a disability are eagerly awaiting its implementation. I only found out this morning that the decision on when to roll out the NDIS on the Sunshine Coast was a decision made by the Palaszczuk Labor state government—not this government but the Palaszczuk Labor government, another example of them penalising a loyal conservative area of the Sunshine Coast.

Mr Dick: Oh, you're making that up.

Mr WALLACE: You should have been at the NDIS meeting. The NDIS will help give people dignity and choice as to how they are given assistance and by whom. It is an exciting initiative and the assistant minister, my friend the member for Ryan, should be congratulated for her tireless work in this space. I look forward to hearing many more stories from participants in the NDIS as the transition gets underway.

The government is committed to properly, adequately and sustainably funding the NDIS, and this measure is an important way in which we are following through on that commitment.

Ms SWANSON (Paterson) (16:38): I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. I oppose the creation of an NDIS Savings Fund Special Account for three main reasons: (1) it suggests that Labor did not adequately fund the NDIS, and nothing could be further from the truth; (2) it suggests the need for a special account for the NDIS, and the government has not made a case for that; and (3) this special account, this savings fund, is most likely a euphemism for further savage budget cuts by this ruthless government that does not give a hoot about our most vulnerable people. This so-called savings fund is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The fund proposed in this legislation will not protect the Commonwealth's full contribution to the NDIS. The fund proposed in this legislation will be used as an excuse for further cuts to the Social Services portfolio.

Let's consider some of the submissions from non-government organisations to the inquiry that the member for Fisher spoke about, by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, and the concerns they consistently raised about this bill. These concerns included: that the NDIS should not be used as an excuse for cuts to payments for the most vulnerable; that, contrary to what the government says, the establishment of this new account means funding for the NDIS is potentially less certain, given it is tied to cuts that may not pass this parliament, and that it may represent a cap on NDIS funding; that these groups could not see a purpose or a need for the account; and that this government has failed to establish evidence of the need for this fund, proving it is merely a political stunt in an attempt to use the NDIS to justify further cuts. It is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

How this government could suggest that Labor did not adequately fund the NDIS is beyond comprehension. In the 2013-14 budget, Labor clearly set out how the NDIS would be funded for 10 years, well past the transition to the full scheme. This included reforms to the private health insurance rebate, reforms to retirement incomes, the phase-out of the net medical expenses tax offset, and other long-term savings proposals. The Medicare levy was also increased by half a percentage point to two per cent. Together with the contributions from state and territory governments, these measures covered the cost of the NDIS for 10 years. It was fully and adequately funded by Labor. There was no NDIS funding shortfall left by Labor. There is no need for an NDIS special fund, and this government knows it.

My electorate of Paterson, in the New South Wales Hunter Valley, included some of the trial sites for the rollout of the NDIS. We were among the guinea pigs, and I will not pretend that there were not problems, but on the whole the trials went very well. It has only been since the full rollout of the NDIS, and the technology debacles around the online computer portal, that we have heard any negativity about the NDIS. I do not intend to underplay the problems. In fact, I have been vocal on behalf of people in my electorate, the electorate of Paterson, who have had problems—both people who are NDIS participants and those who are disability service providers, who are also struggling with this payments portal. It was terribly organised. I organised for those people to speak with Labor's shadow minister Jenny Macklin, and she has taken their concerns straight to the minister, Minister Porter.

There have been teething problems, but Labor as the author and the instigator of the NDIS, and the guaranteed funder of the NDIS, will continue to work with this government to ensure the future of the NDIS. We created the NDIS, and we will care for it. We will tend to it. Labor will not work with this government to undermine the NDIS. It is too important to too many people.

I would like to share just one story with you, about how important the NDIS has been to just one family in my electorate. The mother of a boy with disabilities wrote this letter to one of my staffers, thanking him for steering her in the right direction, and I will read it to you:

Dear Giacomo,

I just wanted to let you know we finally got an NDIS review today for Bailey.

I wanted to thank you so much for the direction you pointed me in and the people you put me in touch with.

I had only left the review meeting 30 minutes earlier, and I received an email with an amazing amount of new funding for Bailey.

This new plan is going to make Bailey's life much easier, with all the new services we can get with the increased funding amount.

Thank you so much for helping us.

Kids like Bailey need a strong voice to echo their needs.

Signed Leesa Morris.

This is only one family, but it is clear how, for that one family, the NDIS has been completely life-changing. This family lives in Metford, in my electorate of Paterson. Bailey, who is seven, has level 2 autism, sensory perception disorder and high anxiety disorder. He attends Maitland East Public School and, after some initial settling in issues, he now considers school to be the most important part of his routine. In fact, school holidays now pose more of a challenge than school, as Bailey wants to go to school even when he does not have to, and even when he cannot. It is all about the routine.

In the first year of the NDIS, Bailey's package of support allowed him to be funded for speech pathology, occupational therapy and psychology services. This year his package was increased threefold, and, as well as extending those speech, OT and psychology services, he now has a designated behaviour management consultant and a support worker, and both of these new services are working to improve his social skills. The support worker is particularly important in school holidays, when Bailey does not want to even leave his room unless he gets to go to school. It can take four to five hours to get him ready to leave the house, and having a support worker to do that means his mum, Leesa, is able to devote more time to five-year-old Sieanna, the sibling that is so often, in Leesa's words, 'on the backburner'.

Leesa told us this week that the NDIS package had really lightened her load. She said:

It has made a huge difference … Not just financially, but emotionally. And for the whole family unit. This support gives me more time to spend with Sieanna and it helps the whole family. It makes us more like a normal family.

There is no doubt the NDIS is life-changing. It is vitally important to so many in my community and in communities everywhere across Australia. It is too important to be undermined, attacked or whittled away by measures such as this savings fund special account—this wolf in sheep's clothing that is nothing but a smokescreen behind which the government intends to make further cuts to social services.

Do not think further cuts to social services are going to help anyone. Cuts to social services are certainly not going to help the many, many Australians who rely on government services and government benefits to live their lives. We have seen such savage cuts to social services by this Abbott-Turnbull government, cuts that have driven staff in these departments, not to mention the clients of these services, to the brink—people who are really on the edge.

My electorate office in Raymond Terrace constantly receives calls from people who are struggling in their dealings with government departments that have been slashed and burned by savage Abbott-Turnbull government cuts since 2014. Their list of complaints is long, and they are repeated over and over: long waiting times, whether it is on the phone or in the physical queue for services such as Centrelink; having to use the internet to process claims and accounts, but without technology; documents being lost; documents being provided over and over again and still being lost; and incorrect information being recorded on official documents and it being nigh on impossible to have it corrected.

One staffer took a call from a fellow so frustrated with Centrelink that he did not know where to turn. He said he had called Human Services regarding his mother-in-law's aged-care fees about 20 times in the past year. Not only was there an issue with her fees being, in his words, 'stuffed up' but also, almost every time he called, he was told his mother-in-law's file could not be accessed because the computer was down. That is maybe 20 times in one year when this one fellow called that the computer was down. How much time is the Human Services computer actually up? This poor fellow was so infuriated he called my office and said, 'Ask Meryl to do something about it.' Short of going round and trying to sort out the Human Services computer, I am trying to do something about it here. To add insult to injury, on two occasions, when the long-suffering staff who answered the phone could access his mother-in-law's file, he was told he was not authorised to speak about his mother-in-law's file, despite his wife sending two separate documents authorising him to speak about his mother-in-law's file. Seriously! It is a tragedy, but it is just farcical.

That is the story before we even get to the actual cuts to pensions, meaning our most vulnerable and elderly cannot cover their costs for rent, utilities and transport; and to cuts to medical services, meaning our most vulnerable and elderly cannot get access to medical services, to doctors that are prepared to bulk-bill, to specialists who make it very difficult for public patients to see them or to services outside major cities that are prepared to look after our rural and regional communities.

These cuts have hit all our communities, particularly the most vulnerable. They cannot afford any more savage cuts to pensions or to services. And Labor will not allow any savage cuts, particularly to the NDIS—because that is what this National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund is. It is a cut disguised as a fund. It is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and we will not have the wool pulled over our eyes.

Mr RAMSEY (Grey—Government Whip) (16:49): I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. This bill legislates for the establishment of a savings fund to allow the government of the day to properly manage what will be the biggest effort ever attempted to provide the kind of living support necessary to allow those among us who have a permanent and debilitating disability to live full lives, to their best capacity. It will provide the kind of help that we would hope would be available to any of our children if they were in that unfortunate position.

The NDIS of course has bipartisan support, and we all want it to be an enormous success. But it offers great challenges, such as ensuring skills are available to meet the funding increases. That will be a great challenge. If anyone places a pile of money into a space where it has not existed before, there will have to be a huge ramp-up of services, and there are risks around how people will qualify and register to deliver those services. But it is this government's duty to get that right. We will make sure that those who choose to manage their own funding have the assistance available that they need, and that others have the right mix of funding. It will also be a great challenge to get the administration right, making sure there are sufficient people with the skills, as I said.

But the NDIS cannot work unless we get the budget right, unless it is properly and fully funded, and that is what this bill is about. The previous, Labor government revelled in announcing the program, but, as in so many other cases, they did not work out how to fund it. They left that to the coalition. The shortfall has a number, a very scary number: $4.1 billion in the first year of full operation and rising year-on-year after that. Just think of that—$4 billion a year short and then eventually rising to $7 billion a year. This is just so typical of Labor. They promise the rivers of gold, say they have delivered the rivers of gold, and then never deliver.

Ms Husar: Rubbish!

Mr RAMSEY: Like the four years of surpluses—was that rubbish as well? Like WestConnex, which we just heard in this chamber in the MPI debate a few minutes ago was raised by the Minister for Urban Infrastructure. For WestConnex $1.8 billion was promised and $1.6 million was delivered—a rounding error of just a tad over a thousand per cent. Unbelievable!

Then we had their long-term projections on education and their so-called Gonski reforms. They promised the world and promised rivers of gold, and then put it on the never-never—well beyond the forward estimates and well beyond any possibility of the Labor Party still being in government. They provided no hint of how they thought the nation might pay for it because they knew they did not need to because they knew that they too were goneski.

It is a pretty regular modus operandi: make the announcement, build up expectation, tell everyone how lucky they are and how fortunate they are to have such a munificent government, and then push it out a few years beyond the forward estimates, do not fund it and then blame someone else. What a hollow empty shell they are!

In fact, the budget papers of 2013 indicate that Labor have developed yet another skill when it comes to money management. They can spend the same wad of notes not once, not twice, but three times. Savings from the private health insurance rebate of $1.1 billion were allocated to the NDIS by the then-Treasurer, the Member for Lilley, in October 2012. A few months later, when the MYEFO was announced, the same money had been allocated to the dental health reform package. Later, in the same document, the same savings were allocated to deficit reduction.

At least, if they believe in nothing else they believe in magic puddings. The Labor Party is indebted to the economic theories of Bunyip Bluegum, Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff as depicted by Norman Lindsay. I would think the member for McMahon has probably got a copy of that fabulous book by his bed at night. He must be re-reading it nightly as he seeks to justify his abandonment of support for reducing taxes for business, for instance—something he had championed previously.

So when it comes to the NDIS it is the coalition that has to do the heavy lifting, and we will. We will ensure the NDIS is funded completely and sustainably, and we will meet that challenge. All Labor can do is oppose, oppose, oppose—or, as the then-manager of government business, the member for Grayndler, used to say on such a regular basis, as you would remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, when he sat on this side of the chamber: 'Nah, nah, nah.' That is what the Labor Party tell us about funding the NDIS. That is what the Labor Party tell us about funding child care in Australia: nah, nah, nah. Labor should wake up. They should know Australia expects us to fund this scheme properly. They oppose on the strength that Australia is so rolling in cash that we can afford to send a Christmas bonus to welfare recipients. Really? Is that what they really think? The special fund account ensures that the savings and efficiencies made within the scheme are not lost to the scheme, and that the government is able to direct savings from other portfolios to the scheme where there is a mechanism to receive the support.

This bill also gives me an opportunity to talk about some of the positive stories I am starting to receive from families. Just recently a father of a very high-needs son high on the autism spectrum spoke to me about the enormous change support from the NDIS has made to his family. Both he and his wife work. They are both very talented people and certainly they have needed two incomes to provide the care that they have had to pay for for their child. Like many in the same boat, with the support of their employers, they stagger working hours and juggle school holidays. The father informed me their support package was in excess of $50,000 a year and that they were now able to access all the services and not just those they could afford. He is blown away by the difference it has made to all their lives.

Another who contacted me is a single mother with two autistic children. She says she has a life again—just a chance every now and then to not to be a 24/7 mother and a 24/7 carer. She even had the opportunity to have a short holiday by taking her children and a carer with her, which is something she says she could have never attempted before.

So many times we stand in this place and thank the volunteers of Australia for the great work they do helping those around them. It is difficult to say whether parents and caregivers are volunteers or whether they are conscripts accepting the extra responsibilities that life has thrust their way. Whatever it is, whether they are volunteers or conscripts, they work to help their loved ones. The effort they give without being asked saves the nation billions of dollars. That is why at the end of the day the NDIS fulfils its primary role, with as best as money and services can provide in maximising the life experiences of the individuals. However, despite its cost it is also the best value for money, assisting parents to do what comes naturally to maximise the period in which they can be the primary caregivers for their children, and it provides in the national interest. I commend the legislation to the House.

