Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, May fourteen, twenty twenty five. An expert posted
Speaker 1: pictures of deathcap mushrooms in the Victorian Bush and the
Speaker 1: Crown allegers Aaron Patterson drove to the location. A day later,
Speaker 1: mycologist Tom May told Patterson's murder trial the death cap
Speaker 1: doesn't grow in China. Despite the jury earlier hearing, Patterson
Speaker 1: claimed to have bought the mushrooms at a Chinese grosser.
Speaker 1: Patterson has pleaded not guilty and we're covering her trial
Speaker 1: live at the Australian dot com.
Speaker 2: Dot a U.
Speaker 1: The Liberal Party's first female leader, Susan Lee, says she'll
Speaker 1: rebuild the coalition and factional allegiances and convince women to
Speaker 1: vote for them. Australia's most vulnerable people need the fifty
Speaker 1: billion dollar National Disability Insurance Scheme to make daily life possible,
Speaker 1: but whistleblowers say the government doesn't want to know about
Speaker 1: alleged raughts. Today, how crime journo David Murray used his
Speaker 1: shoe leather journalism skills to report a ripping NDIS scandal.
Speaker 1: David Murray is the Australian's National crime correspondent. Dave's been
Speaker 1: covering this round for decades now, and one of the
Speaker 1: advantages of being around for a while is that sometimes
Speaker 1: familiar names pop up. Back in twenty fifteen, Dave was
Speaker 1: a keen young journal at Brisbane's Courier Mail, where he
Speaker 1: did a story about a man named Zafar Ikubal Khan.
Speaker 1: Khan was being sued by husband and wife doctors from
Speaker 1: the smaller city of Toowoomba Ellis and Margaret Gibson. Theyde
Speaker 1: invested money in a business cahn't had created a dial
Speaker 1: a doctor scheme where you could have a GP come
Speaker 1: to your home for free. Thanks to a federal government rebate.
Speaker 2: It had all turned sour. This couple said that they
Speaker 2: had put in more than a million dollars into this
Speaker 2: business and alleged in a Supreme Court case that Zaphyr
Speaker 2: had siphoned the money out and that basically the scheme
Speaker 2: was frauded up by design. Now, this was a couple.
Speaker 2: They weren't very well. They'd been through some pretty tough
Speaker 2: times medically, and this business that had been set up
Speaker 2: into woman basically opened for a single day from memory,
Speaker 2: they saw something like three patients and then suddenly the
Speaker 2: whole thing closed down and they ended up having to
Speaker 2: take him to court. That settled out of court confidentially,
Speaker 2: so we never actually got to find out what happened
Speaker 2: with that case.
Speaker 1: No wrongdoing was proven in that matter. Now Dave's here
Speaker 1: at The Australian, and earlier this year he started hearing
Speaker 1: the same name. Far Khn't.
Speaker 2: I got a message out at the Blue from someone saying, look,
Speaker 2: you wrote this story almost ten years ago. Now you
Speaker 2: might want to know that this man's popped his head
Speaker 2: up again. You might be interested in having a chat
Speaker 2: about some of the things that have been going on
Speaker 2: with this business. And that's where it started for me.
Speaker 1: Zafar Khan has started a new business, Cocoon SDA Care,
Speaker 1: and it had a parent company called Horizon.
Speaker 2: Essentially, they weren't paying the staff. The staff had gone
Speaker 2: around six weeks without getting their wages. It went back
Speaker 2: a lot further than that. That staff hadn't been paid
Speaker 2: their superannuation. They were checking their accounts to see what
Speaker 2: I guess that accumulated, only to find that the business
Speaker 2: was behind in its payments.
Speaker 1: The Australian's Reporter Kyle Road questions, A far khn't about
Speaker 1: the alleged under payments. When Dave's story broke last week,
Speaker 1: do you.
Speaker 3: Have anything to say to your staff who haven't been paid?
Speaker 4: I think NBA we'll repay them immediately.
Speaker 2: Yes, Panics started settling in and the story started unraveling
Speaker 2: from there, which is what we now know is that
Speaker 2: in March, the National Disability Insurance Agency stopped automatically paying
Speaker 2: for the services that this business was claiming, and that
Speaker 2: caused obviously complete meltdown for this business. And we now
Speaker 2: know that an investigation had been launched into this company
Speaker 2: back in October last year by the NDIA. They did
Speaker 2: their groundwork, they passed on information to another team inside
Speaker 2: that agency. They decided they needed to rather than just
Speaker 2: automatically pay this firm, they needed to run a fine
Speaker 2: toothcomb over all their claims. There were suspicions of fraud.
Speaker 2: There are all sorts of other allegations and concerns raised
Speaker 2: about this business, and that's only one aspect of this story.
Speaker 2: This case is now in the federal court. The company says,
Speaker 2: we need our money to continue operating. They want to
Speaker 2: stop the NDIA from doing what's called a manual audit
Speaker 2: or of claims, going through everything, every single claim. You
Speaker 2: can imagine how long that takes. This is a company
Speaker 2: that has taken in more than one hundred million dollars
Speaker 2: in NDIS funding in the past two years.
