E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SUBJECTS: Stuart Robert, Synergy360, Watt Review, NDIS reforms
KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: More on those explosive developments, the Government Services Minister Bill Shorten joined me in the studio a short time ago. Minister, thanks very much for your time. This statement made to the parliamentary committee, how serious is this?
BILL SHORTEN: Well, the just get a little bit of context. The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Accounting and Audit was doing an investigation into matters which have been raised, whether or not what had happened with the procurement of contracts by the previous government, which are now in my portfolio services Australia and NDIA. So we asked this committee to have a look at the matter and a statement has emerged which has been uploaded by the committee at 10 a.m. this morning. I'm still digesting some of it. It has serious allegations. I must stress that Mr. Robert and his associates have said there's nothing there, that this is all wrong. So I've got to say that that it is hotly contested. But there are serious allegations. And therefore, I've now asked my agency, the departments that report to me. I want some advice on what to do next here, because I'm not going to ignore the allegation. Of course, there's always two sides, but we've got to check this out. There's some serious stuff in that which I've read today.
GILBERT: Mr. Robert, as you said and I'll just read a bit from his statement for clarity for our viewers, He says Mr. Daley's submission is what we're talking about here. Mr. Daley's submission, zero evidence and wild accusations, is rejected in its entirety, simply not believable and is outrageous. And he goes on to say that it's made under privilege and so on, but as you say, rejects outright that the statement suggests that this set up by the consultancy firm Synergy 360 ultimately was designed to facilitate the flow of funds through United Marketing and onward to Stuart Robert, the main objective of the arrangement to secure Stuart Robert's involvement and support in acquiring federal government contracts. So do you just refer this to the these claims to the National Anti-Corruption Commission?
SHORTEN: It’s a pretty breathtaking allegation. Just to give a bit of context, some of these matters were first raised in other parts of the media in November of last year. The heads of my agencies quite appropriately commissioned someone independent to review the procurement contracts, as some were found to have further questions to answer. That was the view of Ian Watt, respected public servant who served both sides of politics as a public servant. I then asked the audit committee of parliament, Could you please have a look? And as a result of the audit committee and I've updated the Parliament several times on these matters at this point, Mr. Roberts denied any wrongdoing. Now, Mr. Roberts said that he doesn't want to be in parliament any longer, so he's triggered an unexpected by-election that will cost millions of dollars. And 110,000 Gold Coasters have to give up their time to go and vote. But what's happened is that this person who said he was involved with Synergy 360 come forward and made a statement. Now, Mr. Roberts says it's all wrong. That's his prerogative. But there's some pretty serious stuff here. And the one you read out is certainly at the heart of it. I've appropriately asked my agency since the statement was uploaded online for everyone to see to give me some advice on my options. I'm not saying Mr. Roberts done the wrong thing, but I also know I've got to investigate this. And to do any less than that would be negligent. The third will then give me options advice. On the issues is the Albanese Government has established the Anti-Corruption Commission, a national anti-corruption commission. We respect the independence of that commission. The Commissioner will decide what they investigate, but I certainly want to get options as to where this goes next. I know the committee has now reached out and asked the people named in the signed statement to put their side of the story. We're going to see where it goes. But this is not a usual day in the life of a politics. And I think we just need to get to the bottom of this thoroughly. And that's in the best, you expect, the best interests of everyone.
GILBERT: I understand that. And just looking at the Attorney-General website, the Attorney General's website and and on the National Anti-Corruption Corruption Commission and the legislation around it, there are mandatory referral obligations. So you'd be aware of those and you wouldn't be surprised if your agency comes back and points out that a minister or in legal terms, if the head of a commonwealth agency becomes aware of a corruption issue within their agency, they must tell the NACC about it. If it if all of the following apply, the corruption issue concerns the conduct of a person or a staff member of the agency while that person is or was working for the agency, and if the agency suspects the issue could involve serious or systemic corrupt conduct, that's a mandatory referral.
