E&OE TRANSCRIPT
BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS, AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Good morning everybody. I'm really pleased to be here with our Minister for Veterans Affairs, Matt Keogh. And Kristy, who works at Open Arms, who's been a veteran herself. And she's even got Teddy here for his first press conference. Good news for our almost 300,000 veterans. The Albanese Government's making it easier for our veterans to access the services, which they've earned the right to access, um, by being able to access the veteran's gold and white card to the myGov app. It's just going to make it a lot easier for veterans to get the answers they need and the support that they've earned through their service to this country. I might hand over to Matt to talk a bit further, and Kristy to share how it's working so well for veterans.
MATT KEOGH, MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE PERSONNEL: Thanks, Bill. Today we're launching the broad availability to our veterans, some 300,000 Gold card and White card holders to be able to use their card in a digital form through the myGov app. For so many Australians, some already using the myGov app with their Medicare card. For people who don't want to be carrying around a wallet, we're increasingly getting used to being able to access government services and provide cards and identification through our phones, and we want to make sure that that's available to our veteran community as well. Over 250,000 of our veteran card holders already have their DVA my service connected to the myGov app, and so we'll be able to straight away be able to get their the app on the phone if they don't already, and make sure they can access their gold card or their white card through the app. And of course, through the app, veterans will be able to also access through DVA my service, they'll be able to connect to seeing what their accepted conditions are, be able to lodge claims, and they're also able to get bills paid on their behalf when they're accessing services through certain invoices, like in home care and support. Being able to access that through the app is incredibly important, but it's really about recognising that sometimes we we conceptualise, we think about veterans as being, uh, older gents. And the reality is so many, so much of our veteran community, uh, contemporary veterans, people that have been involved in 21st century conflict or have served in our defence forces more recently, exactly like Kristy, who was a member of our Navy, um, are operating, in a way, in a digital world. We don't want to be carrying around hard copy versions of cards. So many of us use our Medicare card on our phone now, and it makes complete sense that we make this available to our veteran community. Being able to use their gold card or their white card straight from their phone, being able to use the myGov app to access these services. So this is all about how we're making the life of veterans easier. We've been investing so heavily into the Department of Veterans Affairs to make sure that veterans claims are processed quickly, that veterans can access the benefits, the supports that they need when they need them. Uh, the work that we've done in eradicating the backlog of claims has been now means that veterans are able to get their claims processed on average in a few months, instead of what was taking years and years. That's an important change, but also making sure day to day when veterans go to see a GP or go to see a physiotherapist or go to access some other medical benefit instead of also having to carry around their hard hard copy card, they can also just use their phone, show their card, it's verified. It's completely protected and secure through the myGov app. That's very important. That's why it's delivered through the app instead of through the wallet features on certain phones so that it's secure, privacy is secured, it can be verified, and it brings really service provision, as we've continued to do through this government and the work that Bill Shorten's been doing with the myGov app into the 21st century, I'm happy to take any questions or you can ask Kristy.
JOURNALIST: Sure, sure I was just wondering, are you able to give a timeline of the new upcoming ID credentials that will be integrated into the myGov app for to make it that one stop shop?
SHORTEN: Australians need to be able to access government services in the most time efficient manner. The Albanese government has made real progress in the last few months by passing our digital ID legislation through the Senate, and we acknowledge the support of other parties on that. Um, we would we will announce a road map in terms of what functionalities we would like to see. Come on to our, um, our card wallet. Um, obviously we are negotiating with the states about accessing their drivers licences in response for, um, our Medicare cards. We'll have more to say about that as negotiations proceed.
JOURNALIST: Are you able to give an update on how advanced those negotiations are?
SHORTEN: We had a Digital and Data Ministers Meeting chaired by Minister Gallagher last Friday. It was a very successful meeting. All of the State Governments were on the same page as the feds. We want to make sure that we can have the idea of that you go through one door to access Government Services. I've got no doubt that all Governments are working or all committed to that same outcome.
JOURNALIST: And just one more on myGov, I understand over the weekend passkey logins were rolled out to the myGov service. I was just wondering. There was no announcement. Are you able to talk about the importance of this feature and what it means for the users?
SHORTEN: Well, one thing we've been doing is that I guess we've it goes right back even to when we launched our app, is that we want to do is soft launches. In other words, let's get it up, let's get it working before we make a big announcement. But the passkey login, I think is a significant development and so far so good.
Advisor: We might just hear from, Kristy, if that's okay
SHORTEN: She's going to explain to you how it works.
KRISTY DAVIS, VETERAN: As a digital age user, I find that the myGov app already was really accessible for me. I have young kids, um, or working mum, and to be able to access my veteran card. That's took me three seconds. Um, so the ability to be able to do that streamlines things. I often don't have many hands available, so to be able to pull it up on my phone without having to reach for my wallet and try and find things in there, has simplified things for me and my family, making things really, really simple and. It's it's it's accessible. It's user friendly. I think it's great.
SHORTEN: I don't know if you've got it, but it. Would it help the cameras if she just showed? How can do it in three quick steps?
