VIDEO: Debate continues on regulating the NDIS workforce

BILL SHORTEN, NDIS MINISTER (March 27):  We promised to make the NDIS a priority and not penalise people with disability for wanting to live fulfilled lives and we promise to restore trust in the scheme. 

LAURA TINGLE, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT:  The exponential growth of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and the billions of dollars in funding it requires, is widely acknowledged to have put its very viability in doubt.

When the Albanese Government came to office, it commissioned a review of the scheme by the man regarded as its founder, Professor Bruce Bonyhady, and former senior retired public servant, Lisa Paul. 

PROF. BRUCE BONYHADY, NDIS REVIEW CO-CHAIR (May 21):  The status quo is not an option. The scheme, as it is today, is not sustainable.

This legislation absolutely needs to pass.

LAURA TINGLE:  The NDIS has grown into a colossus that has over 170,000 service providers - everything from high care personal services to lawn mowing - and is funding the needs of a much broader part of the community than had ever been anticipated.

In the May budget, the Government announced cuts to the scheme of $14.4 billion over four years - a cut only designed to stop costs blowing out further.

The savings are supposed to be delivered by legislation introduced by Minister Bill Shorten in March.

But on Monday, after a Senate inquiry, the Greens and Opposition voted to delay the bill for another two months, to the ire of the Government and the NDIS Minister who says the delay will cost a billion dollars.

BILL SHORTEN:  You can't let this scheme grow like topsy without putting some swim lanes in place. That's what this legislation is doing. It's the start of a process. 

But for the next eight weeks, I really don't believe we're going to hear a new argument that hasn't been put in the last six months.

LAURA TINGLE:  One of the senators pushing the delay is the Greens disability spokesman, Senator Jordan Steele-John. 

JORDAN STEELE-JOHN, WA GREENS SENATOR:  They have dropped large amendments, right before the hearings, or right before the debates which have given no time for legislators or for advocates to analyse whether they address the many concerns the community have about the bills. 

LAURA TINGLE:  While the politicians tussle over the timeline for the legislation, the proposed changes have unsettled many who appeared before the Senate inquiry.

A fundamental idea in the NDIS has been that it provides support on the basis of what can be argued and assessed to be ‘reasonable and necessary’ to someone’s particular needs, rather than generic supports.

NICOLE AVERY, EVERY AUSTRALIAN COUNTS:  The bill proposes a shift from reasonable and necessary supports to a restrictive list of permitted supports, claimable from budgets based on yet-to-be-developed needs assessments. 

We firmly believe that the legislation must not be changed until all assessment tools, calculation methods and processes have been co-designed and reviewed by the disability community. 

JORDAN STEELE-JOHN:  The deep concerns that the disability community have with the bill, and they are concerns shared by the Greens, is that it grants the federal government extraordinary new powers to control the lives of disabled people, to decide which supports we can receive. 

And it also removes really important legal protections, which we currently have, to challenge agency decisions when they get something wrong. And it does all this while also inserting a number of new methods and processes that will decide how we are delivered supports, the amount of money we receive, and the way in which we are assessed for access to the scheme. 

BILL SHORTEN:  When we hear some of the scaremongering that reasonable and necessary supports will not be provided, that's just wrong. When I hear people say, there'll be no review of decisions made in the scheme in the future, that's just a lie. 

When I hear people say that we're just jamming a particular needs assessment, we're going to do it by co-design.

LAURA TINGLE:  It’s not just the disability community that is concerned about the bill.

A key recommendation of the Bonyhady-Paul review was that some of the NDIS workload be transferred back to the states, to continue their former roles in the sector as part of a broader disability ‘ecosystem’ involving several layers of support which includes institutions like schools.

But the states and territories have also expressed concerns about the bill.

JORDAN STEELE-JOHN:  The states and territories have a really important role to play here. They're being asked by the federal government to begin delivering services and supports which they have not delivered for 10 years. They have made a submission to the inquiry saying the bill is not what they agreed to.

We need them to come forward, give evidence, get into the specifics. Tell us what, where, when and how. 

LAURA TINGLE:  One common criticism is that the bill has been introduced before the government has even made a formal response to the NDIS review, or to the Disability Royal Commission.

BILL SHORTEN:  In terms of the NDIS review, we are responding in parts as we go. We'll have more detail on more of the issues. This legislation isn't trying to enact the whole review anyway. 

We just want to get on with stuff and this is not the end of the journey. This legislation merely says, hey, we want to make sure that money is not getting wasted.

LAURA TINGLE:  A separate stream of work has been going on this year which goes to the heart of the question of fraud in the NDIS.

There have been accusations of fraud in the scheme, sometimes involving organised crime, with stories of NDIS money being used to buy drugs and alcohol, or expensive overseas holidays and cars.

That’s on top of shocking stories of physical and sexual abuse.

Much of this stems from the fact many providers of NDIS services do not even have their most basic details registered with the organisation that runs the scheme. 

A taskforce has been reviewing how to properly regulate the massive NDIS workforce in line with the findings of the Bonyhady-Paul review

BRUCE BONYHADY:  What's emerged over the 10 years since the NDIS commenced is a system which is now largely unregulated. 

There are 160,000 or more unregistered providers. We don't know who they are, what services that they provide, whether they've got insurance, whether they've got the necessary qualifications for the services and there are just 15,000 or 16,000 active registered providers. This was never the intention of the scheme. 

LLOYD WILLIAMS, HEALTH SERVICES UNION NATIONAL SECRETARY:  We've seen time and time again, examples of fraud and deception and misuse of the scheme. So here we have a $10 billion scheme, but only one in 10 providers are registered. 

We think that that is extraordinarily problematic, both from a quality and safeguarding perspective, but also from a fraud perspective.

LAURA TINGLE:  Some disability advocates are unhappy about the idea of a more regulated workforce. 

JORDAN STEELE-JOHN:  We're talking about people who are required and are supported to play a vital role for disabled people in our families. They're the folks that help us have a shower, they're the folks that help us get out of bed and engage with community. They're the therapists we work with. They're an integral part of our lives. 

And we, as disabled people, want to retain the ability to decide who comes into our home, and who provides us with those supports, which support worker, are they respectful? Do they understand our condition? 

And these are rights, and I would argue protections that we desperately need to retain and are at risk if we move to a one-size-fits-all approach, as recommended and as is being pursued, unfortunately, by the government.

LAURA TINGLE:  A bit like the argument about ‘reasonable and necessary’ support, the idea of disabled people retaining full ‘control and choice’ over the support they receive, and from whom, is a threshold issue for some in the disabled community who are resisting any moves to impose a registration system on providers.

BRUCE BONYHADY:  The comparison of control and choice and registration is a completely false comparison. 

Having a system where control and choice because there are no checks and balances can lead to participants incurring very large debts, being subject to fraud, being subjected to exploitation is not a system with the appropriate quality, quality and safeguarding standards that are needed. 

LAURA TINGLE:  But those who have to work in the system say it is no different from regulations that apply to other critical workforces. 

LLOYD WILLIAMS:  We see it every day when we bring an electrician into our home or a plumber into our home, we know that they are properly trained, and that they are properly certified to carry out the work that we're asking them to do. 

Similar to health professionals, pharmacists, in our community, that doesn't impact on our choice and our control.

We have the choice of all of those properly regulated, and trained and qualified workers that provide quality services within our society. 

So we do not see that, that a good proportionate registration scheme of all providers and workers would impact choice and control for people with a disability.

LAURA TINGLE:  The taskforce is due to hand down its recommendations on the NDIS workforce in coming days.