Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Minister for Government Services) (15:51): I said in question time that the now opposition, when they were in government, did nothing to tackle fraud and allowed the circumstances to dictate whether crooks could come in. Did I hear in this motion any outrage about that? No! I also said that they didn't reform the NDIS and that they allowed a set of circumstances where participants were not getting a good deal or being looked after. Did they complain about that? No, they didn't. But what I should've realised is that the only way you can get something more than a heartbeat out of the opposition is to say that they didn't issue a press release. I apologise for missing the five press releases you did in nine years—or the six or the 10. But what I'm most amused about—and I don't know if there is a capacity for insight and self-reflection on the part of whoever dreamed this tactic up—is that there was no outrage about the NDIS, no outrage about their lack of effort in reform and no outrage about the payment systems they allowed to occur, but, 'Goodness me! I will fight to the death if you insult me for not putting out a press release.' How do you find a lost coalition politician in the forest? You stake an allegation that they didn't issue a press release and they will find you! I listened to the Manager of Opposition Business and I waited for him to go through all of the actions they took to fix up NDIS fraud. But, to be fair to him, he couldn't talk about it, because you did nothing. You did absolutely nothing. This is what we found out upon coming to government. We found out that, under the current opposition, they had a payment system in the NDIS where thousands of invoices were submitted, and each day they would check 20—20 out of thousands—before they paid it. On a really good day, apparently they could go up to 21. Of course, we also found out—and I'm sure, when I say this, the little voices inside some of the coalition members' heads are going to say, 'How could that have happened?'—that between 5 pm at 6.30 pm on any day when these characters were mismanaging the NDIS, if an invoice whistled in— Opposition members interjecting— Mr SHORTEN: Oh, you can give it, but you can't take it. The SPEAKER: Order! The minister will pause. Mr Rick Wilson interjecting— The SPEAKER: Order! The member for O'Connor will cease interjecting. I want to hear from the member for Riverina. Mr McCormack: Point of order. The member for Maribyrnong, the minister, hasn't said whether he's voting for or against the motion. I just want to clarify that. The SPEAKER: With these debates, there is no indication of what he needs to say. Mr SHORTEN: What we're debating here is: you're outraged about the allegation that you didn't put out a press release, but you've got zero outrage about being crap at managing the NDIS for nine years. The SPEAKER: Order! The minister is going to withdraw that part. Mr SHORTEN: I withdraw the word 'crap', but you know what I mean. The SPEAKER: No, no. Mr SHORTEN: I withdraw the word. I apologise. I'm sorry I hurt their feelings, absolutely—terrible. An opposition member interjecting— Mr SHORTEN: No, mate. It's written from your speechwriter: 'I resign.' On the payment system—this is important, because, if you ever get to be in government again, it's important you learn from your mistakes—we have discovered that between 5 pm and 6.30 pm on any day, under the coalition, the crooks could put in an invoice, and there was zero chance, zero-out-of-a-hundred chance, that you would have your invoice checked. Isn't that a dumb way to run a system? Isn't that a shocking way to run a system? You call yourself the economic supermen. I get the gender point but not the 'super' bit. And what you were doing was running a payment system— Mr Rick Wilson interjecting— Mr SHORTEN: Rick, listen and learn. The SPEAKER: Order! No. Mr SHORTEN: The member for nuclear will— The SPEAKER: No. The minister is going to pause. I'm just going to pause. I'm just going to settle this. The minister is going to put down what he's holding up. We're not going to handle this debate this way. It's a serious issue. The Manager of Opposition Business was entitled move his motion. Members are going to be referred to by their correct titles, and language is going to be used with the decorum of the House. Mr SHORTEN: What we discovered, and what Mr Dardo gave evidence about at Senate estimates, is that there were immature payment systems. 'Immature' is nice. I think that's a generous term. But, for nine years, you were the soft touch. Crooks and fraudsters and rorters saw the coalition coming. The SPEAKER: Order! The Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order? Mr Fletcher: Mr Speaker, the issue before the House is whether standing orders should be suspended to require this minister to apologise for his factually incorrect statement. That is what he needs to be addressing. Mr Burke: On the point of order, Mr Speaker: if it is the position of the Manager of Opposition Business that, under a suspension motion, it's never to be a wideranging debate, then the implications for the opposition, who are much more likely to move motions of this nature than government are, will be long lasting. I'd simply caution against a strictness on suspension motions that hasn't been applied in this House for a very long time. The SPEAKER: On the point of order, Member for Wannon? Mr Tehan: Speeches have to be either for or against, Speaker, and we don't know whether it's for or against. Could you please tell us whether it's for or against? The SPEAKER: Resume your seat. We're just going to get through this debate in an orderly way. The language that we use here is important. I just remind the minister, under standing order 65, about directing comments through the chair. Mr SHORTEN: Mr Speaker, if they haven't worked out that we're voting against this suspension motion, then they're even dimmer than I already thought. We had a payment system which, as you know, wasn't working. So what we've done since we came in—and it was up to the now opposition, then government; they could have done everything that we've done; they just didn't do it. But what we've set up is the Fraud Fusion Taskforce. We are investing— Mr Sukkar: You renamed it! Mr SHORTEN: Oh, my Lord. Don't say too much, Member for Deakin, before you show us what you don't know. We set up the Fraud Fusion Task Force. It's $126 million. That wasn't there when we came to government. We've now got 19 different government agencies talking to each other. What Mr Dardo has discovered—and this all was set up under the somnolent, sleepy, incompetent, negligent gaze of those opposite when they were running the NDIS— Mr Chester interjecting— Mr SHORTEN: Oh, Darren, I know you secretly agree with me. Under their somnolent gaze, they never tackled all of the agencies talking to each other. The SPEAKER: No. The minister will refer to members by their correct title. Mr SHORTEN: You know, these people were the NDIS rorters' best friends, and they just never knew it. I'll give them that credit. I don't say it was deliberate. I say it was just genuinely incompetent. If it's between a conspiracy and a stuff-up, these people are the stuff-up, not the conspiracy, on the fraud. What we did was to set up our Fraud Fusion Taskforce—$126 million. That's a good idea. Why didn't you have it? We got all the agencies talking to each other. That's a good idea. Why didn't you have it? We put extra people in the investigation teams. That's a good idea. I don't know why you didn't do that. We had the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission—the poor old NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. For those of you who aren't students of history, we called for a disability royal commission in 2017. The former Prime Minister Mr Turnbull panicked and said, 'Oh, we can't have a royal commission.' That didn't work so well for him. He said, 'Instead we'll set up a quality and safeguards commission.' It opened its doors on 1 January 2018. The problem was that they put only 350 people into it. Then what happened was that those people weren't able to do their job properly. What we've seen since we came in, on top of our Fraud Fusion Task Force, our extra investigators and the range of other measures I've already outlined, such as changing payment system so we scrutinise them—that's a revolutionary idea!—is that we've now doubled the staff in the safeguards commission. Here are another couple of fun facts which the amnesiacs opposite me seem to forget. When I became the minister, there was $231 million of NDIS payments under scrutiny. There's now several billion. When I came in, they had 41 investigations underway. There are now 220. There are now 510 compliance actions underway. We have 20 matters in court and another 12 matters with the DPP waiting to be progressed to court. The SPEAKER: Order! The time for the debate has expired. A division having been called and the bells being rung— Mr Fletcher interjecting— Mr Shorten interjecting— The SPEAKER: Order! The Manager of Opposition Business and the Minister for the NDIS are quite enjoying the conversation, but I don't need to hear it on the floor of parliament. The question before the House is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be agreed to.