RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am

The creation of the $14 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme completely overhauled the way Australians accessed disability services. But after years of careful manoeuvring, the Coalition government is laying the groundwork to make radical changes to the NDIS. The revised system could make it harder for people to access the scheme and get the support they need.

Today, Rick Morton, on the Coalition’s bid to reshape the NDIS and what it means for those who rely on it.

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RUBY:

Rick, can you start by telling me about how this story fell into place for you?

RICK:

It was actually one of those rare moments in journalism where I had to take a step back and look at the full picture.

RUBY:

Rick Morton is The Saturday Paper’s senior reporter.

RICK:

I've been covering the National Disability Insurance Scheme for more than seven years now. And I kind of had to essentially zoom out on this chessboard and look at all the individual pieces that had been put in play over the last seven years. And it finally hit me when I sat down with all of the documents and kind of this past knowledge of things that had happened within the scheme.

RUBY:

So, Rick, can we go back to the beginning here? How did the NDIS come into being?

Archival tape — Julia Gillard

“Speaker, few actions in public life give me greater pleasure than introducing the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill does today.”

RICK:

Well, it was Julia Gillard. It was her legacy as Prime Minister, who, as you know, she legislated the disability scheme in 2013.

Archival tape — Julia Gillard

“The Scheme to be established by this Bill will transform the lives of people with disability, their families and carers.”

RICK:

And we all know that she was under attack both from within her party and from without during her entire Prime Ministership. And this was a huge deal to be able to get a landmark reform that does not exist anywhere else in the world, written into the laws of this nation.

Archival tape — Julia Gillard

“this Bill will inscribe in our laws a substantial and enduring reform that will fundamentally change the nature of disability care and support in this nation.”

RICK:

And the really important thing I think to note here for our purposes is that at the same time, she legislated the funding of the NDIS from a Medicare levy rise and that money was stashed away in the Disability Care Australia Fund.

Archival tape — Julia Gillard

“And we will continue to work with the States and Territories, with people with disability, their families, carers and advocates.”

RICK:

That money was there for the states to keep them involved in the NDIS. She wanted them to remain co-partners and she wanted them to remain committed to that cause. And so when they met, you know, some of their key milestones in the transition to the NDIS, you know, putting their existing disability service clients into the NDIS, signing the bilateral agreements early on, and then signing the full agreement for full scheme rollout. When they met all of those criteria, the money that was held in that fund would become available to the states. So that was essentially their pay date, you know, and their reward for doing what was right by people with disabilities.

Archival tape — Julia Gillard

“The National Disability Insurance Scheme represents a transformational approach to the provision of disability services in this country. Rather than attempt to patch and mend the existing system through further incremental change, we will build a new system from the ground up.”

RICK:

The problem was that she didn't get to write what was in the full scheme agreements because she, as we all know, she lost government. And then the coalition came to power. So the coalition were the ones in power, were able to craft what was in the full scheme agreements. And they used those agreements. They used the states wanting that money to insert a clause into those agreements, which essentially handed back significant control over the future of the NDIS to the Commonwealth.

RUBY:

Mm. OK, and so what is the significance of that, Rick? Of the Commonwealth essentially making states sign over control in return for being able to access these funds?

RICK:

It's really hard to understate the seismic nature of this shift for the NDIS and the decision making power that it has concentrated in the hands of the Federal government. I guess the biggest example of the way that this would happen is through the changes the Commonwealth has proposed to outsource independent functional assessments in the scheme. That's what we're talking about now, and that's what they want to introduce next year.

RUBY:

OK, can you tell me about that? What are these assessments and what are the changes that the government wants to make to them?

RICK:

Look, in theory at least, functional capacity assessments are the backbone of the NDIS. The scheme was designed it was actually written into legislation to ensure that support is provided based on a person's needs and not their diagnosis. So essentially, you know, it shouldn't matter whether you're considered to be a wheelchair user or whether you've got autism or an intellectual disability or fragile X syndrome.

It doesn't matter what the label is. All they need to do to assess you for the NDIS is to look at you as a person and say what kind of support can we offer you that allows you to live, work and play in the community and see your loved ones like every other Australian. So that's what they call a functional assessment. And what the Commonwealth wants to do is to outsource those assessments, but also, crucially, change the way they are done. So it severs the link between what in many cases has been, you know, a doctor or a treating health care professionals relationship with a person with a disability.

