E&OE TRANSCRIPT
BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Well, good afternoon, everyone. It's fantastic to be back at Noah's Ark. Interestingly, this in 2011 was where Prime Minister Gillard announced Labor's commitment to establish an NDIS. So, it's great to be back where some of it all started. I have with me advocates for the role of children and young people in the NDIS, and I have here families as well. People raising beautiful kids but wanting to make sure that they get the best experience for their child on the NDIS.
That's why today it's really great to be able to announce that we're setting up a Children's Expert Advisory Committee. This fancy name really is about three things. It's about making sure that when the NDIS delivers services to kids on the Scheme, that the services are delivered are based upon the best possible evidence, that the services are all about quality and outcomes for kids. The second thing that I hope it will do is I hope it will provide better communication. By that, what I mean is that we want to get the voices of people on the Scheme and the voices of experts, to make sure that we're hearing what people on the Scheme are experiencing, but we're also making sure that the Scheme is talking to people in a way which is accessible.
It's also about making sure that we have the best possible focus on the early intervention. Australia is a special country. We've got a lot of really great researchers in this country in Early Intervention. There's about 145,000 kids on the Scheme under the age of nine, and nearly half the Scheme is made up of kids under the age of 18. So, we think that if we can improve the quality of outcomes with the investment which Australians make in the NDIS, we can put the best interests of children and their families into the Scheme, then we can achieve better outcomes.
This Scheme is changing lives for the better, hundreds of thousands of lives for the better. But it can be fairer and more transparent, more equitable. And we also want to make sure that families aren't invisible. We want to make sure that when we're supporting kids, we're supporting their families in that way, you know the old saying it takes a family to raise a child, it takes a village to raise a child. You want to make sure that the NDIS is helping deliver that philosophy. So, unless anyone else wants to say anything, I'm happy to take some questions.
JOURNALIST: Minister, I guess many people might be worried that this is about diverting children off the NDIS?
SHORTEN: No, this is about making sure that we have the best possible evidence-based supports and therapies for kids and families. This Scheme will always be a Scheme which is about kids. The reality is that Australian children, many of them, have a non-standard developmental journey. So, we want to make sure the NDIS is delivering on the promise. See, at the moment, whilst there's a lot of great things happening on the Scheme for kids, sometimes there are people providing services which are really more science fiction than science, but they're not really focused on the best outcomes of kids. Also, for too long, the Scheme was focused on individual hourly therapies, and that is an important part of the Scheme. But it's also about families, peer to peer support. The truth of the matter is that if families with kids with non-standard developmental journeys can meet other families similar to them, they already understand each other. You don't have to explain that your kids, not a bad kid, that your kid is not an angry kid. It's just rather that, it’s just, you can compare notes. So, we want to also make sure that for kids who don't need the full orchestra of the NDIS, that there's supports for them. That's why in the last two years, through our comprehensive review, we've realised and together with the states, that we need to set up what we call foundational services. I guess that's a sort of fancy word for saying services for people who have disabilities, which don't require the intense support of the NDIS, but do require some support. So, we're doing that too. But it's not about exiting hundreds of thousands of people off the Scheme. Anything but.
JOURNALIST: So just to ask a question about aged care and then move to the story in the ABC today.
SHORTEN: Yeah.
JOURNALIST: So, the aged care sector is calling for urgent action to get new reforms over the line. Is this becoming a political battle?
SHORTEN: Older Australians have a right to be treated with dignity. That's a core principle of Labor. Um, since we've had the aged care royal commission in the last two years, Labor has responded to 89 of the recommendations. A couple of key features of what we've done so far is trying to make sure that there's access to 24-hour nursing in residential care, and also making sure that aged care workforce are treated properly, by that, their wages. And so, we have seen wages move in excess of 15%. There is a lot more to be done. We recognise that. But really 89 of the recommendations responded to, making sure that the aged care workforce are not treated like fruit pickers, but treated like proper professional carers and with better remuneration. And of course, the 24-hour nursing, that's part of our down payment to do more for people who are on the aged care system.
JOURNALIST: And just moving to the story in the ABC today. So, NDIS provider Katrina Chauvel was on the NDIS for her own disability and the NDIA took her off after finding she was misusing funds. How is it that she was allowed to remain an NDIS provider?
SHORTEN: I'm not allowed to comment about an individual matter. I know that admissible evidence is being gathered. In the event that someone in her circumstances is found to have done the wrong thing, they will be banned from the Scheme. What I don't want to do is stuff up an investigation by commenting prematurely.
