E&OE TRANSCRIPT
ANDREW TILLETT, AFR: Bill, just back to the lectern thanks, if that's okay. Thank you very much for your speech, Bill Shorten. And thank you too to our Auslan interpreters there as well. We've got a very long list of media questioners today, so I'm going to go straight to it and please keep it all to one question - or else. Our first and our first question is Jade Gailberger.
JADE GAILBERGER, HERALD SUN: Jade Gailberger from the Herald Sun. Thank you for your speech. I just wanted to touch on some remarks you made about invisible Australia and second-class citizens. At the end of last year, Australia failed to meet a Coalition commitment to have no people under the age of 65 entering residential aged care facilities and no people under the age of 45 living in these facilities. When will your government set new targets? What year will they be achieved and how will you actually achieve them?
BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Okay. Well, that's a good ‘one question.’ Perhaps let's go to the last point first. Yes, the targets that the Coalition promise haven't been met. There's been a lot of good effort to try and achieve them, but we're diving down, between ourselves, the Department of Social Services - it's great to have the secretary here, Ray Griggs, and the NDIA, to see how we can better approach people, principally between 45 and 65 who haven't moved out in the same way that I think younger people have. And we've got to see what's causing that blockage. The issue of getting people into appropriate accommodation, though, is part of a bigger challenge. So, it's not just aged care. I've talked about how we've done it with hospitals. What we did with hospitals is we put in an extra - from twenty-nine liaison people working at the NDIA to 54. And what they do is there's a lot of great allied health clinicians and care teams, social workers, working at hospitals with people who are in hospital. And what we've done is given those extra resources, extra people, to wrangle accommodation, and we've been able to give the planners and the people dealing with the people stuck in hospital greater autonomy to make decisions. What we discovered is that a lot of decision making tended to be in a series of single decisions. So, if you were getting a train between five railway stations, the way that processes were happening is you'd have the first question you'd get on the first stop, then you'd get off, even though you wanted to travel five stations, you'd have to get off the next station and wait till you'd made that first decision.
And so, it was a series of consecutive decisions. What we try to do now is give more autonomy to the wranglers and the hospital teams to make decisions concurrently. This doesn't sound like rocket science, but it's a very revolutionary concept. So, I'm keen to see what we can do with aged care in that same approach we've used in hospitals.
There is a challenge though around medium-term accommodation. See, you don't want to keep someone in a facility while they wait for their forever accommodation when you could help get them into better accommodation, but it has to be medium term, it doesn't become their long-term accommodation. So, we're looking, within the Agency, looking at how all of our housing options are getting the most qualitative intervention. One of the solutions I've outlined today generally is investing in the capability of the Agency. Now we've done it at the top and the board and I've given kudos to a lot of the grassroots frontline NDIS staff. They're great. It shouldn't sound as simple as it is, but I actually think it is. This Agency has been unloved. They put a staff cap in in 2017 when the scheme had 4000 staff and 170,000 people on the scheme. There's still about 4000 staff at the last election, but there's 565,000 people on the scheme. So, if we have better specialisation and better investment and training of the people in the Agency, I think the capability will help start unblocking a lot of the blockages, including aged care. As terms of future targets, we'll have to see what the budget says and what my colleagues in aged care are saying.
TILLETT: Thank you. Next question, Phil Coorey.
PHIL COOREY, AFR: Good day, Mr. Shorten. Phil Coorey from the AFR. Two things in your speech I think are related. You talked about the systemic reform required as not just the NDIS but mainstream and community services as well. And then in your conclusion you said the states have to step up. They've clearly been hiving their own services onto the NDIS since you signed this deal. I think the original deal was a 50/50 funding split between the Commonwealth and the states for NDIS, and the Commonwealth would agree to pick up any blowout and I think you're now on the hook for around 70%, if I'm correct, for the funding. Is it now time, I think that that funding agreement is coming up for revision. Are you going to push at a Commonwealth level to rework that agreement, that funding agreement?
SHORTEN: I think there's a challenge generally about inclusion. It's not just the states. Some hospitals used to supply cosmetic eyes to little children who were born without an eye. It's a very rare condition. That's now been told by the hospital, the hospital's now said that's an NDIS cost. I spoke to a family of a woman who works three days a week. She's a medical scientist doing exactly what you'd ask of somebody. She needs a tube in her throat to feed. The hospital said that's no longer their issue. That's an NDIS issue. So, there has been cost shifting.
