E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SUBJECTS: Voice to Parliament, Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability
IVO DA SILVA, HOST: Good morning, Minister, a big week ahead for Australia. Starting with the Voice to Parliament, an important moment in history. How are you feeling about the outcome of the referendum?
BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Well, I hope that we are able to update our constitution. The constitution is modern Australia's legal birth certificate, but when it was drafted way back in the 1890s, it didn't include our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders because they were the views at that time. But the constitution does allow for referendums and change, so I hope 123 years after the birth certificate is written, we can just update that omission about recognising Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people.
DA SILVA: How do you feel the discourse has gone over the past few months?
SHORTEN: Well, there's a fair bit of extreme stuff at the edges, and that's not desirable. We live in a democracy, we allow free speech and people absolutely have the right to disagree. But I always find that it's a lot better to disagree nicely than just abuse each other. And so I feel some of the debate has been very negative. But having said that, there've been a lot of good discussion too, and I think there's a lot of people who say, well, we probably need to change the way we do Indigenous relations in this country because the status quo is not really delivering the outcomes which we should expect and hope for as a country.
DA SILVA: Minister your portfolio is intertwined with what a yes vote is hoping to achieve, and that's an improvement in the lives of Indigenous people, in your case, Indigenous people with the disability. How will a Voice to Parliament help that?
SHORTEN: Well, what we have in Australia is some people are born with impairment, some acquire it in the blink of an eye on a country road, others can have it through the DNA code which we have within us, which leads to early onset conditions. When you're an Indigenous Australian and you have serious or profound disability, life's even harder. We're trying to do better. But I would hope that a Voice to Parliament provides the practical benefit that as we develop policies, we listen to the people who are missing out and we talk to the people who are starting behind and just say, hey. If we want to make sure that we do better physio and better speech pathology and better supports, we talk to people about how we do it rather than just impose some Canberra solution upon people's heads. Do it with people, not to people.
DA SILVA: What will it be different to what is being done now?
SHORTEN: I think what it'll do is it'll just make a sort of mandatory step in the process that we always consult with Aboriginal people before we do things to their communities. Now, it shouldn't depend on a Minister. As a Minister, I'm pretty switched on to the need to consult communities. I'm not always going to be the Minister. And historically, without the requirement to consult, at least check with people, that doesn't mean we don't do it and that doesn't mean we do do it. It just means that we listen to people before we do things. It shouldn't depend on the attitude or skills of particular politician or priorities. It should just be automatic that we talk to people and some people might say, well, we don't need to change the Constitution, you should just do that. Well, we haven't had in the Constitution for 123 years. And the reality is that without the requirement to talk to an advisory body, getting that advice in the past has been very hit and miss.
DA SILVA: Now, the disability royal commission's findings were recently released. In the report, it states the means by which Australia can be transformed into a more inclusive society that supports the independence of people with disability and their right to live free from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Will the recommendations of the Royal Commission be adopted by a government and will this fulfil its statement?
SHORTEN: Well, the goal of the Royal Commission, the overarching principle, is that just because you have an impairment doesn't mean you should be excluded from the opportunities and the fair go of Australian life. I agree with that and I'm sure the government agrees with that. The Royal Commission took four and a half years. It heard from 10,000 different people, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, two and a half million words. We're putting together a whole of government group to just look at what it means in schools and buildings and transport, in pension systems, in jobs, in healthcare. So, it's going to take a while to consider all the recommendations. The Royal Commissioners didn't all, there were six of them, didn't all agree with each other on some of the recommendations. So, we've got to weigh that up by the middle of next year. Considering this took four and a half years to give us, I think there'll be a comprehensive sort of response to what we think about the recommendations. But one thing I can promise people listening is that when it comes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which is part of our system, that's individual packages of modest support for people with profound and severe disability, we're going to use that Royal Commission to inform what we say at the end of this month about getting the scheme back on track, making it true to its original purpose, making sure every dollar gets through to people disability. So, the Royal Commission is going to help me in the short term with that and also keeping people safe.
DA SILVA: Now, one aspect of the Disability Royal Commission recommendations was that special schools be phased out. Debate has again erupted over the role of special schools because of that recommendation. Do you agree with this?
SHORTEN: The recommendation said that in 30 years they should be phased out. I'm going to let people in 30 years work out the ultimate answer to that. I agree with the principle. But the Royal Commission didn't agree amongst itself. Some people said, yes, they should shut them. Some people said no. I always tend to be someone who tries to find what we agree on rather than what we disagree on. I get that for some disability advocates, they're right. They think that kids having special school gives a leave pass from state school systems and private schools from educating kids in mainstream systems. And to some extent, they're right. But there's a lot of good people who work in the special school sector and a lot of parents and kids have their kids go to the special school sector because the mainstream system is just not a choice for them. It's not realistic. So, I think the happy place in between all of these competing points of view is having a discussion about how we properly fund to educate kids with disabilities in mainstream schools, where they can be at the moment, though in some schools, in some state jurisdictions and some private schools, the resources aren't there. So, just saying to parents right now, send your kids to a mainstream school is not the choice, doesn't exist. So, I want to reassure people, if your kids are at special school, that doesn't change. But for those disability advocates who say kids with disabilities shouldn't just be given special schools, they should have the option of mainstream schooling, I also respect that goal. But the sweet spot is how do we properly fund inclusive education so people have choice?