But rest assured, the Quality Safeguards Commission and the Fraud Fusion Task Force are fully investigating this matter. We thank you for helping bring it to people's attention. More generally, we've got to get over this attitude in Australia that somehow government money is free money. That somehow when there's a government Scheme, some service providers have a sort of a democratic right to rip people off. When people rip people off on the NDIS. They're ripping off taxpayers, but more significantly, they're raiding the personal budgets of precious people on the Scheme and their families. Since Labor came in, we have found that there was insufficient attention paid to the payment system. We found that people could put in invoices, and they'd never get scrutinised. We're changing that. We established a fraud fusion task force. Again, it's a fancy name, but it's 19 government agencies comparing notes. We have 99 prosecutions underway. We have nearly 500 investigations underway. We've got many people in the court system right now, nearly 60 or waiting for the DPP to make a decision about prosecuting them. To those who saw the NDIS as a soft touch, uh, you should leave the NDIS before we catch you because eventually, we will catch you.
JOURNALIST: I think what concerns people, though, is the timelines around things being reported to the NDIA and the Commission and then actually being investigated. So, your own office referred this to the NDIA and the Commission a year ago. It was only after the ABC asked questions a month ago that they started formally investigating. Is that okay?
SHORTEN: Well, I think that when the Safeguards Commission was set up, it was an unloved child. I think it was in Preston or Reservoir in 2017, I and then Shadow Minister, Jenny Macklin, myself as leader, called for a Royal Commission into disability. Mr. Turnbull was the Prime Minister then, and they set up the Safeguards Commission as excuse not to have a Royal Commission. The Safeguards Commission was set up and it was poorly funded. So, when I became the Minister, probably about 400 people working there, completely overwhelmed by the number of complaints, the complaints system was opaque and not at all transparent. You'd make the complaint then couldn’t find what happened to it? Since we've come in, we've had a change in the leadership. We have increased the workforce of the Safeguards Commission to about 1000 people, from where it was, just over 400. So, we've doubled it. We've also found upon, when I bring in my new leadership, that the Safeguards Commission had an investigation system, which would have been state of the art in 1988, and that's not good enough for 2024. We've been overhauling that. And that's why I was able to point to the much more significant rate of prosecutions and complaint handling.
I accept there's still a problem with getting through all the complaints. That's true. The very fact that the Minister refers, and it still takes ages for it to get done is problematic, but we are moving through it. The proof is the number of prosecutions. The proof is the number of investigations. The proof is that over $1 billion in payments have now been investigated. The proof is we now have more monitoring of the payments that come in. The proof is also that we will very soon release a proposal which will look at the registration of all providers, so we'll actually know the identity of who's delivering the service.
And on the upside, as opposed to just perhaps if you like, those negative guardrails that have been not there, we're setting up expert advisory groups. We want quality in this system. We want to make sure that people can have careers in this system. But I want to be able to reassure the parents I met today of Isaiah and Charisse, that when they're getting services for their kids, the services are quality and they're not being treated as human ATMs, but they're being treated as precious, individual, and special.
JOURNALIST: Do you think part of the fact that this wasn't looked at is because $300,000 isn't that much in terms of the alleged overcharging that we're seeing in this case?
SHORTEN: I think it's an obscene amount of overcharging. No, I don't think that amount is a small amount at all. I think that's shocking. And I think it does deserve attention. And I know that we're gathering the evidence in that matter and other matters. And if it stacks up, people will be banned. Since about – I don’t know exactly, but November 2022, we're now banned 160 people. But I say to those service providers - it's always difficult when you talk about shonky service providers because other people who deliver quality services, they get offended. The fact is that most service providers are good. The fact is participants are absolutely trying to do the right thing. But there is an element of both organised and just opportunistic crime. There's over charging. Just because someone's on an NDIS package, I forgot to mention is, and they receive an identical service to someone who's not on the NDIS from a therapist, doesn't mean that the person on the NDIS should be charged more. I think we call the phenomenon of the wedding tax. You know, you turn up, you say you're going to get married, all of a sudden, the price goes up. Well, there's an NDIS tax. Now we've actually made that illegal .The legislation is back in the Senate, hopefully it'll get voted on in August, which will also allow us greater oversight of the operations of some plan managers, so that we've got a line of sight on making sure that the people on the Scheme are getting the services them into.
JOURNALIST: And I guess we're looking forward when I hear you speak, talking about legislation going through Parliament, you've just received the report on registered providers. There's a lot of things coming. Does more need to be done right now to stop this kind of behaviour?
SHORTEN: Well, there's already a lot already happened. Frankly, we have been moving fast since day one. You've got a revamped leadership at the NDIA. We're getting a revamped leadership of the Safeguards Commission. We're getting 2000 extra people to work at the National Disability Insurance Agency. They'll deal with backlog of claims. We've doubled the regulator already. We've got the prosecution stats and we've got the investigation statistics, but we've also been able to pass on all the wage increases to all the disability support workers.
