Senator McLUCAS (9:58 PM) —I have two points I want to raise this evening. The first is the point I alluded to last night in my speech in the second reading debate, and that is the issue that refers to people with degenerative diseases who have, in my view and in theirs, been caught up in this package of measures. The package of measures is ostensibly addressing people with disabilities but, as a part of that, large numbers of people with degenerative diseases—people who have MS, people who have motor neurone disease, people with Crohn’s disease, people with chronic rheumatoid arthritis and people with HIV-AIDS—have now been caught up in this package of measures and they do not fit. I made the point last night that this package of measures is poorly targeted and has not been well consulted on. This group of people in particular cannot be accommodated in this package of measures.

Will the government contemplate the request, from the MS Society in particular, that people with chronic illness—neurological disease—be exempted from this measure because they do not fit? If that is not possible, then why is it that you cannot give a commitment to this group of people that they will be able to have an assessment in a shorter period than two years? These people have a disease that means their condition degenerates over time. It means that they are not going to get better. They are not going to get to a position where they are going to be able to work longer hours; they know they have got an ailment that will inevitably lead them to work fewer and fewer hours. Why do they have to wait for two years to have another assessment of their ability to work?

Why is it that there is no consideration of the time it takes for this group of people to get to employment? You should know, Minister, that this group of people has extraordinary difficulties to overcome to get to work. But you should also know that people with MS in particular have a higher rate of employment than the Australian average for part-time work. So there is the proof, if you needed it, that if any group of people wants to maintain their place in the work force, it is the group of people with MS. But this system will make their life less tenable. We have had that evidence in the inquiry.

Minister, why won’t people with degenerative illness be excluded from this package? They do not fit. They cannot increase their capacity to work. The nature of their disease means that their capacity will diminish over time—that is a fact; it will not change. And if you will not exempt this group of people, why won’t you guarantee the capacity for people under review to obtain medical, neurological, rehabilitation, urological or psychiatric assessment in the CWCA?