E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SUBJECTS: NDIS budget, service changes, and co-design; NDIS in Tasmania
LEON COMPTON: Bill Shorten is the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and if I'm not mistaken, was the person who effectively created it more than a decade ago. Minister, good morning to you.
BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Good morning.
COMPTON: And thank you for talking with us this morning. Minister, let's start by focusing on Tasmanians receiving the NDIS at the moment. What are you most commonly hearing from them across Tasmania and the country when they tell you about the issues that they have?
SHORTEN: Ten years on from the scheme being first legislated and rolled out in full trial sites around Australia, the overwhelming sense I get from participants on the scheme, there's nearly 600,000 now, is that people don't want to go back to what it was beforehand. They want to hear that the NDIS is here to stay, which it is. I also think ten years on that people want to make sure that every dollar in the scheme is getting through to the people for whom the scheme was created. So yes, the scheme is changing lives. It's quite remarkable. But also hear still too many hits and misses. We've been working very hard since we got elected last year to try and start improving the performance of the scheme so that the interests of the participants are always put first.
COMPTON: Can you do that, make it more efficient, more effective without making some recipients nervous, effectively making people feel like they will get less?
SHORTEN: Well, rationally I can, but I also respect that because we've had nine years of chopping and changing that there's a lot of muscle memory about whenever reform is spoken about is there’s just wide scale slashing and burning of people's packages. So I understand people's visceral or emotional memory. And once people have had a plan, there was always that anxiety – am I going to lose the plan or have massive cuts? So I get that people do get anxious.
On the other hand, rationally we are budgeting for the scheme to increase each year. We're assuming more people come on to the scheme. So I think if you look at what we're actually trying to do in our reforms, that doesn't mean that every individual person will be happy with every individual ongoing dealing with the agency. But I want to improve the quality of the interchange. I want it to be more humane, more empathetic, more consistent, more transparent. I think we also need to move from this annual cycle of plans to a default system, which is longer plans, by that if you're blind, you've got Down syndrome or you're a quadriplegic, that doesn't change in a year. So we should stop asking people to reprove their disability each year. So I think our reforms over time can improve the consistency of experience. Yeah, so I think rationally we can do better. I think by eliminating fraud and waste and overservicing, we can make sure every dollar gets through to people. But I respect that there's still anxiety out there because of the last ten years, it hasn't been straightforward for a lot of people.
COMPTON: You just came on the phone while Adam was talking to us. Now he's a man in a wheelchair with a chronic illness and disability. There's no doubt about it. He was sitting in the studio only a few weeks ago, and yet he's talking about the stress of 11 months in having his package end. It'll literally mean he's got services booked in today that he can't afford, doesn't know how to pay for. When specifically, is another listener with a permanent disability asking you, when will you change that yearly review aspect of the NDIS for some people?
SHORTEN: I’ve always said in- I said in April that we're now co-designing how we move to longer default plans. So that process is underway right now.
COMPTON: And when is it likely to resolve itself?
SHORTEN: I want to do it- once we finish our co-design. But the listener can assume from me, I want to do it as soon as possible, but we've also got to co-design it with people. When we say longer plans, then we get a lot of questions. What if I need to have a change of circumstances? Is that going to be ruled out if we have longer plans? No, it's not, but I've just got to get that right. But in the- I can't tell you if it's weeks or months when we move to longer plans, but we've set the direction so we will.
COMPTON: Bill Shorten is our guest this morning, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Minister, I'd love you to take a couple of calls while we're with you this morning from…
SHORTEN: By all means.
COMPTON: …disability- yeah.
SHORTEN: And just on that gentleman, Adam who rang in, I don't know the circumstances. People will be both happy and unhappy to know ministers don't make each individual decision. That's not a cop out, I just think it's better that you have an agency who does it. But we'll follow up. Our office will follow up and find out what's gone on here.
COMPTON: Jane Wardlaw is one of Tasmania's most disability- respected disability advocates. You've probably met before in the past, I suspect.
SHORTEN: Yes.
COMPTON: Jane Wardlaw, good morning to you.
JANE WARDLAW: Yes, good morning, Leon. Good morning, Minister.
COMPTON: Now, Jane, we'll need to keep it fairly tight, but I understand firstly you wanted to say you think Bill Shorten is doing a good job. What questions, what focused…
SHORTEN: Do we have to rush past that point yet? No, I was only joking.
COMPTON: What focused questions would you have for the Minister, Jane Wardlaw?
