ABBOTT WALKS AWAY FROM PROMISE NOT TO DELAY THE NDIS

Media Release

Jenny Macklin MP.

Shadow Minister for Families and Payments 

Shadow Minister for Disability Reform

Tuesday, 1 April 2014

Australians with disability, their carers and families have waited long enough for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

Tony Abbott must ask himself whether he is prepared to look people with disability in the eye and tell them they should continue to wait.

Tony Abbott and his senior ministers have in recent days flung the door wide open for delays to the NDIS rollout.

Yesterday’s coordinated and shameless efforts from Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and Mitch Fifield come less than a week after the Prime Minister promised in the Parliament there would be no delays to the rollout of the NDIS.

“We are not delaying the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme….”

[TONY ABBOTT – HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES -26 MARCH 2014]

However, according to reports this morning, Tony Abbott yesterday refused to rule out delays to the NDIS.

“Mr Abbott promised the Coalition would deliver an NDIS but would not commit to the same time frame as Labor. He said the NDIS had to be “sustainable” and “affordable’’.

[COALITION’S MIXED MESSAGES OVER NDIS – AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW - 1 APRIL 2014]

Joe Hockey spent much of yesterday talking down the NDIS, reiterating his completely false allegations about the scheme’s long term funding security.

On ABC’s 7.30 program last night, Senator Fifield refused to rule out delaying the NDIS.

The Government has been deliberately misrepresenting the findings of a recent Capability Report to justify cuts and delays to the NDIS, despite the fact that Agency have rejected the notion of a cost blowout or insurmountable delivery issues.

For generations, politicians have promised Australians with disability a better deal.

For generations, politicians have let them down.

Now, for the first time ever, people with disability in this country are getting the better deal they always deserved.

Yet this Government seems determined to make people with disability wait even longer.

Mr Abbott, people with disability have waited long enough.