NDIS Minister Bill Shorten is this morning doing the media rounds to attack the Liberals and the Greens for delaying the passage of his NDIS reforms, but the conversation again turned to sex-based rorts in the system.
In a panel interview on Seven’s Sunrise with Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, the pair were asked about the NDIS paying for a range of services including sex workers, sex toys, steam rooms, group trips to Japan, taxidermy, weddings and clairvoyants.
Shorten pointed out that there were very few examples of the NDIS paying for sex workers, noting only one instance in the past three years, but that “any reference to sex seems to drive the nation nuts”.
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But Joyce is incensed by the wastage.
“We tried to fix it when the Labor Party was in power and I agree 100 per cent that the sooner it is fixed the better because I do not want to pay, or you don’t want to pay for someone to have a wild old night between the sheets on the taxpayer’s ticket, when it actually comes with a bill,” Joyce said.
“I think we are all on a unity ticket for that.”
Shorten then appealed again for assistance in the passage of his reforms.
“The delay will cost taxpayers and people on the scheme a billion dollars,” Shorten said.
“I don’t blame Barnaby, if he was in charge he would have voted it in the last two weeks, but it is ludicrous it is now going to cost an extra $1 billion because the Coalition and the Greens had a tantrum and threw the toys out of the cot.”