WARDLAW: Well, look, I do have a couple, and I think the first one I'd really like you to try and explain is about reasonable and necessary, because I think that is something that really affects the sector. And I think if you could try and explain what you think reasonable and necessary is, and will that then mean that we need to change the NDIS legislation?
COMPTON: Minister?
SHORTEN: What Jane's referring to is there's a- the NDIS is underpinned by a law, the NDIS Act. And one of the criteria for support is that the support which a participant seeks has to be reasonable and necessary. The review, and you referred to it, we've set up a review made up of leading advocates and thinkers in disability. They'll hand down a final report in October. Jane. One of the things they're looking at is what does reasonable and necessary mean? Because it's been the source of some litigation and debate and uncertainty. We've got planners in the agency, that's the National Disability Agency, administers the scheme. And one of the complaints I've heard over the journey of the last few years is that they feel that there are inconsistent decisions between different planners. And one of the things which highlights the inconsistency is different interpretations about what's reasonable and necessary. So, Jane, we've asked the review to tell us what they think reasonable and necessary means and whether or not we need to change legislation.
I'm a little bit in the hands of the review, but if they propose changes, we'll have to legislate them. I think reasonable and necessary as a general principle should be based on evidence. So in other words, not everything a person wants may be based on evidence about what they need. But by the same token, I think once there's more clarity about the meaning of reasonable and necessary, certainty is what the people crave in the scheme to get more consistent decisions.
COMPTON: And Jane, your follow up comment to that?
WARDLAW: No, I think that's great. I just thought it would be a great platform for you to try and discuss that because the...
SHORTEN: Yeah.
WARDLAW: …NDIS reviewed the whole entire sector's actually holding their breath to see what actually comes out of it, because this will redirect how we go about making things a lot better with the agency as well. And I think this communication gap that we have between the agency and service providers and people with disability is pretty huge.
COMPTON: Okay.
SHORTEN: And Jane, just to that end, as you know, Bruce Bonyhady, who was- worked with me and others to help set up the scheme, I've got to chair the review with Lisa Paul, a distinguished Commonwealth public servant. But on that review panel, we've also got Dougie Herd, who you may well know. He's the chair of the ACT Council for People with Disability. We've also got Kevin Cox, who was the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner in Queensland. So there are various- and others too, by the way, on the review. So there's very strong advocacy, human rights input on that panel.
COMPTON: Okay, Jane Wardlaw, great to have you as part of the Morning's programme this morning. Bill Shorten is our guest. My question is, what would you ask the Minister around the NDIS- or the Minister for the NDIS about the NDIS as it's operating for you and your family? Kate has a comment. She says: Minister, my daughter would have taken her own life if it wasn't for the NDIS. She can access services that assist her with daily living and the trauma and difficulties associated with autism. If her funding got cut, I don't know what she would do, says Kate this morning. Look, and thank you, Kate, for the text and it's heartfelt. Can I ask you another question, though, Minister, about that issue?
SHORTEN: Yeah.
COMPTON: I mean, we have a situation now where one five to seven- 11 per cent of five to seven-year-old boys in Australia right now are assessed as eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I mean, that figure seems beyond belief to me. What does- what is that figure to you?
SHORTEN: It's certainly larger than I think we initially expected when the scheme was established. I think what's happened, and these are just my personal opinions based on talking to thousands of people, and I'll wait for the review to give me some direction about the best way of early intervention for kids with developmental delays. What's happened, I think, is that everything has become an NDIS matter. So state governments have to some extent retreated from the field of disability services. That's not universal. They still do a range of things. Other federal government departments, hospitals have also now said if that's an NDIS matter, that's not to do with our part of government.
It was never the intention for the NDIS to be the only life raft in the ocean. It was never the intention that we wouldn't have a whole ecosystem or support system for people with disability. Not every person with a disability wants to or should be on the NDIS. It's for those who are most- whose impairments are most profound and severe. And when it comes to early intervention, I think one of the challenges or opportunities, because I'm by nature a glass half full sort of guy, is what else can we do to help in early years of a child's development, to give them options to help them work through developmental delays without automatically putting everything into the off ramp of the NDIS. So that's our challenge.
COMPTON: So you come on and you don't stay there forever potentially.