What I've tried to do is demonstrate the goodwill of the NDIS by sorting out the hospital bedblock, which is saving states hundreds of millions of dollars. But it's got to be a fair go all around. So, I found the state disability ministers to be an excellent crew to work with. They're very engaged. It'll be no doubt a subject of discussion at central agencies. Prime Minister, First Ministers, Treasurer, Treasurers. But you can't have it both ways. You can't sort of see a retreat from the provision of community mental health services, for example, and then say, oh, that's all NDIS, when in fact the NDIS isn't looking after everyone with a mental illness. So, there's got to be an identification about where the gaps are and encouragement of states to step up and do more of the disability funding. I think education is a clear area where that's an ongoing challenge.
There's also a challenge in terms of the funding formula and that will be negotiated through. But I think that a thing like we announced with the Telethon Institute, if we can help with our best evidence and our data and encourage the states to help put a universal screening out for kids who are 12 months old rather than waiting ‘til developmental delays are identified at three, what we do then is we create a range of supports. Not every child with a developmental delay at 12 needs to be in the NDIS. It might be that they've got undiagnosed hearing challenges. It could be simpler conditions, frankly, which we've already mastered how we can help that child have the same learning experience. It could be just as simple as putting parents in touch with other parents. The NDIS was never meant to contract out everything else. It was meant to work with everything else. And these are the challenges. There's a lot of goodwill to try it, but we'll do our bit, you know, we'll clamp down on the overcharging, we'll make the Agency better. We're going to certainly work in the range of those areas I've tackled. Thank you. Thanks.
TILLETT: Next question from Nicole Hegarty.
NICOLE HEGARTY, ABC: Nicole Hegarty from ABC News. My question also relates to states and them picking up their share of funding as well in this conversation about how to make the NDIS viable long term, much of the focus often turns to rorts and how to claw back some of that. What role in terms of the share of making the scheme continually viable do states play?
SHORTEN: There's a little bit at the start of your question, which I just want to rephrase, or at least disagree with the assumption - the scheme is viable. The scheme is viable. It's here to stay. I think the challenge for us, it's not just a state issue, the challenge is how do we make sure that every dollar that the scheme has is getting to the people where it's meant to go. That's the sweet spot. And the way to do that is if we're constantly working on giving the participant the best experience, that actually then starts to deal with the waste. It's not the best experience for the participant to have a junk therapy. It's not the best experience for a participant that when you've got a child at a school, who pays for the sport chair? Is it the special school or is it the NDIS? So, I think the filter which helps give us clarity is what's the best experience for the participant. And that way we build and maintain the trust in the scheme. We'll eliminate the waste and the overcharging and, you know, the opportunistic and unethical behaviour if we always ask ourselves the question, what's the best evidence? How do we deliver what's reasonable and necessary based upon the evidence to participants? I know I'm sounding a bit optimistic there in the light of the sort of ballooning balance sheet, but I think if you go through the reforms that we've outlined and the approaches plus what we will get in October, I think there's clarity and that's what it needs, focus and clarity. Thanks.
TILLETT: Next question. Tom Connell.
TOM CONNELL, SKY NEWS: Thanks. Minister. Tom Connell from Sky News. You've given an exhortation for suppliers in particular to do the right thing today. We have seen over many years at least some do things like double and triple charge for anything from beds to gardening to meals, more exotic stories, if you like, of psychics with crystal healing, carers saying they need to go on a cruise with someone else as part of a respite. And a lot of these providers presumably have no compunction with doing this. Is it time to go harder on compliance? My understanding there, I think, are two blacklisted providers. Do you need to be a much tougher cop on the beat? Because a lot of these providers - I'm not saying most of them do it, but the ones that are doing it - don't really care about what you have to say today about doing the right thing?
