Bill Shorten: Much progress has been made but this is just the start of getting the NDIS back on track

I have now been Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Government Services for 15 months. When I took on the NDIS portfolio last year, I had no idea how much work was going to have to be done to fix and revive the scheme. I knew there were urgent fixes that needed to be made and changes that would require more time. At the time, I outlined clearly what I hoped to achieve as Minister for the NDIS. There were terrible hospital discharge waiting times for NDIS participants who were medically fit for discharge but unable to leave hospital. There were 4500 people stalled in a queue at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, appealing decisions about their NDIS packages. There was unchecked rorting and waste and some people were taking the scheme for a ride. I also said I wanted a greater proportion of people with disability in leadership roles at the National Disability Insurance Agency. And I said there was a need for a root and branch review of our NDIS. I’m pleased to tell you that major progress has been made and there’s more to come. Those hospital wait times have drastically reduced from 160 days to 27 days. It still means there are people waiting longer than that, it’s an average, but that’s a heck of a lot better than what it was. And I must acknowledge WA Premier Roger Cook and his Minister for Disability Services, Don Punch, at this point. The lessons the Commonwealth was able to take from WA’s Hospital to Home program were instrumental in forming the new hospital discharge model which has seen hospital wait times decline for NDIS participants. I look forward to working more closely on disability support with my WA colleagues. We had a blitz on the legacy AAT cases and that’s resulted in the number of participants waiting for their matters to be heard or resolved down from 4500 to 700. The NDIA board now has 50 per cent of the people on the board with lived experience of disability, including the chair, Kurt Fearnley, whose leadership is exemplary. On the fraud front, the Albanese Labor Government has substantially boosted its investment in the NDIA to improve the integrity of the NDIS. We’ve established a Fraud Fusion Taskforce to identify, prevent and detect those pirates and shonks who are raiding the scheme — the ones who get between the resources of the scheme and the participants for whom the money is meant. And the independent review that was promised has happened and is nearing completion. It has been led by experts Professor Bruce Bonyhady and Lisa Paul, with the final report to be delivered later this year. The review cast a very wide consultation net, and the panel has put out a report called What We Have Heard, which is a stocktake of the important questions that have emerged during the review process, including: Why is the NDIS doing all the heavy lifting on disability support; why are there a lot more kids on the NDIS than was expected; and how do we make sure the NDIS is sustainable? When I got this role, I was determined to rebuild trust in the scheme and in the Government. I said I would tell the community what we’re going to do, and that we get on with doing it. And I’m really proud that we’ve actually done what we said we would do. From court processes, to hospital, to lived experience in leadership, to detecting fraud, to the review. But this is just the start of getting the NDIS back on track. The vast majority of providers are doing the right thing but here is an element within the sector that is what I call the “rent seeker”. The providers who jack up the price once they find out you’re on the scheme. Or charge a 90 per cent cancellation for NDIS participants but only 30 per cent for everybody else. Or a recent case where a mum gave me sent her teenage child on a camp for two nights, and was charged $4200. That’s just not on. As I said, this does not apply to the significant majority of providers but there is an element of the sector that are just rent seekers. It really annoys me that somehow because someone has a Government package, there are people who think you deserve to be ripped off. Investment in mainstream supports outside the NDIS is also crucial. The NDIS review panel found that governments at all levels must return to providing support for people outside the scheme, an area “virtually vacated” since the introduction of the scheme. That involves schools, transport, early childhood, community activities, local government, community mental health and range of services that form the proverbial village that Australians with disability need live an ordinary, fulfilled life. All of that cannot — and should not — fall onto the NDIS. Professor Bonyhady said it best when he warned that the NDIS is not a limitless resource — it is not a “magic pudding” and all levels of government must stop treating it as such. The Albanese Government has stated emphatically that the NDIS is here to stay. Full stop. We want to make sure that it’s sustainable so that future generations can benefit from the scheme. We want to make the NDIS an article of faith. But we need to be true to its original intent and that is to act in the best interest of the participant and ensure the trajectory of growth is sustainable. The efforts of the disability community, supported by the Government, have started the journey to a more sustainable NDIS, for participants and their families — and for participants and their families for generations to come. But when we talk about reform, we want to make sure that every dollar is getting through to the participants for whom the scheme was designed. That is the most important thing we can do. Bill Shorten is the Minister for the NDIS, Minister for Government Services and Federal Member for Maribyrnong.