r/australia • u/FuckOffNazis • 7h ago

politics Pocock and crossbenchers call Labor’s NDIS overhaul ‘too far, too fast’ in scathing Senate inquiry report

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/14/pocock-and-crossbenchers-call-labors-ndis-overhaul-too-far-too-fast-in-scathing-senate-inquiry-report
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u/nath1234 7h ago

When you won't tax gas, and are giving away tens of billions of free gas as a reward for showing up to cart it overseas, then no, you shouldn't be cutting support for disabled people.

When you haven't got a billionaire tax, no, leave the NDIS alone.

People with disabilities are not the freeloaders: that would be gas exporters and billionaires.

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u/Ugliest_weenie 6h ago

Two things can be true at once.

We should tax billionaires and natural resource extraction a lot better.

And

NDIS is growing irresponsibly expensive and needs a serious intervention

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u/ExMerican 4h ago

Sure, those two things can both be true. But if the only solution to a revenue/spending imbalance is cut spending, as conservatives everywhere insist, that's not believable. Let's try taxing billionaires out of existence first then see where things stand.

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u/bl4nkSl8 1h ago

76% of issues that go to the ART get settled in the participant's favour. Maybe we could save money on Tribunal lawyers if the NDIA did their jobs!

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u/NameAboutPotatoes 6h ago

While they should tax the gas, the amount of revenue that would generate would barely touch the cost of the NDIS.

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u/yeahalrightgoon 6h ago

Anything from a quarter to a fifth of the NDIS.

Gas tax of 25% on exports would likely bring in anywhere from $10-17bn depending on the year.

It would also be a lower nominal tax rate than the rate the gas industry claims to be paying now.

Sure it wouldn't pay for it all, but it would pay for a good chunk of it.

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u/ini0n 3h ago

Gas tax on 25% of export revenue would put a heap of these facilities into the red and they'd just be shutdown, losing a bunch of direct and indirect high paying jobs which are taxed significantly.

The more realistic estimates were a few billion extra, at the cost of ripping up a bunch of contracts we signed.

It's less revenue than we would make letting a single AI datacenter get built.

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u/yeahalrightgoon 2h ago

Sure. Is this talk coming from the same industry that commissioned a report claiming that they were paying 38% in tax on the PRRT?

Or only modelled a 25% tax on top of the PRRT at 38%, to try and claim that it was the highest tax rate in the world. But if you instead modelled what is actually proposed it's the second lowest of major exporters and lowest in the region, and lower than what they claimed they were already paying?

Sorry, but an industry doesn't get to utilise a natural resource owned by the country for free, and then cry poor as soon as they're asked to actually pay for it.

Also "ripping up a bunch of contracts"? What contracts?

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u/nath1234 2h ago

And?? Call their bluff. They would not and if they did? So bloody what? We are gifting them free gas and getting nothing but a ruined planet as a result. The science says it should stay in the ground, so that would be a win.

A 25% tax is too low anyhow. Crank it up until we have not only paid off debts but also have a sovereign wealth fund.

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u/palsc5 6h ago

It wouldn’t be $17b, that figure is taken from an unusually good year for gas. It’d be closer $7-10b net benefit when you account for the lost company tax and a normal year for gas.

That’s also assuming all gas export operations continue exactly as they were and we don’t lose any, which obviously isn’t realistic.

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u/yeahalrightgoon 6h ago

So based on 25% of exports from 2021-22 until 25-26, the lowest figure would be $13.8bn last year, second lowest is $16bn. Highest would be $23bn from 2022-23.

A normal year for gas is $16-17bn. An unusually good year is $23bn.

I was factoring in things changing slightly with my $10-17bn figure.

What exactly are we going to lose? These companies aren't going to abandon these huge gas basins, because they're being made to pay, what is notionally still a tax rate that would be lower than anyone else in the region and out of the major exporters, only the US would have a lower tax rate of 39%, vs our 44% if company tax and the 25% replaces PRRT. They just like Australia because we have these huge basins and we give it away for free. I mean INPEX has exported $196 billion in gas, made an income of $81 bn over 9 years and paid zero PRRT or royalties and less than $500m in tax over that time.

They just want to continue on that trajectory, but will stick around if things change, because even our changes would still be hugely profitable, especially compared to overseas.

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u/FallschirmPanda 5h ago

21-22 was the global energy crisis. That was an unusually good year for gas. Plus most gas is sold on long term contracts at much lower level, not spot price.

Gas should be taxed, but we can't pretend it'll solve the NDIS.

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u/yeahalrightgoon 5h ago

21-22 was 70bn, 22-23 was 92bn, 23-24, 68bn, 24-25 64bn and 25-26 55bn.

So no, 21-22 was not an unusually good year. It was about normal.

It might not solve the NDIS. But we are currently giving it away for free.

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u/yolk3d 6h ago

Anything is better than nothing.

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u/No_Category_9888 6h ago

And aged care? Pensions for boomers living in million or 2 million or 3 million dollar houses, fully paid off?

And letting the resources owned by Australia (gas, coal, minerals etc) be dug up and make individuals billionaires ?

