Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday April twenty three, twenty twenty six. Anthony Albinizi
Speaker 1: is sounding out energy companies and super funds about building
Speaker 1: a new refinery so we can make more of our
Speaker 1: own fuel here in Australia. It had cost up to
Speaker 1: ten billion dollars. That's an exclusive live now at the
Speaker 1: Australian dot Com dot AU. One hundred and sixty thousand
Speaker 1: people will be kicked off the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Speaker 1: in a crackdown the government says is essential to fix
Speaker 1: a chaotic free for all criminal magnet. But can Labor
Speaker 1: get this reform through Parliament? Where does it leave the
Speaker 1: coalition and how do we look after the most vulnerable
Speaker 1: while stopping the rot our. Political reporter Sarah Eisen is
Speaker 1: here in just a moment.
Speaker 2: Because Australians expect the NDIS to support people with the
Speaker 2: disability and their families and to continue to transform their
Speaker 2: lives in the way we've seen happen over the past
Speaker 2: thirteen years, not for it to be an atm for
Speaker 2: shanks and grifters, fraudsters and crooks Under this plan, the
Speaker 2: NDIS will grow every year. It will still be the
Speaker 2: largest social program in Australia outside the age pension, and
Speaker 2: the centerpiece of a most comprehensive suite of supports for
Speaker 2: people with a disability you'll find anywhere on the planet.
Speaker 1: Sarah Eison is a political reporter with The Australian Sarah.
Speaker 1: Health Minister Mark Butler calls this a reset to save
Speaker 1: the NDIS from criminals and bureaucratic bungling.
Speaker 2: Essentially, we can't afford for the NDIS to continue growing
Speaker 2: at its present rate, but far more importantly, we can't
Speaker 2: afford for the NDIS to fail. It will be unsustainable
Speaker 2: from a tax payer point of view, but much more important,
Speaker 2: it's community support. Social license is slipping away and we
Speaker 2: can't let that continue to happen.
Speaker 1: And it'll mean one hundred and sixty thousand people or
Speaker 1: participants as they're called, are kicked off. Who will they be?
Speaker 3: The people who are going to be kicked off will
Speaker 3: be from a range of different cohorts. We're not just
Speaker 3: talking about autistic kids like we have in the past.
Speaker 3: And the sorts of people being kicked off it will
Speaker 3: depend on their functionality. Essentially, if you were thinking of
Speaker 3: applying for the NBAS, you'll be assessed and your needs
Speaker 3: will be assessed. Do you have trouble with speech, do
Speaker 3: you have an intellectual disability? And what is it that
Speaker 3: you need? And then there'll be an assessment that essentially says,
Speaker 3: this is how much you're due to get through the scheme,
Speaker 3: or maybe not, maybe actually you're bet catered for outside
Speaker 3: of the scheme. And that rigorous tightening of eligibility through
Speaker 3: testing people's actual functionality is what's going to be the
Speaker 3: driver of essentially really tightening the number of people who
Speaker 3: are able to get onto the scheme and putting into
Speaker 3: practice what we've heard for years about its not being
Speaker 3: the only lifeboat in the ocean, of everyone flocking there
Speaker 3: for every single one of their needs, whether it's mild
Speaker 3: autism or any other kind of disability.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the government has referred to that NDIS review as
Speaker 1: the oasis in the desert effect that the NDIS is
Speaker 1: really the only game in town. But it was never
Speaker 1: supposed to be like that. There was supposed to be
Speaker 1: two other tiers of information and community awareness really and
Speaker 1: then of early intervention and education that were supposed to help, say,
Speaker 1: for example, children with a fairly mild sensory disorder or autism.
Speaker 1: Why has that not worked and why is the government
Speaker 1: now saying they need to do another review to design
Speaker 1: those two more mild tiers.
Speaker 3: Just on the review, Really, we had no idea what
Speaker 3: was coming on Wednesday. It was kept so tight no
Speaker 3: one was being told from states or disability advocates. So
Speaker 3: if you do this immediately with no kind of further
Speaker 3: review or including the community with you, the backlash would
Speaker 3: be huge. And so that's how we need this short
Speaker 3: and sharp review is the way that a lot of
Speaker 3: people in government are describing it. To get it right
Speaker 3: when it comes to different tiers. When the government created
Speaker 3: the NDIS there were of course heaps of community services
Speaker 3: that were funded by the states, health education and early intervention,
Speaker 3: and so what happened is that all pared back. Now,
Speaker 3: if you're the federal government, you're very angry about this,
Speaker 3: and you're talking about how the states gave up and
Speaker 3: let them handle everything. If you're a state government, you
Speaker 3: were talking about how well you actually also had to
Speaker 3: fund the NDAs you were giving money to a disability scheme.