SHORTEN: Just to segway, I remember during the Beaconsfield mine disaster, some people would say, Are they dead? And others in the mining industry say, oh, they're having a great time. This is the two trapped miners. The truth is always between, isn't it? And I just want to say about the NDIS, the truth is between there's nothing wrong at all and it's all ruined. The truth is a lot more real. The truth is that most service providers are brilliant. The truth is that most disability carers have a vocation. The truth is that people with disability aren't looking for truffles and caviar. The truth is that most parents would like to see their kids, if they've got a learning delay, end up in mainstream education, if that's possible.
So, when I talk about how we crack down on overcharging, it's a problem. Some people in the disability world say, oh, don't talk about the problem. It means people won't like the scheme. I think we underestimate people with disability on the scheme. You know, I've done meetings down in Brighton with Zoe Daniel, and I've done meetings with Tanya Plibersek in the Waterloo public housing, very different socioeconomic areas, but both full of participants. When I say let's try and stop bath chairs in showers being priced a lot more as soon as the seller knows you're on the NDIS, everyone agrees. What I want to say today to people who look at the expenses in the scheme, of course the silly stuff shouldn't be allowed and we're going to tackle that by investing in the Agency. If you've got consistent decision making in the Agency with people who are familiar with the disabilities, if you've got longer term plans, if we have better ICT scrutinising whether or not an account is being unduly drawn down or it seems to be running ahead of the budget, we're going to sort some of this out.
But I will just also say that the sweet spot for reform, how do we thread the needle between people who are concerned about, you know, tens of billions of dollars every year and what have you, and participants who even this discussion today and the very balanced reporting saying I was going to talk about a reboot, we've had families ring up and say, does this mean I'm going to lose my package? So, there's a lot of trauma, and there's a lot of muscle memory of the last ten years. So, yes, we are going to crack down on the fraud and we're going to invest in more systems. If you've got a business model where you are sort of mining someone's supported independent living package for your own interests and not the participant, sell your business now because it's not going to be worth much by the time we've finished with you. We're going to put participants first.
But in putting that sort of negative cop on the beat frame, which has to be done I say to everyone, the scheme is good. It's world leading. No one else in the world does something like it. Any of us could need it. And there's a lot more good news than bad news in the scheme. We just think we can get even more good news in the scheme and deal with the issue of inappropriate costs. Thanks.
TILLETT: Thank you. Next question. Natassia Chrysanthos.
NATASSIA CHRYSANTHOS, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: Hi, thank you. Minister, in your comments about spiralling costs, you said the NDIS needed to return to providing reasonable and necessary supports and you've also referred to shoddy therapies. Could you give us some examples of what you think are some unreasonable and unnecessary supports that are going to help with that spiralling cost issue and how you plan on dealing with those?
SHORTEN: One of the ways - reasonable and necessary should be based on what's evidentiary sound. Listen. I take my life in my own hand. I don't want to get hate mail, but I am not convinced that NDIS money, I'm not saying it ever has, should be used for tarot reading. You know, that's the sort of one which seems to float up on Twitter. I haven't identified quite where it's happened yet, so whether or not it's - but that's out. I think the better and sounder approach though, other than just using a sort of basic common sense test of what public and people on the scheme would sustain - see, the thing is, there's almost been a bit of binary division in the way that we talk about the NDIS, that somehow the public want one thing and the participant wants something else. This is the magical lightbulb moment. The participants in the public want the same things. There's not a competition between the two. They're not in two sets of trenches against each other.
So, I think that what we need to do is give our planners and the Agency better swim lanes about what works and what doesn't. You can imagine that if you've got a child who is not developing in the way which you thought they might initially, this is very stressful times. You can then imagine that if there's a shortage of psychologists and a shortage of professional help, someone says, well, the NDIS at least will get you something, then you can imagine though, that you have to prepare reports. It's pretty stressful. Then you have got a 12-month plan and if you feel that you haven't used up all your money by month ten, because it's short-term plans, you have this perverse incentive, I better spend it. Because if I don't spend it, they may take it off me. This is where I think having evidence and experienced and skilled planners can help make sure that people aren't getting hoodwinked, but that's partly the government's fault, too. And again, I must say to all of the Allied health service professionals and others who might be watching this and saying, oh, no, most people do a great job. So, it's not about everyone. But I do think that if we have better evidence-based processes supported by the agency, referable, like the PBS - you know, just because we have subsidised drugs doesn't mean that you get every drug subsidised. And I think that there's an opportunity there for us to use third party evidence, not for individuals, but just for the general science of what we do.
