E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SUBJECTS: NDIS Review; NDIS budget measures
JOHN TAYLOR, HOST: When the National Disability Insurance Scheme was introduced, it was a moment of great emotion for people with a disability and their families and friends. Then Prime Minister Julia Gillard was very emotional addressing Federal Parliament in 2013.
JOURNALIST: Now without doubt, one of your biggest successes of your Prime Ministership was the introduction of the NDIS, the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Here you are in a very emotional moment, pushing its boat out in 2013.
FORMER PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD: The people who have gathered here today from around the country to witness this debate know what this means. There will be no more ‘in principle’ and no more ‘when circumstances permit.’ There will be launches, not trials, permanent care, not temporary help. Disability care starts in seven weeks’ time and there will be no turning back. I commend this bill to the House.
TAYLOR: Conversations around the NDIS and funding are complicated. In the latest federal budget. The biggest saving comes from reining in the NDIS, saving $74 billion over the next ten years. As David Speers from the Insiders show pointed out recently here on ABC Radio Brisbane, it's a huge saving, dwarfing anything else Labor has produced to repair the structural deficit. But the saving doesn't come from a spending cut, but from flattening the curve of NDIS spending growth. It's an important distinction to make. National Cabinet has committed to efforts to reboot the National Disability Insurance Scheme amid an annual growth rate in costs of 13.8%. Bill Shorten is the Federal Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and joins us this morning. And you're in Brisbane today, Minister.
BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: I am, and good morning and it's been great. I've met with NDIS providers and people on the NDIS scheme yesterday and I'm doing that again today.
TAYLOR: Is it tense when you speak to those people? Because any notion of sort of adjusting the scheme or reining it in raises concern to the to the participants of the scheme and their families that their life is going to get a lot harder?
SHORTEN: Well, there is muscle memory from participants who over the last previous nine years of Coalition government, were always hearing that the scheme was doomed, it was too expensive. And I just want to say very clearly, if I can, for your show to participants and to their family members and the people who love them and work in it, the NDIS is here to stay and as Minister I'm determined to make sure that every dollar gets through to the people for whom the scheme was designed. But the test I use is, any decision that the government makes has to be done with people with disability, not to them and it has to satisfy one test above all else: is this in the best interests of the participants? I actually think that it is possible to improve this scheme. The scheme is life changing for hundreds of thousands of people. There'll be kids and families and people with disability who are getting NDIS support, which is allowing them to participate more fully in Queensland life and Australian life. But there are problems where the administration of the scheme has been too inhuman and unempathetic and some service providers - a minority, but some - have treated NDIS participants as human ATMs and we just want to get it right.
TAYLOR: Why are costs so big? Why is the scheme growing at an annual rate of 13.8%?
SHORTEN: And even more than that. The - people don't want to hear about politics, they just want to hear that things will be okay. I'll tell people things will be okay, but you've got to hear about the politics. It's that, basically in my opinion, my predecessors didn't understand the scheme, and so a series of problems have emerged. There's no one cause and there's no one simple answer. But when we talk about the costs, I must always go back to say this scheme is changing lives. There's 120,000 plus Queenslanders on the scheme and it is improving their lives. But what's happened is I don't think there's been sufficient attention paid to the payment system. In other words, what are the invoices coming in? Are they fair dinkum? And I don't mean participants doing the wrong thing. I mean there is some unethical behaviours by some service providers which I think has added to the cost of the scheme. That can go from straight old-fashioned illegality right through to just overcharging and over servicing. But then - so that's one problem, another problem has been that the Agency who run it, they were capped at about 4000 staff in 2017 when there were about 170,000 participants nationally. Now it's about 590,000 participants, but the staff level never increased. So, what was happening is that a lot of rushed decisions, sometimes people on the scheme would deal with planners who didn't understand disability as well as they should. So, we're going to reinvest in the Agency, put some more people on, people who understand disability, train people in there - so we can do that better. And the Agency staff, the frontline staff are great, but they need reinforcement. But there's another issue too. The NDIS was never intended to be the only lifeboat in the ocean. Or in other words, it wasn't for every Australian with a disability. But what's happened is the NDIS has become like this centrifugal force and everyone gets sort of sent there and we need to have mainstream government departments at the federal, state, and local government level do more for disability inclusion so that the NDIS isn't seen as the only off ramp if you want to get any support for disability.
TAYLOR: Alright, it's 8:41, I'm John Taylor in for Rebecca Levingston. I'm speaking to Bill Shorten, the Federal Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Bill Shorten, was the NDIS also for things perhaps that you might, that might be described as more marginal therapies, things like music lessons, acting lessons, dancing lessons was the NDIS for those purposes as well?
SHORTEN: The NDIS legislation says it's to provide supports that are reasonable and necessary. It was never intended to replace the school system or the mental health system or the bus system, but things which go towards allowing people to lead fulfilling lives. So, in each matter it will come down to the circumstances. I don't believe that it's for everything that everyone wants, but if there are activities which let people participate in groups and form social connectedness, well that's good. So, it does depend on the circumstances. A classic example is respite. If a family is at breaking point and they just need a couple of days break or the person with a disability should have some respite, well, that's okay, isn't it? But then that can be turned into a tabloid newspaper or someone's getting a free holiday. So, it really depends on the circumstances. I don't judge. It should be - the test should be what's reasonable and necessary, so it doesn't mean extravagant things. But can I also say to people who are not so familiar with the NDIS, they may hear on social media of some alleged extravagance, that is so far the exception, not the reality. But I do agree we've got to make sure that any support which is granted to people is what's reasonable and necessary for them. It can't be something which is a luxury, but that's not really what's happening in most cases.
