_{If this email has been forwarded to you, sign up here}

Nothing - and everything - happened in politics this week. The parties staked out their positions. In doing so they laid down the contours of how the coming dramatic change to the NDIS will be negotiated. The big news: the Greens risk becoming irrelevant.

MDIS Minister Jenny McAllister was forthright in her defence of the NDIS; she just chose her words carefully.

“We want to ensure that the scheme delivers on the vision as originally set out,” she insisted. “We will pursue these things in line with this very clear principle: if you are a person with a disability, your interests deserve to be at the centre of the policies and the government decisions that affect your life.”

Hard to get a more passionate defence than that. But then the kicker. “We know how important it is to make sure that the NDIS is there for long haul.”

So, for perhaps only the second time since the scheme was introduced, we have a minister clearly articulating the two directly opposed requirements of the scheme. It needs to really help; but it also needs to be financially sustainable.

What McAllister didn’t do was reveal how she intends to achieve this combination.

The Green’s Jordon Steele-John launched a similar, passion-fuelled assault on earlier changes to the scheme, relentlessly pointing out how it was failing the needs of many people with disability.

In doing so, however, he ruled the Greens out of any part of negotiating the coming change. He handed the power to do that to the coalition, to whom Labor will now turn as they begin finding a way of curbing the (still) relentlessly growing cost of the program.

And it was here, interestingly, that the Liberal-National Party indicated that it was prepared to talk, if only to deal the Greens out of the political debate.

This week gave an opportunity for the politicians to explain where they stand on the NDIS. These are links to critical speeches by NDIS Minister Jenny McAllister and the Greens Jordon Steele-John (curated by Dr George Taleporos) and the LNP’s Paul Scarr.