TILLETT: Okay. Our next question is Jess Malcolm.
JESS MALCOLM, THE AUSTRALIAN: Thanks for your speech. Jess Malcolm from The Australian newspaper. I just wanted to clarify whether you're open to changing who is eligible for the NDIS as a way to rein in spending.
SHORTEN: No. There are some groups who seek to be included where the scheme isn't, where we have no plans to. That's people who acquire their disability over 65. And I understand that's very difficult. But the Parliament, and to be fair, all sides of Parliament, said that this scheme was for people under 65 aged care is for over - the fact that aged care has atrophied I think adds tension to it. So, we're not looking to add in a vast slab of people. One of the challenges has been that - this is a personal view and I'll wait to see what the review says - but if we solely rely on diagnosis, then you can get yourselves caught in all sorts of categories of inclusion or exclusion. I don't want to do that. I think it is looking at the whole person. So no, we're not looking at slicing slabs of people off, no. We're not looking at changing a whole lot of diagnoses and putting them in. But I think there are some people not on the scheme missing out. And that's going to be a challenge. And I think there's people on the scheme who we could support better. And I don't think it's inevitable that every child with a developmental delay at the age of three should end up on the NDIS. But we got to make sure there's other supports out there. Thanks.
TILLETT: Thank you. Our next question Dan Jervis-Bardy
DAN JERVIS-BARDY, THE WEST AUSTRALIAN: Dan Jervis-Bardy from the West Australian. Thanks for your speech, Mr. Shorten. Let's assume that this reboot works. The six points that you've outlined are delivered. The scheme becomes better for participants. You're able to weed out dodgy providers and crack down on fraud to the extent that's possible in a scheme such as this. What then if, because of the uncapped nature of the scheme, the cost continues to increase and let's say it becomes $80 Billion per year by in 2031, 2032. Is that acceptable? If we have a good scheme but it costs that much, is that acceptable?
SHORTEN: I understand your question, but I'm not going to play. I'm not going to put up a fictitious say there is a magic number which works. What makes the scheme sustainable is if participants are getting outcomes. What makes the scheme sustainable is if public trust in the scheme is high. What makes the scheme sustainable is if we deflate some of the inflationary pressure in the maze, which I've said.
The scheme will grow each year. That's inevitable. And I say that again clearly for people beyond this room. I don't see the scheme as shrinking and that's not what we're trying to do. But if we focus on the outcome for the participant and the maintenance and rebuilding of public trust, then I think you will end up seeing the right priorities being targeted. There shouldn't be a wedding tax. There shouldn't be people providing junk therapies. People should have outcomes focused. But I tell you what, if you're a person who's born with a disability, which is significant and permanent, if you acquire it in the blink of an eye on a country road, or if you get it through the onset of early aging with a range of genetic conditions, you should be in the scheme. And that's what I want to see. Thanks.
TILLETT: Next question. Maeve Bannister.
MAEVE BANNISTER, AAP: Maeve Bannister from The Australian Associated Press. Thanks, Minister, for your speech. I wanted to take you to another area of your interest, which has been the Robodebt Royal Commission. The Royal Commission heard accounts of a pretty toxic departmental culture where people felt like they either couldn't raise their concerns or if they did, they weren't listened to. You're now one of the Ministers in charge of that department. What steps have you taken to change that culture? And should senior public servants who were involved in establishing and overseeing the Robodebt scheme keep their jobs?
SHORTEN: That's a question with a sting. First of all, I should acknowledge that some of the changes in the culture of the departments happened before my time, and we are very fortunate that we have very capable leaders in DSS with Ray Griggs and also Rebecca Skinner and her leadership team at Service Australia. So, I think there is cultural change underway and one of the key cultural changes and the departments can speak for themselves, but one of the key cultural changes I think any organisation always needs to have, is it should ask itself the question, am I hearing the bad news that I need to hear? Because invariably, if organisations at a certain level don't hear bad news, then what they will get is worse news. So, I guess put in a nicer way, I'm relatively confident, I'm confident that with the current leadership in both of the areas that I'm responsible for now, with Rebecca and the team at the NDIA, that the leadership of those departments and agencies and the same for Hearing Australia, which I've got, are being told what they need to know, just what not what they think their juniors want them to know.
