E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SUBJECTS: Bill Shorten resignation; NDIS fraud
TOM ELLIOT, HOST: All right, so our next guest has announced yesterday that he is retiring from politics. He was once Leader of the Labor party. His current job is trying to wrangle the NDIS, which is one of the single biggest, if not the single biggest areas of government expenditure. Bill Shorten, good morning.
BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Oh, good morning, Tom.
ELLIOT: What was your biggest achievement, do you think, in your time in politics?
SHORTEN: The NDIS. I think it was a privilege leading the Labor Party and uniting us and getting us in a position in 2019 where Anthony could finish the deal in 2022. So, that was an incredible privilege. But in terms of things which last beyond you, the National Disability Insurance Scheme is world leading. It's changing hundreds of thousands of lives. I know it didn't exist as a concept till I and some others in my first term started working on it. Now it's got to be fixed up and in the way of the universe, the silver lining out of losing 2019 is I got a chance to come back and reimmerse myself for the last two and a half years in the NDIS. And that's been a gift. It's been a gift for me to be able to talk to people, listen to people, look at how we make sure this Scheme is here for future generations, getting people out of hospital, less disputation in the courts by going after the scammers and the rorters. So, it's been a gift.
ELLIOT: Well, speaking of scammers and rorters, I mean, earlier this year, I came across a report where the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Chief, Michael Phelan, he said this back two years ago, but he said a fifth of the funding for the NDIS he thought was being abused or scammed or rorted. Do you think that's about right?
SHORTEN: The problem with rorters is they don't tend to submit themselves to surveys. I'm very close to Mike. In fact, since he did that interview, I convinced him to come and run my Quality and Safeguards Commission, overlooking the NDIS. As I joke to Mike, no good deed goes unpunished, son. So, he's been there as the interim head of that. When I got in, I immediately, of all places, went to the tax office and I convinced a really smart fellow there, a man called John Dado, along with Rebecca Falkingham, who used to be the Secretary of Justice in Victoria, to come and take over the NDIA, and Kurt Fearnley, the Paralympian and one of Australia's great leaders, to be the Chair, and we set up a Fraud Fusion Taskforce. What that means is the NDIS had no back office. It's sort of funny. I mean, I know the Libs like to put themselves out as the economic supermen of politics, but we were paying out money – 20, 30, $40,000 invoices with no ABN. Like, literally, there was no backdoor to the Scheme, Tom, you would be outraged as would people.
ELLIOT: So, is that fixed up now?
SHORTEN: We have been fixing it up, yeah, but you can't click this overnight, but, yes, we are now checking thousands of invoices. We move the whole team of people who used to post check invoices to pre check invoices. So, there's 140 extra people doing that. There's still rorters out there, but we've now worked with the ACCC. It's illegal to offer the same identical service to someone on the NDIS and not on the NDIS, and to charge more for a person on the NDIS. It's that sort of wedding task. But we've now got the agencies talking to each other. We looked at plan managers. These are intermediaries who manage people's plans. Some of them are very good, okay, I've got to be really clear, and whenever I say anything bad about a service provider, I get a hate mail – oh you're damaging the profession. I'm just telling the truth. There's some really good ones, but the truth is that there are some shonks. We got the 900 smallest plan managers, anonymised their sort of names, checked it against the tax office and 343 had never filed a tax return.
ELLIOT: Yeah, that's extraordinary.
SHORTEN: But we are cracking down on – the fact that we know this. We've doubled the number of people working in the complaints Commission. The Scheme is doing a lot of great stuff. We've also managed to convince the states, including Victoria, that the NDIS shouldn't be the only lifeboat in the ocean. So, it can't just be NDIS or nothing, because there's people who need some support, who have a disability but don't need the full orchestra of the NDIS, and the Commonwealth and the states are going to be working what we call foundational services to people who have milder needs, getting support without getting a full, individualised personal budget.
ELLIOT: You’re still relatively young at 57. You and I are almost the same age. Why are you leaving politics now?
SHORTEN: Oh you’re in good shape, Tom. I wouldn't have guessed your age.
ELLIOT: I do my best. Why are you leaving?