Ms CHESTERS ( Bendigo ) ( 16:59 ): The issue this week that has really demonstrated just how nasty and cruel this government is this issue. This government yet again has shown how cruel they are and how they are the masters of wedge politics. To go out there and say, 'How we are going to fund the NDIS is by cutting welfare payments, cutting family tax benefit payments, cutting pensions and cutting Newstart allowance,' is only designed to do one thing and that is to wedge families and to wedge our community. It demonstrates how cynical every member of this government is if they vote for this bill and vote for the omnibus bill, which is being listed for debate later.

The problem that the government has with this political stunt is that it is ignoring what is in the budget papers. As people on my side of the House have argued, in the 2013 and 2014 budget Labor clearly outlined how it would pay for the NDIS. I can remember, because it was before I was in parliament, the way in which people in our community embraced the idea of increasing the Medicare levy to help fund the NDIS.

It is rare to find somebody who does not have a family member, who does not have a friend or who is not caring for somebody with a disability. So Australians welcomed the idea of increasing the Medicare levy, and that is what happened. That funding is to go towards the NDIS. There were also a number of other measures that the former Labor government introduced: reforms around the private health insurance rebate, reforms around retirement income and reforms around the phase out of the net medicine expenses tax offset and other long-term savings.

In government, Labor was responsible to make sure that the money was there. In trying to establish this fund, the government is purely trying to use it as a smokescreen for their welfare cuts. Having struggled to get these zombie cuts through in 2014, 2015 and 2016, now in a desperate attempt they have attached it not only to NDIS but also to child care reforms. This is how desperate they are to cut welfare payments and attack some of the most vulnerable in our community.

It is such a shame that they would seek to divide people with a disability and their families against their neighbours, against young people who might be looking for work, against older pensioners by cutting their pensions and against families, the next-door neighbours who will have their family tax benefits cut. This is how cynical, this is how opportunistic and this is how mean this government is.

The NDIS is something that many in our community are looking forward to. In my own part of the world, in Bendigo, we are getting ready for the rollout. Across the Bendigo electorate—in Loddon, in Macedon, in Mount Alexander and in the City of Greater Bendigo—we formally come online with the NDIS this year, 1 May 2017. There is lots of hope that families have, but they are starting to get really concerned by the way in which this government is managing the rollout.

We all know the facts prior to the rollout. Even the Australian Bureau of Statistics backed up what we were hearing in the community. About half the people with disabilities are not receiving the help that they require. And I have heard this from local organisations in my part of the world, including Scope Loddon Mallee. A customer as well as a service delivery manager, Mary, said, 'The rollout of the NDIS would ease the burden of unmet need for local people with a disability.' She said from her knowledge, 'There were a lot of people in Bendigo getting insufficient support.' She talked about parents in their 70s and 80s still providing full-time care for their adult sons and adult daughters. Mary is not alone. We have had a number of organisations like Amicus, Access Employment and Access Australia Group all providing support and saying there simply is not enough support for the people that need it.

Another young woman spoke up about what it would mean for her. Emma Johnson was looking forward to the incoming NDIS because she was looking forward to moving out of home and starting a job in hospitality. NDIS and the funding that she would receive would help her with the training and skills that she needs for employment. It would also help her find accommodation.

There is a growing problem in our community with the need for accommodation for people with a disability and, in particular, people with a profound disability. There simply is not enough suitable accommodation available in regional areas. Wood Street, which does provide some respite care, has had to wind back its hours because it simply does not have the funding it requires to have all of its rooms available to local families.

All of us, if we are good MPs, know that for carers respite is so vital. If a family can have a week off, if they can have an afternoon off or if they can have a couple of nights off, that time gives them a chance to reset and refresh. The cost on our community, the cost on our government if we do not have quality respite care options is enormous.

One of the great moments that I had last year was being able to attend the opening of the Mount Alexander respite facility between Maldon and Castlemaine. This project has been community funded. There has been some federal government funding and there has been some state government funding, but the bulk of the funding has come from the local community. It has come from the Lions Club, from all the raffles that the parents organised, from donations and from very, very kind gestures of people in the community. This particular service is offering those families that respite support. But communities should not have to fight so hard. It took them over a decade to get the resources to build this respite facility. We need our government to be doing a lot more when it comes to the NDIS, the rollout of the NDIS and, in particular, when we look at accommodation.

There are some very good stories in our part of the world about people looking forward to the NDIS. But, as others have said, there also are some worrying stories. I hope that the government is listening to all of these stories, taking them on board and fixing the problems in the system where they exist.

Last year, on 22 November, a constituent contacted my office about his NDIS assessment. As people probably know, when it looks like they are about to hit the start button for the NDIS in your area, they offer early packages to people, which is what was happening here. For this constituent it related to his 10-year-old son. He was being given early access to the NDIS. Under the old DHS plan, Joshua, his son, was receiving $34,500 per year for services. The original NDIS assessment was for only $14,500, with an extra $4,500 being allocated to the management of the plan. The family was very concerned because it was a reduction of at least $10,000 for their son's package, which caused a lot of distress in the family. They were really anxious about how they would be able to meet their son's needs. We were able to assist. The NDIA did a reassessment, and the good news for this family—after all the anxiety—was that the final figure was much higher. The figure after the reassessment was $47,381. It was a very anxious time for the family when they thought they had lost funding, only to have it come back and increased after it was reviewed through the appeal process.

The volume of work that we are now doing to support people who are concerned or upset about their NDIA assessments is growing. We are expecting about 3,400 people in the region across the city of Greater Bendigo to have an NDIS package, so there is lots of work and support that our electorate office is providing to people. It leads me to ask the government: How are you managing this role? Are there enough people employed by the NDIA? Are there enough public servants there to support people? What training do they have to make sure they are supporting these families, who are just trying to make sure that their loved ones get the best support that they can? People have raised questions about payments. If they choose to manage the package themselves, how do they pay the providers? There are lots of questions coming up day to day.

The other problem that the government is not addressing in relation to the NDIS is workforce. It has no workforce strategy. We all know the statistics that in all of our states it is expected that the workforce will increase by 90 per cent—almost doubling—to make sure that we have enough people working in the sector for all of these packages. Yet despite report after report saying this and despite the agency saying this the government does not have, or has not released, a workforce development strategy. These are the issues that the government needs to be focused on rather than on its smokescreen and game playing. What about quality and safeguards? With any new system we need to ensure that we have quality and safeguards in place. Currently, the NDIA and DSS are working to develop a quality and safeguards framework, but what is it? What role is the government playing to ensure that we have safeguards within the system. It is a new system. It is expensive. We are providing support to the most vulnerable in our community to give them the same opportunities that the rest of us have.

Quite frankly, if the government does not start to take on board the issues of workforce and the issues of quality and safeguards the system might fall over, and it will be this government's fault for its inability to roll out the program properly and effectively, as planned by Labor.

Finally, I would like to reinforce that the government has used this issue to try and wedge our community. It is pure politics. It is saying to families who have a disability, who have been waiting for the NDIS to come: 'We're going to find you but not your neighbour.' It is wedging neighbourhoods and communities by saying, 'We will cut family tax benefit, we will cut pensions, we will cut Newstart and we will cut youth allowance to fund child care and to fund the NDIS.' That demonstrates just how cynical the government is. It demonstrates the disrespect that it has for Australians. People do not like to be treated this way. They do not like to know that a reform that they have been waiting for for many years will come at the expense of the pensioners living across the road. People do not like that. They do not expect that.

It comes back to government priorities. This government's priorities are wrong. It should be funding the NDIS. It should be looking at the issues that have been raised by the sector. It should be supporting pensioners. It should be supporting people into work. It should not be proceeding with big multinational tax cuts, cuts that we know will deliver more profits for the banks. Government has always been about priorities, and the priorities of this government are wrong. Its behaviour this week in attaching NDIS funding to welfare cuts demonstrates again just how wrong it is.

Labor opposes this bill again. This is the second time that I have spoken on this bill, so it does feel like a bit of deja vu, but when the omnibus bill comes up it will have been the sixth time that I have spoken against those cuts, those zombie cuts that the government seems determined to ram through the parliament. It is unfair. Labor had a plan to fund the NDIS. Labor had a plan for the safe rollout of the NDIS. I call upon the government to look at those plans, to make sure that the people who most need our support and need opportunity—people with disability and their families—get the support they need. Stop the politicking, stop the division and do what is right.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Irons ): Before I call the member for Hughes, I must admit that I am looking forward to his contribution, because of the life that he has lived with his child.

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (17:14): It gives me great pleasure to rise this evening to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. Mr Deputy Speaker, you are right: I declare a special interest in this debate. Twenty-one years ago, next month, my son Trent was born. He was born with Down syndrome. A couple of years later, he was diagnosed also with Down syndrome—a double whammy. We will celebrate his birthday next month. Although he is 21 years of age, he has the mental age of a 2½-year-old. He will be unable to understand the concept of what turning 21 is. He will be unable to understand the concept of what it means to blow out a set of candles. But we will celebrate, because he will understand what the cake tastes like.

I have seen firsthand the difficulties of families with disabled children, because I have experienced it myself. But I have been lucky, because it is the wives who experience it most. Many of us get to carry on with our jobs and get up and go to work, whereas our wives are stuck looking after our disabled children. I commend my wife for the brilliant way that she has looked after and raised my son for 21 years.

The importance of the national disability fund means as much to anyone in this parliament as it does to me, but we must ensure that we can fund it on a sustainable model. We cannot do it through borrowing more money. The government does not have a money tree that this can be financed from. The only way that we can finance this is by the wealth created in our nation. That is one of the reasons why I came to parliament: to ensure that we give the entrepreneurs of this country every opportunity to get out there and make a rich and prosperous country that can afford a national disability insurance scheme.

I would like to address claims by Labor members in this debate that the NDIS was fully funded by Labor. They are nothing more than a cynical attempt to rewrite history. Let's go over some of the facts. It is estimated that in 2019-20, which is a little over two years away, the NDIS is going to cost the government $22 billion—that is, $22,000 million for one year. That amount will increase year after year and is likely to be greater than the taxation revenue that we can possibly get. Of that $22 billion, about 52 per cent—$1.1 billion—will come from the Commonwealth and the rest from the states.

Let's start where Labor say this funding comes from. Firstly, I go back to the then Treasurer's speech on 8 May 2012:

The four years of surpluses I announce tonight are a powerful endorsement of the strength of our economy …

…   …   …

This budget delivers a surplus this coming year, on time, as promised, and surpluses each year after that, strengthening over time …

…   …   …

The surplus years are here.

Mr Drum: You said 'promised'!

Mr CRAIG KELLY: They promised. That is how Labor were going to fund it. We know what happened to that promise about the surplus. They cooked the books by bringing expenditure out of that 2012-13 year, bringing some forward into the year before and pushing some out to the next year, so they could create this false claim of a false surplus—a faux surplus—in that year. But we know what happened. They were that hopelessly incompetent that they could not even cook the books right, and the so-called surplus of $1.1 billion that they promised turned into an $18 billion deficit, even though they cooked the books.

If we read further from that same budget speech we see it said that it 'finances bold new policies to help Australians with a disability'. There was no financing of it, because they could not even get the budget into balance. They ran an $18 billion deficit that year. The then Treasurer, the member for Lilley, went on:

Tonight I am proud to announce funding for the historic first stage of a national disability insurance scheme …

…   …   …

This budget commits $1 billion over four years to roll out the first stage of a national disability insurance scheme …

So it was $1 billion over four years. They put in $250 million for each year—remembering that we need $22,000 million to fund this.

Secondly, I will speak about Labor's so-called promises to fund this. We had the increase in the Medicare levy from 1½ per cent to two per cent. It was said at the time that that would raise $3.3 billion. But, going back to when that funding and changes to the Medicare levy were announced, the NDIS was estimated to cost $8 billion. We now know it is $22 billion. Whereas the Gillard government said increasing the Medicare levy by half a per cent would fund 40 per cent of the NDIS, it funds but a mere fraction of it. When we get to 2019-20 we will have $4.1 billion out of a $22 billion cost. It will not fund 40 per cent; it will fund less than 20 per cent.

At the moment we have existing funding from the budgets at $1.1 billion. We have a Medicare levy at $4.1 billion. We also have further funding, from redirecting state funding from the existing special disability services that we provide, of another $1.8 billion. Adding all those numbers up takes us to $7 billion out of the $22 billion, or $7 billion out of the Commonwealth's total of $11.1 billion. So we have a $4.1 billion shortfall to fund the NDIS.

In some type of game of magic pudding, Labor comes in and pretends that they have all these savings that they say they have announced, but they have previously stated that they have allocated those savings to reducing the deficit or to financing other things. Now they want to say that those savings are to be allocated for the NDIS. We know that Senate estimates asked whether those so-called other long-term savings measures that Labor said would fund this could be listed in detail. The Treasurer's response was: 'The short answer is "no".' In other words they do not have a single clue about where that $4.1 billion will come from. Even at the last election it was Labor's plan to increase the deficits further.

If we are going to fund this NDIS, it must be on a sustainable basis. We need to set out where every single dollar of the money will come from. That is what we in the coalition are trying to do. We are trying to ensure that the NDIS is fully and properly funded on a sustainable basis to pay that $11.1 billion. And here is the great tragedy: as a nation this year we will pay $12 billion in interest on the previous Labor government's debt. If it were not for their reckless—

Mr Neumann interjecting—

Mr CRAIG KELLY: You are responsible as well; you were in that other government. If it were not for your reckless, wasteful and politically motivated spending, we would not have that $12 billion interest bill that we have to pay. The interest bill that we have now could fund the NDIS from the federal level in full and with spare change left over. But we have to pay that interest bill on the debt of the previous Labor government.

