Honesty is a rare commodity in politics — almost as rare as contrition in the face of failure.
But honesty made a bold and welcome appearance at Canberra’s National Press Club on Wednesday, when Health Minister Mark Butler admitted Labor’s cherished National Disability Insurance Scheme was an expensive dud and a mess.
Butler didn’t use that kind of inflammatory language as he outlined the government’s NDIS plans for May’s budget.
In fact, he went much harder.
The program Labor created 13 years ago had, Butler said, strayed far from its original design principles, which were intended to help people with disability, and instead become a honeypot for “shonks, grifters, fraudsters and crooks”.