So, I think that is changing and certainly I hope and that's my position. And I've visited 20 plus Services Australia Centrelink offices, great teams. I've visited the NDIA many times, a little flex here. I visited the NDIA more times than all of the Coalition ministers ever did. But I hope that they pick up that attitude. We want to hear the problems as well as the good news. In terms of what happens, we have to wait for the Royal Commission to make its findings. As a sort of amateur expert of royal commissions, focus on the adverse finding context and see if there's an adverse finding. Of course, an adverse finding isn't a criminal judgement, it's just an adverse finding. It's an administrative proposition and a report to a government.
I think once we know if there are any adverse findings and against whom they're made and what they say, then I think we'll have to consider what to do with those people. And I'm sure the Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Secretaries Committee of the government will be working out what to do about current public servants, either in existing positions or who might have moved to other positions within the Commonwealth Public Service. I won't pre-empt that process. So, there's two steps to go: Royal Commission and then how the Commonwealth Public Service leadership propose to look at those people.
I will say this - I think there's a lot of incredibly decent people in the public service and many at the senior levels but thank goodness we had this Royal Commission. The Coalition said it was a bad idea. I was absolutely of a different view. It has exposed a soullessness and a hollowness in parts of the public service at its highest levels and the Ministries, which I think has actually shocked people. And we've got to ask ourselves, how do we make sure that never happens again? Culture of bad news being reported. And also, there should be consequences for people who did the wrong thing. But I won't name names. We'll just wait and see what the process is emerge with. Thanks, Maeve.
TILLETT: Thank you. Next question. Sarah Tomevska.
SARA TOMEVSKA, SBS: Thank you for your speech, Minister, Sara Tomevska from SBS. You've spoken about barriers to participation. You'd be aware that culturally and linguistically diverse people participate at half the rate projected by the NDIA, while the First Peoples Disability Network estimates there are 60,000 Indigenous people missing from the scheme. I spoke to a man a year ago, a Myanmar refugee. He suffered a stroke while fleeing ethnic persecution. He was 34 years old. When he got to Australia, he spent his first two years housebound. He didn't even know that help existed. He then spent another year housebound because once he discovered the NDIS, he had no idea how to navigate the system. And there are thousands of people like that man. What are you doing to help people actually access the scheme?
SHORTEN: That's a great point, Sara, and people can - if you still remember the answer, I gave a couple of questions back when we were talking about diagnosis, I did say there are some people who are not getting into the scheme who should be in the scheme. If you remember that answer I had CALD and First Nations people in mind when I was giving that. The Agency's launched its First Nations strategy. We're working with a lot of organisations, First Nations people, so it's with them. It is true what you say, that if you just take an examination of First Nations people or people who come from a non-English speaking background, their average package and their average use of the package is lower than the Australian community at large. So, I'm not sugar-coating - there is an issue there. The great irony, of course, is that some people complain that we're spending too much, and others say that we're not getting to the right people and sometimes both of those things can be right. With CALD communities, I've been meeting with the peak bodies, FECCA and the other representatives. I'm looking to the review to look at how we make sure that access to NDIS is equally shared. I think there's a few things we can do though. Again, it starts with the capability of the Agency. I'd like to see more people with First Nations and CALD background in the Agency. I also think it simplifies - if any of you have ever had to have a family member or on the NDIS can be very bureaucratic. So, I'm looking at how we just simplify our front door of the scheme. I'm interested in us doing more outreach as well. It's not – not everyone's a digital native online. Not everyone thinks to go to a government office. How do we do more outreach and meet with, say, for example, associations who represent Australians of a non-English speaking background? So, I think outreach is part of the solution too. It's a work in progress.
TILLETT: Thank you. Our next question from Brandon Howe.
BRANDON HOWE, innovationaus.com: Thanks, Minister, for your speech. Brandon Howe from innovationaus.com. You've spoken many times on the need to invest in the NDIS capabilities. I thought I might just ask on the digital capabilities that underpin it, ahead of the election last year, around the end of April, you said that an overreliance on technology was creating a RoboNDIS. What work have you done to mitigate that overreliance on automated assessment systems and do they still exist in the scheme? And I thought as an amateur Royal Commission expert, I might ask to touch on calls for a Royal Commission into the use of automated assessment systems in the NDIS.