The member for Jagajaga and other members talked about this so-called $50 billion handout to large companies. This shows the economic ignorance of those who sit on that side. They think that it is like a fixed pie: if you take the money and you give it to big companies here, then you are taking it away from other people. What complete and utter incompetence! If you want to know how this Labor Party has diverted so far from what they traditionally believed about supporting workers, just go and have a look at the member for McMahon's own special book. On page 63 of his book he actually has a separate subheading called 'Promoting growth through cutting company tax'. I will quote directly from the member for McMahon's book. He says:

One of the more controversial reforms by Paul Keating as Treasurer was slashing the corporate tax rate from 49 per cent to 39 per cent …

Going from 49 per cent to 39 per cent—that is what the previous Labor Treasurer did. The member for McMahon writes:

I was a fresh-faced Labor Party branch member at the time, and I recall the party as a whole being incredulous that a Labor government would cut the tax rate for 'fat-cat companies'. I remember a motion Young Labor conference calling for the corporate tax rate to be lifted to 60 per cent to pay for a program of social reform.

But Keating knew that the corporate tax rate needed to be cut to make Australia competitive, that capital and investment would flow to tax-competitive nations and that this was an important job-creation move.

I ask the question to the members on the other side: when Paul Keating cut the corporate tax rate—

Ms Husar: He is not here. This is 2017.

Mr CRAIG KELLY: This is a question to you, member for Lindsay. You may learn something. When he cut the corporate tax rate from 49 per cent to 39 per cent, how much did that cost the budget? Let's go through it. How much did that drop from 49 per cent to 39 per cent cost the budget? The answer is that it cost the budget nothing—and that is why none of the Labor members would probably even know it. In 1987-88 we were getting $8.8 billion in company tax at 49 per cent. When it was lowered to 39 per cent, guess what happened? Corporate tax receipts increased. In 1988-89 they went up 16 per cent. The following year, they went up another 29 per cent, and the year after that they went up another nine per cent. So three years after the corporate tax rate was reduced the budget was not worse off. In fact, it was actually better off in company tax receipts to the tune of 60 per cent. That is the lesson from Paul Keating. That is the lesson that today's Labor Party does not have a clue about.

The other comments that the member for Jagajaga made referred to the energy supplement. I think it is worthwhile quoting from Graham Richardson, a Labor stalwart, someone who is Labor to the bootstraps. In his piece in The Australian today, he said:

Watching Question Time in the House of Representatives on Tuesday was, for me, as alarming as it was tragic. Mark Butler, Labor's Shadow Minister for the Environment, asked the PM a question on the supply of electricity in NSW. Butler's point was that power was cut to homes and to the Tomago aluminium smelter in a state which overwhelmingly relied on coal power and not renewables. The Opposition, front and back bench alike, roared their encouragement and support. I was alarmed because this open display of ignorance and stupidity by Labor paves the way for electoral massacre …

That is a former member of this House, a former member of government. He continued:

… it would indeed be a travesty if dumb ideological adherence to a renewables policy doomed to fail brought Labor undone.

(Time expired)

Ms McBRIDE (Dobell) (17:29): As a pharmacist, a carer and someone who has dedicated most of their life to working with those with mental ill health, the NDIS means much to me. Labor had the vision to design, fund and implement the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Labor, working with people with disability, their families and carers, brought in the NDIS so that they can have the certainty, security and support needed to live full and independent lives. Labor in government successfully developed, introduced and implemented the NDIS, on time and on budget. During this time, the NDIS received bipartisan support, something the coalition now seems to have forgotten. Since the coalition came to government, the NDIS has been systematically undermined and neglected. Disability service providers have gone unpaid while people with disability and their families have been forced to cancel appointments because of system failures, with paperwork and waiting times blowing out. The community are rightly frustrated and concerned about the rollout and the problems they are experiencing with the NDIS in my community and across Australia.

Instead of taking responsibility, the Turnbull government is passing the buck and holding the NDIS and our community to ransom. The NDIS is the biggest social policy reform since Medicare. It is too important to be a plaything for this government. Many people with disability have waited their whole lives for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and now this government is threatening to take it away. Yesterday's behaviour was disgraceful. The Turnbull government is attempting to rip billions of dollars from the pockets of ordinary Australians with its omnibus bill and is trying to force these measures through the Senate by holding the NDIS hostage. Linking the delivery of the NDIS to massive cuts to families, pensioners, people with disability, carers and Newstart recipients is appalling. How far gone do a government and a minister have to be to pit one group of vulnerable Australians against another for funding?

The Liberals' position in government is a long way from their so-called support of the NDIS in opposition. It appears that they were paying lip service to people with disability and those who care for them and love them, and are now threatening to take away funding if senators in the other place do not make cruel cuts to families, young people, older Australians and new migrants to this country. Is the Turnbull government really saying that, if these unfair cuts are not passed through the Senate, the NDIS will not go ahead? People with disability do not deserve to be treated with such contempt by the Turnbull government. This is just another attempt by the government to bring in the cruel cuts it has been trying to get through the parliament since the 2014 budget.

The attacks on the NDIS continue with the bill before us today, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016, the purpose of which is to establish an account, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account, to pay for the NDIS. Labor had funded the NDIS in establishing the DisabilityCare Australia Fund, while this government continues to claim that the NDIS was not funded. We increased the Medicare Levy by 0.5 per cent to contribute. We increased Commonwealth expenditure on disability. We made sensible and sustainable savings to the budget. Labor's 2013-14 budget clearly set out how the NDIS would be funded for 10 years, well beyond full implementation. But now the minister is saying that all the work Labor did to fund the NDIS has been undone—not through purposeful spending but to fund cuts in other areas or to give tax breaks to big business.

The government are prepared to hold the NDIS to ransom and play politics so they can push through more of their devastating cuts to shore up their fragile budget bottom line. This is playing politics with the wellbeing and future of some of the most vulnerable people in Australia and those who love them. Yet, when they were in opposition, the coalition supported all but one of the revenue and savings measures proposed by Labor. Some of these measures were even passed in the parliament after the election, when the coalition formed government. Minister Porter argues that, because these savings were not specifically set aside for the NDIS, they were 'effectively lost for NDIS purposes', yet this proposed fund will not protect the Commonwealth's contribution to the NDIS. If the DisabilityCare Australia Fund was pilfered by this government, then so might this new account be. It will be used as yet another excuse for further cuts to social services. These cuts are already making the NDIS harder to access for people in my community.

At a mobile office in Lake Haven shopping centre, I met Carolyn. Her five-year-old son, Sebastian, has global development delay with autistic traits. He is non-verbal, is limited in movement and has constant, high-care needs. Carolyn is full of praise for the staff at Northlakes Public School, who attend to Sebastian's needs with constant care and supervision. He is also supported by the Cerebral Palsy Alliance for occupational and speech therapies. Carolyn and Sebastian are new to the Central Coast. Having fled a violent relationship, they are now making a new life in our community. They have no family nearby. Tragically, Carolyn was diagnosed with breast cancer late last year. She is now preparing to undergo chemotherapy, which she will start in the next week. She is desperately concerned about who will care for Sebastian when she is too sick to do so. She says:

Sebastian will need a Local Area Coordinator, to ensure he is getting the best options available to him when I can't lift my head off the pillow.

He will need someone to help him get to and from his therapy appointments when I am unable to drive.

He will need someone to take him swimming with his school group when I am considered too toxic to swim in a public pool.

He will need someone to take him to the park, or the beach, or the movies on weekends or after school so he's not isolated in the house with me when the chemotherapy makes me ill.

He will need someone who can keep an eye on him if we go out on a Central Coast Aspect fun day when I may not be able to run to catch him when he takes off.

When circumstances change, NDIS packages are able to be amended. Carolyn submitted the appropriate paperwork as soon as she was diagnosed, but this process is taking far too long. Time is a luxury she and Sebastian do not have. It is critical that the NDIS has the resources to provide reviews in a timely manner. But, as long as this government is opposed to adequately resourcing the Public Service, including the National Disability Insurance Agency, people will suffer from the lack of frontline public services.

While the government is in this place playing games with funding, people in my community are waiting for the care and support that they urgently and desperately need—people like Diane, who made contact with my office when her son Hayden entered the NDIS. Hayden has Down syndrome, and he suffers from a heart condition related to his disability. Hayden's plan is in the process of being approved, but, as is the case with too many people, it can be difficult to separate Hayden's health conditions from his disability—nonetheless, that is a job that must be done. It is a source of great stress for Hayden and his family as they move through this process. Their questions about essential medical equipment—such as a wheelchair, VPAP machine, and oxygen concentrator—and how this equipment will be provided for him are met with conflicting information from the health service and the NDIS. It would be devastating to think that, while those necessary decisions around which agency is responsible for which services take place, people like Hayden are caught in the middle.

The New South Wales government embraced the NDIS, and I applaud them for that, but as it rolls out on the Central Coast I will work to ensure that all levels of government work to achieve the best outcome for those people living with disability—not the best outcome for the budget bottom line. The money to fund the NDIS is there. It is in consolidated revenue. But the coalition would rather spend it on their pet projects than on people for whom it could make a real difference in their lives. Labor will keep fighting to protect the National Disability Insurance Scheme from the Turnbull government's attacks.

Labor will and does oppose this bill. There are still many questions that must be answered by the minister about just what is going on with the NDIS funding which he claims is now gone. The minister has not consulted the sector. He has not consulted people with disability. Yet he is frightening people with disability, their families and carers by telling them that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is not funded, or that funding will be taken away if the government's omnibus savings bill is not passed. People in my community know how beneficial the NDIS is, but this government is undermining the success of the scheme and its future.

The Central Coast is already underserviced for disability support, and, without a strong and well-funded NDIS, local people will miss out. There are reasons for the lack of services on the coast, but it is imperative that governments, including the state Liberal government, address this as the roll-out continues.

My constituent Lexanne suffered a massive stroke six months ago which left her with limited movement in her right side, blind in one eye and confined mostly to a wheelchair, with leg braces for walking in limited environments. She cannot push her own wheelchair, but, due to her limited vision, an electric wheelchair is not an option. Lexanne's NDIS experience is a mostly positive one: she is happy with the support of her coordinator, and the funding levels allow her to consider home modifications and care options that otherwise would not have been possible. However, she says the biggest problem is that there are not enough service providers on the Central Coast and the delay in accessing care is worrying.

Lexanne, after her stroke, moved in with her sister Joanne. Joanne is juggling full-time work with caring for her sister and their elderly parents, who also live with her. When I spoke with Joanne last week, she was at work, at the train station. Recently, she had to work late unexpectedly and got home at around 11 pm. With no night care for Lexanne, she began the night-time routine, preparing her for bed, several hours later than would ordinarily have occurred. Part of this includes medication to help Lexanne sleep, and the delay in administering this meant Lexanne was overtired and lethargic the following day, making it much more difficult to provide her usual care routine.

The local health service provided a six-week in-home-care program following Lexanne's discharge, but there was a period of several months between this and the availability of services through the NDIS. The only option during this time was for Lexanne to directly fund her care. She can only afford one hour per day, yet her NDIS package provides for more than six hours a day. Of course, the bulk of the caring and financial support currently falls to her sister Joanne. This is precisely the situation that the NDIS was designed to change—to help relieve the stress of care, to return autonomy and independence to people's lives, and to ensure that people with disability, their families and carers live with dignity and independence.

People with disability know that Labor will always stand with them. We built the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and we will never let the coalition tear it down.

Mrs SUDMALIS (Gilmore) (17:42): A lot of the discussion around the NDIS goes towards the budget, so let us put this in clear terms. The budget is the document that outlines how the government spends your money—not your money, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, but that of the public out there, who may or not be listening but who certainly would love to hear about it. That is their money—it is their money if they pay tax.

No-one in Gilmore will ever begrudge funding that can assist people with a disability. But I have heard in this chamber some members of the opposition describing the process of trying to get a balanced budget as like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Well, I would say: we in this House have an absolute responsibility to make changes to a whole-of-country support system that works well now, to make sure it works well into the future. Labor says we are taking funding, like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but, in reality, their proposals are taking money and benefits away from our children and our grandchildren. So this is, in effect, robbing our children's future of stability—actually robbing Australia's future.

The NDIS was originally framed to be of assistance to those born with a disability and those injured who then, due to those injuries, were said to have a significant disability. That has since been expanded, and it was never originally budgeted for but we need to take care of those people as well.

The original work was inspired because there is a hodgepodge of service provision that has different levels of care from state to state across Australia. I recall the numerous bi-party briefings that were held during 2012 and 2013; at that time, I was a staffer and I was asked to attend those briefings in place of Joanna Gash. I knew that there were many people in our region who were struggling to get through the system, and at that time I was alerted to the needs, particularly, of custodial grandparents where the child was affected with a disability. I still have that issue as one of paramount concern. However, I will return to that issue and others later.

There is no doubt that all members in this parliament—and I mean all of us—will be 110 per cent in support of having an effective NDIS funding strategy. But I hesitate and take a breath. When Labor was in government, this NDIS was one of their signature policies. It was legislated in the House in 2013 with total bipartisan support, and, as the member for Jagajaga mentioned earlier today, their budget projections included an increased Medicare levy to pay for the NDIS. Some would say that that is a reasonable plan; many would be concerned with the cost implications for families at the lower socio-economic level. Labor failed—yes, I said 'failed'—to legislate this additional levy, yet they counted the extra revenue into their funding estimates for the NDIS over the forward estimates. This was a deceitful way of saying the NDIS was funded when really it was not. I need to put this in clear and understandable terms. In May 2013, the then Labor government had a fully funded NDIS based on an increased Medicare levy and other actions that they actually never legislated. The election was in September, so they had more than three months to get that legislation through before they called the election. Remember that federal elections are called by the sitting Prime Minister. I think at that time it was Kevin. It may have been Julia, but I am pretty sure it was Kevin. We are working—

Mr Dick: Was it Malcolm? Was it Tony?