Speaker 3: So of course that money is coming from somewhere else.
Speaker 3: But one design floor. I think that was really a
Speaker 3: big part of this huge floor is that to get
Speaker 3: the states on board in the first place, the Gillard
Speaker 3: government said we're going to cap your annual contributions to
Speaker 3: the NDAs at four percent. Now that's insane when you
Speaker 3: think about at its peak, the NDAs was growing at
Speaker 3: twenty two percent, and each state government their annual growth
Speaker 3: could not rise above four And so that's how we
Speaker 3: got a huge mismatch and funding. It's how states were
Speaker 3: pretty happy to let the NDIS fund everything because they're
Speaker 3: ttributions can only rise by so much. But at the
Speaker 3: same time, from the state government point of view, they
Speaker 3: see it as having funded quite a lot to the
Speaker 3: NDIS as well to that program, and that money has
Speaker 3: to come from somewhere, which is those tiers that disappeared
Speaker 3: after the scheme was created.
Speaker 1: Autistic kids are one of those flashpoints between the state
Speaker 1: and federal governments now because the federal government's big idea
Speaker 1: to help children who have mild autism was something called
Speaker 1: Thriving Kids. What is that supposed to be and why
Speaker 1: has it hit a roadblock?
Speaker 3: Thriving Kids was meant to be this small, almost pilot
Speaker 3: of what is this enormous reform now essentially a bunch
Speaker 3: of money funded by the states and the Commonwealth to
Speaker 3: bolster or prop up new supports that can really care
Speaker 3: for kids with malder to moderate autism under the age
Speaker 3: of nine. That might look like some programs in your
Speaker 3: early education, it might look like some different training for GPS.
Speaker 3: Really a way to make sure outside of the NBAS
Speaker 3: you can cater for those kids with malder autism. However,
Speaker 3: you need the son of every single state and territory.
Speaker 3: Every deal is different because every state's outlook on this
Speaker 3: is different. What they have is different, and there is
Speaker 3: a state that's holding out, which is Queen's that the
Speaker 3: liberal government, the Chris of fully government, who are seeing
Speaker 3: this as just the start of a major cost shifting
Speaker 3: exercise by the federal government. And unfortunately, I think today's
Speaker 3: announcement will only bolster both that argument and that fight.
Speaker 3: But also what is very much a fear of what
Speaker 3: they're seeing is the governments incrementally and today I guess
Speaker 3: it wouldn't see as incremental, but over a period of
Speaker 3: time really trying to put more back onto the state governments.
Speaker 3: The Commonwealth says that's fair enough, trying to revert it
Speaker 3: back to the way it was meant to be. The
Speaker 3: States see that as the Commonwealth trying to make them
Speaker 3: pick up a huge check with not a heap of
Speaker 3: clarity as to what it will look like and the
Speaker 3: impact of their budget bottom line. So no surprise, there
Speaker 3: is a bit of a fight between the Commonwealth and
Speaker 3: some particular state governments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the classic line you hear from the States
Speaker 1: is that the federal government is hopeless at administering things
Speaker 1: that were hopeless at robodebt, that were hopeless at pink
Speaker 1: bads that they make, can't administer huge sums of money,
Speaker 1: that that's the state's expertise.
Speaker 4: It goes on and on.
Speaker 1: Even people who stay on the ndis are going to
Speaker 1: see their services constrained.
Speaker 4: They're going to have to cut back.
Speaker 1: The government says average plans are now about thirty one
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and it wants to get them down to
Speaker 1: twenty six thousand. How will that actually happen.
Speaker 4: It'll happen through a huge range of things.
Speaker 3: If you look at the most expensive plans on the NDS,
Speaker 3: what are known as supported independent living plans, that means
Speaker 3: we've got a very acute disability and you're living in
Speaker 3: a specialized disabilitycommodation setting with services being provided to you
Speaker 3: twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 4: Those plans are worth four hundred and.