SHORTEN: We're always going to use automation and crunch data. Let's not confuse taking the human element out of it with taking the machines out of it as well. There's so much data in the world of disability, not only in the NDAA but more generally across service Australia at state levels. We're not using data enough. We need to be able to, you know, for example, a simple example could be patterns of behaviour in terms of people overservicing and putting in false invoices, like, there's so much we could be doing. And on the positive side, in remote areas of New South Wales and Queensland, Tassie, wherever, if we know that we've got a certain postcode which has trouble getting services into those remote communities, how do we tackle thin markets? I was in Port Hedland talking to the Aboriginal Health Organisation there. They've got data, we've got data. So, automation and using data is excellent, but it's the purpose it's used for and it's the manner in which it's the ethical framework around it. That's a different issue. To me, Robodebt is not a failure of computers, it's a failure of the humans operating them or the policy makers operating and saying, we'll just rely on that and nothing else. So, if we spend more money on building the capability of the agency, we'd better train our crew, we increase specialisation, we build a national data asset, which I know my colleagues in Canberra and also at state level are doing. I think we can get the balance right, but there should always be an ethical framework around the use of AI.
My view is it should be ideally wherever possible, open sourced so that people can see what's going in. And the best protection of data is to co-produce with citizens. And if they can see - you can't do this in all things at all times and don't see me tomorrow and say, why have we got open source and everything - but I think that there's a principle about the more that citizens feel they can control their own data, the more they'll actually trust government. But the use of data is not the problem. It's whether or not you've got the oversights, the ethical framework and the decision making relying just on one input. Robodebt was all about relying on one fact. It was saying that if your fortnightly income you declared to the Social Services was different to an average of your annual income, according to the Tax office, the government reversed the onus and the individual had to prove they were innocent. And that was, I think, a core system design ethical failure. Thanks.
TILLETT: Thank you. We're going to our broadcast is going to 1:40 today, Mr. Shorten. So just a few more minutes. Our next question. Miriam Webber.
MIRIAM WEBBER, CANBERRA TIMES: Miriam Webber from the Canberra Times. Minister, you've spoken about increasing staffing caps at the NDIA. How many more staff can the Agency have and how will you ensure that they have the skills to provide the appropriate oversight of the scheme?
SHORTEN: Some of this is all matters for that amazing beast called ERC, so I would never get ahead of myself. But we've got to go up. In other words, we've got to increase the number of direct public servants. And I've got a couple of reasons for saying that. Being a Commonwealth public servant is an admirable career. And I think that for nine years it's been, you hear the language of ‘just Canberra public servants, blah, blah, blah,’ and its sort of been used in a derogatory approach. When I think about NDIS staff, it's the same as I think about Service Australia staff, these are individuals dealing with families, trying to work out their future. So, I think t's a fantastic vocation. And I think that we shouldn't rely on temporary labour all the time. Sometimes you need temporary labour, you know, surges in demand. Of course, you do. But. We have a massive churn in non-NDIA jobs in the disability sector. You know, the local area coordinators, support coordinators, partners in community. We even have a churn in the in the NDIA but not as great. So, I don't blame people. If you don't have a permanent job and you can't see what's happening to you two, three, four years down the track, you'll go to a job where you are appreciated even if it might not be the one you vocationally want. So, I think that the philosophy behind investing in our public service makes perfect sense and we're going to do that.
I mean, as for specific numbers, you know, I'll take that on notice, but I know we are there. I mentioned in my speech some of the call centre functions, they’re great people working in call centres. But quite often they can't access the records because there are contract call centre worker, not a direct employee. So, we've got - it's double handling. And you don't actually save money by outsourcing all the time at all. That's a bit of a - that fiction's been, I think, exposed that it's a very inconsistent benefit. So, more staff. And as for training, I there are a lot of good people are working in the Agency just as work across all my agencies. But the more you invest time in them, the better outcome you get. See, one CEO or one Minister can't deal with all the people that the Agency deals with. But if we if we invest in our thousands of people in the Agency, we bring in some of the people working in the disability ecosystem who already know what they're doing in terms of and they know the area and they come and work with us to, what I want to give participants because it all gets back to them, the purpose of having a well-trained agency with specialized skills is it gives predictability, continuity, consistency and empathy. What I really want is for people to have deal with the same person twice and then maybe even three times, and then maybe they don't feel like they've got to explain their story again and again and again, which is fatiguing.