Mrs SUDMALIS: No, my dear, it was not. This was back in 2013. The theory was that he could have a fast election and possibly save Labor. Instead of saving the future of the NDIS, they callously called an election before passing that very, very important legislation to make the funding possible.

Now in this House we hear, 'We're funding the NDIS and there's no shortfall!'. Good grief! Do the maths. If you do not pass legislation to generate the income, there is a funding shortfall. The facts are that there is a $4.1 billion annual shortfall in the NDIS funding, but we are all committed to making sure this is filled. The shortfall has been recognised by disability groups and independent commentators throughout this whole debate. By 2019-2020, the Commonwealth, states and territories will jointly be spending around $21.4 billion to implement the NDIS. Not one of us resents one cent of that amount, because we know how critically important this is. We have heard stories throughout this House where we know this is essential.

The Commonwealth will fund approximately 52 per cent of the scheme, which will be about $11.1 billion in the 2019-2020 year. Labor claims it clearly identified enough savings specifically assigned to pay the other half of the Commonwealth funding requirements, which will be $4.1 billion in 2019-2020. As I have explained, this is untrue. Labor's actual budget papers did not link the savings to the NDIS, and that proposition only appeared in a 2013-2014 budget glossy. When savings measures were announced, Labor was still committed to a surplus, and it committed the funds to reducing the deficit, not merely to more spending. When the savings were announced, Labor did not mention the NDIS at all. Savings Labor now claims it made to help fund the NDIS went into consolidated revenue and were never set aside to fund the NDIS.

Any serious allocation of savings in an area of such significant social need, and such a large part of the budget spend in regard to the NDIS, requires a specific fund to be created to protect any savings from other uses, such as deficit reduction. This protects the funds from being washed away in growing deficits that were not predicted at the time the savings were made. In other words, a different government at any future time cannot take the funds and use them to pay off the 'government mortgage', rather than saving them for the needs of the people who the NDIS will cover. On this point, it is notable that at the time the NDIS first appeared in the federal budget, in 2012-13, the Treasurer of the day, Wayne Swan, predicted a surplus of $1.5 billion in 2012-2013 and that actually turned into a deficit of $18.8 billion.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016 will establish a new, ongoing special account known as the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account. My gosh; I am sure they are going to get a smaller title eventually! We have to meet our future spending. It is so important. The new NDIS Savings Fund Special Account—hopefully they are going to limit that to 'savings fund'—will collect underspends and savings to help meet the Commonwealth's contribution to the scheme. We will be able to pool these underspends and savings from across government over future years and lock them in as major contributions to the NDIS.    The NDIS is due to become the full scheme in 2019-2020, which will inject $21.4 billion each year into the Australian economy and improve the lives of around 460,000 Australians with a disability.

In Gilmore we have showcase organisations that either are working within the NDIS rollout right now or will be initiating such connections after July this year. One of those showcase organisations is Yumaro. Yumaro employs people with disabilities and is located in Moruya. Mark Brantingham, who has been a fabulous CEO, has put together amazing projects in that organisation, and you could not wish to meet happier people than the people who are working there. So far we have committed a small amount, $20,000, to help Yumaro expand and provide new opportunities for their ongoing business directions, but they also have part funding for some disability respite accommodation.

I have to applaud Yumaro. They are doing a fabulous job. They employ over 100 people who have a permanent disability. They have secured a major contract to manufacture and supply cleaning cloths to Bunnings Warehouse stores all around Australia. Next time you see those white packs in the painting section, you will know that they contain torn-up towels from hotels, overlocked by young people with a disability, packed into bags and shot out to Bunnings all over Australia. The $20,000 funded part of an extension valued at over $100,000 and it will deliver an additional 65 jobs, both during construction and for people with a disability.

Jindelara is one of my favourite disability projects in the seat of Gilmore. Last week I turned first sod for the project, which had been a promise during the election. There were tears that day, because the Lions Club, the Rotary club and all the people in the community had tried to fundraise for this enterprise—they had scraped together money; we had had a gala ball put on by the mayor of the day; and they had had a special grant of about $358,000 from America—but they could not get to what they needed, which was well over $700,000. The government matched them dollar-for-dollar, and we have now turned the sod on that cottage. Ultimately, it will have accommodation for six young people or children who need respite care so their carers can have a bit of a break. Last Friday I joined that community again, after we had announced Jindelara Cottage way back in June last year, and the Ulladulla Milton Lions Club President, Brian Thompson, and I turned the sod. Uncle Fred Carriage did a wonderful welcome to country, effectively a blessing for the site.

Jindelara Cottage will be a purpose-built five- to six-bedroom cottage with lots of modern facilities to accommodate young people living with a disability in our local community. It will enable families to access vital services in our region without the expense of travelling long distances, which stresses the families and means that children may be taken away from Budawang, which is the school that is based just two blocks from this respite place. The cottage is expected to be able to be accessed by over 60 children and young adults staying there over the year.

The cottage was inspired by a meeting at the Dunn Lewis Centre in Ulladulla, where the whole community gathered together and said: 'We need to have this respite facility. We do not want to take our young people out of school.' A young man, Eric, who had quite significant disabilities, was quite vocal at this gathering. He was being looked after by his custodial grandparents, so he is one of these special young people. He needed to not have to be taken to Batemans Bay or to Wollongong to give some respite, because that took him away from his school and his whole behaviour pattern changed because he was out of sync with his daily pattern. The appeal from his grandmother on the day was, 'This has to happen, but I don't believe it will happen in my time.' Well, I am happy to say that Eric's grandmother is still alive, although Eric will not be accessing this as much as he might have, because he is now mature enough to go to a group home. I was told that on Friday, so there were smiles all round.

Another organisation in my region which has done spectacular work for people with disabilities is Slice of Life Australia, or SOLA. It is a Shoalhaven based not-for-profit organisation that supports employment for people with disabilities in the hospitality, retail and horticultural industries. It also takes on young Indigenous people with disabilities. On this day after the Closing the gapreport, it is actually achieving that—closing the gap—bringing in young Indigenous people with a disability, mentoring them and helping them to move into part-employment. It operates a general store and a sustainable garden, which is now under the auspices of a fabulous Indigenous group called Waminda, who are doing an outstanding job as well. SOLA also runs Reflections Cafe at the local crematorium and it has a second-hand clothing store which is a bit better than normal, in the main street. SOLA is a sustainable company and it has been going for quite some time. It employs eight dedicated volunteers and over 30 full-time and casual employees, about a third of whom have a disability. SOLA has done some amazing things. It has even run a certificate II course in food handling, in conjunction with TAFE, in its preparation kitchen. So it really is achieving well.

All these organisations are disability providers. They are part of the NDIS system of right now and of the future. As we see the potential of the NDIS, there are increasing numbers of organisations that are changing the lives of so many people who have a disability, and these people are now able to choose the provider that best suits their needs. The NDIS is welcomed. It should be a great outcome for those with a disability, their carers and their families, not an unfunded brilliant program that can only partially deliver on its potential. Our plan will have a funding model that works not just now but well into the future so, when those amazing custodial grandparents who are looking after the children of their children pass, they will know that those children or young people with a disability will have a place to go; they will have a system of care; they will have people who are there to support them and surround them as they move on for the rest of their lives, even if their grandparents have passed.

I am proud of the system that has been brought in. It has, to date, been well supported by both sides. We really need to get on board with this, make sure we get it through, get the funding sorted and make sure these people with a disability are looked after.

Ms HUSAR (Lindsay) (17:57): I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016, and I do so because I feel this government is shamefully using the NDIS as a political tool rather than a tool for increased care and equality for Australians with a disability. Do not mind me saying so, because I have got one of my own that I have been raising for quite some time. It was lovely to see the member for Dobell in here giving her very tempered response, after that very 'tempered', outrageous statement from the member for Hughes, who proceeded to give us an illuminating lecture about government spending but forgot that his own government is currently in deficit to the tune of $447 billion.

Mr Dick: Minor detail!

Ms HUSAR: Just 'alternative facts'! We see contained in this bill and the accompanying talking points from those opposite a multitude of mistruths and misdirections. Foremost is the government's assertion that the NDIS was not fully funded by the previous Labor government. That is trotted out from the mouths of everybody sitting over there. This is an 'alternative fact'—which I thought were just reserved for President Trump. And the government now asserts that the creation of this special fund signifies the beginning of the NDIS being fully funded. Of course, this is complete rubbish. The government knows it is complete rubbish, and I can only surmise that the time and energy that has gone into building up this fallacy really bells the cat about where the true priorities of this government lie when it comes to the NDIS.

Mr Keenan interjecting—

Mr Champion interjecting—

Ms HUSAR: Here are the facts—and, if they stopped squabbling at the table there, they might actually learn something—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): Order! The member for Lindsay has the call.

Ms HUSAR: The previous Labor government's 2013-14 budget clearly set out how the NDIS would be funded for 10 years, far exceeding the transition period to the fully functioning scheme. The Labor government put forward a suite of savings and revenue measures which paid for the NDIS well beyond the transition phase. It surprises me that coalition members seem to have forgotten this fact. It might jog their memory to know that, at the time, they voted in support of every one of these measures, bar one.

This is a new parliament, and there are new members on both sides, including me and my colleagues who join me here now—the member for Dobell, the member for Longman and the member for Oxley—so I think it is worthwhile stepping through some of the measures Labor put in place to fully fund the NDIS, just to jog those memories. The Medicare levy went to two per cent. There was a phase-out of the net medical expenses tax offset. There were reforms to retirement income schemes. There were reforms to the private health insurance rebate. There were contributions from state and territory governments. And there were a bunch of other long-term savings measures, including changes to fringe benefits and changes to tobacco excise. All these sensible and measured changes added up to funding the NDIS.

I read in The Australian Financial Reviewavings Labor now claims it made to help fund the NDIS went into consolidated revenue and were never set aside to fund the NDIS.' This statement is staggering. To claim that savings measures could not be related to the NDIS because they flowed into consolidated revenue is absurd and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of government revenue and section 81 of the Constitution.

This is only made worse by the fact that the 2013-14 budget, brought down by the previous Labor government, actually specified the opposite of the minister's claim. I draw the House's attention to the second paragraph on page 1-20 of Budget Paper 1:

The long-term savings made in this budget total $77 billion by 2020-21. These savings fully offset the expenditure needed for DisabilityCare Australia and the National Plan for School Improvement. Between 2013-14 and 2023-24 the long-term savings provide $121 billion.

Indeed, the minister's own department has said that the NDIS is fully funded in their submission to the Senate inquiry looking into this bill. The idea that Labor has rewritten history, with respect to funding the NDIS, is completely false. It is a fabrication designed to distract from this government's NDIS bungles and their desperate desire to rip money out of the social services budget. And what better way to do that than an imaginary need for a separate funding account to strip money from other welfare programs to put into that account when the NDIS was already funded without the need to reduce welfare spending. There should be no doubt that this whole exercise is nonsense. It is completely unnecessary, and it raises serious questions about this government's intentions.

Respected and independent service providers and advocates have said so themselves. It is a shame that the member for Fisher is not in here because he will know now, from my speech, that it has been rejected by peak bodies. Peter Davidson from the Australian Council of Social Services has said:

It is not obvious why this new fund is needed. Its purpose, apart from the generic one of funding the NDIS, is not clear and we don't believe it should be supported in its present form.

Alan Blackwood from Young People in Nursing Homes National Alliance has said:

The Alliance does not support the Savings Fund as constructed in the bill…the notion of a funding shortfall portrayed in the bill and Ministers speech is actually concerning and perplexing.

These are all the experts, the peak bodies. And Stephanie Gotlib from Children and Young People with Disability Australia has said:

It is believed that the creation of this Special Account … places essential disability services and supports as non-core business of the Australian Government, with their full funding being dependent on other budget savings measures identified by the Government of the day.

How has this government found itself in a position where NDIS funding on the ground becomes dependent on other budget-line items? This is a significant departure from ordinary practice. The question must be asked: why should this essential service for Australians with a disability be funded any differently from other expenditure programs of the federal government? The answer is simple: it should not. And the effort with which this government has pushed should be a cause for concern.

The NDIS program is close to my heart. In fact, I think it is one of the greatest examples of government providing dignity and protection to its citizens. That is why I will defend it to the end. I know firsthand the difference the NDIS can make to the lives of people with a disability and their families. Raising a child with special needs is the toughest job on earth, and there would not be a single parent out there who would say they do not need all the help they can get when it comes to their child with special needs, especially when it comes to allowing them the ability to receive life-changing early intervention. Through the NDIS, children who were previously ineligible for assistance under the patchwork model, which was broken-down, underfunded and chaotic, are finally able to be helped. This makes a real difference to their lives, and I know this, personally—having campaigned for it, having stood up for it, having gone to rallies and having made sure this becomes a reality for every single person in this country.

The NDIS provides independence to people who have only ever known reliance, and that means something. It means something to the beneficiaries of the scheme, it means something to their families, it means something to carers and it means something our community as a whole. This is all because of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which is a legacy of the last Labor government. Of course, that is not to say the NDIS is without creases that need to be ironed out. But, fundamentally, the NDIS is a once-in-a-generation reform package that must be defended, and shifty moves like this one must be called out for what they are: a concerted effort to undermine our social safety net and attack the essential services that assist the most vulnerable people in our society. And the government has form in this regard.

