E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SUBJECTS: NDIS FUNDING, BUREAUCRACY, CRACKING DOWN ON JUNK THERAPIES
DAVID LIPSON, AM HOST: Well, Bill Shorten is the Minister for the NDIS and he joined me earlier.
[Excerpt]
Minister, we've just heard one NDIS participant was subjected to a two hour assessment from an occupational therapist and a $1,000 bill, all to get a cushion approved for a wheelchair. Can you guarantee bureaucracy like that will end?
BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: I can guarantee we want to end it. I can guarantee we're going to start ending it. It's going to require the cooperation of everyone to end it though. There is a culture sometimes amongst some service providers that if you present with an NDIS package that somehow it's government money and you can afford to pad the bill or take more time and that's a- it's taken from people with disability and it's denying them the opportunity to get better outcomes.
LIPSON: Of course, a much bigger challenge for you is reigning in the growth of the NDIS from 14 per cent currently to 8 per cent. That would reduce spending by $57 billion over 10 years. How did the Government come up with that figure of 8 per cent before the big review is handed down at the end of this year?
SHORTEN: Well, a couple of assumptions in your question I just need to put differently. I just want to say to NDIS participants, the scheme is here to stay. What we do want to make sure is that every dollar in the scheme is getting to the people for whom it was intended, and we've got to make sure that every decision in the scheme is underpinned by the goal of the best interests to the participant, which then improves public trust. I think the scheme is going well. In many cases it's changing lives, but in other cases I think it needs to be managed in the interests of the participants. So then we get to the sort of issues we're talking about. I think with sensible reforms which involve people with disability, their families, advocates, we can help take a longer term approach to decision making. We can improve the capability of the National Disability Agency that they're working with. We can stamp out unethical practises. We can tackle some of the spiralling costs, such as your show has just been talking about. We can also, I think, look at some of the areas which I don't think are working as well as they can, including supported independent living. By working with people with disability, by prioritising their interests rather than the bureaucracy or in some impersonal service providers, we can, I think, in the next three years, moderate cost growth, 3 to 4 years to a target of 8 per cent. I would also stress that this is a target. The scheme remains a demand driven program. Sure, I do think we can set a target for growth which is more moderate than now. But again, I return to where I started. It's all about the participant and there are no changes to the demand driven nature of the scheme.
LIPSON: You've spoken of cracking down on junk therapies. How much oversight do you have on these junk therapies with so many unregistered providers?
SHORTEN: Well, I think a lot of therapies are good, but some- I don't know if they're actually working and achieving outcomes. So we'll rely on the experts, people in the sector, the researchers, the people who've been delivering reputable services for a long time to help advise us about what is reasonable and necessary and what is not. So again, this is a health…
LIPSON: [Interrupts] What's not- what’s an example of something that's not?
SHORTEN: Oh, I'm not sure I want to start-
LIPSON: Okay.
SHORTEN: But the reason why- just so you don't think I'm not answering that question for a particular reason. What people with disability don't like is to have politicians just dumping facts about them on them. We’ll work it out with them.
LIPSON: Okay. Just returning to the oversight question. I mean, if you look at those who are plan managed, that's more than a third of participants. 91 per cent of the providers who deliver the services to them are unregistered. Is that an issue? Do you see that as an issue at all?
SHORTEN: What I see as an issue is to make sure that people are receiving quality evidence based support, that they're receiving support which the people who are delivering are qualified to deliver, which is going to have an outcome. So within the sector, there has been an ongoing debate. Should everyone be regulated and registered or should it just be people with disability to be able to pick who they need? If we were to just overnight demand full on red tape regulation for people, there wouldn't be enough people to deliver the services that are working. But I…
LIPSON: [Interrupts] But is there some room for a bit more oversight there?
SHORTEN: Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm getting at. Yeah. I'm trying to just say it's not a black and white regulate everything or not. I do think that when it comes to the delivery of services, they've got to be evidence based. I do think the people who are delivering personal therapy and care need to be qualified or have, you know, previous experience in the industry of such a length and a dimension that they would- that they know what they're doing.
LIPSON: Can you guarantee that price limits and plans that are set on 1 July will rise roughly in line with inflation and wages growth this year?
SHORTEN: Well, that's a decision for the board of the NDIA. They had a very significant increase last year. So I don't- we were last year helping people deal with one off changes, working with the scheme. I don't imagine it'll be the same dimension of increase as last year.
LIPSON: You'd be aware of rumours in the sector though. People are pretty worried that it's not going to be keeping up with inflation this year.
SHORTEN: Oh no, I don't think it's as simple as that. It'll be done by the board. I would say to the sector, you know us. We've been in for 10 months now. We've helped clear the backlog of cases at the AAT. We've helped get reduced bed blocking hospitals by getting more people who are medically fit for discharge out of hospital in a timely fashion. We've refreshed the leadership of the National Disability Insurance Agency. We've now got half of the board of the NDIA being people with disabilities chaired by the remarkable Kurt Fearnley. So I'm not going to start making assumptions about price guides. What I am going to do is say we are determined to make sure the scheme is working for the people for whom it was intended. And every day I receive probably- it feels like hundreds of emails about people who want to work with me and work with the scheme to make it better for people. And they do report problems.
[End of excerpt]
LIPSON: That's the Minister for the NDIS, Bill Shorten.
