An estimated one point four billion dollars was lost from the national disability insurance scheme last financial year because of payment errors, including fraud and over claiming.
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00:00 It's been quite an exponential growth in the number.
00:05 And I think it's something that not only the agency, but the NDIS Quality and Safeguards
00:09 Commission needs to take very seriously.
00:12 How does this happen?
00:13 Well, that's a really good question.
00:17 One of the things that advocates talk to me about all the time is that people with disability
00:21 are coming to them having, you know, really unfair contracts that they're being asked
00:26 to sign with providers, with providers charging them money, but not actually getting the services
00:31 that they've asked for, or charging them for things that they're not allowed to charge
00:35 for.
00:36 So we're hearing this all across the country.
00:40 Advocates and people with disability then make complaints about it to the Quality and
00:43 Safeguards Commission, who are meant to be the watchdogs on the beat, but are not seeing
00:48 any kind of systemic action to change that, or the kind of regulatory pressure that we
00:54 need.
00:55 One of the things that the agency has confirmed, though, is that this category of what's called
01:00 supported independent living, which are supports for people with the higher support needs.
01:05 So these are people who need support all the time.
01:10 And that a lot of this is happening for providers who provide those services.
01:14 And what we know is that increasingly, there are providers who are not registered and who
01:20 have very little oversight, who are providing support to people with disability in this
01:26 category.
01:27 And that is a really significant concern.
01:29 How much of it is fraud, do you think?
01:31 Or is most of it inadvertent over claiming?
01:35 Yeah, I'd be really reluctant to talk about it as deliberate fraud.
01:40 I don't think that that's what's going on.
01:43 The NDIS is really complicated.
01:46 The current system that we're hoping to see addressed in the NDIS review later this week
01:52 is extremely complex.
01:53 There are layers of bureaucracy between people with disability and providers and the services
01:58 that we use.
02:00 And getting that right all the time is really difficult.
02:04 So I think the kind of combination of an old-fashioned IT system in the agency and this kind of complexity
02:11 and layers of bureaucracy do mean that mistakes get made.
02:15 But the quantum getting up to like over 4% is really showing that something is going
02:20 wrong at a fundamental level.
02:23 As you say, the review into the NDIS is out tomorrow.
02:26 It's expected to outline measures to rein in spending.
02:29 Is this a system which has grown too quickly?
02:34 I don't think that's probably the way to categorise it.
02:38 People with disability need essential supports to do fancy things like get out of bed, have
02:44 a shower, go to work and go to school.
02:47 And how we pay for that as part of our public services, like we do with health and transport,
02:52 are really important parts of our national budget, but also about state and territory
02:57 budgets.
02:58 They're the kinds of things that we're really proud of about Australia, that we look after
03:01 each other and make sure we have what we need.
03:04 But we know that the NDIS isn't working right.
03:07 And the current kind of real focus on the market model as the way to deliver this, I'm
03:13 not sure is the best way to do that.
03:16 And it is something that the review has looked at, whether this is the right way to do this
03:21 and whether there are people out to make, like providers out to make a profit at the
03:25 expense of people with disability.
03:27 It will be really interesting to see how much the review actually tackles those things.
03:32 Yeah, you make a really good point about the states versus the Commonwealth.
03:35 But I guess one of the other arguments as well is that the scheme now includes children
03:41 who might be neurodiverse or who have autism, and maybe that was not what the system was
03:47 designed for initially.
03:49 Perhaps, but, you know, kids who need support, particularly when they start school, we need
03:56 to make sure that they get that support.
03:59 I think it's really widely understood now that the best thing we can do for kids is
04:03 to do early intervention to make sure that they've got the kinds of supports and specialist
04:09 help that they need before they start school and right when they start school.
04:13 But how we do that best for kids and best for families, again, is something that I know
04:18 that the review is going to look at later this week.
04:21 Is it best delivered in the kind of individualised support plans that the NDIS does?
04:26 Or is it best to deliver it via schools and early childhood services?
04:30 I don't know, but it will be interesting to see what the review says.
04:34 Whatever it does say, though, it will be really important for not only state and territory
04:39 governments but the federal government to sit down at the table with us, with people
04:43 with disability and our organisations, to make sure that we do this properly so that
04:49 no person with disability is going without the essential supports that we need.
04:53 Elle Gibbs, how concerned are you by the latest polling published in the SMH and the Age Today
04:58 which shows that 43% of respondents want the government to rein in spending?
05:02 That's up from the last poll in May.
05:05 - Marina, you can see my sceptical face about this.
05:10 I think there's been a quite relentless campaign against the essential supports for people
05:14 with disability for some time.
05:17 And very few of the voices of us talking about why it's really important to make sure we
05:22 have what we need.
05:23 So I'm not really surprised that there has been a slight change in public opinion.
05:29 And I really hope that we can have a conversation that is led by people with disability and
05:34 we can have a conversation that doesn't keep portraying us as kind of burdens and costs
05:40 when we're actually equal citizens making a really significant contribution.
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