We are still hearing and seeing the impact of this government chasing innocent people for fake Centrelink debts, and, to date, they have shown that they just do not care. We have seen this week their plans to force unemployed young people to live off nothing, for five weeks, in what can only be described as a big-stick punishment for anyone who does not have rich parents. Seriously, how does this government expect these people to survive? The shiftiness of this special savings fund bill is evident as well in the government's plans to cut family tax benefits and cut paid parental leave.

Everywhere we look we see this government undermining the support being given to the most vulnerable Australians. Three-time Paralympic gold medallist Kurt Fearnley was spot-on when he called out this shameful government for pitting Australians with a disability against other vulnerable Australians. He said, 'To say the NDIS isn't important and we need to directly grab money from X to pay for it, it hurts our community and the country as a whole.' And that is so true. He went on to say that he wished the government would fight for the NDIS with as much vigour as they are fighting for their $50 billion big-business tax cut that is going to hand $7 billion straight to each of the four big banks. And that is all you need to know about this government and this disgusting bill.

They are creating a problem that does not exist so they can use the NDIS as a battering ram against other crucial elements of our social safety net, and that is simply not on. This government should wake up to itself and concentrate on making the NDIS a success rather than taking every opportunity to undermine its future. That is what Australians voted for, and that is what they expect.

Mr PITT (Hinkler—Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (18:07): I rise to speak in support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016, and to return to the focus to what it should be on, and that is the people that this fund will support and the opportunities it will provide, particularly into my region in Central Queensland.

The NDIS is one of the largest social and economic policy reforms in Australia's history, and we should continue to be focused on the people it will help. The scheme will support people with disabilities to meet the costs associated with their condition and, importantly, it will empower people with disabilities to make their own decisions about the support they receive. As of June 2016 there were around 30,000 people participating in trials of the scheme across the country. The NDIS Quarterly Report for July-September 2016, released in November last year, stated that $3.3 billion had been committed to help people with disability across the country and 37,721 participants now have plans under the scheme. By 2019-20, there will be an estimated 460,000 Australians with disability being supported by the NDIS.

Queensland represents the third-largest market with around 91,000 participants living with disability and their families benefiting when the NDIS is fully rolled out by July 2019, up from approximately 48,000 people with disability currently receiving funded supports. In my electorate of Hinkler, the scheme will begin rolling out in Bundaberg from 1 October this year and the Fraser Coast from 1 July 2018. The rollout schedule was determined by the Queensland state Labor government, with the state divided into 13 service regions using existing Queensland disability sub-regional areas. The NDIS represents a significant change for people with disability and the disability services sector, and that is why we are introducing the scheme in stages to ensure that it is carefully managed.

People living with disability, their families, their carers and their service providers will all benefit from the NDIS and from the certainty the full scheme provides. Support will go directly to each eligible person, which means the current supports and services will change as participants demand new supports and services. Previously, people with a disability, their families and carers have not been able to exercise extensive choice and control over the supports that they receive. The NDIS will allow them to have that choice and have the services that they want.

There is no doubt that the NDIS will change the landscape of the disability sector. Not only will there be new opportunities, there will also be a new source of demand within the wider economy for disability support services. Providers of disability support services will need to be prepared to be innovative and capitalise on job opportunity growth, because the NDIS ultimately means more jobs.

Last year, a new analysis of the NDIS in Queensland, the Market Position Statement, was released by the National Disability Insurance Agency, NDIA. The Market Position Statement aimed to share information about the NDIS with the marketplace, helping providers to make business decisions about how they can best meet the needs of people living with disability. The report stated that the disability services market in Queensland will grow from around $1.8 billion currently to approximately $4.3 billion in 2020. The NDIS will inject $2.5 billion into the Queensland economy and double the disability services workforce, which will benefit the entire state.

Across my electorate, more than 1,650 jobs are expected to be created when the NDIS is rolled out. The Bundaberg and Maryborough service regions are expected to require the largest proportional workforce increase, as the current estimated workforce is less than 40 per cent of the estimated NDIS workforce. More than 600 jobs are expected to be created in the Bundaberg region and 1,050 in the Maryborough region. The number of people receiving disability support in the Bundaberg region is forecast to grow from 1,500 to 3,300, which is 120 per cent, and in the Maryborough region from 2,200 to 5,100, which is an increase of 132 per cent.

This growth will, in turn, generate jobs, fuel innovation and increase investment, and we need to be ready to capitalise and encourage these job opportunities. The Market Position Statement talks about these opportunities, and I quote:

The NDIA values the role of providers and sees them as a critical part of the NDIS in terms of delivering high quality, person-centred supports to help participants achieve their aspirations.

The NDIA would like to see a market with a diverse array of providers that maximises choice and control for participants but also enables strong links with mainstream services and family and community support to help achieve the overall NDIS aspirations of increased social and economic participation for people with disability.

The report goes on to say:

NDIS-generated growth presents significant opportunities for an expansion in service provision. With this opportunity comes the challenge to deliver high quality, capacity building, value-for-money supports.

Some providers are already embracing this challenge and are looking at new business models and products and exploring new ideas, collaborations, technologies and services that are more responsive to individual choices.

I would encourage all of those economic development agencies in my own electorate of Hinkler—whether they are working with local government or local chambers—to be on the front foot, encouraging people to invest in the region, where we have opportunities to not only increase our local economy but also improve our employment level. I am very supportive of anyone that can bring new business to our region—whether that is local businesses with innovative solutions for disability services or training providers, we need all of that support. This is a growth area in Central Queensland and it is a great opportunity to help people that need disability support and an opportunity for our region to strengthen its economy.

In April last year, the Assistant Minister for Disability Services, my good friend and colleague Jane Prentice and I held a roundtable discussion with local service providers in my electorate. Representatives from service providers, including from Impact, Bridges, Steps and Endeavour, met to discuss the NDIS and what it will mean for Hinkler residents. It was a great opportunity to talk to people at the coalface of disability and mental health services and discuss what they need to be doing right now to capitalise on the opportunities that the NDIS will bring. All stakeholders will need time to build their understanding of their customer base and preferences and position their offerings. But they are already growing and diversifying to meet the new demand. There are around 2,300 registered providers in the NDIS, and about 130 organisations have applied to register as a provider of NDIS supports in Queensland.

The coalition government is committed to adequately and sustainably funding the NDIS. That is why I am speaking on this bill. The Commonwealth will manage the NDIS Savings Fund Special Account in a way that is transparent and quantifiable. In addition to this special account, the Commonwealth is redirecting existing disability related spending and the DisabilityCare Australia Fund to the NDIS rollout. This will come from existing disability funding; the    Commonwealth share of the increase in the Medicare levy through the DisabilityCare Australia Fund; and redirected funding which is currently provided to the states for specialist disability services. This will amount to about $6.8 billion. This does still leave a shortfall of $4.1 billion. It is this government's job to set aside the remainder needed for the full rollout by 2019-20. This special account is the mechanism for securing that funding shortfall.

And it is smart policy. The Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, through a majority report, recommended that this bill be passed. The special account will be administered by the Department of Social Services, with its funding sitting within the Consolidated Revenue Fund. This will ensure that savings deposited into the special account are not returned to the Consolidated Revenue Fund itself and effectively lost for NDIS purposes. The special account will allow the government, over future budgets, to identify savings from existing programs and set aside those savings to assist in meeting the Commonwealth's future financial commitments to the NDIS. Effectively, the Commonwealth will, over successive years, put aside savings that are clearly identified, quantified and defined so that the annual funding gap from 2019-20 is met within existing funding. Further, there will be a review of the special savings fund before 1 July 2027. The coalition government is committed to properly, adequately and sustainably funding the NDIS. This measure follows through on that commitment, and I certainly recommend the bill to the House.

Ms LAMB (Longman) (18:15): I would like to think that one of the important roles that we as members of this place have is to speak up for the silent, to stand up for injustice, and to provide hope. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is the embodiment of all of those things. It is the culmination of decades of work by disabled people, their families and their carers, and its passing in this place demonstrated our parliament's tradition of bipartisanship on the really important things. Unfortunately, it appears that the bipartisanship seen at the inception of the NDIS will not continue through to its delivery. The government's insistence on using this as a political stunt is really to muddy up the legacy of Labor in government. It is to muddy up that work, not just of that government but also of the people who worked really hard to see a better future for their kids; a future where they could be confident that their disabled children would continue to receive care.

I fear that these attacks on that legacy are not just about scoring political points though; I think they disguise the government's new mechanism to make cuts to other parts of the social services portfolio, cuts that will have an impact on people's lives. The attempt of those opposite to argue the need to secure funding to the NDIS is patently false. The NDIS is fully funded. In the 2013-14 budget, Labor clearly indicated how the NDIS would be funded for the next decade. There was a raft of savings measures that we used to fully fund the NDIS. Almost all of these savings measures were supported by those opposite. They included reforms to the private health insurance rebate, reforms to retirement incomes, the phase-out of the net medical expenses tax offset, and other long-term savings proposals. In addition to this, the Medicare levy was increased to two per cent. The former Labor government actually set up its own special account, the DisabilityCare Australia Fund, just for this purpose. The source of the funding for this account is actually the increase to the Medicare levy. So if this legislation was to pass effectively, we would have two special accounts doing exactly the same thing—providing funds for the NDIS. That does not fit very well with the Liberal Party mantra of cutting red tape, though, does it? The National Disability Insurance Scheme is fully funded; suggestions to the contrary belong in the world of alternative facts. So where is the need for this legislation? There is no need to create a special savings account to fund a scheme that is already funded. We know how important the NDIS is for people living with a disability. But it also extends to those who are around them—to their supporters, to their carers, to the community and to a society as a whole. This is, after all, the biggest social reform since Medicare.

There is genuine goodwill towards the NDIS in the community. So many of the people I have spoken to are willing it to succeed. They are so supportive of the NDIS because they know the transformative effect it will have on people's lives. We must ensure that we utilise this positivity in the community to deliver on a scheme that people living with disabilities and their families absolutely deserve.

One of the positive things about this debate is that we know the NDIS is working—yes, there have been issues with the rollout of the NDIS, particularly around the speed and the quality of delivery. We on this side of the House will continue to hold the government to account on these matters, to ensure the rollout is as good as it can be. And I make no apologies for that. However, it is undeniable that, when this scheme is delivered as designed, the positive effect it will have on the lives of those who use it will be immense. As the scheme gets rolled out across the country, we can already see the impact that it is having—like this heartening story I am going to share with you, Deputy Speaker, which the member for Braddon shared with me. She spoke to me about Lyn Leedham, a mother of three sons, including 23-year-old Mitchell. Mitchell has autism, he has floating-harbor syndrome and he has intellectual disabilities. The member for Braddon tells me that Lyn is an amazing woman. She is always smiling and always full of life. Mitchell joined the NDIS when it was first rolled out in Tasmania in 2013. The NDIS has transformed not only Mitchell's life but also that of Lyn and the rest of her family. Lyn says:

There are so many positives with the NDIS. Mitchell has got a life now because of the NDIS. He's got one-on-one carers, he's learning to become more independent, he's becoming a real citizen in the community. He's learning how to cook, how to spell and how to do the shopping and manage his finances.

But it is not just Mitchell's life that has been transformed for the better. Lyn has told the member for Braddon that one of the biggest positives in Mitchell's package is the provision of family respite, something that has not been available before. Mitchell has two host families who take him for weekends and other holidays. Lyn describes what this respite has meant to her and her husband by saying:

Brian and I are a married couple again—we have never been able to go out as a couple because one of us would always stay home to be with Mitchell. We went out for a Chinese meal and it was very quiet and we thought of Mitchell the whole time, but it was the first time in 20 years we had been out as a couple. And Mitchell loves the host families and loves his own freedom. As he says, I can't be with you oldies all the time.

Lyn's hope is that Mitchell will one day live in a supported home with others. She is full of praise for his service providers, especially for Tracey from Multicap in Burnie who manages Mitchell's plan. According to Lyn, Tracey is brilliant—she is just perfect. As well as receiving one-on-one care for Mitchell and respite for the family, Mitchell is also getting support from health professionals for his depression. Mitchell has advanced to the point where he is now working one day a week for his new local member of parliament. He loves it and he is doing well.

There are so many positive NDIS stories like this in the country. In my very own electorate of Longman there are some fantastic organisations and individuals that support those living with a disability. One such organisation is the Caboolture Disability Support Network, founded and run by an amazing man by the name of Matt McCracken. Matt is a passionate advocate for people in my electorate living with disabilities. He is dedicated to the creation of an organisation that provides information and support groups for those living with a disability. The Caboolture Disability Support Network advocates in the community and beyond to voice issues relating to disability. The Caboolture Disability Support Network was set up with the aim of cultivating and nurturing a community of friends where long-term mutually beneficial friendships are established, leading to a sense of inclusion. The network aims to broaden community understanding about living with a disability. Matt is particularly focused on tackling the stigma that still surrounds disability. Matt tells me we are making progress on that front, but there is still a long, long way to go. Matt's tireless work and that of his organisation has made a real difference to the lives of people in our community.

I have spoken to Matt many times about the NDIS and in particular its rollout in Longman. He is a passionate supporter of the scheme that aims to help people with a disability. Matt, like so many others in the sector, is excited about the possibilities of the scheme. As I mentioned, his organisation, the Caboolture Disability Support Network, is already working hard planning for the rollout of the NDIS. This is despite the fact that the scheme is not due in our area until January 2019. This is an example of the eagerness that is felt for the impending NDIS in my electorate. The organisations and individuals that support those with disability right across the electorate are wholly invested in the NDIS. They are committed to making the scheme work.