DA SILVA: That is Bill Shorten. There, the Minister for Government Services and the NDIS. That's why I was chatting with him. It's 18 minutes past seven and I'm going to be back chatting with him after this track. We're talking to him more about the Disability Royal Commission after this.
DA SILVA: Continuing my interview with Government Services and NDIS Minister Bill Shorten. We continue talking about the NDIS. The cost of living is really biting for all Australians, but particularly for those on NDIS with set amounts of funding. In the capital cities, many costs, like transport, are less expensive compared to regional and remote areas. What will you do to ensure regional participants get the same value for their funding as the people in the city?
SHORTEN: Great question. The reality is that everyone has an individual package, but if you're in Esperance, or if you're in Laverton you know, there's not the same level of services and market for choice. So, what we want to do, if you're an Aboriginal person with disability living in a remote community, it's not like walking down the main street, it's not like walking down George Street and Perth. So, what I would say is we want to look at what we call alternative commissioning. So, if we know there's 30 or 40 people who May need physio in a community, all got an NDIS package, we might look at what's the local healthcare service. Is there a not for profit who, if they employed a couple of physios and an OT, then we'd send the people on the scheme for that component of their package to the common service. So, that way, in Esperance, where there's about 1000 people on the scheme, or Kalgoorlie, where there's over 250, we don't want 250 different physios flying in or servicing them. We're going to look at alternative commissioning so that the back office of the scheme. There's some economies of scale so people can actually utilise the packages they've got without paying exorbitant prices.
DA SILVA: 1.2 million Aussies fall into category of being too unwell for primary care, but not unwell enough for state services. 54% of Aussies with diagnosable mental health conditions do not receive adequate support. Are these people missing out on key support due to a reliance on the NDIS?
SHORTEN: There is a mental health challenge of massive proportions in Australia. If you're really, really impaired by your mental illness, you can get on the NDIS. There's about 62,000 people in Australia who fall in that category, but there's hundreds of thousands of other Australians. You've got episodic mental illness for whom just going to the emergency ward at a hospital or just getting to do that sort of talking, well therapy for ten visits to Medicare is not enough. What happened when the NDIS is being established is states and territories and other health departments federally put some of this funding, which they were doing for these people who are not that impaired but still have a disability, they put that funding into the NDIS to bulk it up. We've left a bit of a desert for people who need some support but don't need the intensive support of the NDIS. I mentioned earlier, I’m doing a review of the scheme. One of the, I think, outcomes is going to be the Federal Government working with states and territories to provide some support for people with disabilities outside the Scheme, so they don't need to be on the NDIS, they do need some targeted, foundational, inclusive support, so that goes to community mental health. So, I think it's a gap in the system and hopefully we'll propose some ideas to help fix the gap.
DA SILVA: The NDIS has certainly changed a lot of people's lives with its implementation overall and, I mean, it's hard to do a blanket overall on it. Are you happy with how it's run?
SHORTEN: Yeah, I think it's life changing. There'd only be one in 1000 people involved with the scheme who would want to go back to the way it was beforehand. And the way it was beforehand was that all governments would pass the buck. And you'd have to be in a bigger crisis today than yesterday to get up the list for support. And you'd ideally be in a better crisis tomorrow than you were today to guarantee you're getting to the front of the list. That's a terrible way to allocate resources and it's destructive. So yes, do I think the scheme is changing lives and is it a world leading scheme? Yes, but I also know that, and I'll be blunt after nine years of the coalition, it's sort of lost its way a bit and it's delivering inconsistent results. For some people on the scheme, it's like having a second full time job, dealing with the bureaucracy. For some people, they feel like dehumanised. For some people, they get frustrated telling their same story over and over again to different people so we can make the experience better and more human. I also want to eliminate some of the unethical behaviour by some service providers. There are some service providers who are having a lend of the scheme overcharging, under servicing, right through to crooks, who are just making stuff up and flying under the radar with a lack of integrity in the payment system, so we've got to fix that up so we can do a lot better. We do that with people with disability by co design, but it's life changing and I couldn't be more proud of anything else that I've done in politics than be involved with this scheme at the start and now the chance to get it back to its original purpose, looking after people who really need it.
DA SILVA: It's 27 minutes past seven. That was Bill Shorten, Minister for Government Services and the NDIS. The National Disability Insurance Scheme.