E&OE TRANSCRIPT

SUBJECTS: NDIS Section 10 lists; NDIS reform; Negative gearing; Middle East conflict; Virgin Australia

BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Good afternoon, everybody. I'm pleased to say to you that at long last, there will now be a central list of what NDIS participants can spend their money on and what they can't spend their money on. The new lists will become the law on October the 3rd. They follow a great deal of consultation and I'm grateful to participants, to service providers, to the states, to advocates for helping us form this list of what you can use your resources on. This will now provide clarity. It will return the Scheme to its true purpose, which makes sure that the NDIS isn't paying for things that other care systems in Australia should be paying for, or indeed, it’s just not paying for things which have no evidentiary basis. One of my staff will hand out the schedules right now to you, which includes all of the items that are in and not in. We're going to provide a 12 month transition period for people who have some things which in the future will be out. They will be kept in their plan until the expiry of their plan. We're also going to take our time to work with participants to educate them about the lists. The schedules which you have in front of you are – one schedule lists what you can use NDIS resources on, and the second schedule is what you cannot use NDIS resources on. I'm happy to take questions. This is a big development because it brings together in one central place for the first time for participants, for providers, for families, a clear list of what's in and what's not. Happy to take any questions.

JOURNALIST: Minister, can I just clarify you mentioned the year, that transition period during which people won't be penalised for simple mistakes. Once that year is up, they will be penalised, I assume, is the inference there? And what does that look like? Like how will that look after that year of –

SHORTEN: Well, okay. Thank you for the question. First of all, there are some things which it's unlawful to spend your NDIS money on now, and we've made that really clear. So there's no transition period for spending it on illicit drugs, on sex workers, on alcohol. It's just not, it never has been the purpose of the Scheme and that's not on. But what we recognise is two things. One is that there might be people who've got a particular therapy in their plan, which was viewed to be okay, which subsequently this list says is not something which will be funded going forward. People will have an opportunity to keep using that within their existing plan, but at the expiry of that plan and then the transitional provisions apply. If someone just makes an honest mistake and the amount is less than $1,500. Well, the Agency will sit down and talk to that person, and people are given a couple of chances to understand what's in and what's not.

JOURNALIST: So if someone has, let's say, not maybe drugs, but let's say cuddle therapy in their current plan. And their current plan is due to expire in July next year. That therapy will remain until July?

SHORTEN: I understand your question. So there are some things which aren't in people's plans are, and cuddle therapy is one of them. What we're making clear is that no one should be offering NDIS services. So I would be very surprised if there were too many people currently getting cuddle therapy. We are just putting certain therapies beyond all reasonable doubt that they are not what service providers should be offering. I'll go to a list of some of the things that are not going to be and are never NDIS supports. One is we don't pay for the rent, rental bonds, home deposits, mortgages. We do not pay for donations, tithes, gifts or political contributions. We do not pay for fines, penalties or court ordered amounts. We do not pay for spa baths, saunas, steam rooms. We don't pay for groceries in the ordinary course of events. We don't support a range of therapies from tarot cards, clairvoyance, wilderness therapy, cuddle therapy. We're just being really clear that this Scheme is going to be run properly, transparently, in the best interests of participants, not some service providers who are selling therapies, which we cannot find much in the way of scientific or evidentiary basis for.

JOURNALIST: Given that there's now a clear list of what's been ruled out, is there going to be any monitoring or compliance activity around providers who are advertising those services as NDIS enabled?

SHORTEN: Well, the very fact that we finally got one list in one place spelling out all the issues shows that, and we'll be writing to all participants. It'll be available websites. If someone tries to start taking advantage of NDIS participants or taxpayer money, this is now clear. There's stuff which is just, should never really been in, but now no chance of it getting on.

JOURNALIST: Is the creation of a list part of the measures to rein in the cost growth of the Scheme? And have you done any modelling on how much money this could potentially save the Scheme?

SHORTEN: I think this will help with cost growth in the future, but we haven't banked any savings on this. This is just providing a better participant experience. The NDIS was set up 11 years ago to look after people with profound and severe impairment, and give them a personal budget to have more fulfilling lives. I think every Australian supports that concept, but what we have seen is the rise of opportunistic, unethical providers, and many of them are very good, by the way, but some are not. And they're selling snake oil. They're selling stuff which frankly doesn't work and shouldn't be being paid for. And what this list does is put that beyond doubt. The other thing which we list in the matters which the NDIS doesn't support, are things which should be paid for by other systems. The NDIS is not going to pay for home schooling. We're not going to pay for the stuff which the school system is meant to do. We're not going to pay for prescription drugs you can get on the PBS. We're not going to pay for items which you can find on Medicare. But we, this list, we still predict growth in the Scheme, more people on it, and we predict more investment. But what this does is this just gives all Australians confidence that the cowboys and the flyby nighters can't sell their sort of nonsense and be subsidised to do so.