Matt tells me that there is great anticipation for the scheme among the 12,000 people who are classed as disabled in the wider community area. The scheme obviously helps many more people than just those 12,000 when you take into account all of the people around them—all of their family members and their carers who support them living with a disability. So many lives will be transformed by the NDIS. However, Matt understands that this really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for those he advocates for. It is an opportunity to do it right and do it once. He is quite anxious, though, when he hears about the type of legislation that we are speaking about today. He is quite fearful that the scheme will fall prey to politics. But Matt is a great guy, he is a great advocate and he is up for the fight to protect the NDIS. He is one of the fiercest advocates I know for the scheme. This is something the member for Sydney would attest to, I am sure. I distinctly remember Matt bailing up the deputy leader as she attempted to leave a function in my electorate in the dying days of the election campaign. As can sometimes happen in the business of an election campaign, Tanya was running a little behind schedule and needed to get to the next event. However, Matt, never known to miss an opportunity, grabbed Tanya and took the opportunity to advocate for the NDIS. He let her know that he was not going to go without a fight for this in our community. Matt knew he was preaching to the converted because the member for Sydney is just as passionate about supporting this scheme as Matt and I.

Sadly, Matt has heard it all before. He has heard the promises of past governments to fix the system once and for all. He has seen good policies compromised to the point where they become ineffective, and he has seen when people living with disability, like those he represents, become a political football. Matt understands the disability support sector. Sitting on the advisory council for the Caboolture area, he is in touch with the feelings on the ground locally. There is disquiet from his colleagues and his counterparts because they are worried. They are worried that the scheme they fought so hard to implement will be weakened by legislation such as this. They are worried that this scheme will be undermined and knocked down one decision at a time. Seeing stunts like those pulled this week that tie the future of disabled Australians to the taking away of benefits from other Australians proves that they have the right to be worried.

This level of uncertainty in the disability sector is unacceptable. There must be certainty for the funding. For those with NDIS packages, they must not live in fear of being defunded. For those in my electorate who are yet to be assessed and receive their funding, there must be certainty that they will get the funding they need and not be left with nothing. This bill provides no protection of the NDIS fund that Labor budgeted for in the 2013-14 budget to ensure that it could be rolled out and achieved. The NDIS was paid for by reforms which the coalition agreed to, mostly through measures we put up. We cannot let the NDIS scheme fall victim to politicisation and we must protect it at all cost. Labor will always fight for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We designed it, we implemented it and, of course, fully funded it.

Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (18:29): When the coalition came to office in 2013, the bequest from Labor was $274 billion of gross debt on a trajectory to $667 billion, by 2030, after Labor had inherited themselves a $20 billion surplus and another $45 billion in the bank. Labor's bitter bequest to every man, woman and child in the country after six years of waste and mismanagement also included $240 billion in consecutive big budget deficits—first $27 billion, followed by $54 billion, followed by $47 billion, then $43 billion, then $18 billion and finishing with yet another $48 billion. When you add it up, that is about $240 billion in deficits.

That was the dismal case, even though, according to the member for Lilley, at some stage of the projection process every Labor budget was miraculously going to be in surplus. But when you are letting spending grow at an average of 4.5 per cent a year with revenues nowhere near that, Labor's claims to be perennially on the verge of surplus were always deliberate Mediscare-scale and style nonsense. This was the worst inheritance for any incoming Australian government in our history, even by the famously weak economic standards of the Labor Party which, sadly, Australians are now very used to.

Labor always spends us into trouble, and the coalition always comes in and has to sort out the mess. That has been the pattern practically since Federation, and that is what this bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill, is all about. Labor announced the NDIS in the same way it announced the also-hugely expensive Gonski education plan—with absolutely no idea about where the money was going to come from—which was the height of irresponsibility, and so typically the way of Labor governments, especially from 2007 right through to 2013, across all policy areas.

Both ideas—Gonski and the NDIS, and especially the NDIS, I have to say—were morally sound. The case for a greater level of care for the almost one in five Australians with a disability and their carers is indisputable, just as was the conclusion that, as a country, we desperately need to do something about the tragic decline in the quality of education, especially for children. To Labor, as always, the solution was just more dollars, but they did not have the dollars and they had no real prospect of getting the dollars. They uttered vague, rhetorical ideas about where the dollars might come from, and when they did try to give some undertakings they were vague and, ultimately, I believe, misleading. Moneys they implied were tied to the NDIS were not. Billions in alleged NDIS funding were double-counted—a standard Labor trick. Labor was effectively just like Micawber, one of Charles Dickens' fictional characters, who always assumed that something would just turn up to solve a problem in due course and in the fullness of time, maybe on a time horizon so far into the future that it is just not really worth worrying about today.

Sadly, that is the attitude Labor has taken on funding for the NDIS but, as we all know, nothing just turns up. Funding a program like the NDIS requires a lot of hard work and a lot of decisions of the sort put forward in this very bill. I have no doubt that the speaker who spoke before me, the member for Longman, is right in claiming that every stakeholder she speaks to wills the NDIS to succeed—they want it to succeed. I think she is probably right. However, wishing for something is not the same as planning for something. Wishing for something is no substitute for planning for it, and this is where Labor always goes so fundamentally wrong.

Once again, therefore, it is left to the coalition to do the heavy lifting, to do the hard work, to clean up the mess and to plan ahead. Labor's funding gap for the NDIS in 2019-20, when it becomes fully operational as a program, is $4.1 billion, growing to $6 billion a year soon after. It was, and it is, a ridiculous and totally irresponsible black hole. The staggering $32 billion that the scheme is expected to cost within a decade of becoming fully operational was never on the Labor radar, but it is on our radar, and that is what the establishment of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account is indeed all about. This is the fund that will become the Fort Knox for the NDIS. It will start with a contribution of $2.1 billion from reforms to the disability support pension and other changes to the welfare system that aim to make it fairer, more finely targeted and, more importantly, accountable to the taxpayer.

It will be augmented over the years by a new spending regime and savings from across government, including $3 billion via measures being put forward to this parliament in associated bills—that is money that will both take care of the short-term funding shortfall and set in train a process for guaranteeing funding into the future, when the scheme will be exponentially more expensive. Again, the previous speaker, the member for Longman, talked about the importance of certainty. It does not matter if you are running a profitable commercial business or a not-for-profit organisation or a charity; certainty is key, and there is no greater certainty that you can provide a player in any sector that is reliant on government funding than the certainty of funding. But the black hole created by Labor is the very thing that undermines confidence, and we cannot have this sector continuing to lack confidence because of a funding black hole.

So here we are, yet again, in this 45th Parliament with all eyes on Labor and their allies, the Greens and the crossbenchers in the Senate. All eyes are on them yet again to see if maybe—just maybe—this time they will do the right thing and work with us to protect the NDIS by supporting this bill and other associated measures. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr DICK (Oxley) (18:37): It has been a long time coming for the NDIS since the first disability insurance model was explored by the Whitlam government in the 1970s. But let's be clear: since then, people with a disability and their families had to wait another 40 years and for another Labor government before they would finally get the support they deserve. Since being established under Labor in 2012, successive Liberal governments have been caught out, dragging their feet, to implement the NDIS. And this government is no different.

Labor opposes this bill as the government, again, wastes the parliament's time on a political stunt. It is clear that it is just a transparent attempt to pretend that the NDIS is not fully funded. It is absolutely galling to listen to speaker after speaker on the other side making outrageous claims that the NDIS was not funded. Of course Labor absolutely funded the NDIS and, as we read in The Courier-Mail today, the editorial sums it all up: 'Brinkmanship the lazy route to Budget cuts'—

and this is the quote from the editorial in today's paper in my home state:

Instead of rolling up their sleeves, Mr Morrison and Mr Porter decided to take a policy program with universal and overwhelming support and hold it hostage.

On Monday the ministers made an indirect connection between future funding of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the proposed family benefit cuts.

This was too clever by half, and simply not true in the short term.

The NDIS is funded through the national budget for the forward estimates …

…   …   …

Firstly, no one should use funding for helping disabled Australians to make a case for spending cuts—it is stupid politics and skewed policy thinking.

Second, the path to reform, including the never-ending work of finding savings and efficiencies in big-spending portfolios like social services, requires smart thinking and hard work—

two things which elude the Turnbull government.

So I was disappointed but, more importantly, I was angry that whoever the geniuses within the government came up with the idea of 'Well, you can support cuts to the elderly, the disabled, the most vulnerable Australians and we'll use that money to fund the NDIS' should hang their heads in shame. Pitting disabled Australians against vulnerable Australians—just once I would like someone from the government to get up and actually do the right thing and stand up for Australians who need support. I am sick and tired of members of this government coming after and attacking those Australians who need a hand. It happens day in, day out. Those opposite in my opinion simply want to smash our safety net and they make no apology for it.

In the 2013-14 budget, Labor clearly set out, as we have heard, how the NDIS would be funded for 10 years—well past the transition to the full scheme. This included reforms to the private health insurance rebate, reforms to retirement incomes, the phase-out of the net medical expense tax offset and other long-term saving proposals. This should not come as a shock to the minister at the table or the member for Flynn, who is in the chamber today, because they voted for them. They supported them. And they supported every single savings measure, and now the government, we know, has a $50 billion tax cut right up their sleeve to hand out—is it to the most vulnerable in the community? Is it to those who need a hand? Is it to the so-called hardworking men and women whom we keep getting lectures about all the time? No. It is to large corporations, large banks and large multinational companies.

As we have heard through speakers today, when you are in government, it is about priorities and that fact alone says volumes about this government. But we know that the government has stooped even lower to holding the NDIS to ransom over cuts to other programs for some of our most vulnerable Australians, as I said before.

We know that this is a disgraceful political game of brinkmanship and we have seen community advocates, great Australians—Paralympians, like Kurt Fearnley, who said through the media that he was furious about the government's move, accusing it of using the NDIS 'as a political football'. It is mischief. It is political opportunism and it is just wrong.

We know that the Australian Council of Social Service head Cassandra Goldie rejected the linking of social security cuts to disability funding. As we heard the member for Gilmore say about 20 times, she is right: this is robbing Peter to pay Paul—pitting people on low incomes against each other in an unfair way. We know that the NDIS has been funded, but that should not be at the expense of the poorest people in our community.

I say that the minister should be condemned for this shameful linking of funding for the NDIS with cuts to those people who can least afford it. And we saw the walk back today a little bit through the media when, clearly, the Prime Minister's office briefed out and said, 'Well, we didn't think it was a good idea, but the Treasurer did.' So everyone we know we can see is slowly walking backwards from this ridiculous and shameful proposition. But, more importantly, we should have a member of the government get in and apologise for even putting it on the table in the first place.

We have said from day one that the NDIS is a bipartisan reform that should be above politics—the largest social reform our nation has seen since the introduction of Medicare. We have heard from speakers today about the inquiry by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee. Labor referred the bill for inquiry. We have seen in evidence provided to that Senate inquiry that disability organisations resoundingly reject this fund and the government's planned cuts that will go into it. Multiple submissions to the inquiry raised significant concerns about the fund, for which the government has failed to establish any evidence of the need to even establish the account.

The disability sector, just like Labor, are onto this government and will not have the wool pulled over their eyes as to what is really going on here. But we know that cutting programs and funding for those who need them most is in the LNP's DNA. The Young People in Nursing Homes National Alliance said it best when they said:

The Alliance recommends that the Committee finds the NDIS Savings Fund, as proposed, to be unfit for purpose.

That is right: these are the advocates working in the disability sector. These are the experts. I pay tribute and give credit to people who give up their time, work long hours and make sacrifices to make a career of helping those Australians with disabilities.

In my own electorate I am privileged to have visited and supported organisations like Youngcare, located in the south-west of Brisbane, and I have seen firsthand the difference that a dedicated organisation like Youngcare can make to the lives of people living with a disability. The story of Youngcare began in my electorate when they opened their first residence, at Sinnamon Park, in 2007. We are celebrating 10 years of Youngcare. This is a wonderful facility which means young people with a disability do not have to go to nursing homes. They do not have to live in aged-care facilities. They live wonderful lives and they contribute greatly to the richness of my local community. The Youngcare Wesley Mission Apartments pioneered a new approach to independent living.

When I was a candidate running for office, the first shadow minister that came to the Oxley electorate was Jenny Macklin. I deliberately wanted it to be Jenny Macklin, the member for Jagajaga. She has long been a dedicated servant of our party, our great parliament and, of course, Australia. She is a person who has devoted her life to social justice and fighting for those people who need it. I wanted to learn firsthand and speak to the people who live in this wonderful facility in their homes. They were able to share all of their experiences, and what a transformation that support is giving them. I want to be a strong voice for organisations like Youngcare that are based in the Oxley electorate. It is also an important part of my work to support the transformation that is happening in Darra in my electorate through the great work of Montrose in giving support to families and young kids with disabilities. Making sure we are fully resourcing an effective NDIS is a pledge I give to those residents and to the disabled families in my community.

We know that this bill will serve only to throw more uncertainty into an already plagued NDIS rollout. It is bad enough that this government wanted to link cuts to those who can least afford it and put a hostage situation into the NDIS, as we have heard from speaker after speaker. I will not stand for that and the people in my electorate will not stand for it. All of Australia is opposed to what this government is planning to do.

We know that the government has a pretty poor track record when it comes to delivering and rolling out the NDIS. We know that there were continual stuff-ups in Western Australia and that they led to the NDIS splintering, with the news that the Western Australian government will go it alone on their own version of the NDIS after a secret, last-minute deal between the Commonwealth and the Barnett Liberal government. We have seen similar issues in the ACT.

