E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SHARRI MARKSON: Now the NDIS is growing at a faster rate than any other area of spending outside of our interest on our national debt. $5.7 billion of taxpayer funding is about to be dented in Jim Chalmers' second budget with major focuses on sexual services and psychic appointments. Those are the claims of the Opposition.
Joining me now is NDIS Minister Bill Shorten. Mr Shorten, thank you very much for your time this evening and you're coming to us from Canberra during a Parliamentary sitting week.
BILL SHORTEN: No worries, Sharri, pleasure to be on.
SHARRI MARKSON: You made pre-election remarks about the NDIS scheme being sustainable. Since then there have been reports, first in October last year of an $8 billion blow out. Then just this week we hear about a $5.7 billion blow out. Do you think now, do you admit now that the scheme is not sustainable?
BILL SHORTEN: No, I think the scheme's got a bright future but there are things that you can only work out when you get the privilege to be the Minister, which you can't see from opposition. And there are aspects of the scheme which are really not acceptable and substandard.
When the scheme works well for participants it's life changing. And now nearly every Australian knows someone on the scheme and the good news stories are actually great. And of course the nature of news is you don't always cover the good news, do you?
But when it's bad for the participant it's really bad. So I think that we can really improve the scheme, the performance for it for individuals in it, and in that process I think we can also make sure that we're not wasting money on the things that don't work and we're making sure that every dollar that we spend gets to the participant for whom the scheme was originally designed.
SHARRI MARKSON: Okay, well let's look at that. NDIS is now expected to cost more than the defence budget, which is just extraordinary. So where can you cut back? Which areas can you make savings on in the NDIS?
BILL SHORTEN: At the peril of risking your wrath I think that you're looking at it the wrong way round. I think that we can improve the financial performance of the scheme, absolutely. But the question isn't to tell NDIS participants they're too expensive, because they're not.
I think what we need to do is invest in the capability of the organisation.
When someone gets their initial plan, that's a really important step on the journey in the NDIS. And if we get that initial plan wrong then a whole sort of negative outcomes happen, including money not being, you know, equitably and appropriately used. So get the organisation better. There's good people in it but invest in them.
I also think we've got to stamp out what I would loosely call ‘unethical practices’. That covers the whole range of things from direct criminal activity through to overcharging to over servicing.
I also think we can make the plan more effective and efficient by longer term planning. I do think one of the problems the NDIS faces is that it's the only lifeboat in the ocean. What's happened is that since the NDIS has been established the states have moved away from providing a range of services they used to provide to people.
SHARRI MARKSON: Yeah.
BILL SHORTEN: And the scheme was only meant to cover the most profoundly and severely impaired, and what's happening though is that it's a centrifugal force sort of funnelling everyone to it because nothing else is a lot of the other services for people who weren't as impaired have simply evaporated.
SHARRI MARKSON: Yep.
BILL SHORTEN: So I think there's a range of things we can do which accomplish and meet your concerns, but we do that through the lens of what's the best possible outcome for the person with the disability. We get that right and then I think a lot of the other anxieties which you're identifying, you know, they get dealt with.
SHARRI MARKSON: There's been a lot of discussion about autism being funded by the NDIS and this is being discussed as one area that could be cut back, and this came into the debate about how to fund the AUKUS submarines.
In your view, Mr Shorten, is autism being over diagnosed or misdiagnosed here?
BILL SHORTEN: Well one question's the diagnosis and the other question is once you have a diagnosis what do you do with it? I think we're getting better at identifying.
SHARRI MARKSON: Do you think it is being over diagnosed?
BILL SHORTEN: Well I think what's happening is that for little kids who might have a learning delay some things are getting badged as autism in order to get them on the path of the NDIS because we don't have other supports in the broader community.
I also think that the scheme is not for every person with a diagnosis of autism. Autism, there's various levels of and it affects people and it impacts their individual circumstances differently.
I think if we build better early childhood screening and detection. I think if we make sure also that when people are getting treatment and support for autism that we're using evidence based treatments, not just everything goes. So that's an area which we set up a review and they're consulting with a lot of people.
Until all of this is to some extent I'm ahead of you know, you've got me sort of at quarter time, half time in the process of reform.
SHARRI MARKSON: Yes, I understand that.
BILL SHORTEN: And there's still some more work to be done.
SHARRI MARKSON: Yep. Look, you just mentioned there the different levels of autism. As I understand it Level 1 autism doesn't actually get any funding so barely anyone is being diagnosed with Level 1 autism and everyone's being diagnosed with Level 2 or 3 because that's where the funding is. Is that what you're seeing?
BILL SHORTEN: I think there is an issue. I don't have the specific numbers to hand. But there is an issue that the diagnosis is following the money so to speak. And I'm not blaming anyone, but we've got to tackle it.
I think the best - I'm interested in the best science and the best expertise.
SHARRI MARKSON: Yep.
BILL SHORTEN: The Telethon Institute in Western Australia, the Olga Tennison Centre at La Trobe University in Victoria, Griffith University, there are plenty of world leading researchers but they agree broadly on the following proposition: the earlier you diagnosis a child with a developmental or a learning delay, the better you're going to be help them adjust.
Not every pathway should end up in the NDIS. The scheme was never designed for everyone with a disability in Australia, but we've got to have alternative supports for people.
SHARRI MARKSON: And you were obviously the architect of the scheme, you were there designing it, this is your baby. Did you argue when the scheme started that psychosocial disabilities shouldn't be part of the NDIS?
