CLINTON MAYNARD: Thank you for your time, Senator.
JENNY MCALLISTER: Oh, thanks for having me. Clinton
CLINTON MAYNARD: There’s an inquiry underway today on fraud, now we heard a lot about the changes of how people will be assessed from Mark Butler last week, what are you going to do about fraud?
JENNY MCALLISTER: Australians will be shocked I think by some of the evidence that we heard in the inquiry this morning. And it's very clear to me that the NDIS has been a soft target for shonks and for crooks for far too long, and we have to change that, and so we're going to drag these shonks and crooks into the light, and we're going to kick them out of the NDIS for good. We've done a lot already in our first term to deal with this under Bill Shorten. We set up the Fraud fusion Task Force. Previously, only about 30 staff were working on this in the NDIA we've now got about 500 and we are banning people, prosecuting people, executing search warrants at unprecedented levels.
CLINTON MAYNARD: But clearly that hasn't gone far enough though Jenny, because you admit that it's still a massive issue for you.
JENNY MCALLISTER: Much more to do Clinton. So the next phase is making it difficult for this conduct to happen in the first place. It means a few things. We will require the providers who provide the highest risk services to be registered. Every provider will be required to be enrolled with the NDIA so that we have visibility on who is receiving payments and what they're receiving payments for and we're going to move to commission plan managers. These are people who operate within the scheme. They play a really important integrity role. We think it needs to be better. It can be done better and better value for money. And we're going to move to commission those directly to stamp out the bad actors in that part of the market.
CLINTON MAYNARD: What sort of background checks do you do on the providers? I was, last night, I was looking at something completely unrelated in the music industry, and I went down a rabbit hole, as you do with Google, as you know what it's like...
JENNY MCALLISTER: You can, you can
CLINTON MAYNARD: And I was actually looking at music instrument retailers anyway, I went down a particular rabbit hole, and I found a store that I used to go to. It changed hands, and it had shut down. Anyway, it turned out it had been bought by some brothers. These brothers operated music tuition classes all around Sydney. They had a reputation and A Current Affair did a story on them. They had a reputation of not paying their workers, the tutors correctly at all. People were out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars. Well, it turned out they were offering NDIS services to disabled people to learn to play musical instruments. But clearly there were major question marks over their ethics. So how does it get to the point they qualify to be a provider?
JENNY MCALLISTER: Couple of things with the story you're sharing with me Clinton. I mean, the first thing is, we want more providers to be registered. It's one of the key things that Minister Butler announced in the speech last week. 90 percent of the money that is going through the fund will be paid through to registered providers by the time our reforms are implemented. We think that's incredibly important, because, as you say, people who offer these services need to have the relevant qualifications and skills to deliver them properly. But the second thing is, the NDIS was not designed to meet every person’s every cost. We put in place under Minister Shorten really clear guidance about what's in and what's out…
CLINTON MAYNARD: So, something like that. I mean, it's wonderful to learn a musical instrument. It's actually very good for somebody's soul and their education. But there's a lot of people, just in general society, who simply can't afford to go and get music tuition, so why is that the responsibility of the NDIS in the first place?
JENNY MCALLISTER: It's hard to comment on what this particular provider is saying that they offer, but ordinary tuition costs, ordinary education costs, are not the responsibility of the NDIS. And where we have providers who are claiming to offer services that are not in line with the scheme, we've recently passed legislation that will give the Quality and Safeguards Commission a capacity to see people advertising services that are not in line with the intent of the scheme, and undermine the intent of the scheme and encourage people within the scheme to spend their package on something that is, they're not allowed to spend it on. That's a problem and that’s what the anti-promotion orders are designed to address…
CLINTON MAYNARD: Yeah, so will you change what…
JENNY MCALLISTER:…what went through the Parliament just a couple of months ago.
CLINTON MAYNARD: So do they dramatically change what qualifies as an NDIS service, such as whether it's a fishing tour or a trip on a cruise liner, or, you know, a trip to a brothel.
JENNY MCALLISTER: In the last term, we made it very clear, none of those things are NDIS services. The NDIS does not pay for holidays, and so, for example, if a person or a business…
CLINTON MAYNARD: But they were at some point, they were.
JENNY MCALLISTER: And we stepped in to fix that Clinton, because that's not what the scheme is for. The scheme is incredibly important. Your listeners know that. It's changed so many people's lives, and before the NDIS, it was incredibly tough, uncertain and difficult for people with disability and their families, but there needs to be proper boundaries put around any social program and when we came to Government, one of the things that we did was made it really clear what's in and what's out. The next step is enforcing that and making sure we've got the powers to take action against the providers who are doing the wrong thing.
CLINTON MAYNARD: So what commitment can you make to us today, Minister that say in 12 months time, that the cost of the NDIS is going to come down by X dollars because you've managed to stamp out fraud or the change to what qualifies as an NDIS service?
JENNY MCALLISTER: This is a really important question, Clinton, because most of the time when we see fraud, what we're really seeing is a person with disability having their money taken off them by an unscrupulous provider, and that money going into that rogue provider's pocket. When we intervene and disrupt that, the next thing that happens, usually is that that person with a disability goes and gets the service that they're entitled to. Doesn't necessarily save the Government money, but it definitely fixes up the scheme, and it stops a person with disability from being exploited. And it's the lowest thing you can imagine, isn't it?
CLINTON MAYNARD: So can you give us a promise, Minister, that in a year's time if we speak to in years time that you'll be able to guarantee will be no rorting anymore.
JENNY MCALLISTER: I think it's going to take us time to get through this, but we are determined to stamp it out.
CLINTON MAYNARD: What's the time frame? What’s the time frame?
JENNY MCALLISTER: Every social program will always have criminals target it, but we are determined to stamp this out and that’s going to mean…
CLINTON MAYNARD: So a year, two years?
JENNY MCALLISTER: I think it's going to take us time Clinton, but we are well on our way. We've put the resources in place…
CLINTON MAYNARD: Three years?
JENNY MCALLISTER: We're building the computer systems so that we can have proper visibility on who is getting paid, and we're building up our capacity to prosecute people. In the last year, since January alone, we've had four jail terms handed down that’s meant as much as six years for one of the providers who was ripping off disabled people. We've got to throw the book at these people.
CLINTON MAYNARD: Absolutely and but I just, I think we need to give the public some confidence that in two years’ time, or three years’ time, or a certain specified period of time that this isn't going to be going on anymore, because it's not a new problem. You admitted that, Senator, this was happening yes, in the four years of your term of Government, the previous Coalition's term of Government, as well.
JENNY MCALLISTER: Under the previous Government, we had a previous Commissioner at the Quality and Safeguards Commission estimate that the rate of fraud and leakage was somewhere in the order of 15 to 20 percent. The estimate now is in the order of 8.3 percent. Now, we are making progress, but I'm not going to say job done. There is more to do, and it's why we're taking the steps that we are to bring through new measures in the budget.
CLINTON MAYNARD: Still a lot more to do. Thank you for your time, Minister.
JENNY MCALLISTER: Thanks for having me. Clinton.