E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
FIVEAA RADIO ADELAIDE
TUESDAY, 26 MAY 2020

SUBJECTS: The deaths of Ann-Marie Smith and David Harris; Efficacy of the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission; Structural accountability; Health and Community Services Complaints Commission’s publicly unreleased report; Disability advocate funding; Screening carers; Community visitor program.

LEON BYNER, HOST: The demise of Ann-Marie Smith, created by a series of dire circumstances, has moved Australia's people to the extent that they cannot fathom how the failings, one after another, were allowed to happen. Governments have confected rules, regulations, protocols, motherhood statements, but sadly, absolutely no oversight - 'it was someone else's turf, not mine'. Australia is a smart country, we've invented so many good things. Yet when it comes to looking after the vulnerable, it's an abject failure. We funded NDIS to streamline help for the disabled, but instead, we created a game of snakes and ladders where if anybody wanted to report anything, you could do, but the convoluted methods and ultimate responsibilities were so vague we had to have a Royal Commission to investigate ourselves. Until we untangle this web of procedural bulldust and no direct oversight, others will suffer the same fate. Believe it. And this country has got to do better in looking after those who cannot do it themselves. Once the investigation is finished, heads ought to roll, they probably won't, but they should. Let's have none of this oh, 'it's not my patch' - if it's a federal law, the feds apply it. If it's a state law, the states apply it. In a nutshell, we have what was designed to protect everybody except the victim. It isn't good enough to claim ‘it's not my job’ when because it's everybody's fault, it's nobody's. Let's talk with Shadow Minister for the NDIS Bill Shorten, good morning, Bill.

BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: Good morning, Leon.

BYNER: What do you think?

SHORTEN: The whole thing's a shocking mess, it's terrible. A person has died, and when we say that, I just need to be really clear, this is not an accident, this is as the South Australian police have said, a crime. They're investigating and treating it as a crime. When you have a vulnerable person, a vulnerable woman, in her own home and suffering the sort of neglect which has been reported, that is unacceptable and we don't need to shrug our shoulders and say ‘ oh these things happen', no, they don't, and no, they shouldn't. But they did. So, therefore, I've listened to some of the South Australian Minister sort of, with respect, ducking and weaving, and also you can't even find the Federal Minister, Stuart Robert, you know, and as for the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, it may be in name, but not in practice. You know they’ve had well over a thousand complaints and only eleven matters have been taken to the point of making decisions, this is diabolical. What worries me, I'll finish on my rant here, is how many other Ann-Marie’s are there out there who we don't know about right now? When we heard about David Harris in New South Wales who was, you know, this is shocking for people to hear, but he was dead on his floor for two months. He got cut off from NDIS funding and his family is in another state and because the funding got cut off, no one went to see him.

BYNER: Bill, I’ve got to put to you that it looks to me as if the whole regulatory issues here, which are shared, but no one puts their hand up and say, watch me, but you see, to me, the whole thing is a sham. It’s a cozy club and I'll tell you why. Now we had a select committee come out with some extraordinary evidence under parliamentary privilege yesterday, where we had the previous Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner do an investigation on serious matters, it was decided not ever to publish the result. I mean, why are we protecting people who clearly, in many of these cases, are not competent? Why?

SHORTEN: No idea. No idea. You know, I’ve listened to the South Australian Government say ‘oh you know that they’re the federal body’. But this is a case where the left hand is not talking to the right hand and the malefactors and the wrongdoers are slipping right through the net, I mean, I read MauriceCorcoran’s evidence from yesterday, he told the South Australian government, you need to have your visitor program. He put them on notice and you've got a federal government, what happens is you get an NDIS package, which is good, it provides for support workers to come to your home, good, but there's no checking to see what the taxpayer's being billed for and what the vulnerable customer should be getting is actually occurring. And I have to say, where are the Federal Liberal Government in this? If I was the minister, I'd be out to see the family, I’d be saying, how on earth could this care company with some prior misdemeanours, you know, what have we done to audit them and make sure they're doing the job? But look, this is a shame, the job of governments is to keep people safe, not to leave them neglected.

BYNER: Bill, I want to ask you something, you made the point, how many other Ann-Marie’s are out there? We'd hope none but I think that's probably not a realistic expectation. So having said that, who do people complain to where they know action will be taken? Because it's clear to me that this is such a convoluted system.