At the same time, there are thousands of extra people on the Scheme receiving services that they didn't receive before. There's a lot of good news in the Scheme. I understand that doesn't necessarily sort of provoke as much media interest as all bad news tends to. I guess that's the way of the world. There's a lot of good news in this Scheme, too. We did the 12-month review. We've done the six month follow up from the review which said register people, and we got to talk to people about co-design. So, there's a lot happening under the proverbial bonnet of the car. But yes, you know, it can't happen quick enough for me. And some of these, especially when it comes to the crooks.
JOURNALIST: Minister, just on another matter. Are you surprised by claims of underworld figures infiltration in the CFMEU? And as a former AWU leader, what do you think needs to be done?
SHORTEN: That's a very general question. People should be afforded procedural fairness, but I think the recent media coverage shows that the elements of the CFMEU on parts of the East Coast, that criminal gangs have infiltrated parts of the organisation, and that's completely unacceptable to be rooted out. The reality is that when you have the ability to have collective organization, and I think unions do a great job, and there's millions of people go to work today who are trade unionists, who are doing the right thing. You've got literally tens of thousands of reps, voluntary and paid, doing the right thing, that when you have people acting outside the realm of collective responsibility, they're betraying the rest of their cause, which they say they believe in. And it is a betrayal.
People should have the right to take collective action in this country, but that collective action should be in the interests of workers’ safety and workers’ wages and conditions. It shouldn't be the pursuit of individual matters. That's the principle framework which the Labor movement believes in. In terms of the reports recently, the government said, we're going to put an administrator into parts of the CFMEU, which is the strongest action possible, the most effective. Our Liberal predecessors had inquiries, they had commissions, but apparently, they couldn't seem to find any of this or found very little of it. Administrators are the way to go. And I also think that there's probably a challenge here in the market structure where if you've got a few very large companies, remember, for everyone who's taking a bribe, someone's giving it. We probably need more competition in the construction industry. And it's not just about workers’ wages.
JOURNALIST: Just on administration. Why is it taking so long for the CFMEU to be put into an external administration? Is the government struggling to find an independent administrator to take the job?
SHORTEN: Well, the story broke last Sunday, Sunday a week ago. This is a serious job, and you've got to actually apply to it. You've got to go through a legal process or apply to put an administrator in. I did that in 2012 with the Health Services Union, it's not just click your fingers and you know it's all done. You've got processes to follow. And the government would if we rushed something and then there was a legal loophole, why would you throw away the case. Because you rushed it. So, I know that Minister Burke is thinking about this day and night.
JOURNALIST: Just regarding the SCHADS award, what are your thoughts on unions seeking to amend the Social Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award to ensure all NDIS participants are classified at the highest rate?
SHORTEN: Unions have been varying awards since they were created in 1907. My old union was the first with the parcel award. I think it's entirely unexceptional if union seeks to run a case about an award. The specific issue is making sure that people are categorized for the work they're actually doing. Unions have raised the issue that some people working in the sector are being underpaid or misclassified when they should be being paid more at a higher category. There'll be, the independent umpire will have a look at that issue and work through the issues. I will just remind people that since Labor's come in, disability support workers who are worth their weight in gold, in my opinion, have enjoyed pay rises of over 15%. Long overdue, I should say. Also, from the 1st of July they've received tax cuts, which is good. Their superannuation has gone up half a per cent, they're also going to get the energy supplement and our cheaper medicine. There was one final question among them.
JOURNALIST: Thank you, Minister. Nine papers today published claims that CFMEU New South Wales boasted about using Cbus insiders to get union subcontractors onto Cbus construction projects. Will the government review Cbus’ funding and public projects in light of these allegations that CFMEU officials are leveraging their contracts within the fund to preference subcontractors?
SHORTEN: Listen, I only read the same newspapers perhaps that you're quoting from there. I'm not familiar with what's been happened in that particular matter. I know that Cbus has delivered about 8.54% investment return for its members in the life of the superannuation fund [**correction: 8.54% average annual return over the last 10 years]. So, it's been a very good super fund belong to, but I'm not aware of any allegations of any untoward behaviour made by the property [Cbus property] at all. And I can't assist you any more than that.
JOURNALIST: So, the government reviews government standards of industry superfunds?
SHORTEN: Just industry super funds, you know, like the Liberals have investigated them. You know, they've been through them like a proctologist through a patient examination and all that’s really shown is that industry funds have generally done is delivered for their members. Thanks, everyone.