We hear a lot from ministers on the other side saying, 'Don't listen to what they say; look at what they do.' We hear these lectures over and over again. Well, you need only look at this government's mistreatment of the Chair of the NDIA, the father of the NDIS, Bruce Bonyhady; at the disgraceful way, in my opinion, that a distinguished Australian was treated. There was no reason given. I have got my own theories as to why the government took action there. I do not think someone of Mr Bonyhady's standing should have been subjected to the disgraceful treatment we saw at the end of last year. For the minister to use him as a scapegoat for problems with the scheme, which ultimately should fall under his responsibility, is disgraceful.

My understanding and my strong belief is that the NDIS board needs people with a deep understanding of the disability sector. It needs people with a lived experience of disability. That is what people with disability want as well. That is exactly what someone of the calibre of Bruce Bonyhady brought to the table, which the minister dismissed, in my opinion, in an attempt to blame anyone but himself for the problems in the NDIS rollout.

It is clear from the outset—and this is supported by multiple disability advocacy groups—that this bill is further proof of the government's failure to deliver the NDIS. From the secret deal with the Western Australian government and the blame-shifting in the ACT to the removal of the NDIS chair, there has been only confusion and frustration for thousands of Australians who deserve better. I do not want any more lectures from those opposite. I do not want any more platitudes from them about what happened 20 or 30 years ago. I want action. The people in the disability sector want action as well. More importantly, they deserve action. They deserve a parliament that is going to stand up, fight and make sure that it delivers the long-term care and support that they have earned. As I said in my opening remarks, we started this conversation under the Whitlam government, and it has now taken 40 years—more than my entire life—to make sure that we are finally seeing quality, dignified care given to some of the most frail and vulnerable people in our country.

Australians will not accept more cruel cuts from the government under the guise of funding the NDIS. We know that the NDIS is already well funded. Why do we know that? We know that because Labor delivers on what it says, and Labor made sure that this transformational project not only was implemented and delivered but, more importantly, was funded. We will keep fighting to make sure that the NDIS is protected from any attacks by the Turnbull government. I will always stand up for those people who need a helping hand. That is what I was sent to this place to do.

Mr KEOGH (Burt) (18:52): I rise today to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. What the government is perpetrating by this proposed legislation is an out-and-out lie. Do you know why that is? It stems from this: the Prime Minister walks into this chamber and he holds his head up high with a legacy to Australia of having lost a republic referendum and having delivered a failure of an NBN. Bill Shorten, the leader of the Labor Party, the Leader of the Opposition, walks into this chamber and he can hold his head up high because even before he has made it to being the Prime Minister, which he will, he has the legacy of having delivered for disabled people in Australia.

People with disability can thank the Labor Party because we delivered on a fully funded NDIS, and the lie of this proposed legislation is writ large in its own wording because what it is doing is setting up a special fund which—wait for it—is part of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. It is a fund within a fund. It sounds like a fund we do not need. And do you know why that is? It is because Labor had always fully funded and fully costed the NDIS, which is being delivered now for people of disability in this country. We recognised that the people who are the worst off, the people who need the most care, deserve to have the most assistance from this government and from the nation, because not only is the NDIS about helping those who need our assistance, it is about making our entire country more productive. That is why it was recommended by the Productivity Commission.

This entire legislation is effectively a fabrication. It is a political tool from the government to try to wedge Labor, to try to make Labor look bad. Well, have I got news for you, government. You have been in power for four years. All we hear in this chamber day after day, question time after question time, is the government getting up and complaining about its view on a Labor policy. Well, get on and government. I mean, do you even govern, bro?

I come back to the NDIS itself. One of the things that the government has done now to make this travesty of a lie even worse is that it has tried to pit people with disability in this country against those with children who need child care and against those who have a need for the family tax benefit. It has said, 'We need to make these cuts to Australian families in order to pay for the NDIS.' Not only is that a lie, because Labor fully funded the NDIS, but it completely fails to take into account that this government has done a grubby deal with the Western Australian government that sees a substantial part of the cost—$140 million at least—transferred across to the Western Australia government. It has already made a huge saving on the administration of the NDIS by offshoring it to Western Australia, which is a complete dud of a national disability insurance scheme. This is one of the real travesties of the way in which the government has been operating the NDIS and trying to bring it to fruition.

In Western Australia we have seen two trial areas established: one for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, another for what is called WA NDIS. I am a reasonably parochial Western Australian, so it makes sense to make sure that WA gets the best deal, and I could not really fault the idea of saying, 'Okay, WA has a pretty good disability service scheme with the Disability Services Commission. Let's make sure that we get the best deal in Western Australia.' However, after setting up these trials and, in fact, even expanding the area being covered by these trial sites, including expanding WA NDIS into the Armadale area in my seat of Burt, the government then almost immediately signed up a deal between the federal government and the Western Australia government to introduce it across the entire state before the trials of WA NDIS had been completed.

What really troubles me about that—and what I think should trouble not only all Western Australians but all Australians, because this is a deal with the federal government—is that they set up these trials to do an evaluation and they have not shown us the result. Apparently, buried somewhere in the bowels of the Commonwealth and state governments is an evaluation report that nobody has seen. How are we in Western Australia—let alone across the nation—to know that this deal that is being done, which is going to cost Western Australians $140 million at least, is actually to the benefit of Western Australians. This is some secret, grubby deal.

What makes it even worse and what just underlies the political nature of that agreement is that the agreement was signed the day before the Barnett government went into caretaker mode. They did not want any scrutiny of this. They did not want the opportunity for a Mark McGowan WA Labor government to come in and actually understand what has been going on. No, they were going to sign the deal up straightaway to cover their own tracks.

I have had disability advocates, people with disability and parents of children with disability coming to me in my office and meeting with me at community meetings, saying, 'Matt, we are very concerned about the differences between the WA NDIS and the national scheme.' I will accept that there could be some deficiencies in the national scheme. Under this government, I do not think that will come as any surprise to anybody. But what concerns me is that these people, whose children are some of the most vulnerable people in our community, want to know that their children will be cared for as they grow older and that they will have access to support, especially after the time has come when they, as parents, are no longer able to look after them. They are concerned about some of the differences that they are seeing in the schemes. In fact, that differences between the schemes is a critical point, because what we saw under the trials was that the Commonwealth government would not comment on the WA NDIS and the WA government would not comment on the national scheme. So we had this situation where no-one could ever really get to the bottom of the differences.

Fortunately, the wonders of Facebook—you might have heard of the internet over there on the government side—have meant that there has been collaboration and discussion between service providers and those that receive these benefits under the NDIS, and they are very concerned about some of the differences they see. I will not run through them all now because part of the problem has been that, in trying to clarify what the differences are, how they operate and why they are there, we cannot get any information out of the WA government or the Commonwealth government. In fact, we even tried to use freedom of information to get access to the evaluation report to understand the differences and why one scheme is better or not better than the other, but we were told, 'No, that's subject to intergovernmental agreement now, so you can't have access to that report.' What are this government and the Barnett government trying to hide?

Under the NDIS, there is supposed to be this concept that the user, the person with disability, is able to choose how their benefit is spent, what services they access and how they access them. The control is placed with the individual. Instead, under the WA NDIS they will go and meet with their local coordinator, who will say, 'This organisation can provide you with that service,' and sign them up for at least six months prepaid—done. If there is a problem with that service provider, it would appear there is no capacity for the individual to change service provider, find a better service provider or use someone who better meets their needs. It may be no fault of the service provider that, for whatever reason, they cannot meet the individual needs of that person—but, no. They are signed up for six months prepaid and cannot change it.

With all of these issues, we do not know what sits behind it, but one of the interesting things under this agreement between the Commonwealth and the state government of Mr Colin Barnett is that Western Australia, unlike any other state in the Commonwealth, will now bear the administration costs of the NDIS in WA. It is supposed to be a national scheme, but instead Western Australians are now going to have to pay for the administration of the NDIS. If you accept a proposition that says, 'The WA government's going to provide more administration or better service or better access to local coordinators,' you might think, 'Okay, it makes sense that the WA government bears the additional cost,' but, no. It will not be just the additional cost; it is going to wear the whole cost. This is an absolute travesty. This is supposed to be a national scheme—and, again, we do not know what is better.

The other part of this, of course, is that we are supposed to have national transferability—portability around the country. If you are a person with disability in Western Australia and the opportunity arises for you to take up a job in the ACT or New South Wales, or your family needs to move and you are a child who is receiving benefits through the NDIS, you do not know what you are going to get now because they have changed the schemes and we do not know how. How will we have full portability if we have different schemes operating in different states?

The other thing here is that, in addition to Western Australia wearing the administration costs, while the Commonwealth will pick up the cost of the actual scheme and the services provided—that seems fair—now 75 per cent of the cost overruns in Western Australia will be borne by the state of Western Australia. This is supposed to be a national, federally funded scheme. Those opposite say, 'Labor didn't fully fund the scheme,' but they do not even want to fully fund the scheme; they want to palm the costs off onto the state, which is exactly the opposite of what we are supposed to be doing.

I raise these concerns because I am seriously concerned about what is going on for our national disability scheme. The key thing I want to emphasise in speaking on this is this: when it comes to those individuals—when it comes to people with disability and to the parents of children with disability—they need to know that as Western Australians they will be no worse off than anyone else in the Commonwealth under this scheme. They should know that; that should be a guarantee. That was part of the design of the NDIS as it was put in place by Labor. But now they do not know. They have uncertainty. They have fear. They are coming to people like me and saying, 'We just don't know, but all we want is to know that we'll be no worse off.' I think that is a very reasonable request—for people with disability and their parents to know that, by being in Western Australia, they will be no worse off. But, with the way in which this government is hiding and the way in which the Colin Barnett Liberal government is hiding, the results of that evaluation tell me that there is something rotten in the state of Western Australia and something rotten in the deal that the Barnett government has cut with Christian Porter and the Liberal government here in Canberra.

When it comes to this piece of legislation, the government says, 'Oh, Labor didn't fund the NDIS.' We know from the wording of the legislation that that is a bunch of rot. Once again, the Turnbull government is all fluff and cluck on the NDIS and helping people with disability. That is why I have serious difficulty with this legislation.

Mrs ELLIOT (Richmond) (19:05): I, too, rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. As we have heard, this bill seeks to establish a new savings fund that would sit within consolidated revenue. The government claimed—and they have been claiming this a lot in the last few days—that, in order to meet the necessary funding obligations for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, they need to set up this ongoing special account. Let me make a few things clear from the beginning. Most of all, this legislation is not about the actual National Disability Insurance Scheme; it is not actually about helping and assisting those people with disabilities, their families or their carers. I want to make something else very clear from the outset. Let us always remember that Labor created the NDIS; Labor designed the NDIS; Labor fully funded the NDIS. As a result of our commitment and our design, now thousands of people across the country are having their lives transformed through the NDIS. I would like to take this opportunity to commend all those individuals and community groups who, for years, fought for the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I have spoken to many of those people over the years and I admire and commend their dedication.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill is a not-so-subtle attempt by this government to pretend that the NDIS, as designed and developed by Labor, is not fully funded. It is, in fact, a political stunt, providing yet another poor excuse for this government to make further damaging cuts to the social services portfolio. It is indeed a shameless political stunt, at the expense of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities—in a sense, making them political pawns. It is disappointing on many levels.

The government falsely claims—and, indeed, has falsely claimed on many occasions in the last few days—that the NDIS was left high and dry under the Labor government; they keep saying that at every chance. This is completely untrue, and the government's continued insistence on this fallacy will not make it any less of a political game at the expense of people with disabilities, their families and carers. The whole premise of this legislation is based on this blatant untruth—that Labor, in government, did not make the budget decisions required to fund the NDIS. It is indeed a falsehood we have seen trotted out again and again in the last few days by most of the people across the chamber.

But, despite their commitment to this obvious duplicity, deep down members opposite will be very aware that the NDIS was indeed fully funded. In fact, many of those opposite were sitting in this chamber and voted for those savings measures when they were introduced. This government, in opposition, agreed to the decisions that were made to contribute to the cost of the scheme. Indeed, under Labor, in the 2013 budget, the NDIS had a clear plan, explicitly showing funding for 10 years and taking it even further than the transition to the fully-funded scheme. This included, but was not limited to, an increase to the Medicare levy, which was always intended to cover some—not all—of the cost of the NDIS. Labor made other responsible budget choices to help fund the NDIS over the 10 years, including private health insurance rebate reforms, retirement income reforms, amendments to tax concessions for fringe benefits, changes to tobacco excise indexation and changes to import processing charges—a whole range of changes to pay for the NDIS. Some of the legislation that gave effect to these measures even passed the parliament after the 2013 election, when the coalition had already formed government.

In opposition, as in government, the coalition purported to bipartisanship for budget measures that were specifically intended to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme. So, if the funding from these measures is no longer directed towards the NDIS—well, where is it being channelled to? That, of course, is the obvious question, based on what they are saying. If the government truly believes that the NDIS is unfunded, why has it signed bilateral agreements with state governments committing to the full rollout and the full funding of the National Disability Insurance Scheme? In fact, in setting up this other account, the government is questioning their own supported budget savings measures. The real question should be: 'What has the government done with the money that they have agreed was already set aside for the NDIS?' That is the real query that many people have.

The answer is that this is yet another opportunity for this government to pursue more unfair budget cuts—cuts that will affect the most vulnerable in our communities. And we have certainly seen over the past few years some very harsh cuts to those very, very vulnerable people in our communities. We have seen budget after budget with different measures—very cruel, many of them. But I think what we have seen this week from this government really does take the cake when it comes to their levels of cruelty, in terms of their omnibus bill and the fact that they really want to hold the NDIS hostage, if you like. It has been quite appalling to see what they are doing. They are in fact holding the NDIS hostage over their $5.6 billion in cuts to families, new mothers, pensioners, people with disability, carers and young jobseekers. What they are doing is playing a disgraceful political game of brinkmanship.

