New NDIS Minister Bill Shorten will demand an urgent explanation from his agency about the massive number of participants fighting funding cuts, describing the process they’re being put through as “horrific” and “obscene”.
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten. Picture: Elesa Kurtz
Mr Shorten has inherited the portfolio amid soaring numbers of participants challenging cuts to their funding in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
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The government has spent almost $42 million in legal costs fighting cases in the past 10 months alone.
There were more than 1580 new cases in the tribunal in the March quarter, a near 240 per cent hike from the corresponding period last year.
Mr Shorten said he would seek answers about the huge caseload in his first meetings with agency officials after being sworn into the role as part of Anthony Albanese’s new ministry.
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with ACM, the former Labor leader also ruled out reviving independent assessments and revealed he was planning to convene sector leaders in the next fortnight to ramp up preparations ahead of a predicted winter surge in COVID-19 cases.
But Mr Shorten refused to be drawn on the future of agency boss Martin Hoffman, who he was highly critical of while in opposition.
“I’m not going to decide that [Mr Hoffman’s future] in a newspaper article,” he said.
“I think it’s only fair to the senior leadership within the agency that I talk to them [first]. But my general track record is I can work with just about anyone.”
Mr Shorten has refused to be drawn on the future of NDIA boss Martin Hoffman. Picture: Dion Georgopoulos
Mr Shorten said he was concerned the agency was making decisions using “retrospective logic”, whereby participants were being forced to go through the tribunal in order to secure appropriate funding.
“That’s not the way to do it. That’s just a horrific process, it is just obscene,” he said.
Mr Shorten said reducing case numbers was among his first priorities in the new role.
Asked to respond to Mr Shorten’s comments, an agency spokeswoman said there had been “good early discussions with the [new] minister and [it was] committed to working with him on the matter”.
The surge in tribunal cases coincided with widespread reports of participants having their funding reduced, in some cases against the advice of their independent medical experts.
The previous government repeatedly denied cuts were being made to the scheme, pointing to growth in overall spending on participants.
Labor has vowed to stop “unfair” funding cuts as part of its six-point plan to overhaul the NDIS.
The new government has also committed to reviewing the “excessive” use of external lawyers, crack down on fraud and boost staff numbers at the agency.
One of the architects of the NDIS, Mr Shorten is for the first time in charge of the scheme he helped design.
Labor’s election win and Mr Shorten’s swearing in as NDIS minister has been welcomed across the disability sector, which had largely lost faith in the Coalition government.
The aborted plan to subject participants to independent assessments and the bungled vaccine rollout were among the factors which contributed to a breakdown in trust.
New NDIS minister Bill Shorten believes it’s possible to improve the scheme’s budget bottom line without “throwing people with a disability under a bus”. Picture: Elesa Kurtz
Mr Shorten said restoring trust was his single biggest priority in the coming months.
The new minister has asked his department to brief him on the “absolute best practice” for preparing the disability community ahead of an expected spike in COVID-19 cases through winter.
There are close to 5200 active cases among NDIS participants and support workers, according to the latest Health Department figures.
Former Morrison government minsters had warned the NDIS was at risk of becoming financially unsustainable as participant numbers and costs soared over recent years.
The scheme will cost $44.5 billion in 2025-26 according to forecasts in the Coalition’s final budget.
The new minister said although he wasn’t “convinced” those numbers were accurate, he wouldn’t ignore them.
He said the scheme’s budget bottom line could be improved “without throwing people with a disability under the bus”.
“We need to look under the hood and see what’s happening,” he said.
“But I have no doubt that there is some waste and there’s some incompetence.”
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