SHORTEN: That's one- yeah, that's certainly the view. The aim of early intervention- every child is different and unique, so there's different sorts of reasons for developmental delay, but there's a lot of exciting research right around Australia which shows that if we can do universal screening, nine to 14-month year olds, 12 to 18-month-year-olds, the earlier we can diagnose if a child is embarked on a non-standard developmental journey, then the more we can help them. Parents don't automatically want their child to be on the NDIS, but if there's no obvious way you can get some speech pathology or OT or occupational therapy or like services, then you can understand why that creates that centrifugal pressure to be on the NDIS.
COMPTON: Well, a listener has just texted in: Dear Leon, my son's school has a psychologist employed. Fifteen of the 20 children in his class now have a diagnosis of either ADHD or autism, and two of the five I know of have refused for the psychologist to assess our child because we're pathologising diversity, says one listener this morning via text, which is a really interesting perspective. Minister, I'm told you might have to go to a doorstop in a moment or two. Can you stay with us for...
SHORTEN: I can stay for a couple of minutes. Yeah, I'll just get the car to drive around. I'm just going to- I'm visiting a Services Australia centre where all the frontline Centrelink and Medicare staff work. That's all. But I can chat for another few minutes…
COMPTON: Okay.
SHORTEN:…if your listeners aren’t bored.
COMPTON: No, next time you're in Tasmania, we're having an overwhelming response...
SHORTEN: I figured that, yeah.
COMPTON: I would love you to be in the studio next time you're down...
SHORTEN: Happy to. Yeah.
COMPTON:... and take half an hour of calls.
SHORTEN: Yeah. Happy to.
COMPTON: Is it being- is the system being rorted in Tasmania? People talk about rorts in the system. Is- have you seen evidence of that in Tasmania?
SHORTEN: At the moment, there's over 13,000 participants in Tassie and there's 4000 businesses who provide services. I would say at the outset whenever we have a conversation about unethical conduct, be it overservicing or overcharging right through to crime, that's not the fault of the participants. So if you know someone who’s got a family member on the scheme, let's not stigmatise them with fraud or unethical conduct. Most service providers do an excellent job, but there is a long tail. I guess it happens- perhaps poor behaviour by a few.
Wherever there's government money, ever since I think in modern European, Australian history, since the Rum Corps, wherever there's government money, it does seem to attract its fair share of blowflies and opportunists and spivs, and there's been insufficient attention paid in the past to what I would put under the umbrella term unethical behaviour. That- some of that's just straight out and out rorting and crime. Others might be- one thing which really frustrates me is double pricing. You have the same service, the service provider says you're on the NDIS or not, and then if you're on the NDIS the price goes up for the same service. It's not the job of the NDIS participant with their scarce package to subsidise someone's business model.
So I think it is happening. I don't think it's the only issue in the scheme. I think most of the scheme’s operating honestly and transparently, but there's been insufficient attention paid to people who might just be padding the bills or taking opportunistic advantage of people with disability. It's government money people are ripping off, but it's more than that. It's a participants’ only source of sort of support.
COMPTON: Okay. Final question then. What is the timetable? You've got October set as your...
SHORTEN: Yeah.
COMPTON: ...one-year long review into the NDIS. Is that still the timetable? What happens from there?
SHORTEN: Yes. Yeah, some people say it's not enough time, other people say it's too long. So I guess the truth is somewhere in between. We've already started changing the scheme for the better since we got elected. We're getting more people out of hospital who are medically fit for discharge. What was happening before the election is wait times on average of 160 days between being fit for discharge and actual discharge, which is just crazy costs and not good for the participants. We've got that down. On average, we've reduced the legacy cases in the court. There was something like 4500 matters in court where people were arguing with the Government about aspects of their package. We've reduced the matters that were in court at the time of the election by about 80 per cent. We've now got half the board who oversee the NDIS are now people with disabilities. Of the 11 most senior people in the agency at the time of the election, there's one left. We've changed the leadership. So plenty happening.
We've announced reforms, longer plans. We want to crack down on the crooks and the charlatans. We want to have a discussion about how we can improve the housing options and support options for people. We want to tackle price gouging. And now, we've got the review. So it's a great scheme. It's changing lives for the better. It has a high level of public support. I just want to make sure that the participants interests are always the number one issue in how the scheme is run.
COMPTON: I appreciate you talking with us this morning, Bill Shorten, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. And next time, he's in Tasmania- with so many of your texts and calls, we haven't had a chance to get through. Apologies for that. 0438-922-936 is the number, 0438-922-936. We'll get through some more of your texts and calls in just a moment. Bill Shorten, thanks for your time.
SHORTEN: Thank you very much for the discussion and thanks to your listeners for participating. Bye-bye.