JOURNALIST: Will there be any exceptions or someone be able to argue for a specific exception in their case?

SHORTEN: There is going to be a rule. There's first of all, there's a transitional rule which we went to in Sarah's question. There will be a substitution list. But let me just be very clear on this. I use an example. You might need a pair of specially designed shoes because of your disability. That could cost literally hundreds and hundreds of dollars. If you can prove that getting runners, athletic trainers, or particular shoe off the shelf, actually is better than the specially designed one, even though that shoe is not on the list. Well, then the Agency will take that into account. So we've got very clear rules about substitution. But you know, we don't, not everyone on the Scheme should get a smartwatch. If you demonstrate that your particular impairment needs and need to monitor your body temperature, and that becomes a matter of life or death. Well, smartwatches are very adequate substitution. So there'll be a fair bit of common sense. But this idea that merely because someone can get a smartwatch on the Scheme doesn't mean in those Facebook groups that everyone can get a smartwatch, because that's not on and that's not what the Scheme is about. And I think in our heart of hearts, a lot of people know that's nonsense.

JOURNALIST: Do you need the agreement of the states and territories to make this list permanent? When does that need to happen by? Is it unilateral or majority? And how confident are you given, you know, people like Roger Cook who had some things to say about reluctant agreement to certain bits and pieces? Can you speak to that state and territory negotiation for this piece?

SHORTEN: Well, this is a transitional rule. This will stay in place until the states and the Commonwealth agree on what should replace it. It's a Category A rule, so we'll need all of them to agree. But in the meantime, this is the rule. So if everyone agrees on something else, great. And if everyone doesn't agree on something else, this is the rule.

JOURNALIST: Is the December meeting of National Cabinet an NDIS milestone? I think from the reform legislation period, you might have said that there was going to be discussions in December?

SHORTEN: A lot of work going on underneath the bonnet of the NDIS. A lot of co-design. A lot of work going on with the states as well. We've got a commitment to start building up our budget setting tools so that we can do better plans for people, which is what the review recommended. Hopefully we'll have some more of those rules in place to discuss by December. Some, we’ll have to do just more co-design than we can get done by December. So then what we'll do is have at least the sort of principles of where we're going with the state. So some draft rules will hopefully be ready. Some will be at least clear about where we're headed. My colleague Amanda Rishworth is doing a lot of work with the states on foundational support. We're also doing a lot of work in the lead up to December about making sure that we can see how we're going with helping people with needs assessment, helping people set up navigators in the Scheme so that it doesn't become a sort of jargon driven, second full time job for people trying to work out what's going on.

JOURNALIST: What about the timeline on developing clarity about eligibility and access to the Scheme? Is that something that you will do since you're, you know, in February we're going to say goodbye to you or is that very much going to be something that the person who does take over from you, that's going to be very much their bag?

SHORTEN: We will do as much as we can before I go, and then what isn't done by then will be done by the next person who picks up the baton.

JOURNALIST: So developing the clarity on eligibility, what do you think in terms of when that's going to be looked at properly?

SHORTEN: I think that will, well the needs assessment tools we want to work on now. But I think that takes 12 to 18 months. Not all disabilities are the same. It's not one size fits all. It's not a case of a computer algorithm. So it is a case of working with, we've got 23 co-design groups in the National Disability Insurance Agency. But I think that by December we will have more detail. But the review said it will take 12 to 18 months to develop our needs assessment, which will help work out if people need the NDIS or there's other supports. Foundational supports we hope will start in, we aim to start in July of next year. What we've done really in the last two and a half years, in particular the last few months of the legislation, is we've laid the tram tracks. We know the direction we're going in. This is, again, another point, we now know what you can spend your money on, what you can't spend your money on. We've committed to registering most of the operators in the Scheme, and that work has started. We've got the enabling legislation through, and now we're working on the rules with the states and with participants and their representatives.

JOURNALIST: Can I ask about another topic?

SHORTEN: Sure.

