E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
AUSTRALIA TODAY WITH STEVE PRICE
TUESDAY 12 OCTOBER 2021
 
 
SUBJECTS: Impact of NDIS package cuts; mental health; re-opening from COVID lockdowns; IBAC hearings
 
STEVE PRICE, HOST: We took a call on the program last week by an NDIS carer and the problems within the industry that he revealed to us, I think are very disappointing. Bill Shorten is the Shadow Minister for the NDIS. Has been good enough to join us again. I know how busy he is today talking about a range of issues. Thanks for your time again.
 
BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: Yeah. Good morning, Steve.
 
PRICE: It's a little lengthy this, but I think it's worth just playing and letting you have a listen. This was our caller, Peter last week, mate.
 
CALLER: Mate, I work in the mental health industry, so I do support work and obviously working with clients that have got NDIS funding, and we pick them up and we take them to community activities, etcetera, etcetera. And every 12 months that package gets reviewed. I've had clients that have had their packages cut, which means they're unable to access as much support as what they were getting, which means they're stuck at home and their mental health is getting worse. Some of them are getting to a point that they're probably going to have to go back into a mental health unit so the professionals can, you know, can help them more.
 
PRICE: That was Peter from last week. Bill, do you do you believe that this might be happening more widely than most of us understand?
 
SHORTEN: Yes, I believe that Peter's story is not an isolated story. I believe that the Federal Government, the Morrison Government, is by stealth trying to cut back people's support packages on the NDIS. I think there is an unwritten campaign to try and reduce what people get.
 
PRICE: He made the point that he'd become so close to the person he was caring for, and obviously he needs the income, Peter, but he'd become so close that he's now going and picking this chap up and taking him off fishing and going for walks just to keep an eye on him, even though he's now no longer being paid NDIS salary.
 
SHORTEN: Well, I think Peter is like a lot of the disability support workers that I've met during the time I've represented the NDIS for the opposition. They're very committed. They don't get paid a lot of money, and they are a crucial bond for someone who's got a severe or profound impairment. Quite often, a lot of people with profound and severe impairments don't get a lot of contact with other people. So, these workers are an incredibly important emotional source of support. And that's why I think it's distressing no doubt for Peter that, you know, the services are getting cut back. I think the other thing we need to recognise is that if you've got a profound or severe impairment, cutting your support package doesn't save the taxpayer money. It just means you get into greater distress and you have to seek more costly supports in the emergency system. So, it's a false economy just to be winding back people's packages when it's proving to be so helpful, keeping them able to live in the community.
 
PRICE: Nothing about NDIS, as you will well worked out in your time shadowing the Minister is simple. Is there a fix to this? Is it just about money?
 
SHORTEN: I think there are several solutions which don't require changes of legislation or great swathes of money. I think the original legislation was intended that it's about a package of support, which the person with the impairment, it gives them greater choice and control. I've got a very simple view about disability that if you give people with disability and the people around them a package to support, they will spend it and administer it better than a welfare agency or a bureaucracy. If you give people control over their own lives, they will stretch scarce dollars further than any amount of bureaucratic paperwork or being managed by an organisation in some other city.
 
PRICE: Are you disturbed about the vaccination rate of the disabled? I note that there were some figures released by the now ex-minister Luke Donnellan, that at September 30, 71 per cent of the state's NDIS participants aged over 16 had received their first dose. That is below the national average, slightly higher sorry, than the national average, but low for Victoria's general population. Why do we think that would be happening?
 
SHORTEN: I am disturbed by it. I mean, if you’re someone with a severe disability, in many cases, your condition means you've got reduced immunities. So, when we say, oh well, maybe they should be getting the same as everyone else, the fact is that people with disability are in many cases, are much more vulnerable to COVID. We haven't gone through this COVID journey of lockdowns and separation from family and hardship for business for no reason. We've done it to protect the vulnerable. So, I think it is a real disgrace that the people we've all made sacrifices for, that the Government hasn't been able to get out and vaccinate them. They should be they shouldn't be below the average or at the national average. They should be at 100 per cent or 95 per cent, and there's a lot of people, you know, we saw the scenes yesterday of people celebrating with beers in Sydney, that's great. But there's a whole cohort of the Australian population, perhaps some of them are listening to your show, who are actually scared witless by COVID for good reason. They have got greater vulnerability to it and it will make them sicker. But the problem is that they haven't been vaccinated and you know, surely the Government should have prioritised, and they said they were going to in January, the people who are most vulnerable. Forget politics. That's what should happen and the fact that they're not at the front of the queue but the back of the queue is a problem.
 
