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2025-01-16 01:31
Anthony Albanese has promoted or handed new roles to four female Labor frontbenchers in a pre-election reshuffle triggered by the retirement of the NDIS minister, Bill Shorten.
The prime minister on Thursday revealed the frontbench lineup he will take to this year’s federal election as Shorten quits politics to become vice-chancellor at the University of Canberra.
As flagged by Guardian Australian on Tuesday, the social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, will be charged with overseeing the major overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme to curb its ballooning costs and participant numbers.
The early childhood education minister, Dr Anne Aly, will assist Rishworth in a newly created junior NDIS ministry.
The minister for finance, women and the public service, Katy Gallagher, will add Shorten’s government services portfolio – which includes responsibility for welfare agencies such as Centrelink – to her already broad remit.
Shorten’s retirement opened up a vacancy in Labor’s 23-member cabinet, which will be filled by the aged care and sports minister, Anika Wells.
Wells’ promotion means the gender split in cabinet is 12 males and 11 females.
Albanese praised the 39-year-old as an “outstanding” minister, highlighting her role last year in shepherding through laws to reform the aged care funding model.
Wells’ elevation will be seen as a snub in Western Australia, which still has just one minister in cabinet. The veterans’ affairs minister, Matt Keogh, was overlooked for a pre-election promotion.
Rishworth was considered the logical successor to Shorten as NDIS minister given she already has policy responsibility for disabled Australians who are not on the scheme.
She is also overseeing the rollout of a new system of disability supports – known as “foundational supports” – designed to ease the burden on the NDIS, which now has more than 680,000 participants.
The decision to merge the NDIS and social services portfolios under one minister has been met with disappointment by disability advocates, who wanted the roles to remain separate.
Ross Joyce, the chief executive of the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations, which represents 42 disability groups, said the move was a “backwards step”.
“We’re really clear it should be separated, it’s too big a scheme to just have a minister with a lot of other significant [responsibilities] involved,” he said.
Joyce said the minister in charge needed to be working more directly with the disability community.
“How’s the minister going to devote time to the significant issues that are taking place within the NDIS?” he said.
Rishworth said the departure of Shorten, who helped design the NDIS as a junior minister in the Gillard government, leaves “big shoes to fill”.
“He has overseen significant reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and has been a champion for the Labor-introduced scheme from its inception,” she said.
“Under his leadership we have seen people with disability put back at the centre of the NDIS.”
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, is also preparing a pre-election reshuffle to replace retiring frontbenchers Simon Birmingham and Paul Fletcher.
Dutton has not put a timeframe on the announcement.
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