SHORTEN: Yes it is. There is a former member of Services Australia mentioned in this signed statement. No doubt the agency will take that into mind. What I want to do, is you've got to have proper process. Proper process means that it protects people who have wrongful allegations made against them. But it also means that if there is something wrong has happened, proper process will mean that you can actually get to the bottom of it and make sure it sticks. The commissioner is fiercely independent, as they should be, but this is not a …this is, this statements, when I read it, I go, wow, it's this is some pretty heavy stuff being accused of here.
GILBERT: Mr.Robert, just to go back to his statement, he says, I reject completely all of his allegations, Mr. Daley's allegations, and the strongest possible terms, and I note that he made had only made them under privilege where he is immune from legal consequence. And he notes he has provided zero evidence simply made by allegations under privilege. And he also has a crack at the committee. He says this is an extraordinary abuse of privilege and extraordinary that a committee would release as such with zero evidence and contrary to every other witness. What do you say to that?
SHORTEN: Well, I won't get into the legal to and fro with Mr. Robert, but as a general principle, it's a pretty ancient right that citizens, when they're giving a presenting to committees, can avail themselves of the right of protection, just like MPs can and the right of the protection of privilege. So this is not the citizen seeking the protection of privilege when they give evidence to a parliamentary committee. This is not a new ground. This is a convention. And I would have thought that Mr. Robert, as an outgoing MP of some 15 years service, would be aware of this.
GILBERT: I have to ask you about a few other issues - The NDIS, you're looking at maybe upwards of $15 billion in savings over the next four years. Do you have any are you open at all to suggestions of a co-payment potentially for those that can afford it?
SHORTEN: Well, first of all, the NDIS is here to stay. We want to make sure that every dollar gets through to the people for whom the scheme was originally designed, and I think everyone agrees that the scheme could operate better. But I must stress it's changing people's lives right now so I don't have a deficit model of the scheme that somehow it's a bad thing. It’s a good thing. But I think we can do it better. So we've suggested a series of reforms and improvements. We're doing it with people with disability, with all the service providers. A longer, longer, longer term plan so that blind people don't have to keep proving they're blind. People with Down syndrome don't have to keep proving they have Down syndrome. We also want to improve the quality of decision making by the NDIS. So we think that we can reduce the rate of growth. The scheme is going to grow every year, but we think we can moderate the trajectory. We set a target. It's not a cap. In other words, if we don't get the target of the growth we want, it's not the end of the world. But we're going to try. But there was a proposal which has floated up. I've heard it in the past, but I think this time it's by a service provider with who just says, well, we should get people with disability to co-pay towards the cost of their disability. So people with disability pay a lot of extra costs in life anyway. I don't think are the way we improve the scheme is by service providers saying I want to keep charging the same or higher prices. I just want people to pay me more and I want people with disability in Australia generally are in the - not universally but generally in the poorest cohorts. So it is not reform to ask people already doing it tough. You can pay more for your disability. What we can do instead, that's the lazy path, I think that the reforms we're looking at and further ones which we'll produce in October are far more sensible, far fairer and actually improve the scheme. It is waving the white flag to say we can't improve the scheme, so let's just make people pay more for it.
GILBERT: Do you think that the not the cap the target said and have said, is it achievable? It's ambitious given the trajectory the scheme is on.
SHORTEN: I think the truth of the matter is that not try is actually giving up on the scheme. Now I know there's some on the far left who say any attempt to moderate any growth is somehow an attack or a cut. It's not. I think actually it's a lazy just to say we can't do anything because sooner or later people pile in on the scheme and blame people disability for the cost of the scheme. So I'm not going to give up on the scheme or people with disability by saying change is too hard. But change can't also be the simplistic, brutal sort of stuff we saw over the last number of years. Co-payment, capping schemes. Let's just reform the scheme. If we put the best interests of the person with a disability on the scheme first in our decision making, we'll get to the sweet spot. I'm very positive about that.
GILBERT: Bill Shorten, thank you for your time.