A levy to help pay for disability insurance doesn’t obviate the need for the government to continue to look for “structural savings” in the budget to address the scheme’s long-term sustainability. But by locking in partial funding for the national disability insurance scheme — now, mysteriously, renamed DisabilityCare — and, as Bernard Keane points out today, slightly reversing the increased reliance on corporate tax revenue that was a feature of the fiscal policies of the later Howard and Rudd governments, Labor’s proposed levy is worthy of support from the opposition.

Indeed, from a purely self-interested point of view, Tony Abbott is likely to be the beneficiary of the additional revenue the levy will generate — without having taken any of the political risks of advocating it.

But despite the pressure from the opposition and the media, it is not clear that the public interest will be served by legislation being rushed through Parliament before it rises for the winter recess and politics switches into election mode. There are questions that need to be addressed, including where the remainder of the additional funding required by an NDIS will come from.

Why has the government opted to increase the Medicare levy, rather than establish a new, separate levy, as recommended by the Productivity Commission? How can we ensure the split of funding from the Medicare levy between health and disability services — bearing in mind it is insufficient to fund either — remains at a guaranteed level? What will be the formula for allocation between states?

All important questions that a Senate committee could resolve, if there was time.