Morrison pressures Senate on savings bill

Scott Morrison is pressuring the Senate to pass the government’s omnibus savings bill.

Treasurer Scott Morrison. Picture: AAP

Scott Morrison has sought to increase pressure on the Senate to pass the government’s omnibus savings bill, linking family tax benefits cuts to a $3 billion boost for the underfunded National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Hitting out at Labor for its “cruel hoax” in setting up the NDIS without adequate funding, the Treasurer said that without savings from the family tax changes going into a “locked box” for disability spending, cuts would be made elsewhere.

“Anything not passed through this bill means that the NDIS special account will be poorer for it, and it will have to be made up from other sources going forward. These are the choices that are before the parliament,” Mr Morrison said.

Labor has indicated it will ­oppose the bill, leaving the government to negotiate with Senate crossbenchers to legislate new means-tested childcare ­reforms, scaled-back FTB payments and a two-week increase of paid parental leave.

Of the $5.5bn savings achieved by cutting family tax benefits in the omnibus bill, $1.6bn would go to the government’s childcare reforms, with the rest going towards meeting the estimated $11.1bn cost to the commonwealth of the NDIS in 2020.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter said Australians with a disability had been left in a “very difficult situation” by the Gillard government, which ­established the NDIS in 2012.

He said under current predictions, the commonwealth faced a $4.1bn shortfall in 2020, with ­existing disability funding providing $1.1bn, an increased Medicare levy raising $4.1bn and $1.8bn coming from “returned funds”, for a total $7bn.

“What the Labor Party left us with was an incredible growth expenditure, unfunded outside the forward estimates, required to ensure better lives for Australians with a disability,” Mr Porter said.

“We are absolutely committed to doing the very challenging work of government, and that is find appropriate savings to fill that funding gap in 2020 so that we will not have to resort to further borrowings or higher taxes to ensure that Australians with a disability are looked after in the way that we expect they will be through the NDIS.”

Mr Porter said negotiations were continuing on the omnibus bill’s 16 policy measures, including the four-week wait for the dole for under-25s which Senate crossbenchers have indicated they will not support.

“It’s fair to say that there are higher levels of enthusiasm for some of the measures and lower for others,” he said. “It may be the case that not every single measure is successful, but we are going to argue that case right up until when the vote is taken.”