I mean, you know, I went to the brute face of capitalism the other day, the Apple shop, and that was fatiguing. And I just had a moment of what it must be like to be on the phones at Services Australia. Anyway, I digress. Your point is very good. And I think the more we invest in our public service, the more we train them up - and by the way, the sort of people I want to come into the agency, people with disability, and not just at entry level positions. I want people who may be carers personally in their own lives and realise they're quite good at it and they have a vocation for it. I'd love to encourage kids at secondary school level to learn more about disability. We've got to make it clear that disability is not just cleaning people. It's not just bodily functions of people and looking after them. It is about changing people's lives. So, I want to - not just the NDIA, I'd like the NDA to be an agency of choice in the public service, and I'd like disability to be a career of choice for young people, for people returning to work after a period of separation from work, for people with disability and of course for carers who might, through their family experience, be geniuses that actually disability work generally.
TILLETT: Thank you. Next question. Melissa Coade.
MELISSA COADE, THE MANDARIN: Hi, Minister. Melissa Coade from the Mandarin. My question is also about uplifting agency capability, but specifically the public servants with IT skills. So, you mentioned at various points in your speech how data was an important part of the ‘how’ the systemic change that you wanted to see materialise. The APSC have decided not to make people with IT skills a specialist classification and obviously the cost of contracting and outsourcing that work is quite expensive, so it has implications for spend. What are your views on that challenge?
SHORTEN: It's a good point. I'm going to have to follow up on that. I wish people with IT had a union because then the union might have raised that point. Yeah, I think I think it is an important specialisation. So, I don't know all the backstory to the point you've raised, but I'll certainly acquaint myself with it. One thing we are doing, of course, is supporting employment services. We've got to redefine our notion of people with disability and their ability to work. Employing people with disability is not contagious. It's not actually difficult. And I think that one area which I've seen some really good work in is people with an autism diagnosis who then have really good specialisation skills in such areas as you've mentioned, and there is quite a bit of success around. So, you know, this is what's exciting about being in government and this is what's exciting about rebooting the NDIS. We are limited by our imaginations alone, about what we can accomplish and if we dispense with the tyranny of low expectations, then this scheme can be really something very special and it just includes people with disability into our society generally and that we're all going to be better off for that outcome.
TILLETT: Next question. Adrian Armitage.
ADRIAN ARMITAGE, AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE OF MENTAL HEALTH NURSES: Mr. Adrian Armitage, freelance journalist at the Press Club, and also CEO of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses. So, I'm speaking today on behalf of the 24,000 nurses out there in the mental health space. You spoke earlier about warriors that we have in that space, and I couldn't be more humbled than be representing some of the best performing people in the world, I think, personally. And you spoke about the challenges of a house that didn't have doors that open. So, the question today is for the last decade, our mental health nurses and the credentialed mental health nurses have been hitting their head against this door. And where do you see mental health nurses being part of, the credentialed ones, being part of the solution going forward?
SHORTEN: Listen, I'm not an expert in your area, but I agree with you about your acknowledgment of mental health nurses and their value they create and the people they help.
Just some rough numbers: people whose primary condition is psychosocial on the NDIS is about north of 60,000 people on the scheme. There is a bit of a desert though. What happened is a lot of community mental health programs were rolled into the NDIS as part of states and feds sort of bulking up the funding, but they weren't replaced. So, there's people who need more than a couple of sessions of therapy but are not sufficiently impaired that they require the NDIS. So mental health nurses have taken some of that burden, I suspect, I believe. I am working with the unions in the disability sector. They've got some really good points about; how do we make sure they get access to training in a sort of gig economy and a casualised workforce. How do they get access to better rates of pay and proper qualification? One of the challenges in the sector is that we like - not every provider is registered in the NDIS and if we tried to register everyone, we'd lose a portion a too big a portion of our workforce. But I do think that when it comes to the accreditation of people doing personal care, there have to be minimum standards. That also helps nurses because their qualifications then get treated with the importance it deserves. Within the NDIS, we were able to move people's wages along upon coming to government through the last increases in the scheme, price increases in the scheme. But I think part of the challenge for mental health nurses is the mental health system and that's another talk. I can contribute partly to it, and I welcome hearing your views on an ongoing basis. Thanks, Adrian.
