E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO MELBOURNE
FRIDAY 2ND AUGUST 2024

SUBJECTS: Independent NDIS Provider and Worker Registration Taskforce report; meeting with state Premiers on NDIS

ALI MOORE, HOST: If you rely on the NDIS, how important is it to you that the people who help you are registered? Give me a call, Let me know how important it is. There are, right now, 150,000 unregistered businesses and individuals and something like 16,000 registered providers. But a taskforce that was set up earlier this year has recommended that participants and businesses that are part of the NDIS should be subject to what they're calling a tiered, risk proportionate registration process. At the same time, though, that task force says not all providers would need to be registered. Bill Shorten is the Minister for the NDIS. Bill Shorten, welcome back to Drive.

BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GIVERNMENT SERVICES: Good afternoon.

MOORE: A tiered, risk proportionate system of registration, but not all providers need to be registered. So, who'd be in and who'd be out?

SHORTEN: Well, first of all, the report's been going since February. There was a big review into the whole Scheme last year, and they said there should be a risk proportionate registration system because for the reasons you outlined, about 13% of all service providers are registered and about 87% aren't. And so, what we did is, took that recommendation and I got Natalie Wade, who's a leading human rights lawyer from South Australia, and a really excellent panel and for the last few months we've had them out talking to people with disability, talking to service providers, looking at all the ups and downs and ins and outs of the system, how do we give choice and control. 

They gave me a report in early July. I've, um, met with the states today and following that, I've chosen to release a report publicly to get everyone to see what's been suggested. The Government is going to weigh it up, and what risk proportionate means is that there are some services provided by the NDIS that don't need a high level of registration. For instance, if you're buying something from Bunnings, that's not going to trigger a whole level of risk. But if you are doing advanced care for people in their homes with behavioural support, then that is a service which does attract more risk and therefore we want to be confident that the people who say that's what they're doing can actually do what they're doing and that they're accountable for it.

MOORE: So, is that sort of who's going to draw up that list of who would need the registration and who wouldn't?

SHORTEN: Natalie Wade has put recommendations in her report for what falls into each of these categories, and the Government's going to consider her report now.

MOORE: So, in her recommendations, which I've not had the chance to go through in detail, but does it mean that, you know, the gardener would not be, but the personal care person would be?

SHORTEN: Yeah. They're just an evaluation of the nature of the service, which your question identifies that. I mean, we want to make sure that if you're working with kids, you've got to working with kids check. We also want to make sure, for example, that if you're putting an invoice you exist, that you're a real person and it's not a ghost.

MOORE: Well, that goes to my next question, which is what would the process of registration involve? And I guess what does it involve now? And does it come with things like compliance monitoring and auditing?

SHORTEN: At the moment we do have a registration system. What we've heard clearly from the 12-month review into the whole system, and again, specifically looking at it, the future of registration, is that one of the reasons why some businesses don't register is the current process is too clunky and one size doesn't fit all. 

So, we've already invested in the Quality and Safeguards Commission, so we've doubled the number of people who work there to give them more resources. And this review is now really spelling out what the expectations are based on an understanding of the nature of services, what level of registration you should have. Currently there's auditing prepared by private auditors. So, if you want to register your business now you go to a private auditor. You give them the paperwork, you do the assessment, it can take some months sometimes, and it's pretty intense. But also, whether or not it's getting to the heart of matters, I guess the jury is out. So, both red tape and are we measuring the right things are questions that have been raised by service providers. We want to make sure that people keep choice and control. There's plenty of parts of Victoria and Australia where there's not a lot of service providers, so we want to be careful that we don't make it too hard to register. So that's why we're doing a risk proportionate system.

MOORE: Is it though, I mean it's going to be a big bureaucracy, I imagine if you're dealing with at the moment, 150 000-odd unregistered business and individuals, and it has to mean something. So, I guess it has to come with some sort of compliance monitoring.