Speaker 1: The company's clients are some of Australia's most vulnerable people
Speaker 1: and they're in every state and territory.
Speaker 2: If you look at their pr material, they say they've
Speaker 2: got a workforce of twenty four hundred. So it became
Speaker 2: apparent this was going to be a pretty big deal.
Speaker 2: If you've got a very big organization that can't pay
Speaker 2: its staff, then it was immediately apparent that's going to
Speaker 2: affect the care that's going to be offered to these
Speaker 2: vulnerable Australians who are relying in this company. One of
Speaker 2: the ways it's tires have been inflated really is inadvertently
Speaker 2: by coverage in the Australian Financial Review. They have something
Speaker 2: called the Fast one hundred and this firm made that
Speaker 2: list last year at number fourteen on that list, was
Speaker 2: flagged as one of the fastest growing firms in the country.
Speaker 2: They celebrated this achievement. This firm used it in their
Speaker 2: promotional material. And then in April this year, while they
Speaker 2: were in the middle of this massive word that was
Speaker 2: secretly going on in the background, an investigation that was
Speaker 2: tearing apart all their books and looking at them, they
Speaker 2: were attending an awards night for one of the best
Speaker 2: places to Work in Australia and that was again an
Speaker 2: AFAR event. They've got themselves a ticket. They didn't win,
Speaker 2: but they certainly used that event to promote themselves at
Speaker 2: the very time that they're being investigated.
Speaker 1: As recently as March twenty twenty five, Zafar Khan was
Speaker 1: speaking about his business experience on a video podcast published
Speaker 1: by Alexander Spencer accounting firm.
Speaker 4: To me, I think a droving taxi washing dishes, cleaning,
Speaker 4: we should not be shamed off. We should be shamed off.
Speaker 4: If we're being dishign essed we cheeto those, we should
Speaker 4: be shamed off.
Speaker 1: Khan told the Australia Alliaans Kyle Road his company hasn't
Speaker 1: done anything wrong.
Speaker 4: They are hundred percent honest, hundred percent honest. Knowing in
Speaker 4: the world. You know, to me, we don't want to
Speaker 4: feed our children on around money. Know in the world.
Speaker 1: Ndis participants who rely.
Speaker 4: On your business safe. Yes, we are trying our best
Speaker 4: to pass on to approved providers and we make sure
Speaker 4: that transition is good. We have given instructions that no
Speaker 4: care they are looked after.
Speaker 1: Real The context of this DAVE is that the National
Speaker 1: Disability Insurance Scheme brought in by the previous Labor government
Speaker 1: was intended to provide some certainty for the most disabled
Speaker 1: people who have very high expenses for day to day life.
Speaker 1: The cost of the NDIS is blowing out enormously on
Speaker 1: one hand, because there's a range of disabilities which it's
Speaker 1: treating it and controversies about whether people with autism, for example,
Speaker 1: should be included, and then on the other hand waste
Speaker 1: and roads. Of course, nothing has been proven yet about cocoon,
Speaker 1: but just talking generally about the NDI is Is it
Speaker 1: a surprise to you that kind of pot of money
Speaker 1: has attracted people with an entrepreneurial spirit.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think that would be a surprise to anyone.
Speaker 2: It is a huge amount of money, it's a massive program.
Speaker 2: It's there for a good reason to help the people
Speaker 2: who need it most, but it's also attracting your unscrupulous
Speaker 2: elements who are going to try to make a quick buck.
Speaker 2: They're going to try to grow big very fast, getting
Speaker 2: on the ground floor. That's one thing that's becoming apparent
Speaker 2: to me in covering this story is that what we're
Speaker 2: looking at here is a firm that has grown very big,
Speaker 2: very quickly. And when that happens, you get corners cut.
Speaker 2: Your services can be compromised, safety can be compromised. And
Speaker 2: this is what happened with the founder or co founder
Speaker 2: of this company, z Afakhan many years ago in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: He had a taxi training business and it grew and
Speaker 2: expanded and it went busts and he went bankrupt. Now
Speaker 2: Here he is showing up on this program with enormous
Speaker 2: amounts of government funding and trying to grow big very fast.
Speaker 2: Some of the information that I've been finding is that
Speaker 2: Zafar and he's co founder, Muhammad Latif, were involved in
Speaker 2: a company that failed audits NDIS audits back in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, so four years ago. Yet they've still been
Speaker 2: able to continue operating in this space. We now know
Speaker 2: that there's been thirty two tip offs to federal authorities
Speaker 2: over the last four or so years, and I'm getting told, yes,
Speaker 2: we are seeing a crackdown on the unscrupulous operators on
Speaker 2: fraud that has been happening. It has been having an impact,
Speaker 2: but it's a game of catch up. There's so much
Speaker 2: money there, there's so many operators. It is so loose.