BILL SHORTEN: No, the basis of the scheme is if you have a - Australia's a lucky country and we want everyone to share in opportunity. The opportunity to have a fulfilling life shouldn't be dictated by the level of your impairment.
SHARRI MARKSON: Of course.
BILL SHORTEN: So we wanted a scheme which would provide individual packages of support for people who were most profoundly impaired. There are some psychosocial conditions which profoundly impair you. So I look at the individual and their circumstances, but what I also think is we have to be careful of just saying, "You have a diagnosis therefore you're on the scheme". You've got to look at how it affects individuals.
But part of the challenge also is, and participants tell me and families tell me, they sometimes feel that they get reports but the people making the decisions don't read them. They talk to me that when the scheme's not working well it just becomes a sort of maze where you're constantly trying to hang on to what you've got.
SHARRI MARKSON: Yes.
BILL SHORTEN: So I really fundamentally believe, and people in Australia - I really fundamentally believe that if we get the participant experience right at the outset and you get that right, then I think a lot of the other sort of negative features which sometimes people talk about start to get eliminated.
See, a lot of participants tell me that sometimes they feel like ATMs for service providers. Now there's a lot of great service providers. Just like there's a lot of great people in the disability agency. But what we need to do is make sure that it's a much more human, empathetic less, you know, remote impersonal experience. And that comes from helping invest in the people who are working in the scheme and giving them the skills and specialisation.
A lot of people with disability complain to me that they constantly feel they have to re-prove their disability annually. We've got to get rid of that rubbish.
SHARRI MARKSON: Yes, absolutely. Mr Shorten, I do want to ask you about another couple of topics but just very quickly.
BILL SHORTEN: Sure.
SHARRI MARKSON: Last night on Chris Kenny's program your opposition, the NDIS Opposition Michael Sukkar said that the NDIS is being used even to fund prostitutes and psychics. Is this right? And what's the justification for taxpayer money being spent on psychics?
BILL SHORTEN: I don't think - first of all, there was - I'm aware of one case out of about two million transactions where there was an argument about the services of the nature you spoke about. One in about two million. I don't think that's an appropriate use of taxpayer resources. Of course it did happen. What my friend Michael Sukkar neglected to mention is that happened when they were in Government.
SHARRI MARKSON: Yes, all right, fair enough.
BILL SHORTEN: I don't know. I haven't seen the transcript. I don't have if Chris Kenny nailed him on that point.
SHARRI MARKSON: Well you know what I haven't seen the transcript either, but I watch Chris Kenny every night.
BILL SHORTEN: Do you? Well that's very loyal of you.
SHARRI MARKSON: You have been prosecuting the case against Stuart Robert over his relationship with a company called Synergy360 owned by Robert's close friend David Milo and a political fundraiser as well. What's the issue here? And isn't this just routine in Canberra that you people's friends own lobbying outfits? I mean we can name 10 examples of this.
BILL SHORTEN: Well if you can name 10 examples of the sort of things we're seeing I think we should. I don't think it's business as usual. Having said that, you used the word prosecuting. I don't know what Stuart Robert has or hasn't done. There were media reports from another media organisation late last year which talked about perhaps special access or made the inference of special access for this consulting company to government contracts in the area I'm now minister for.
I've commissioned Dr Ian Watt to do a review of the administrative arrangements. We haven't been able to look through the other side of the transactions, Mr Robert and all the financial dealings of Synergy360. Mr Robert denies anything, any wrongdoing at all and we should state that clearly, and nothing has been proven against him.
But there were contracts involving Synergy360 which Dr Watt has red flagged. He said they need further investigation because there was insufficient value for money case made and there were possible conflicts of interest which haven't been declared.
SHARRI MARKSON: Yes, okay.
BILL SHORTEN: Since the Watt Report was put up online last Friday more information has come to light that on another occasion Synergy360 were working for a company called Unisys, a big American multinational IT contractor. Unisys liked its particular safety product, its security product called LineSight software. And from leaked emails from the other side of the equation, not from the Government, it appears that Synergy360 and Unisys found Mr Robert very helpful in getting access to key decision makers.
One question which I do have, and I haven't heard Mr Robert answer this, is one committee that Unisys got a particular chance to present to is the Parliamentary oversight committee for the Australian Criminal Law Enforcement Integrity Commission. It's pretty prestigious to be able to go and talk to them about your software. The leaked emails reveal that they were all very grateful to Mr Robert for facilitating it.
Mr Robert at the very least is good friends with Synergy360. I'm not saying there's any financial relationship but clearly he has a special relationship with them because he doesn't do this for everyone else. Did Mr Robert declare a conflict of interest, a prior relationship to the consultant lobbyists?
SHARRI MARKSON: Okay. Mr Shorten, we've got to go but I just need to ask you, why are you defending your mate, your friend Daniel Andrews over his trip to China with no journalists? Fair enough he visits China, of course we should have Chinese students coming to Australia, but with no journalists and without raising the case of Australian journalist and mother Cheng Lei who's imprisoned there?
BILL SHORTEN: Well Mr Andrews, he's the Premier of Victoria. He's not my boss and I'm not his boss. He wants to promote economic opportunities for Victoria. I think that's legitimate. China is a country who we should cooperate with where we can, disagree with where we must, but we've always got to prioritise our national interests.
SHARRI MARKSON: He should take journalists though with him, shouldn't he? I mean we need transparency.
BILL SHORTEN: That's ultimately a call for him. You know, I like journalists to get involved with the things I'm doing but, anyway, that's a call for Mr Andrews.
SHARRI MARKSON: All right. Mr Shorten, thank you very much for your time.
BILL SHORTEN: Cheers, bye bye.