Morrison backs disability inquiry, sidesteps defeat

Scott Morrison has cleared the way for a royal commission into disability abuse.

Scott Morrison in question time yesterday. Picture: AAP

Scott Morrison has cleared the way for a royal commission into disability abuse as he moved to fend off another loss on the floor of parliament, pledging to consult the states and stakeholders before announcing terms of reference.

The Prime Minister called for politics to be taken out of the issue as Labor questioned his authenticity and accused him of spending yesterday voting in favour of policies and motions his government last week opposed.

A key plank of the opposition’s small business access-to-justice reforms — allowing small businesses to more easily take legal ­action against larger competitors — was waved through with government support after Nationals MPs threatened to vote with Labor and cross the floor.

The Nationals seized on the “pragmatic” reform gaining bipartisan support and praised Mr ­Morrison, who does not command a majority in the house, for listening to the junior Coalition partner and supporting the measure the government rejected in 2017.

The capitulation avoided a second embarrassing defeat in the chamber following the passage of the Labor-backed medivac bill last week.

Labor and the Greens had its biggest win in the House of Representatives after the government supported a motion calling for the establishment of a royal commission into violence, abuse and neglect of ­people with a disability.

“I take the issue of abuse and the neglect of people with a disability very seriously and so does the government,” he said. “Abuse and the neglect of our most vulnerable is abhorrent. In the past, all too often we thought abuse or ­neglect in institutions were isolated occurrences. Instead, we discovered it was systemic failure, as we noted last year in relation to the national apology (to victims of institutional child sex abuse).”

Noting the federal government had limited jurisdiction over dis­ability services as the National Disability Insurance Scheme was rolled out, Mr Morrison said the royal commission required the states’ backing in order to be broad and to go back over at least a decade.

The Australian understands there is no meeting scheduled between Mr Morrison and the states but government sources have not ruled out calling a royal commission before the May election, claiming there was always “intent” to set one up.

Bill Shorten said the royal ­commission “needs to be broad” and estimated it would cost $26 million. He labelled the abuse and mistreatment of disabled people “Australia’s hidden shame”.

“(The royal commission) needs to be broad. It needs to go to education, it needs to go to health, it needs go to rehabilitation. We need to look at the situation of indigenous people living with disability,” he said.

“It needs to not only go to the way that institutions interact with people with disability, it needs to also just go to the way people with disability are treated in our community generally.”

Labor’s chief tactician Tony Burke said his party would welcome the government announcing a royal commission but would “still call out the motivations behind changing their mind”.

“What has Scott Morrison become? For someone who when he first got the job started to say ‘look at my authenticity’, that was his line, well now we get a chance to look at it. He’s going to spend this afternoon voting in favour of things that last week he opposed,” he said.