Speaker 3: Thirty thousand dollars a year on average, So there are
Speaker 3: plans closer to a million, and so they're reforming that
Speaker 3: whole sector not to necessarily cut back those services, but
Speaker 3: to make it less botique, to rest back market control,
Speaker 3: to say to one company that's providing seal, to say
Speaker 3: to them, we have one hundred people in this area
Speaker 3: that you need to cater for, and it sort of
Speaker 3: has to be at this rate or so on, as
Speaker 3: opposed to one person getting a custom boutique package and
Speaker 3: another person in the same suburb or street getting a
Speaker 3: whole other bowtique package. It just blows out and out
Speaker 3: and out. So it's even stuff like that sounds technical,
Speaker 3: you know, overhauling this for a commissioning model, but it's
Speaker 3: a really big deal that's going to save a lot
Speaker 3: of money. And on the smaller end of things, we're
Speaker 3: talking about how some things like community services, when it
Speaker 3: talks about getting out into the community, things that would
Speaker 3: have been funded by the NDS that are funded in
Speaker 3: terms of different trips or supports that that needs to
Speaker 3: come off being funded by this huge plan that needs
Speaker 3: to be bolsted on that level. And there has been
Speaker 3: a fund and ounce today that's really about trying to
Speaker 3: re enliven what was a community mark Butler even mentioned,
Speaker 3: you know, sporting clubs and so on.
Speaker 2: The current way the NDIS approaches social and community participation
Speaker 2: means that programs which once provided real opportunities for connection
Speaker 2: have been allowed to wither away. Where programs do exist,
Speaker 2: supported often by volunteers, they're often overwhelmed by NDIS providers
Speaker 2: who drop their participants off without any notice. And while
Speaker 2: many support workers provide valuable supports, too many participants tell
Speaker 2: us their support workers are spending more time on their
Speaker 2: phones than engaging with them and providing support.
Speaker 3: The NDAs does cater for making sure you have a
Speaker 3: strong community connection, but there's a lot of taxpayer dollars
Speaker 3: being spent, so where maybe that could be catered for
Speaker 3: elsewhere is another thing that's going to reduce that huge
Speaker 3: size of the plan budget for those plans that are
Speaker 3: on the smaller end, and then as I said, small
Speaker 3: technical stuff as well for the plans on the much
Speaker 3: much bigger.
Speaker 1: End coming up. Everyone wanted the NDIS to work, So
Speaker 1: who's to blame for the money? Think it's become This
Speaker 1: is a potemic labor program, just like Medicare. They're very
Speaker 1: proud of it, and I guess they're kind of embarrassed
Speaker 1: now that it's turned out to be such a ballooningly
Speaker 1: expensive thing. So who's to blame? The scheme was started
Speaker 1: by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her beloved Minister Jenny Macklin.
Speaker 1: Tony Abbott as opposition leader gave them bipartisan support. So
Speaker 1: do we blame the politicians or do we blame the bureaucrats?
Speaker 1: Or do we blame the experts who they consulted to
Speaker 1: design this scheme? How can the guardrails have been so
Speaker 1: poor that criminals and frauds and just vast overcharging and
Speaker 1: goal plating has been allowed to happen.
Speaker 3: I think the refrain that's used from governments to advocates
Speaker 3: to providers is this scheme it's been an airplane that
Speaker 3: you're trying.
Speaker 4: To build as it's taking off today.
Speaker 3: Mark Butler did admit that there have been flaws from
Speaker 3: the scheme from its inception. I mentioned one of them
Speaker 3: earlier regarding that cap on state's growth to the scheme
Speaker 3: each year in terms of the funding, and that was
Speaker 3: a great way to get them in, but then it
Speaker 3: led to.
Speaker 4: All of these huge problems.
Speaker 3: The other thing was this really central principle to the NDAs,
Speaker 3: which is called choice and control. Of course that's important,
Speaker 3: but then when you're saying we need to give a
Speaker 3: disabled show it on this scheme complete choice. They don't
Speaker 3: need to go to a registered provider if they don't
Speaker 3: want to. It can be a sole trader and a
Speaker 3: little boutique even if that doesn't have a heap of oversight,
Speaker 3: or they can have this very custom plan and this
Speaker 3: very specific place. Because choice and control is paramount. Those
Speaker 3: things were built into this scheme and also a complete
Speaker 3: lack of oversight, because as Mark Butler said today, around
Speaker 3: ninety percent of the payments that are being made have
Speaker 3: completely no oversight or checking going in beforehand. Of course
Speaker 3: we've seen a heap of fraud clawed back. You've mentioned
Speaker 3: some of those issues with routing on this scheme, but
Speaker 3: they shouldn't be.
Speaker 4: Going out in the first place. Right.