SHORTEN: I've done six terms. It's such a privilege. I consider myself the luckiest man in the world to have served in the parliament. Now we've had some not so good days, indeed, some of the old Neil Mitchell interviews weren't some of my good days, but that's on me. But I've had some highlights. But the real point about it is I wouldn't change a single day. It's a privilege. But I've done six terms and, you know, a bit, I don't want to compare us immediately, but, you know, people in their fifties think about, all right, I'm the second half century, what do I want to do? Now I never want to retire, and I can't afford to either. But in all seriousness, I've got a set of values about helping people fulfil their potential. When I was an AWU rep, I was a moderate union rep. But, you know, I think workers deserve to be respected, paid well, treated safely. I come into parliament, I think the voters, regardless of circumstance, deserve to get an equal crack in our society and for example, we do that in disability, but in other areas like Centrelink and you name it. So, I've got those values that people have merit, but not everyone starts from the same starting point and we've just got to turn disadvantage into advantage. So, I could be a lifer, do another two or three terms, but I thought, what else will I do where I can help? And helping in our universities, helping young people fulfil their potential regardless of their background, that's pretty important, all those researchers who are doing impactful research. So, there was an opportunity to help provide leadership there. I mean, some people speculate, you just retire. Well, I'm not interested in that. I want to make a difference. But maybe also, at least in this new role, it'll be less the day to day argy bargy of ‘he said that’ and ‘she said that’ and ‘x is a dog’ and ‘y is a cat’, you know, we just want to. I'm happy to move beyond some of that debate, and so the nation needs to train the workforce of the future. People want a good sector and so I'm looking forward to that.
ELLIOT: It's interesting, most federal politicians I speak to privately say they don't really like Canberra very much, and yet in becoming Vice Chancellor of the University of Canberra, you're going to stay there? Did you love it up in the nation's capital?
SHORTEN: It's a little ironic. I love Melbourne. I've only ever lived in Melbourne. When I said to my family, hey, you know, it's been very recent, I said, they said Canberra? I have lived in Canberra, it's my second city. I think what politicians sometimes don't like about Canberra is they get in at, you know, 08:00 p.m. on a Sunday night. They say they've said goodbye to their families. They, despite all the sort of usual negative propaganda about pollies, most of them, they get in before the sun's up, they work 12, 14 hours. It can be a very tough environment. A lot of backstabbing, a lot of, you know, just hard work, relentless, and then they go home on a Thursday night or a Friday. This is not the bit of Canberra I'm going to hang out in. I'm not saying that in being – working at a university, helping young people, helping researchers, I don't intend to hang out in Parliament House.
ELLIOT: Well, it's probably a good thing.
SHORTEN: It's good for your mental health, I'd say.
ELLIOT: The union movement, I mean, the Labor party was essentially founded by the union movement 120 odd years ago and yet recently there's been a lot of strain, I mean, the CFMEU, one of the more powerful unions in the country, is being put into administration. Do you think the relationship between your party and the union movement is now under significant strain?
SHORTEN: There's been stressors and strains before. I'm a student of history. The unions have to represent their members. Labor party has to represent the constituents of Australia. Whilst they overlap, that doesn't mean they always agree. Unions got to do their job. Government's, Labor Party's got to do its job. It overlaps, but it's not identical, so, there have been strains before. In terms of the construction sector, construction unions have achieved remarkable conditions for their members. There's got to be a process, though, there's been pretty serious allegations made, and one thing's for sure, I really believe in the ability of people to come together to collectively bargain because in many workplaces the individual worker doesn't have the same bargaining power as the CEO, with the lawyers and the accountants and the planners. But that responsibility of being able to associate and come together carries with it a responsibility to make sure it's only ever in the purposes of looking after your members. Now, I think a lot of construction reps do the right thing, so you know, you – but it is true that there seems to be uncovering that some organised crime elements seem to have infiltrated parts of the construction value chain and are seeking profits for themselves. And that's not the purpose of unions.
ELLIOT: Well, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. And look, final question. I mean, the polls are pretty close at the moment. We are going to have another election, well, between now and may so six, seven, eight months time, do you think the Albanese Government will be re-elected and will it have a majority in its own right?
SHORTEN: That'll be up to the voters. I know that Labor will be doing everything it can to get re-elected. I think when Labor concentrates on the needs of the people, the cost of living, which is the number one through to ten issue, I think that puts us in good stance with the people. The tax cuts which have flowed through now flowed to 13.7 million people, not just the very top end. That was good. We've seen wages moving for people who work in aged care, disability, early childhood educators. That's good. We're seeing Urgent Care Clinics open. There's one today just in my neck of the woods in Maribyrnong, in Freshwater. That's good. When we're ambitious for the people, when we're strong and clear in our policies and we are focused on their needs, then I think we, you know, when we fight for what we believe in, people want to think that their politicians would fight for them. And that's what we're doing with our cost of living measures and our tax changes and our wages push and our, and of course, our other supports in terms of the healthcare system.
ELLIOT: Well, we'll know about that in just a few months time. Thank you so much for your time and hopefully we'll talk again soon. Bill Shorten, the outgoing NDIS Minister, while he's still in charge of the NDIS, I think, until early next year. One time ALP Leader and soon to be Vice Chancellor of Canberra University.