KRISTY DAVIS, VETERAN: So this is my home screen. The myGov app is just here. I just click on the myGov app. Continue. It's face recognition, so I don't even have to type anything in. Straight up it comes up and tells me if I've got any alerts. It might tell me I have a letter from DVA. Um, at the moment it doesn't, which is great. I click on wallet, um, which is just the second button on the bottom of the screen, and straight away it takes me straight into my wallet. I've got my Medicare card linked, and I also have my veteran card link. So it's super easy. Very friendly to use. Makes things. Very accessible with little people.
SHORTEN: Looks good. Thanks, Kristy.
JOURNALIST: Mr. Shorten, can you sympathize with Louise Pratt and others who have expressed concern that Senator Payman got off so lightly for crossing the floor when other Labor MPs had been bound at positions they may not have liked through the years?
SHORTEN: I think the Prime Minister's stated the position of the party on this. This payment won't be attending the next caucus meeting. Um, I don't think there's anything I can productively add beyond that.
JOURNALIST: The question for yourself and for Minister Keogh, in the last week or so, both of your Departments have had reports which found pretty serious breaches from public servants. So the NDIA officials were found to not have declared gifts and benefits. On Defence, they were found to have been spending upwards of $60 million on recruitment advertising without actually testing what impact that had on applications. So is it time for a stronger message to your public servants to get their act together?
SHORTEN: Well, I'll take the question on the National Disability Insurance Agency. That behaviour was not acceptable. It happened under our predecessors. We discovered that practice was going on, and the new leadership I put into the agency, as soon as they discovered it, stopped it. We've now been investigating the Salesforce contract. Now, the, uh, the parliamentary committee has looked at it. It's drawn its conclusions. I have said since I became minister that I had question marks once the media, the Nine papers, revealed our concerns about contracts and consultants, that there was something wrong there. This, again, just demonstrates a pathology of behaviour which it has taken a Labor Government to stop.
KEOGH: Certainly what we saw from the ANAO report about the Defence Force recruiting advertising campaigns is that they would like to see greater rigour around the breakdown of that expenditure by campaign, as opposed to all of the campaigns done together. The way it's reported is consistent with the process across government, and ANAO has highlighted efficiency there, and we're certainly very happy to seek to address that with the providers that we access. But we do get strong data on the efficacy of the program as a whole and the campaign as a whole when it comes to producing application results.
JOURNALIST: But not on applications. And, you know, you're getting the same admissions and the same separations pretty much year in, year out. Does something need to change?
KEOGH: So we do get feedback. We do get quarterly reporting on how the Defence force recruiting, advertising, campaigning does impact on our application numbers and recruitment going forward. It just doesn't break down by each advertising campaign type.
JOURNALIST: I think it's more on actually how people engage with the campaigns than the applications that come in because of them.
KEOGH: Yeah. So there is quarterly reporting on each actual individual type of campaign, both by media type and by campaign type. It's about the reporting of the expenditure across each campaign. Breaking that down to the anao focused on very rightly. Um, but we do get quarterly reporting on the efficacy of the campaigning. And that's something because that is my responsibility that I monitor very closely.
SHORTEN: Just if I can make one more comment before we conclude. Right now in the Senate, the Greens and the Liberal Party are seeking to delay NDIS legislation which will save the scheme and the people on it about $1 billion. If the Greens and Liberals vote for the legislation this week instead, what's happened is Greens senators and Liberal senators are seeking to delay the NDIS legislation for another eight weeks. To do further investigations which have already had 12 weeks to be conducted. This is $1 billion that the actuary of the scheme says will be wasted if we don't stem some of the loopholes in the scheme. So if the Greens and Liberals vote today for a 40 a Senate inquiry on top of, uh, a Senate inquiry which has gone for 12 weeks, every day of that inquiry will cost taxpayers $24 million every hour between now and when that inquiry finishes will cost taxpayers $1 million. So I call upon the Greens and the liberals to stop wasting people's money, to stop burning up NDIS cash which could go to disabled kids, or which taxpayers pay their money to and don't want to see wasted on ego trips by coalition and Greens senators.
JOURNALIST: Can I give you one more quick one? Just on Robodebt. Do you have any faith that the that Robodebt victims will see justice when the Public Service Commission comes back with its findings after the NAC failed to investigate anyone.
SHORTEN: The best way for Robodebt victims to see justice was never to have had the unlawful debt notices raised against them. Half, nearly half a million Australians received unlawful debt notices. Nothing can compensate them properly for that. But it's been me. It's been activists. It's been a Labor Government who've given them as much justice as we can so far. Uh, I was pleased to be part of organising the class action, which saw $1.8 billion in debts written off or repaid to these people. We then called for the Royal commission. We've set up the Royal Commission, which does give a measure of justice. The very final issue was that the royal commissioner said that she didn't want a name. Uh, people against whom adverse findings have been made. The Public Service Commission's concluding its process. Um, I don't think there'll ever be a totally satisfactory outcome for victims, because they should never have gone through this to begin with. But we are a lot better off now than we were when Mr. Morrison was in charge of that unlawful debt raising scheme against Australians. Thanks. Thanks, everyone.