A parliamentary probe tasked with scrutinising the Albanese Government’s sweeping changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme has delayed handing down its final report. Source: News.com.au.
The findings were scheduled to be tabled yesterday after three days of public hearings into the crackdown.
But the committee, chaired by Labor senator Karen Grogan, has requested an extension to consider further evidence.
The new reporting date is set for Friday.
Opposition NDIS spokesperson Melissa McIntosh described the report’s delay as a “callous move” and branded the legislation “rubbish”.
She claimed the government would have to “gag debate, guillotine the time for the bill to be considered or make the parliament sit through the night” to pass the reforms in the next sitting fortnight.
“It’s absolutely disgraceful,” she said. “The disability community and stakeholders are so disappointed about this delay.”
Labor is looking to strike a deal with the Coalition to pass the reforms through the upper house, where the opposition holds the balance of power, after the Greens ruled out support for the bill.
Prominent members of the disability sector fronted the inquiry this week, with department officials revealing the number of people expected to exit the scheme by 2031 would total 240,000 under the changes.
These would be offset by the 80,000 expected entrants to the scheme in the same time period.
The federal government has since faced resistance from state and territory health ministers who warned there was no existing agreement to “deliver like-for-like services” in their own submissions to the inquiry.
Mr Butler told ABC Insiders there had been “a bit of posturing going on through this process”.
“I’ll be clear about that. I think that submission was an extraordinary submission, given the clear commitments that premiers signed onto a few months ago, in exchange for which the Commonwealth has made available $25 billion in additional funding to hospitals,” he said.
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NDIS inquiry final report delayed to June 19 (By Ria Pandey, News.com.au)