SHORTEN: The disability advocates do a great job, you know, when I was a junior minister back between 2008 and 2010, they kept me on my toes. But Labor increased the funding to the advocates because you know what, we need to be kept honest. Under this Federal Government disability funding isn't what it should be for the advocates because, you know, some ministers and some public servants, see the advocates as a pain in the butt. Well, they are, but someone’s got to be on the side of the vulnerable. I mean, I'm looking at this quality and safeguards commission in 2018 and 2019, this is the federal body who, you know, is meant to be making sure that the NDIS is being appropriately administered. They got 1422 complaints and 4537 reportable incidents, so that's a lot. Of those reportable incidents, nearly 2000 of those alleged abuses and neglect, but wait for it, 6000 matters, do you know Leon, the total number of matters where there were compliance orders, suspensions of the registration of the care or support organisation? Eleven.

BYNER: What does that tell you?

SHORTEN: Well, it tells me that I actually think the watchdog has teeth in its mouth, but I'm not sure that it's biting anything.

BYNER: Why?

SHORTEN: Because just look at the numbers. If you had 6000 complaints -

BYNER: I'm not doubting your data, but why?

SHORTEN: I think part of the problem and this is, you know, this again, goes to politics, but, you know, like it or not, we’re talking here about the powerless here being neglected and the powerful ignoring them, what has happened here is that South Australia pays the best part of three-quarters of a billion dollars last year to the FederalGovernment, for disability services. But the Federal Government's underspending and they say that demand is not there. The one thing they need to do, because South Australians are getting ripped off by the feds, but there is a real-life consequence to that. What's happening is that the watchdog nationally, doesn't have the power to initiate and doesn't of its own motion go and just check that the paperwork they’re receiving is correct. What we have here is a paper-based compliance system, and if a paper looks good, tick, stamp, you get your money. But that's not the way it should be, this is a multi-billion dollar scheme and at the heart of it is not just taxpayer money, there are vulnerable people. Taxpayers don't mind looking after the truly disabled in our community, but what was the NDIA doing? They're the agency who give money to Integrity Care, what are they doing to check the Integrity Care was delivering the service? What was integrity care doing to make sure that the support worker attending was doing the job they were meant to do? What about the South Australian Government? What are they doing with the screening of carers? I mean, it's just no wonder people hate politics because if this was a happy announcement, you'd be stuck in a traffic jam of government ministers and white limousines there to have a photo taken, but now apparently no one's in charge.

BYNER: What happens now, Bill? Because we've got five inquiries and I don’t whether any of them are going to unravel this?

SHORTEN: Natalie Cook is the State Opposition, she and Peter Malinauskas are not going to let this go because until there is an adequate safeguards system, until this doesn't happen again, it's not good enough. And federally, I’ve gotta get this Stuart Robert out of hiding, he just keeps telling everyone ‘oh it’s all fine, we’re all moving along, we’re meeting our KPI’s’, sorry, just hold everything up here - until we know there's a system to check that vulnerable people in their own homes are receiving the care which the taxpayer is funding them to get, till there's proper safeguards, do you know what I would do? Perhaps along with all the inquiries and, you know, sort out the work and the registration issue, because most workers are excellent and they'll be as shocked as anyone. You've got to get to the bottom of what this Integrity Care has or hasn’t done, you’ve got the criminal proceedings and the police investigation, but we've got to make sure that perhaps you get the community visitor program back. That's where you get people in the community who can go and visit to make sure that, you know, that what's being said is done is being done.

BYNER: Now, what was said, it was interesting because that was put to our breakfast guys to our state minister this morning, Michelle Lensink, and she said that the community care visitations can only happen in government institutions, not private. So if that's the case, why don't we change the law to make it so?

SHORTEN: I don't believe - you know where the money goes, governments follow a bit, but if that is true and I don't accept that is true, but if that is true, let's change the law. Just simply saying that if one house is on fire and you’re allowed to do it, but the law says you’re not allowed to go to the next house which is on fire, you just drive past that one, that’s not right, so that's a cop-out, my opinion.

BYNER: Bill, thanks for joining us, we’ll keep some pressure up on this as I said, it looks to me like everybody gets protected except the person for whom the protection was supposed to be designed.