Originally Published on Independent Australia on 8 September, 2025.
ANALYSIS
n a bid to resurrect Coalition-era austerity, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley targets the NDIS while reviving Morrison’s divisive ‘have a go’ rhetoric, writes Melissa Marsden.
OPPOSITION LEADER Sussan Ley’s appearance on Insiders sent a clear message: the Liberal Party is committed to austerity and inequality.
Ley’s language was reminiscent of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, all but recycling his “have a go, get a go” rhetoric.
Ley pointed out:
…more than half of Australian voters receive the bulk of their income from the public sector, from wages or subsidies.
We want to empower Australians to contribute to realise their talents… We don’t want a society where people are dependent on government.
I’m very committed to pathways to work and getting the right skills for the right job for Australians.
Ironically, Ley suggests her motivations behind such restraint were well-meaning:
“We need a strong economy so we can look after the vulnerable.”
But exactly who the most vulnerable are remains a divisive issue.
Ley took aim at people with disabilities, suggesting the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) was less valuable than the aged pension:
“We will work with the Government to restrain the spending in the NDIS because it needs to be sustainable. It will overtake the aged pension.”
March budget papers showed the NDIS cost $48.5 billion last financial year. Looking forward, it projects it’ll be $52.3 billion in 2025-26 and up to $63.4 billion by 2028-29.
But despite the rhetoric, the NDIS is just one area where government spending has increased and people with disabilities are just like everyone else — there are often increased costs associated with having a disability, but many of those costs have not been addressed by the NDIS or welfare payments.
Ley proclaimed that, “Australians know we have to live within our means,” blaming the Government for having “no fiscal restraint.”
It is no mystery that the Liberal Party has a policy of economic austerity. Successive Liberal leaders have advocated for a decrease in public expenditure and a distaste for welfare.
But to reintroduce Morrison’s divisive language screams of desperation at a time when Australians are struggling.
To take this approach during an ongoing cost-of-living crisis appears even more bizarre. About a third of Australians are financially stressed, with women consistently reporting more anxiety about money.
In June, Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek announced a suite of measures aimed at easing the cost of measures, including changes to the Family Tax Benefit and Paid Parental Leave.
Plibersek declared:
“Combined with Labor’s tax cuts, increased wages, cheaper medicines, cuts to student debt, and energy bill relief, Labor is making a real difference to help ease the cost of living.”
In March, indexation changes resulted in welfare payments increasing by $3.10-$4.00 a fortnight. But the Government has remained committed to ensuring no real change enters the pockets of the country’s most vulnerable.
At the time the Budget was handed down, disability organisations across the country called the Government out on rendering people with disabilities “invisible”.
There is little evidence to suggest people with disabilities have looked to the Opposition for positive change or discourse on disability policy.
However, such a degree of bipartisanship on austerity continues to astound
But Ley’s decision to frame welfare recipients (of whom she undoubtedly was including people with disabilities) as “vulnerable” and in need of “empowerment” takes Australia back to Scott Morrison’s divisive and frankly disabling discourse.
Cuts to the NDIS, removing children with autism, have been widely condemned by the disability community as the Government’s main cost-cutting endeavour.
The Disability Support Pension (DSP) is a financial assistance service for people who have a permanent physical, intellectual, or psychiatric condition that prevents them from working.
In comparison, the NDIS is a national scheme that funds eligible people and claims to help them get the most out of life.
But Ley’s “pathways to work” reinforces the stereotype that people with disabilities can only work low-paid and low-skilled jobs. It neglects the thousands of individuals who have the skills and knowledge of professionals but are locked out of the workforce.
Ley’s language does one thing: it reinforces the discourse that if you are unemployed, it is by choice and that people with disabilities are less capable.
It forgets a straightforward premise.
If society is going to prevent people with disabilities from engaging, it won’t matter if they are empowered or not.
Melissa Marsden is a freelance journalist and PhD candidate at Curtin University. You can follow Melissa on Twitter @MelMarsden96, on Bluesky @melissamarsdenphd or via Melissa’s website, Framing the Narrative.