JOURNALIST: I'll just. Yeah, just, you said before that you hope that this list will bring some confidence among the general Australian public back to the NDIS. Do you think that was damaged over the years, where you've had specific controversies around a certain package having sex therapy or some of those things that just haven't passed the pub test in the public's eye?

SHORTEN: I think Australian people hold two competing views in their head about the NDIS. One is they think it's changing lives and it is. And everyone now pretty much knows someone on the NDIS and they can see a lot of the benefits. But they also think that at the margins the Scheme's been had a lend off by some providers and they want to see us straighten it up. I think the vast majority of Australians are pleased to see that the Scheme is sustainable, but they also want to see clear rules. And as you go through schedule two, what's out. I think 90% plus of Australians will say, well that all of just makes perfect sense.

JOURNALIST: Do you still believe that there's ways of changing negative gearing that could actually boost housing supply?

SHORTEN: Oh, I took policies in 2016 and 2019. We were unsuccessful. I completely support the Government's approach about trying to boost supply now. My colleagues have talked this issue to death in recent days. There's nothing else I can add to it.

JOURNALIST: Can I just ask, since many of your colleagues were in the media this morning, Israel has confirmed a ground invasion of Lebanon. The Government's repeated its calls for a ceasefire now that they've confirmed that ground invasion. What's your response to that?

SHORTEN: I think it's a terrible tragedy. Obviously, I support an immediate ceasefire. I want to see the hostages returned. We want the violence to end. But I think it's crucially important that Israeli hostages are returned and that Hezbollah and Hamas stop attacking Israel.

JOURNALIST: And you mentioned, back to the NDIS, you mentioned that a lot of the items that have been included on the ‘not’ list are actually covered by other social services, payments or the like. Do you think the NDIS will still need that still operate to refer people to the relevant streams and are they equipped to do so?

SHORTEN: Yeah. One of the things I found upon becoming Minister for the NDIS two and a half years ago is there's a real silo mentality of the government. Agencies do not talk to each other and so citizens are expected to work out where to go. And not unreasonably, the average citizen would actually say, can't you folk in government at the state and federal level sort your act out so that if we turn up and it's not right, you can tell us where we can go. I know that the NDIA, while I've been Minister, has invested in justice liaison to sort out the interface with the correctional system. We've doubled the number of people we have working in the hospital liaison area. We want to build navigators so that people know where to go. When your child is born and as you realise, maybe your child is taking a non-standard developmental journey, parents don't want a particular file number. They just want to know what to do with their kid, where to go to get help. The NDIS has been remarkable in that it provides help at a scale which has never been seen before in this country or any other part of the world. But sometimes people don't need the full NDIS orchestra. So what the review, which was done during 2022 and 2023, said is that we need to have lead practitioners and navigators available, embedded in the community So when a family's got a question, they can go to someone and they can say, oh, there's a parents program here, or there's a playgroup there, or this childcare centre. This early learning centre has a strength in inclusion or it's going to get an assessment for the NDIS. So I think it's on government to work better. But one of the remarkable things, and it's full credit to the Prime Minister and the first Ministers, is that the they have agreed to increase their support, the states for the NDIS. They have agreed to do foundational support. We've changed the co-governance of the Scheme. I think the states are, despite some of their mumblings and grumblings, would recognise that the Commonwealth's taking their co-governance more seriously. But for me, it's all about if you've got a kid with a disability, do the family know where to go and are the family getting support? If you're an adult with a profound disability, are you able to get help from the employment system or is the hospital going to do the right thing by you? Or do you need NDIS supports? So it's a journey, but there's a lot more clarity, I think, both on the Liberal and Labor side of politics about the importance of the NDIS not being the only lifeboat in the ocean, but also making the NDIS as easy to understand as possible. What's in, what's out.

ADVISER: Last questions?

JOURNALIST: Just briefly, could I ask you a view on the possible foreign bid for part of Virgin Australia? Would you welcome, um, Qatar having an interest in Virgin? Would it be good for Australian consumers?

SHORTEN: Oh, that'll be up to the Foreign Investment Review Board. As someone who represents an airline electorate - you know, four years ago Virgin was on its knees. Now one of the world's best airlines wants to buy 25% of it. So I congratulate the Virgin workforce and leadership. I hope it works out, but that's up to the FIRB. But it's going to mean certainty, I caught a Virgin flight this morning from Brisbane and the Virgin staff were up and about. They see job security and that can't be a bad thing for the flying public and for the people who work for airlines. Thank you very much.