Speaker 2: Like the thing that stands out to me about the
Speaker 2: operations of this company is that it has been able
Speaker 2: to be so loose in its operations despite the sensitive
Speaker 2: nature of what it's doing.
Speaker 1: Some of their clients are so vulnerable, like the case
Speaker 1: that you've reported of three women with complex disabilities who
Speaker 1: went out for a regular visit to a hydrotherapy pull
Speaker 1: in late twenty twenty three and came back to find
Speaker 1: their gates to their house were padlocked. How could that
Speaker 1: possibly have happened?
Speaker 2: It was quite remarkable, And I was getting tips about
Speaker 2: this for a little while and trying to confirm it
Speaker 2: and going to various sources and asking what they knew
Speaker 2: about it, And eventually I spoke to a number of people.
Speaker 2: Among those was a woman who was a career for
Speaker 2: these three women, they had really complex care needs. One
Speaker 2: of them had multiple sclerosis, one of them had an
Speaker 2: acquired brain injury. Two of them were unable to walk
Speaker 2: without assistance. They required a lot of care. They go
Speaker 2: out to their regular hydro therapy session in the morning.
Speaker 2: Two hours later they come back and they no longer
Speaker 2: have a home. The padlocks have been put on the gates.
Speaker 2: They're barred because the owner of the house is being
Speaker 2: forced into really this terrible position of having to force
Speaker 2: them out of the property because they haven't been getting
Speaker 2: paid rent by Kacunesdacre, this company that's now under investigation.
Speaker 2: This is all happening back in twenty twenty three. These
Speaker 2: three women had to go into emergency accommodation while this
Speaker 2: was sorted out. I'm told this rental dispute had been
Speaker 2: going on for quite some time. That have been a
Speaker 2: number of years since the rent had been paid on
Speaker 2: this property. And the owners, I'm told by the care
Speaker 2: lovely people, they did their best. They were so apologetic,
Speaker 2: but they simply couldn't continue on anymore. And this is
Speaker 2: a thing. This business has been promoting itself as having
Speaker 2: twenty four hundred employees, but when you look at the books,
Speaker 2: there's less than half that number. It says it's got
Speaker 2: hundreds of homes, but then you take a closer look
Speaker 2: and these homes we're talking about some homes being built
Speaker 2: by investors who've been promised very big returns, only to
Speaker 2: see those returns not materialize. They've been devastated by their
Speaker 2: dealing with this particular firm, with Zafa Khan, the co founder,
Speaker 2: who by all accounts, is the person pulling the strings,
Speaker 2: even though he's not the person on the paperwork for
Speaker 2: the company.
Speaker 3: Has your business been claiming for services it didn't provide?
Speaker 4: Never, not even one percent, not even one cent, not
Speaker 4: even one No one can prove it. We are pretty
Speaker 4: transplanted company. Honest company, incredible company, yes, and even real
Speaker 4: mind even.
Speaker 1: Coming up a former executive blows the whistle on cocuon SDA.
Speaker 1: One of the people who's come forward to speak to
Speaker 1: you is Tanya Quinn, who was briefly chief executive of
Speaker 1: Kakun SDA. Care what's she telling you about her attempts
Speaker 1: to blow the whistle.
Speaker 2: This is just one of those incredible stories that just
Speaker 2: seemed to come out of nowhere. She worked for this
Speaker 2: firm as their chief executive for a matter of days
Speaker 2: max a week before she realized. She says, how diet
Speaker 2: things were within this company, how problematic their operations were.
Speaker 2: She started asking questions, and within that week her access
Speaker 2: was cut and she was out of the firm, so
Speaker 2: soon after she'd been announced being the one who's going
Speaker 2: to be leading it, and she has provided evidence that
Speaker 2: she went to the then NDIS Minister Bill Shorten about
Speaker 2: that at the time.
Speaker 1: We've used a voice actor to bring you the words
Speaker 1: spoken by whistleblower Tanya Quinn.
Speaker 3: I downloaded everything I could. I went directly to Bill Shorten,
Speaker 3: went to ask went to Quality and Safeguards, Ato just
Speaker 3: gave them all the information I had, and then nothing happened.
Speaker 3: When I followed up, I had a meeting with the
Speaker 3: NDIS and they took the details and said we'll call you,
Speaker 3: we'll get you back in to sign your statement, and
Speaker 3: then they never ever did, and I'm still waiting. I
Speaker 3: saw something online where the NDIS was talking about protections
Speaker 3: for whistleblowers. I sort of responded to him, I said,
Speaker 3: you're misrepresenting the situation. I came forward with what I
Speaker 3: think is like a massive scandal, and I think I've
Speaker 3: got evidence. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, and
Speaker 3: you've offered me nothing, no protection.
Speaker 2: And now she's watching all of this unfold and in
Speaker 2: the stories that we've been covering, in the investigations that
Speaker 2: are now ongoing, and she's saying, I told you this
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: David Murray is The Australian's National crime correspondent. You can
Speaker 1: follow Dave's reporting anytime at the Australian dot com dot
Speaker 1: au