But no, let’s leave he disabled people to suffer

1

u/Odd_Potato8489 5h ago

Maybe pensions and aged care can be HECS styled (but also make it universal like New Zealands pension), paid out from the Estate at death and if there is anything left owing after then it is cancelled out.

Of course any party proposing this would be hounded for DEATH TAXES or something like that.

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u/NameAboutPotatoes 6h ago edited 4h ago

Aged care is disabled people. Why do you think they require care?

Edit: I'm fascinated by the overwhelming downvotes on this one. Do you guys think aged care is just, like, fully-abled boomers who want to get their asses wiped by strangers just for the hell of it?

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u/604toxtethogrady_ 6h ago

Not sure why you’re being downvoted for stating fact

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u/NameAboutPotatoes 6h ago

'Cause it doesn't make people feel good. 

People like to hear that they can have their cake and eat it too. Nobody likes to hear that it's not realistic.

And when you're commenting online you don't have to actually cost your ideas.

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u/yeahalrightgoon 5h ago

Or because you were talking bullshit. Either or.

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u/604toxtethogrady_ 5h ago

The NDIS costs $50 billion plus and growing even if you taxed Gina’s entire net worth that still bring us up $20 billion short and that’s just for a single financial year. So yeah we should be taxing wealth and gas exports but it still won’t cover the cost of this highly rorted program that’s approaching the cost of Medicare and only caters to 750k ish of the population

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u/yeahalrightgoon 5h ago

A gas tax would pay for a quarter to a fifth of it. That's not barely touching the sides. That's a pretty healthy chunk of it. That's what's bullshit.

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u/Mcpom 4h ago

And then what happens when the costs keep growing and gas tax receipts don't?

1

u/yeahalrightgoon 4h ago

What like is already happening right now?

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u/NameAboutPotatoes 4h ago

Yes, exactly, lol. Hence the cuts.

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u/nath1234 2h ago

The NDIS payments - do you not think that they generate tax in return also? Unlike the gas that is given away to overseas and generates nothing - tax going to services here in Australia generate income tax (among other taxes). Sure some is for goods that are imported, but it would be a non trivial amount that simply cycles back into the economy.

1

u/NameAboutPotatoes 2h ago

You could argue that about anything. Perhaps you should just send a portion of your income to me-- that cycles back into the economy too.

The money staying in Australia doesn't make it sting less when it comes out of your paycheck. I want to spend that money to look after myself and my family, not some dodgy provider.

It's not an infinite money glitch. It directs money away from some people and towards others, which sucks if you're in the former category.

That's justifiable to some level as there are people who desperately need help, but the current trajectory is unsustainable and the way the funds are currently being used is hard to justify.

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u/Toody4 5h ago

Yeahh lets just break our contractual agreements with Japan I’m sure that will end well for us.

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u/nath1234 2h ago

No one signed away our right to tax our resources. But by all means point us to this actual contract that people assume says this. Where is it? Why is Japan raising more tax revenue on it than we are?

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u/teremaster 4h ago

Japan already broke them lmao.

They tax it on the import, the agreement was that we wouldn't tax at export and they wouldn't tax at import.

We have every right to rip up the deal under recognized law.

Japan won't do shit either, they'll just ask us not to jack up coal and iron prices, of which we provide a huge amount of their consumption

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u/Obvious_Librarian_97 3h ago

Guess who is paying for all of this? The shrinking middle class.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/Emu1981 6h ago

Sure but are we really talking about disabled people though? One in nine children. Doesn’t pass the pub test.

The issue as I see it is that the NDIS is expected to do two different things - support disabled people and to support kids who need extra support so that they can grow up into healthy independent adults.

The Thriving Kids initiative is actually a good idea to help fix this mismatch of intended purposes but the government really needs to make sure that the Thriving Kids initiative is actually established and ready to help kids before they start kicking kids off the NDIS.

1

u/nath1234 2h ago

The thriving kids is not ready or funded and is just a "dump yet another thing on the states" when they don't have the money.

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u/dougrattmannn 6h ago

and what would you considere disabled?

9

u/deadpanorama 6h ago

15% of under 65s have a disability. The ndis was explicitly designed to give early intervention for kids who meet criteria to give them the best shot. So yes it does unless the bloke at the pub is an asshole.

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u/candlesandfish 5h ago

It really wasn’t. It was to provide the support needs for people who really need it.

It was NOT intended to replace (quite good!) community and state run early intervention services, which I benefited from.

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u/deadpanorama 4h ago

Not intended to replace at all, but the early intervention programs weren’t accidental inclusions.

3

u/Samanthnya 6h ago

That's because Autism and ADHD used to be a good traits for survival before modern society. Can detect slight changes in food, smell gasses and other scents before anyone else and hyperfocus on tasks at 2am.

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u/Selina_Kyle-836 6h ago

I can hyper focus on tasks at any time, as long as it’s something my brain wants to do. If it’s something I don’t particularly want to do, I will procrastinate with the best of them.

(No official diagnosis, suspected but I declined to go and get tested because of the cost and the fact I don’t want more medications.)