People with a disability do not deserve to be treated with such absolute contempt by the Liberal and National parties, in holding them hostage for their cruel cuts. Make no mistake: linking the delivery of the NDIS to massive cuts to families, pensioners, people with disability, carers and Newstart recipients is not just appalling; it is also very cruel. And people in the community are telling me that. They are also very distressed and upset that the funding for the NDIS has been placed in this position by the government, with these threats, and holding them hostage.

Is the government actually seriously saying that if these unfair cuts are not passed through the Senate then the NDIS will not go ahead? Is that what they are actually saying to the community? That is the fear the community has, and that is certainly what they are relaying to me.

Many of these people with disability and their families have waited years and years and years for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and many people have fought hard for it. And this government should actually be getting on with the job of delivering the NDIS. They should stop telling these untruths to those people with disability and their families, and they should stop putting the future of the NDIS into doubt, because it is causing a huge amount of distress. I think what makes it worse is the way they are attacking so many vulnerable people in our community but have still got their $50 billion in tax cuts for big business—that is still there, whilst all of these other cruel measures are taking place and whilst the NDIS is being held hostage as well.

I note today some very apt comments from Kurt Fearnley, the five-time Paralympian. He has reportedly accused the government of using the NDIS as a 'political football' and criticised the decision to fund it through cuts to other social services. Kurt Fearnley was a member of the NDIS advisory council, and an ABC News article reports that he:

… criticised the Government for taking funding from services that benefit vulnerable members of the community as opposed to re-evaluating its negative gearing program or big business tax policies.

In that article he is quoted as saying:

To sit there and draw a direct line between funding for people with disabilities and the cuts to other vulnerable members of our community—to those on welfare, to those on pensions—you could draw that line across a thousand different parts of the budget.

And he says that he wishes the government would fight for the NDIS with as much vigour as it is fighting for its $50 billion business tax cut. How true is that! The government will repeatedly go out there and fight for the top end of town, but for those with a disability or those on a whole range of pensions, we just see their constant cruel measures, and I think it really goes to the heart of what this government stands for. And with the government pursuing these more unfair budget cuts, yet again, as always, it hurts the most vulnerable in our communities.

Labor committed the revenue from the increase I spoke about before—the increase to the Medicare levy—into the new DisabilityCare Australia Fund. That is a special account from which the states and territories are paid in accordance with their agreements. So there is already an account into which funding is placed to fund the NDIS. But this government wants to set up a special account that serves no genuine purpose in the budget. The money put into the account would still sit in the contingency reserve to be used as the government prioritises. So it is purely political. And all this to ostensibly fund the NDIS—a scheme that has already been fully funded by Labor.

Furthermore, and most importantly, this political game that this government is playing comes at a real cost, because the National Disability Insurance Scheme is dedicated to ensuring that people with a disability, their families and their carers receive full access to the services and programs they need, affording them the respect and value that they deserve in our community. By 2019, the NDIS was designed to support over 460,000 Australians with disability, their carers and their families, and that support will take the form of personal care, access to community services, therapy services and essential equipment, because the former Labor government did all the work of designing and costing the NDIS. The 2013 budget under the Labor government set out—to be precise—a clear 10-year funding plan. The Minister for Human Services and the Treasurer, as I say, keep trying to convince everyone that that is not the case, but deep down they know that it is true. They will try to say the savings measures were not specifically allocated, but their arguments, as always, are incorrect and flawed. Labor set up that account, and it is very disturbing to hear the government keep peddling those untruths. The government claims bipartisan support for the NDIS but it is more than happy to use its scheme as a pretext for its budget cuts. It shows that that level of bipartisanship is not there. It is distressing to see that and hear the government's repeated untruths about that.

Labor referred this bill to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry, and their recent report supported the overwhelming evidence against the establishment of this account. In the submissions to the inquiry there were a number of quite lengthy concerns from non-government organisations. It is interesting to note that among the concerns they had was the fear that the establishment of the account would lead to less certainty of NDIS funding, as it would be tied to savings measures that may not pass parliament, and the concern that it should not be used as an excuse for cuts to payments to the most vulnerable. That is exactly what the Senate inquiry found and it is now precisely what we are seeing.

There are many reasons why what the government has done is wrong and why it is cruel. We should look at the reasons why the NDIS was first put in place. The NDIS was there to give all Australians the peace of mind that if their child or loved one was born with, or acquired, a permanent or significant disability they would get the support they needed. This new model is a significant move from the previous ad hoc system to one that encourages both participation and empowerment, providing people with choice in their own care, which is vitally important.

In 2010, following discussion about the need for a major reform of disability services in Australia—I think it was widely recognised we needed that reform—the Labor government requested the Productivity Commission to carry out a public inquiry into the care and support of people with disabilities. The commission found that the disability support system was underfunded, unfair, fragmented and inefficient, and that people with disabilities had very little choice and absolutely no certainty of access to appropriate support. The stresses on the system were growing. Also growing were the costs for governments at every level with an increasingly ad hoc system. The Productivity Commission received over a thousand submissions from people with disabilities and other stakeholders in the disability sector.

It was decided that what was needed was a disability care and support scheme that would determine services designed to meet the long-term needs of people with disabilities, their families and carers. The inquiry looked at the feasibility of such a scheme, the costs and benefits, as well as how the scheme could work with the sectors of health, aged care, informal care, income support and injury insurance. It included how the scheme should be introduced and the oversight of it, along with the protections and safeguards that would need to be a part of it.

The then Prime Minister released the Productivity Commission's report in August 2011. In March 2013, the NDIS legislation was passed—a very proud day—and the NDIS Act 2013 was created, along with the NDIS and the National Disability Insurance Agency. Regional offices were established, and each of the first-year launch sites was put in place to manage implementation on the ground. We have heard a lot of feedback from those launch sites on how important this scheme is to Australians.

Labor will keep fighting to protect the NDIS that we created, and we will certainly defend it, particularly from the attacks we are seeing. The NDIS should not have to suffer because of the political game playing that we are seeing at the moment from the government. This is too important for our country and too important for the future of those people with a disability and their families to have it be part of some political game that the government wants to play.

Labor created the NDIS, we designed the NDIS and we fully funded it. We have made that very clear on many occasions and let's make it extremely clear again tonight. As a result of those initiatives, thousands of people across the country continue to have their lives transformed. In my electorate of Richmond I have spoken to many people who are eagerly awaiting the rollout of the scheme in our area in July. I have heard lots of positive feedback from other people around the country about what a difference it makes to them and how it will really empower them and change their lives. There may have been some small teething problems and changes as we moved to a new system, but I think overall there is strong community support for this scheme. I hear it all the time, not just from individuals and families but from community organisations and larger organisations who are all very keen to work together to get this great outcome.

I will continue to fight to ensure that those in our community receive the full support that is afforded to them under the National Disability Insurance Scheme. People in my community and throughout the country should not have to worry about the future of the scheme. I cannot underestimate the level of distress that has been caused this week with the government holding the NDIS to ransom and with the language they have used and the upset they have caused. The fact is, people with disabilities, their families, their carers and their communities know that Labor has their best interests at heart. They know that Labor has fought for, designed and funded the NDIS. We continue to do that in this House, we will continue to do that in the community and we will continue to stand up for those people who need us. We have always fought to protect them and we always will, because we understand the importance of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Dr FREELANDER (Macarthur) (19:20): I am delighted to speak today. I know much has been said about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016, but for me this is personal. In my working life there have been very few major dramatic social advances. Medibank, now Medicare, was one. Most change, however, has been incremental, usually barely noticeable but sometimes bitterly fought. The most dramatic change in social policy since Medicare has had bipartisan support—I thought. It was fully funded by the Labor Party and has dramatically changed the lives of many of the families I have cared for over my many years working as a paediatrician. For many children with disabilities that I have seen, the NDIS has been truly dramatic.

Almost universally, parents of children with disabilities worry about what will happen to their children as they themselves age and also how they can afford the ongoing costs in caring for someone who cannot ever support themselves or will need help to support themselves. Some felt forever chained to the role of supporting parent, never able to let go, even in very old age. I have seen parents in their 80s still wondering what will happen to their child with a severe disability. Many of the children I have seen can never feed or toilet themselves. Many had intractable seizures, severe cerebral palsy, visual impairment, hearing loss and multiple congenital abnormalities. They are human beings nevertheless and deserve to be treated with dignity, care and compassion. They have as much right to share in the wealth of this country as I do. The Labor Party and the Liberal-National Party gave bipartisan support to the NDIS. The NDIS gives these people support, where in the past they got none or very little. It gives them and their families certainty to plan their futures in the knowledge that we will all share in supporting their burden, that we will act as an inclusive society and, using the government's own language, we will all lift together.

Of itself, this bill represents a very small cog within the grand design that is the National Disability Insurance Scheme. NDIS trials were completed in 2016, and there are now over 30,000 people participating. That number will ramp up very rapidly over the next three financial years, and the current estimates are that the annual cost of the scheme will hit $22 billion by the financial year 2019-20. The costs were factored in with the NDIS, and there was unanimous parliamentary agreement. Labor has consistently argued for full NDIS funding, and we will continue to work with the government to ensure this comes to fruition.

The bill is planned to create a special account within the Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue Fund, required under the Constitution as the repository of all federal government moneys. The Treasurer, never one to undersell even the most unremarkable of this government's limited achievements, has lauded this proposal as a 'locked box', trying to safeguard the NDIS from the depredations of future governments. This has caused unending distress amongst people who are eligible for the NDIS and their families. Notwithstanding the Treasurer's and various ministers' confected anger about the NDIS funding arrangements, they are all aware that there are no 'locked boxes' in the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

As the journalist and ex-Treasury officer Peter Martin wrote only a few days ago, the locked-box analogy is not well made. The Constitution makes the Consolidated Revenue Fund a single fund which may include special accounts, but neither the Consolidated Revenue Fund nor the accounts within it can ever be seen as a locked box. That is the case whether the special account is created by legislation or administratively, as many special accounts are. This one could have been created administratively too, if that was what the government really wanted—and you wonder why it was not. It seems that the government cannot explain this properly either. Neither the minister's second reading speech nor the explanatory memorandum have assisted debate today on why the legislative path was selected.

It is at this point that the government needs to be called out. What the government is doing is using the NDIS and people with disabilities as a pawn in its political game-playing. I remain totally mystified, as do others, by the minister's claim that money moved from any proposed special account to the CRF is somehow lost to the NDIS. That is like saying that money in a bank is lost to its customers if it is moved from one vault to another—totally mystifying.

None of these arcane accounting niceties would amount to much if it were not for the fact that the Turnbull government seems to have allied this partitioning-off approach to sourcing money to fund the NDIS. The government's line—it is a bit ambitious, I think, to call it its thinking—seems to be that, apart from the funds raised from Labor's increase to the Medicare levy and the contributions from the states and territories, the only way you can add to the fund is by drawing off moneys earmarked for other forms of social and welfare spending. It is also ramping up its rhetoric by somehow trying to link the NDIS funding to its so-called omnibus bill.

Overall, I strongly believe this is a shameful attempt to link cuts to supports for some other very vulnerable people to the NDIS funding. This, I reiterate, is causing unbelievable distress to people and families with disabilities. This is an attempt to politicise something that has previously had bipartisan support. I think this reflects that, for the Liberal Party, anyone who requires support or deals with Centrelink or the NDIS is seen as a liability and has to be compartmentalised, isolated and not seen to be as worthy as other people.

This bill, as does the omnibus bill, sends a very bad message. The NDIS had bipartisan support. For example, the member for Warringah, in particular, was a strong advocate for the NDIS. Funding was agreed upon. It comes as something of a shock to see this government, for no particularly good reason, trying to segregate it. People with disabilities need to know that they are valuable members of our country, they are supported and they have as much right to the resources of this country as any other Australian.

I want the Treasurer to stop his insincere rantings full of renal output and flatulence—that is piss and wind, to the uninitiated. It is just not right. It is insulting and it sends a very poor message. It is all the more pity then that the government has again sought to use this arguably unnecessary bill as a device to revive its spurious and unsubstantiated claim that the Labor Party failed to fund the scheme that we first legislated for what is heading up to four years ago. The government has been making this claim since it entered full election mode in late 2015 but without trying to substantiate it. When given the opportunity to do so by way of a Senate inquiry when this bill was last before the parliament, in May, it singularly failed to take up Labor's challenge.

The government has made varying claims about the alleged size of the shortfall but never explains what it is down to, never explains what it is talking about and what the differences are. It will not even say if it arises from reasons such as previously unidentified demand for the NDIS now revealed through the trial and pilot programs the intergovernmental agreement established for that very purpose—of getting a better handle on costs. Nor does the government say if the alleged shortfall arises from a revenue gap related to the fact that the increased Medicare levy has not been as high as expected, because of fairly static incomes. If it is the latter, the government must take responsibility, as lower-than-budgeted tax receipts are due to the uninspiring levels of economic activity under this government, and it must take responsibility. That is something both Treasury and the RBA have pointed out, but the government's eloquent silence on this leaves us all guessing. As the member for Jagajaga, the Hon. Jenny Macklin, has made clear, the 2013-14 budget provided full funding for the NDIS for the first 10 years—that is seven years on top of the normal forward estimates horizon. The sources of that funding are well-known. They were not somehow spirited away like Shakespeare's princes in the tower during the last days of the Rudd government—

The SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member is interrupted. He will have leave to conclude his remarks when the debate resumes.