Speaker 3: I heard an NDAs provider talking to me about having
Speaker 3: accidentally gotten too much money. He thought he was filling
Speaker 3: out the hours for transport costs and it was in kilometers,
Speaker 3: but almost immediately he got five times what he was
Speaker 3: trying to get. Sure in months that would go by,
Speaker 3: that would get clawed back. But it's that sort of
Speaker 3: like HAP has a way that's been built, some good
Speaker 3: intentions that have gone wrong. How you've got the states
Speaker 3: on board, the fact you've had advocates calling for this,
Speaker 3: You had people like Armfels say psychosocial disability needs to
Speaker 3: be on there, even though mental illness is much more
Speaker 3: episodic and it's about more recovery as opposed to other
Speaker 3: disabilities that are permanent and often get worse over time.
Speaker 3: So I think there's a lot of blame. I think
Speaker 3: we can put to a lot of different people. But
Speaker 3: it does come back in my mind to the trying
Speaker 3: to build a plane as it takes off and surprise, surprise,
Speaker 3: it's been followed by a lot of issues over the years.
Speaker 1: I can just imagine everyone who runs a business, you know,
Speaker 1: reeling in shock at the these basic things like knowing
Speaker 1: who your suppliers are, having digital payments so that you
Speaker 1: can trace them more stop them if they turn out
Speaker 1: to be fraudulent. I mean, these are very basic things
Speaker 1: about running anything, whether it's a plumbing business or a shop,
Speaker 1: or a giant corporation or a government, and it just
Speaker 1: goes to that State's point, doesn't it that the federal
Speaker 1: government is not good at running things? The government is
Speaker 1: going to have to get this through the Senate. Mark
Speaker 1: Butler says he's going to be trying to legislate this
Speaker 1: as soon as the.
Speaker 4: Budget is over.
Speaker 1: The government needs eleven votes in the Senate from either
Speaker 1: the Greens or the Cross benches to get anything through.
Speaker 1: The Greens are already out there saying that this is
Speaker 1: disgusting and it's fraud it's a terrible thing to do
Speaker 1: to disable people. Are they going to be able to
Speaker 1: get it through the Senate with.
Speaker 4: The Liberals help? Yeah? I think they will.
Speaker 3: The Liberals tried to do a lot of reform themselves,
Speaker 3: actually quite a lot of reform that's similar to now.
Speaker 3: You might remember when Minda Reynolds was an NDAs minister,
Speaker 3: she tried to do something called independent assessments, which Bill
Speaker 3: Shorten slayed her over. Funnily enough, that's what we're talking
Speaker 3: about right now, people being independently assessed with their functional needs,
Speaker 3: getting a plan based on that, but had all this backlash.
Speaker 3: And it's the same with age care. These are sectors
Speaker 3: that if a liberal conservative government a coalition were to
Speaker 3: make changes, an opposition labor government would attack them for it.
Speaker 3: Like that's how it's gone over time, And it is
Speaker 3: in the liberals interests regardless of maybe some of the
Speaker 3: detail of this, for the scheme to be brought into
Speaker 3: a much more sustainable footing, because as time has shown us,
Speaker 3: they couldn't do it. Only a labor government arguably could
Speaker 3: do this. So I do think they will get it
Speaker 3: through with the coalition support. The coalition will try to
Speaker 3: figure out ways they can get some skin off labor
Speaker 3: in this. I'm sure they'll point out the hypocrisy of
Speaker 3: independent assessments plenty. There'll also be a bit of liberal
Speaker 3: in fighting, as we've seen Melissa macintosho's in charge of
Speaker 3: the disability portfolio in the Liberals actually having a lot
Speaker 3: of concern about cuts, though today her language was much softer,
Speaker 3: So I think Angus Taylor has sat her down and
Speaker 3: said we're a liberal government and this is what we're doing.
Speaker 3: So it's not going to be easy it's going to
Speaker 3: have a heap of different people talking about hipocrisy, cuts,
Speaker 3: the way this has been designed, rush all kinds of things.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, the Coalition will
Speaker 3: act out of self interest in this and I would
Speaker 3: be very surprised, if not astounded, to see that party
Speaker 3: stand in the way of passing this with the Labor goverment.
Speaker 1: And then they'll all be claiming credit. So that's something
Speaker 1: to look forward to.
Speaker 4: Sarah Eyson, thank you very much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Sarah Eison is a political reporter with The Australian. You
Speaker 1: can read all our expert reporting and analysis right now
Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au