TILLETT: Thank you. Minister, are you just fine with the last couple of questions or?
SHORTEN: Sure.
TILLETT: Cool. Cool. Next question, Amy Remeikis
AMY REMEIKIS, THE GUARDIAN: Hi, Amy Remeikis from The Guardian. A bit of an overview with this one and I know - do not tell me we'll wait to wait for the budget - we know what the government is going to spend money on. We know AUKUS is happening. We know stage three tax cuts are still in. But why is it the vulnerable who always seem to have to wait for answers? HECS debt is indexed at a rate that is causing massive financial and emotional pain for young people. Your six-step plan to reform the NDIS is going to take time. We've had no word on whether welfare will become liveable, so why do the vulnerable have to wait even under your government?
SHORTEN: Oh, well, thanks for that policy contribution, Amy. I don't buy what you're saying, but I get some of it. I don't think it's a simple binary between a particular defence infrastructure project or something else in my area that I'm responsible for, the vulnerable haven’t had to wait. I've got rid of third-party debt collectors last week. You know, I think that was an inappropriate administrative tool. If a government and an individual have got a disagreement about a debt, it's on us to sort it out with the individual. We don't have to go to third party debt collectors. So that's an example of how we're changing things for the vulnerable, which I'm sure you'd agree with. In the NDIS, I want to be very clear. The scheme is going to go up. We're going to spend more next year than we did this year, and we'll spend more the year after and so on. So, I don't want to scare people with disability. You're making a political point about other things, which is fair enough, about the dole and you know that's fair enough. But I don't want that concern to leech into what we're doing in the NDIS. The NDIS isn't paying for subs, as Peter Dutton suggested we should, and it isn't responsible for other areas of government welfare programs. You use the word welfare about the NDIS. I don't use the word welfare about the NDIS. The NDIS is based upon a universal assumption. It's not means tested. It's based on the assumption that if you have a permanent and significant severe disability that you can get an individualised package of support which lets you to lead a more fulfilling life.
This is not welfare. It's support, absolutely. But it's based on the - and there's nothing wrong with welfare, but this is not a welfare program to me. I put this in with Medicare. It's part of the safety net of Australia, which says that we want all Australians to share equally in the opportunities of this country. So, what we're doing in NDIS, have the arguments about raise the rate, fine. I get that I can see that point of view. Have the arguments about a general sense that we shouldn't, you think or not you, but some people say we shouldn't be spending money on submarines. That's someone else's point of view. But on the NDIS, this is straight down the line. I'm interested in how I make the NDIS as strong and as sustainable as it can be, providing the best opportunities for people. And at no point have I come under any pressure from the Treasurer or anyone else to say that somehow, we've got to slash and burn the NDIS to subsidise something else because that's not the way this Government thinks. But thanks very much, Amy.
TILLETT: Just the final question from me, Mr. Shorten, and a political one. You made, at the end of your speech, you made pretty heartfelt comments about your commitment to the portfolio. But there's been obviously speculation about, you know, your name gets mentioned for maybe a diplomatic posting in the future.
SHORTEN: That’s generous.
TILLETT: And as a student of Napoleon, sir, do you still have the marshal's baton in the knapsack?
SHORTEN: Well, as a student of mixed metaphors, you should get a PhD.
TILLETT: My retreat from Moscow.
SHORTEN: No, my point is this. It was disappointing not to win 2019. Absolutely. But it's an understanding I reached after that, the universe doesn't grant reruns. So, I think that deals with your Napoleonic analogies. But it is unusual in the cycle of politics to somehow have had the opportunity to be involved at the very start of this scheme and to get the chance to come back in an even more senior position to work with fabulous people to get it on the right track. And that's quite remarkable. So, on this note, the universe never ceases to surprise.
TILLETT: Thank you very much, Bill Shorten, for your time.