PRICE: You're proud Victorian, but you're an Australian first. You travel around the country when COVID allows it. We're on those images out of Sydney yesterday at 70 per cent double vaccinated. Why do you think Victoria's roadmap out of this COVID nightmare, which for us has been six lockdowns, longest in the world, is so much more cautious than what they're experiencing in Sydney?
 
SHORTEN: Well, first of all, I'm happy for Sydney. They've done 100 days straight, so yeah, I'm happy for them. I think we're going to get there sooner than even the roadmap says. So, I tend to be a glass half full sort of person. I think that we should get to opening up quicker than I hope the roadmap says.
 
PRICE: You're going to be asked about branch stacking all day long. You've been a union leader. You've been an Opposition Leader. You've been a senior figure in the Labor Party in Victoria forever. And you know all of the people within the Labor Party in Victoria and how they operate. Has this come as any surprise to you?
 
SHORTEN: IBAC started its hearings yesterday into allegations of corruption by some people in the Labor Party. The extent of what we heard yesterday is surprising. It's sad. I find it embarrassing as a proud Labor person, that these antics have been going on on such an industrial scale, if the allegations are correct. So, yeah, I think it turns people off politics. It doesn't reflect the hard work of so many genuine ALP members and MPs. So, I guess it's shameful, but at least IBAC’s looking at it. That's the power of having an anti-corruption commission.
 
PRICE: So, do you really want us to believe that you had no idea of the extent of this?
 
SHORTEN: Oh, some of what we've heard, absolutely wouldn't have. I mean, the conduct is not the stuff which is done in front of people. And I just I learned a long time ago there are no shortcuts in politics. So, listen, IBAC has got a fair way to go yet. So, I don't think we've seen the end of the revelations. I’ll let IBAC do its job, I can't comment on the stuff I haven't seen, but it is bad for politics. It's bad for the Labor Party and it's bad for the genuine members of the Labor Party who make up the vast majority of the Labor Party. It's embarrassing.
 
PRICE: You're obviously serving in parliament with Labor Party members of Parliament who've benefited from being preselected by people who are not actually members of your party.
 
SHORTEN: I don't know about if that does describe the majority of my colleagues.
 
PRICE: No, I didn't say a majority, but some.
 
SHORTEN: No. But Mr Byrne’s giving his evidence, I'm going to reserve some of my judgment till we see all the evidence. That's why we have anti-corruption commissions. I should make the point that when 60 Minutes did its exposé on what was happening down in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne, within 24 hours, the party acted. And you know, I support that. And unfortunately, the IBAC proceedings are the inevitable result of people trying to shortcut the system and they deserve what they're going to get.
 
PRICE: Do you think these people just finally, I don't want to harp on it, but do you think the people doing this realise that the public don't really a) understand it, or b) have any real connection to what they're up to and why they're doing it and why it's important?
 
SHORTEN: I can't say what goes through the minds of some of the people who were caught up in yesterday's hearing and the ongoing hearings. But you learn in politics that - and I guess these people didn't learn the lesson - but there's no shortcuts. You betray people who you want to represent. You might go into politics for the best of reasons. But this stuff just compromises everything you try and do, and it's such a dreadful waste of time, and it's such a dreadful undermining of the confidence that people have in the political process. It's just - there's nothing good you can say about it.
 
PRICE: Any impact, do you think, on your federal chances at the next election? Not you personally, but the Labor Party?
 
SHORTEN: I think people think the politics is like this, and the truth of the matter is the impact is on the confidence of people in the system, and I think both parties and politicians generally suffer. We're focused on COVID. We're focused on getting ready to get out of COVID. And just when people need faith in the system, when they're being asked to make sacrifices, they see this and say, Well, it's just all, is it all just rubbish? Is it all just fake? And that's the dreadful harm, certainly at one level, which is caused by the sort of evidence we're hearing yesterday. But I should say, we’ve got to see all the proceedings and hear all the evidence and get all the points of view out. But it's, you know, there's no sugar-coating it, I think it's humiliating.
 
PRICE: Good to catch up again. Thanks for your time.
 
SHORTEN: Yeah, good on you, Steve. Thank you very much. Bye.
 
PRICE: Bill Shorten there, the Shadow Minister for the NDIS, former Labor Party leader, of course.
 
ENDS