{"id":847687,"date":"2026-08-08T06:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T06:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/847687\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T06:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T06:54:14","slug":"australia-greens-promote-bankrupt-parliamentary-appeals-at-ndis-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/847687\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia: Greens promote bankrupt parliamentary appeals at NDIS protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Socialist Equality Party will hold an online public meeting on August 16 at 2 p.m. (AEST) to discuss a socialist perspective to fight the Albanese Labor government\u2019s sweeping attack on the NDIS. Click here to register<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Protest against NDIS cuts in Melbourne, August 1, 2026<\/p>\n

Last Saturday, disabled people and their supporters demonstrated in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart and Perth in a national day of action opposing the Albanese Labor government\u2019s $38 billion cost-cutting attack on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s NDIS measures will force more than 300,000 disabled people off the scheme over four years\u2014the largest single cut to any Australian social program in history. Almost two-thirds of those removed from the scheme are under the age of 18, with no alternative support available from state governments.<\/p>\n

While these cuts will cost lives, confine people to their homes and shift burdens onto families and unpaid carers, the Albanese government has boosted military spending to nearly $60 billion annually.<\/p>\n

At the Sydney rally of around 200 people, chairperson Sam Noonan, a blind activist, told the assembly: \u201cWe demand the government stop the cuts before they can do more harm. We demand they fund the NDIS and not war.\u2026 We\u2019re sick of being treated like burdens, and we do not consent to Labor\u2019s policy of eugenics, because that\u2019s exactly what this is.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Brisbane, about 90 people heard Orielia, a disabled activist, explain the impact of cuts that Labor had already imposed, even before its latest measures. The NDIS authorities had \u201cdeclined my permanent power wheelchair application that I need to function, and expects me to go back to a manual wheelchair that I cannot physically propel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around 350 people attended the Melbourne rally, where one speaker, Grace, detailed how Australia\u2019s housing crisis had impacted her and others with disabilities. She explained that when she became homeless, every organisation she turned to \u201cagreed we needed help, [but] they couldn\u2019t give it or direct us to any other appropriate support. Everyone we spoke to agreed that we were doing all the right things, but the system was set up without a person like me in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Although attendance at these events was low, this does not reflect the deep-seated popular opposition to Labor\u2019s assault on the NDIS. More than 4,000 submissions opposing the Albanese government\u2019s attack on the NDIS were made to a Senate inquiry, along with powerful testimony from scores of organisations and individuals at public Senate hearings on the cost-cutting legislation.<\/p>\n

The health, welfare, education and other sections of the trade union movement, which have either ignored Labor\u2019s assault or offered advice and amendments on how to impose the NDIS cuts, boycotted last week\u2019s protests. Likewise, the Greens, who posture as opponents of the planned measures, made no attempt to mobilise their members for last Saturday\u2019s protests.<\/p>\n

From the outset, the Greens, who have been promoted and provided with political platforms by the pseudo-left, have systematically worked to divert popular opposition into politically bankrupt and dead-end appeals to Labor and Liberal-National Coalition parliamentarians.<\/p>\n

This was spelled out at the Perth rally by Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John, the party\u2019s chief spokesperson for disability. He urged attendees to \u201cpick up the phone. Send an email. Contact members, particularly of the Liberal Party. In the Senate, they will have the deciding votes on whether this bill passes. We have eight days to be, for want of a better word, as annoying as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steele-John\u2019s promotion of the Liberal-National Coalition is a damning exposure of the Greens and their reactionary parliamentary agenda. Opposed to any independent mobilisation of the working class, the Greens insist that the far-right, big-business Coalition, which unwaveringly supports Labor\u2019s NDIS measures and every other anti-working-class attack, can be pressured into defending disabled people.<\/p>\n

That illusion mongering was refuted just days after the rally, with the financial press reporting that the NDIS cuts would \u201csail through\u201d parliament after an agreement between Labor and the Coalition. While posturing over disability, knowing that the bipartisan NDIS cuts will pass parliament, the Greens continue to collaborate with the Labor government in a host of other areas.<\/p>\n

The task facing workers who want to defeat this historic assault is to fight for the independent mobilisation of all those in struggle against the Labor government\u2019s class-war agenda. The NDIS cuts are not an isolated attack but the central pillar of the Albanese government\u2019s assault on health, education and other vitally necessary social spending to fund its pro-war military spending.<\/p>\n

In Victoria, tens of thousands of teachers have twice voted down sellout agreements by the state Labor government and the education union, to slash their pay and conditions. Last week, South Australian nurses rejected a union-endorsed Labor agreement that would have reduced their real pay, and Victorian doctors have voted for strike action against the conditions in which they are forced to work.<\/p>\n

These and other workers\u2019 struggles must be developed and unified in a national political and industrial struggle against the Albanese government\u2019s cost-cutting agenda.<\/p>\n

Questions about this article? Ask Socialism AI<\/p>\n

Socialist Equality Party members and supporters campaigned at last Saturday\u2019s rallies, warning that the cuts to the NDIS were part of a broader assault on the entire working class. Campaigners urged attendees to register<\/a> for and attend its forthcoming August 16 online public meeting, held in conjunction with the Committee for Public Education and the Health Workers Rank-and-File Committee, which will discuss the socialist perspective required to fight Labor\u2019s attacks.<\/p>\n

Liz<\/p>\n

At the Melbourne rally, the WSWS interviewed Liz, who has been an NDIS recipient for eight years and said she was completely dependent on the program. \u201cIt\u2019s allowed me to change my life, but it can so easily take things away. And that\u2019s my greatest concern\u2026 [The Labor government] thinks it can cut social community hours and see if that\u2019s okay. I\u2019ve had other conversations where they want you out in the community and then they want you back in nursing homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should be able to go and ask for more help but instead, asking for more help can put you in jeopardy. It can lead to your plan being changed without your knowledge. I\u2019ve fought for other things that I\u2019ve won recently, but you shouldn\u2019t have to fight if you can prove your case. For me and others, we need it for life and we rely on it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The NDIS is \u201cnot about the participants anymore,\u201d she continued. \u201cWhen it began it was about, \u2018We\u2019re here for you, and what do you need as a participant?\u2019 But now it feels like a factory, a one-size-fits-all approach. But it\u2019s never going to be one size fits all. My needs and plan will always be different to someone else\u2019s needs and plan\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in fear of dealing with this the rest of my life. It gives me anxiety because you never know what you\u2019re going to get. I\u2019m still waiting for things to be paid for from the time when I didn\u2019t have a budget, and I\u2019m still fighting for them to pay more than four grand owed to different providers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth<\/p>\n

Elizabeth also attended the day of action in Melbourne. \u201cI\u2019ve always been a Labor voter,\u201d she told the WSWS, \u201cbut they\u2019ve certainly lost my vote since this happened. I\u2019m very disappointed. It was amazing when the NDIS first started, but now it seems to be all coming undone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thinking about how the system is going to be made more complex, even though it\u2019s already complex enough to get services and have applications for equipment approved. You\u2019re always having to justify your needs, your existence, which is very undignified. I shouldn\u2019t have to justify my existence like that. I\u2019m sure there is some fraud going on, but not as much as the government makes it out to be. I think a lot of it is administrative flaws in the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for the WSWS Health Care Workers Newsletter!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Socialist Equality Party will hold an online public meeting on August 16 at 2 p.m. (AEST) to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-847687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}