SHORTEN: Oh yeah, it does have to come with compliance monitoring. Um, so what we're saying is the current registration system can be done a lot better, a lot more efficiently, and in many cases a lot more quickly. But what the report is also saying is that you should be able to know who's sending you the invoice, who's who, and are we getting the quality for the service. So, I think that the report recommends in the first stage looking at the areas of advanced registration category. So that's for high risk supports and supported independent living. That's early childhood support. That's clinical behavioural support. That might be people who've got behavioural challenges that might be a risk to themselves. It's about plan management. We want to see that all these businesses, that's the first area where we want to make sure we have registration if that's what the government decides. And that's what the report's recommending.

MOORE: You're listening to Bill Shorten who's the Minister for NDIS on 774 ABC Radio Melbourne Drive. Bill Shorten, you would be aware, well aware, I'm sure, of all the recent, not all, but a number of recent surveys which have shown, the one that I looked at, 68% of participants disagreed or strongly disagreed with mandatory registration. The concern obviously being that it will mean they will not be able to get the services they need, or it will remove the choice that they currently have.

SHORTEN: Well, it all depends what the question is people are being asked. I think people should just have a look at the report. I think when they realise that for a lot of services that people receive, registration will not be onerous, I think that will calm people down. 

I also have to say that for the 17 or 18,000 organizations who are currently registered, they're doing about 60% of all the work now. But there's about between $15 and $17 billion being paid to unregistered providers, and just because someone's got an I love India sticker on their car, or their shopfront doesn't mean they're any good at what they do. There are many good service providers who are unregistered. Let me say that again, because no doubt some of the unregistered people will say, “oh, there's Bill bagging us”. I'm not bagging most unregistered service providers, but I have said on many occasions that we can't have a system where we don't know who you are when you're sending an invoice in-

MOORE: Bill Shorten, just - 

SHORTEN: I reckon 100% out of 100% of taxpayers would say, “what?”

MOORE: Well, indeed, it's been a system that has been going for some time now. Just a question, you mentioned before that you've been meeting with the states. Have you been talking to them, have you come to conclusions around funding and particularly around the funding for those who will no longer be looked after through the NDIS and will go back, return really, to being state responsibility?

SHORTEN: Well, let's start with the end part of that question. We're not contemplating putting a whole lot of people who are on the NDIS, off the NDIS. So that's not the big fear, although I think some states have that concern.

MOORE: No, but you've always said you're not the only lifeboat in the ocean.

SHORTEN: No, that's true. And what I'm saying is that there's 650,000 people on the NDIS, but there's 4.5 million people with disabilities in this country. And what we've got to be careful of is making sure that the NDIS doesn't become the only lifeboat, as you say. So, what we – and one of the I think not deliberate but inadvertent consequences of last decade is that everyone sort of seen the NDIS as the solution for disability and it's not. It's a solution for some people. So, we're having very constructive discussions with the states. I was very privileged, Premier Malinauskas from South Australia and Premier Rockliff from Tasmania came to visit me in Moonee Ponds in my office, and we had a really good chat. We know that we've got to make sure that the Scheme looks after people the most severe and profound disability. And so, we're not talking about exiting tens and hundreds of thousands of people, despite some of the more fevered imaginings on the social media. 

But we do think we can probably do better for people with milder disabilities. I do think that we can do better in mental health. I do think we can do better in our schools. I think we can do better in our hospitals.

MOORE: And just a quick final question, because in response to a couple of emails that I've just - not emails, texts I've just received, essentially people saying this one, for example, I'm a paediatric psychologist, tried to register it was going to cost me $4500. What is a reasonable fee for registration, do you think?

SHORTEN: I'm not going to set a fee on radio, but what I can say is one of the things which I'm very open to is if you're a registered health professional and you're already registered with a public body, then I don't think you should have to start again from scratch. And whilst I can't recall every word of the review, if you're a registered paediatric psychologist, you shouldn't have to start from scratch. So, my aim would be to see that cost where you have to tell one government agency something that you're already registered with another government agency, we want to eliminate that cost so that you don't have to repeat your story. So that would be good news for that person.

MOORE: Bill Shorten, thank you for joining us again. 

SHORTEN: Lovely. 

MOORE: Bill Shorten there, the Minister for the NDIS.