Vikki Campion: Coalition decision to stall NDIS rorts legislation will cost us dearly
The Coalition will inevitably support legislation aiming to stop NDIS rorts, so why did they choose to snuggle under a weighted blanket with the Greens to stall it for eight weeks, asks an incredulous Vikki Campion.
Opinion
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No one in the Parliament genuinely believes that the bills for cruises, trips to Japan, crystal therapy or weddings should be lumped on overtaxed workers via the NDIS.
Nobody in the Parliament truly believes in taking money from wages and companies and channelling it through the National Disability Insurance Scheme to tarot readers, clairvoyants, mastermind coaches or crypto kings.
No genuine NDIS recipient wants that either, nor do their carers, who are already frustrated by trying to tend to their client’s needs in a world that often doesn’t account for them.
Even something as simple for the rest of us such as an outing to a pool in a regional town to lower body temperature in a heatwave turns into a daunting task, as carers have to beg and borrow to find adequate wheelchair transport and public swimming pools with a swing.
Yet at the end of the Parliamentary fortnight, instead of legislation ending the capability to conduct rorts through the NDIS, we’ll be wasting about $1 million an hour until Parliament resumes after the eight-week winter break.
This was because, inexplicably, the Coalition and the Greens claimed they needed eight more weeks on a bill they had already examined for 12 weeks and will, in the Coalition case, inevitably vote for.
What argument in the following two public hearings will they possibly hear that they haven’t heard over the past three months of headline-grabbing inquiry?
And who from the committee will actually be there to hear it? At least two committee members are scheduled to be overseas over the parliamentary break.
Will they cancel their flights to attend the hearings in person since the delay of a decision comes with a $1.06 billion price tag (the cost of keeping the scheme as is for another two months)?
The Daily Telegraph has published splash after splash of outrageous NDIS rorts for years.
We heard about it being misused to fund prostitutes, steam rooms, pets, weed and, bizarrely, taxidermy, which out of all the distress caused, hurt genuine NDIS participants the most.
Yet when NDIS Minister Bill Shorten proposed what the Coalition would have loved to have done but never got around to doing, their tactic was to snuggle under a weighted blanket with the Greens to stall it.
If you want to prove how absurd the other side is, juxtapose it with how sensible you are.
Don’t get warm with the same mob that this week defended the desecration of the Australian War Memorial as freedom of speech.
Tellingly, for the first time in history, One Nation founder Pauline Hanson held a joint press conference with a Labor Cabinet Minister, to back in Mr Shorten’s changes to the NDIS scheme, which include a flexible cap which means wild claims such as charging one’s strata fees to the taxpayer can be stopped.
Never in her tenure has Ms Hanson stood with a Labor cabinet minister to back a Labor plan.
If the Coalition wants a debate with Labor, have it on nuclear power or banning live sheep exports. Have it next door on the hallway to socialism, Labor’s Nature Positive Plan.
Have it on a policy you are fundamentally opposed to; don’t waste political capital on blocking important changes to the NDIS.
Most importantly, do it on your coin, not with a timer adding $24 million a day.
Labor should have supported the Coalition when they were in government with changes to the NDIS, and now the Coalition should pull up their big girl pants and prove they are mature enough to support a Labor government in addressing it.
The disabled teen who is saving and fundraising to buy a fitted-out car so he can learn to drive and gain some independence won’t remember if it was a Labor government with Coalition backing or a Coalition government with Labor backing which made his life a bit more bearable.
His carer, desperate in summer for accessible pool swings to cool down her clients at the local public pool, which helps lower body temperature and reduce fits, won’t care who backed who.
But both care about what $1.06 billion could pay for. That’s a lot of swimming pool swings, ramps, footpaths and accessible toilets.
Both want to be rid of rorts and waste because they, like most participants and providers, are doing the right thing and don’t want to feel shamed for being a part of it.
Who backed who will be fast forgotten by everyone except for an underaged tactics team — but they will remember the unjustifiable $1.06 billion wasted and what they could have had for that price.
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