TAYLOR: And am I right in that I mean, that you've previously said that the, about who the NDIS is for and that it is for the most profoundly and severely impaired people in Australia?
SHORTEN: Yes. Yes, that's right.
TAYLOR: And is that the case though, at the moment when you're talking about numbers of 120,000 people in Queensland or 590,000 participants nationally?
SHORTEN: Well, I think first of all, there was - I don't think, I know - there was unmet need. See, what happened before the NDIS, and let's, when we look at the NDIS, we have to look at the counterfactual or what was the case if we didn't have it or what was the case beforehand. Once upon a time, resources used to be allocated based on how much crisis you're in and the worst crisis here in the more likely you could get to the top of a rationed queue. Now, that's you know, crisis is a terrible way to allocate scarce resources. You’re far better off intervening earlier. So, the world before the NDIS was just a mess. It was dystopian and you know, we still see, you still hear some of the stories of institutionalisation and family break up. But the issue now is that I think, particularly in the area of kids, the NDIS is the only option. So, I think we need to do better at early childhood intervention. We need to work with the states. And some of the states say they're doing fine. Okay. Well, let's just debate it on the facts if that's the case. But I do think we need to do more early intervention so that the only off ramp for a child with a learning delay isn’t the NDIS. So, there's an absence of alternatives which is funnelling people to the NDIS. I don't blame people, parents seeking to be on the NDIS. I mean, if you had a child with a developmental delay at three, you just want to look after your child.
TAYLOR: Yes, but the upshot of it is, and I think you're being very careful about your language here, which is important because we don't want to hurt people's feelings, but it does seem like there are people on the NDIS that really shouldn't be there.
SHORTEN: I'm wary of making that statement. I would rather put it - because remember, you started off, I thought correctly in the interview saying people are hearing there are changes, will they be okay? I'm saying that what matters is the best interests of the disabled person. So, if the best interest of that person is to be on the NDIS, great. That's fine. That's what it's for. But if the best interest of a child is to get screening and developmental delay early and see if there are not other options, that should be the case. At the moment outside the NDIS, there's not enough being done for mainstream disability inclusion. So rather than a parent listening to this show saying, oh, what does this mean for my child, isn't it a better debate to say, what can we do in this community beyond NDIS to provide other supports which mightn't require the level of intervention of the NDIS? But this is not about wholesale moving people in or out of the scheme, like, it's a complex issue. And so sometimes when people say, well, there are too many people on it or not, why don't we go to what I think the issue is, what else is out there beyond the NDIS? So not everyone feels that the only relief they can get, and rescue, is through the NDIS.
TAYLOR: Well, you've got Labor governments in every state and territory on the mainland. Tasmania is the Liberal holdout. Is there an appetite amongst your Labor colleagues at the state and territory level to alter their behaviour?
SHORTEN: Well, I think there is a huge appetite amongst the state governments, and I've been dealing with Craig Crawford, the Minister in Queensland, to make sure that people with disability are included. So, no criticism there at all. And one of the problems I think for the states has been and they've quite rightly said up to this point, well, the feds need to get their act together. Well, the fact is we are now beginning to, and the budget brought down by Jim Chalmers on Tuesday, more resources to help invest to make the NDIA run more effectively, more equitably, more empathetically. So, we do need to have a conversation about what else? And it's not just a state thing, it's a council thing and it's a private sector thing, but what are we doing to employ, what are we doing - and maybe some of the organisations, people working at them today listening to the show, what are we doing to employ more people with disability? What are we doing to help kids with disabilities in their school leaver programs? There are challenges.
TAYLOR: But what, so then what practical things can you do to ensure the system, or are you doing, to ensure the system isn't being abused and that you're cracking down on agencies taking advantage whilst continuing to give people support?
SHORTEN: Yeah, great question. Well, a couple of things we're definitely doing in the budget. We're employing 200 more people for the next two years just to crack down on fraud and to make sure we have payment integrity. In other words, we want to check the invoices. We want to make sure people are not saying they're providing service for X and Y and in fact, only doing A and B. The back office, the back-office systems of the Agency have been neglected, underinvested in. So, we're ramping up the fraud teams. I know for the first time we're starting to industrialise prosecutions and investigations of people doing the wrong thing. Again, whenever I say people are doing the wrong thing, it's always hard because most people are doing the right thing and it is changing lives. But there is a long tail of unethical behaviour. Like, can we just start stamping out all those businesses who, when they hear someone's got an NDIS package, charge them more money? Just don't do that anymore. Don't cross-subsidise your business model on the back of profoundly disabled person’s package. When you're doing a home modification, don't charge the disabled person more. When you're providing them assistive technology, don't charge them more because they've got a package. This age-old attitude that if someone's got a government package, it's fair game. This is not the government you're ripping off. I mean, it is them, but it's the person with a disability with a scarce package. It's not on.
TAYLOR: What about those, and final question here, one of our talkback listeners, David from Moorooka, has said, what about those people that are over 60 who have lifelong conditions? Will they ever be eligible for the NDIS?
SHORTEN: You're eligible if your disability occurs to you before 65, and it's profound and severe. You can get on the scheme. The Parliament jointly, all the parties agreed that over 65, if you acquire a disability, over 65, you are in the aged care system. You should still get support. But it's done through aged care, not through disability. The NDIS was filling the gap which existed for people before 65.
TAYLOR: All right. Well, Bill Shorten, thank you very much for agreeing to speak to us today. We appreciate you coming on to the show and talking about the NDIS.
SHORTEN: And I'm more than happy in a future time to come and do some Q&A with people because it's tough stuff.
TAYLOR: Yep. We'll take you up on that.
SHORTEN: And I’m happy to hear what people are saying.
TAYLOR: Yep, that'll be great.
SHORTEN: Lovely to chat. Thank you very much.