© Provided by The GuardianPhotograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Scott Morrison and Christian Porter have been accused of ignoring the disability royal commission's "urgent" request for an extension to the inquiry, after failing to reply to the commissioner for more than four months.
© Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPGreens senator Jordon Steele-John said the disability royal commission was the 'largest of its kind in Australian history' and the government should immediately grant its request for more time.
In its interim report in October, the commission said it needed a 17-month extension, acknowledging the scope of the $527m inquiry may have been underestimated and noting the impact of the pandemic on the hearings.
Guardian Australia can reveal the government is yet to respond to two letters from the commission chair Ronald Sackville requesting the extension, despite him stressing the "urgency" of an early response.
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Sackville said in a statement to Guardian Australia that he wrote to the prime minister and attorney general on 30 October about the matter.
"On 14 December 2020, I wrote again to the prime minister and the attorney general explaining the urgency of an early response to the request for an extension," he said.
"The royal commission has not yet received a written response or indeed any substantive response to either letter."
The commission is due to hand down its final report in April next year. If an extension is granted, the deadline would be pushed out to the end of September 2023.
Jordon Steele-John, a Greens senator who lives with cerebral palsy, said it was "not for this government to decide" how much time the commission needed.
He said the inquiry was the "largest of its kind in Australian history" and the government should immediately grant its request for more time.
"Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the lack of privacy protections, many disabled people have been unable to tell their stories and the commission itself had been unable to hold hearings in my home state of Western Australia, or indeed anywhere outside of Queensland and New South Wales," Steele-John said.
"For the royal commission to be forced to make its final recommendations in just over a year's time would be to deny disabled people and their families the justice they deserve."
Bill Shorten, Labor's NDIS spokesman, said the government should heed the commission's request for an extension.
"This government has a tendency for announcing royal commissions into problems of their own creation," he said.
"But if they are serious about hearing the voices of Australians with disability the least they could do is heed the request of the commission instead of rudely ignoring it.
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A spokesman for the acting attorney general, Michaelia Cash, said "a decision in relation to the commission's request will be announced in due course".
The royal commission's interim report found people with disability experience "often shocking" levels of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, but said it was "too soon" to outline any recommendations.
"The terms of reference are extraordinarily broad, much broader than any royal commission appointed in this country since well before the turn of the 21st century," Sackville said at the time.
"That means the commission is not a sprint, it's a marathon."
The government has also faced criticism over its failure to legislate protections that would allow the royal commission to permanently seal confidential submissions, as occurred during the child sexual abuse royal commission.
Sackville first wrote to the government asking for the change on 14 February 2020, but the government only agreed to act in October, and is yet to introduce the legislation to parliament.
Some disability advocates have expressed concern Porter's leave of absence from parliament may further delay the reforms.
But Cash said the government still hoped to introduce the bill this month.
"As indicated late last year, the Attorney General's Department had been instructed to draft amendments to the Royal Commissions Act, which the government hopes to introduce in the March sitting period," she said.
"In the meantime, there are a number of ways that a royal commission can protect information provided and the identity of witnesses even after the royal commission has ended.
"This could include the use of private sessions or pseudonyms or the making of do-not-publish orders. It is clearly a matter for the royal commission as to how it applies these protections."
A whistleblower told the Guardian last year they felt they could not share their evidence of alleged abuse within disability accomodation with the commission due to the lack of confidentiality provisions.
The inquiry's next session, on 24 March, will examine pathways to employment for people with disability.