CRAIG REUCASSEL: Morning, Minister.
JENNY MCALLISTER: Good morning.
CRAIG REUCASSEL: So, what is this Parliamentary Inquiry looking into?
JENNY MCALLISTER: Well, this is a world-leading Scheme. It is an incredible human rights achievement and it has to operate with integrity and the shonks, grifters, fraudsters and crooks do think that they can get away with stealing from people with disability and we can't let that continue. So, I wrote to the Chair of the Standing Committee and asked her to initiate an inquiry into this issue. We've taken a lot of steps since coming to Government, made very significant investments in improving our capacity to detect, prosecute, disrupt fraudulent activity, but there's more work to do and I'm looking forward to the important work that the Committee will do today.
CRAIG REUCASSEL: Isn't this a pretty late response? I mean, there has been stories about fraud in the NDIS going around for years. There's been stories on Four Corners, there's been stories on 60 Minutes, there’s been stories online. You know, there are a lot of people texted in with stories from their own life when we were talking about this. Is this a bit late to the party?
JENNY MCALLISTER: When we came to Government, the ANAO has said there were almost no compliance mechanisms in place at all around this Scheme. And that is obviously unacceptable and, frankly, criminally negligent on the part of the previous Liberal Government. There were, at the time we came to Government, around 30 people working on these issues in the NDIA. There are now around 500. We've made really significant investments in standing up the Fraud Fusion Taskforce and that's meant an increasing tempo of investigations, warrant activity, prosecutions. Just this year, we've seen four people receive custodial sentences. In one case, six years imprisonment for defrauding the NDIS but we're now at a point where we need to take the next steps. Our first term was about establishing the arrangements for compliance and enforcement. We now need to stop this activity before it begins. And that's the focus of some of the changes that Minister Butler announced last week at the Press Club.
CRAIG REUCASSEL: So this Parliamentary Inquiry, it's in Canberra. Who will be appearing before it?
JENNY MCALLISTER: They've called a range of witnesses and importantly, of course, today they'll be hearing from the agencies who are responsible for looking after these issues within the Scheme. I expect the NDIA, the Quality and Safeguards Commission and the Department to provide evidence about some of the things that have already been put in place to tackle these issues, but also to provide the Committee with further information about what's planned, what are the next steps.
CRAIG REUCASSEL: I'm kind of a lot more interested in where people in the community can report abuses of the NDIS because when we spoke about this after Mark Butler's speech last week, we got a lot of texts, we got a lot of calls from people who reported certain abuse that they'd seen. Now, we're not saying this is from people who are opposed to the NDIS. It was actually often from people who were in favour of the NDIS, who actually use the NDIS. It came from disabled people who had had troubles with it. What are the methods for those people who are on the front line of this to get their voice heard in this?
JENNY MCALLISTER: We have a tip-off line and in fact as at March this year the NDIA has assessed more than 88,000 tip-offs that we've received since the start of the Fraud Fusion Task Force. It's a really important source of intelligence for our public servants who work on these questions. Like you, we hear from people with disability themselves, but we also hear from the many thousands of very good providers out there. People that get up every morning, do their best to provide high quality supports to help people with disability live independent lives. They're mortified by the presence of these bad actors in the system. They're highly motivated to identify them and report them and we're very grateful for those people who make that effort.
CRAIG REUCASSEL: So if people want to do it, what is the NDIS tip-off line? What should they call if they have had concerns?
JENNY MCALLISTER: The Quality and Safeguards Commission can be called on 1800 035 544.
CRAIG REUCASSEL: Do you have any sense of how many complaints you've got through this tip-off line and how many of them have been followed up? What percentage have been followed up?
JENNY MCALLISTER: Yes, so I indicated 88,000 tip-offs since the start of the Fraud Fusion Taskforce back in November 2022. The Taskforce currently has 660 investigations that are underway. It's referred 59 people to court and we are seeing increasing numbers of criminal prosecution.
CRAIG REUCASSEL: Yeah okay so and in terms of this actual Parliamentary Inquiry at the moment, when does this finish? Is there a conclusion? Is there a report that's followed up and when does it end?
JENNY MCALLISTER: I'm hopeful that the Taskforce will report in a fairly timely way. We're really interested in the evidence that they'll collect and I'm very grateful to the Committee for taking this on and getting started so quickly. It'll be up to them when they report but I'm hopeful to get some indication from them by around the end of June.
CRAIG REUCASSEL Alright, wonderful. Well, if you're involved in it, there is the tip-off line but you can also watch and see what happens before the Parliamentary Inquiry before Canberra today. Thanks for speaking to us, Minister. Appreciate it.
JENNY MCALLISTER: Thanks, Craig.