Federal Greens spokesperson for Health and Disability Rights and Services WA Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John has slammed Labor’s failure to act on the Disability Royal Commission’s key recommendations, thereby betraying the disability community.

Heavily criticising the more than $14 billion in funding cuts to the scheme, along with other retrograde changes in the NDIS Amendment Bill (2024), Steele-John said it is the “exact opposite” of Labor’s promise.

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Labor agreed before the 2007 election to reform the unfit-for-purpose Disability Agreements, with the states and territories, under a new National Disability Strategy.

The Senate Committee on Community Affairs sought to address the chronic funding shortfalls and ongoing service failures suffered by disabled people, their families and carers.

The NDIS was introduced under Julia Gillard’s Labor government in 2013. Labor under Kevin Rudd lost the 2013 election and Bill Shorten lost in 2019.

During the 2019 campaign Shorten promised “person-centred reform” and to “get the NDIS back on track”. He pushed a return to a “long-term investment model” instead of the punitive welfare state framework favoured by the Coalition.

When Labor won in 2022, Shorten as the Minister for NDIS and Government Services promised again to “put participants first”, repair the NDIS and NDIA and........

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