The Albanese government will target “unethical practices” and “shoddy therapies” as it broadens its crackdown on fraud against the national disability insurance scheme, Bill Shorten has revealed.
The government services and NDIS minister will on Tuesday call for an end to practices that treat disabled participants like “cash cows”, such as pressuring them to pay for services they don’t need or that are not in their plan.
In excerpts of a speech to be given to the National Press Club, Shorten calls to improve “the participants’ experience” because in addition to making “people’s lives easier rather than harder”, the government will also “reduce waste, inefficiency and inflationary costs”.
In October the Albanese government revealed the NDIS will cost an extra $8.8bn over four years, with costs forecast to grow to more than $50bn a year by 2025-26.
Shorten has already set up a “fraud fusion taskforce”, which he will reveal has “38 investigations under way, involving more than $300m in payments” and that received 1,700 tipoffs last month.
“It is sickening that criminal syndicates are stealing from people with disability,” he says. “I am determined that every dollar of NDIS funding goes to people with disability.”
Shorten, who helped create the scheme as a parliamentary secretary in the Rudd and Gillard governments, vows that the NDIS “is not going away” but warns of the “hard truth” that it “is not what it should be”.
“It is not delivering the outcomes Australians with disability need and the Australian public expects,” he says. “And that is why, to enable the NDIS to reach its potential, we need to – in essence – reboot.”
Shorten says that the elimination of “unethical practices” will include “getting rid of shoddy therapies that offer little to no value to participants or desperate parents”, promising a “renewed focus on evidence and data”.
“Unethical practices include: pressuring participants to ask for services or support ratios they don’t need; spending participants’ money contrary to their plan; asking for or accepting additional fees for a service; and offering rewards for taking particular services not on a participant’s plan.”
Shorten warned that “untrustworthy providers taint the reputations of quality service providers who work hard to support participants”.
“Participants who have been preyed upon by these unscrupulous types have reported feeling ‘de-humanised’, exploited as ‘cash-cows’.
“We need to have more [NDIS] staff in place with the skills to ensure providers deliver outcomes and don’t overcharge. The bottom line is I want to maximise the benefit of every NDIS dollar we spend.”
In March opposition leader, Peter Dutton, offered the government bipartisan support to make cuts to the NDIS to keep it “sustainable” and pay for the Aukus nuclear submarine acquisition.
The comments were criticised by disability advocates and by Shorten who said the Liberals were “looking for an excuse to slash” disability supports.
Labor is reviewing the scheme but has so far focused on the need to crack down on fraud and for states to improve their contribution rather than broader changes, such as means-testing.
