Mr. Peter Broadhead:

It is hard for me to comment on what might work in the situation here but I can talk about the commitment that was made. The report that was done in 2011 made clear the scope of people who were expected to be supported through a scheme, as proposed, and made clear what it expected the cost of that to be. It involved taking all the money that was previously spent in the area and adding more on top of that. That was part of the commitment. Arguments were put forward in that report about the economic benefits down the track and so on. It is fair to say the scheme that was stood up through the Act is not identical to the scheme that was recommended in the 2011 report, but there was a recognition all along that it would cost more to do what was proposed than had been spent in the past, which is proving to be true.

We have a Medicare levy, which is an identified tax. It is not hypothecated but it is identified. It has a label on it that was introduced when we moved to publicly funding some parts of our health system. That was introduced to meet the additional cost of that. That was increased, as was mentioned. The revenue from that is not sufficient to meet the additional cost of the scheme. The additional cost goes well beyond that. A decision was made by the government of the day that in the end that would be funded primarily out of general taxation rather than out of an identified levy, although that extra increase is still there and is still distributed back to the state governments that contribute. Approximately AU$11 billion to AU$€12 billion is allocated to the scheme by our state governments. It is not purely funded by the federal government, rather the balance is funded by the federal government. That was a decision taken at the time.

Reference was made to public support, the idea that the scheme should support people with disabilities and that this was the right thing to do. Various groups take surveys from time to time and there is still clear support for it. There are still many teething problems in the scheme and there are various views on the rights and wrongs of it and if it is doing everything as it should be done. We are not past all that and probably never will be but, nevertheless, the major features of the scheme are understood, accepted and in place.