You know, that relationship has existed in many cases for decades. So someone who's never met you before will come to where you are to meet you for half an hour, maybe an hour, and then decide based on that, not only whether you get into the NDIS, but how much money you receive once you're in there. And that's that's a crucial issue because they worry that this will build chronic underinsurance into the system. And the concern is basically that this is a way for the government to cut down on funding for the scheme, to pare back costs, to maintain a much narrower scope of disability service than what was envisaged. I spoke to Bill Shorten, the Labor spokesman on the NDIS.

Archival tape — Rick Morton

“Hello can you hear me properly?”

Archival tape — Bill Shorten

“I certainly can.”

RICK:

And, you know, and he told me he's worried the proposed changes would just make it more difficult for people to claim

Archival tape — Bill Shorten

“There is a faction within the government who just simply want to reduce the costs and make it hard to claim.”

RICK:

And and that, he said, risks undermining the entire system.

Archival tape — Bill Shorten

“They risk losing the confidence of people in the system. And that would be a disaster.”

RICK:

And he said the timing of these proposed changes has raised suspicions about the government's motivation.

Archival tape — Bill Shorten

“This is a government who does a lot of things very slowly. But on this one, they've been rushing and it is perplexing and that creates anxiety”.

RICK:

And people are now worried that the intentions of the government and the agency are not what they say they are and that their lives will change for the worse and that this is just one big kind of Trojan horse, essentially, to get bigger, more wide ranging and more kind of palpably significant reforms through the parliament.

RUBY:

We'll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Rick, the Federal government is trying to change the way that people can access the NDIS by using these new independent assessors. Can you tell me more about what is driving that change?

Archival tape — Unidentified Man 1

“Ready to go? All right. I declare open this hearing of the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee.”

RICK:

To understand some of the motivation, I think we need to go back to what was revealed during a Senate estimates hearing in 2018.

Archival tape — Carol Brown

“The Department and the National Disability Insurance Agency are working together to ensure the National Disability Insurance Scheme continues to make a difference in the lives of people with disability, their families and their carers.”

RICK:

In that estimated hearing in June, Labour Senator Carol Brown surprised agency bosses with questions about what she called Operation Greenlight, and they were clearly caught off guard.

Archival tape — Carol Brown

“When is it due to start the process?”

Archival tape — Rob De Luca

“You know, I don't know the exact date... we were looking at piloting how...”

RICK:

So the agency leaders scrambled to explain this concept. And in doing so, it is very rare, ended up speaking quite plainly

Archival tape — Rob De Luca

“While it's about making sure that the right people get into the scheme that deserve to be in the scheme and get the reasonable and necessary supports.”

RICK:

And they said this Operation Greenlight or Project Greenlight, as they also called it, is about making sure the right people get into the scheme who are eligible for the scheme.

Archival tape — Rob De Luca

“So it's about access decisions and ensuring that the scheme is set up to service those who should be in the scheme.”

RICK:

That was Rob De Luca, the then Chief Executive Officer of the NDIA.

Archival tape — Rob De Luca

“Do you expect that Operation Green Light will see a reduction in expense to the agency or a levelling off of the growth of expense of the agency?”

RICK:

And in the same hearing, the agency staff were peppered with these questions about what had been an apparently accidental change made to what they call access lists of conditions. Now, these lists automatically qualify people for entry to the NDIS if your condition is on that list.

Archival tape — Rob De Luca

“The key focus for us from a sustainability perspective is a number of things where we need to continue to monitor; making sure we've got the right people in the scheme with the right packages.”

RICK:

So collectively, it feels like these changes are about limiting the amount of people who can access the system and therefore saving money. And although since the scheme began, the government has worried about its cost. You know, former arrangements for collective governance worried the bean counters that the scheme governing agency, as well as successive Commonwealth ministers.

And that's because in almost every case where there is a cost overrun or a cost blow-out in the NDIS, it's the Australian government, according to all of the bilateral agreements, it's the Australian government that is responsible for 100 percent of the cost overrun. So that essentially means if the scheme goes over budget, it's the Commonwealth that pays, not the states and territories.

RUBY:

Right okay, so these changes the Commonwealth wants to make, which seem to be about reducing the cost of the scheme, are they likely to become a reality soon? Is this a done deal?

RICK:

Despite the sector opposition to the change, independent assessments are in essence a fait accompli. They've already decided that they're going to happen. But in order to carry out the proposal, the Commonwealth needs to amend the NDIS act. That's the 2013 Act that was legislated by Julia Gillard. At the moment, the system they are proposing does not have legal grounding. So while the government has not revealed what elements of the legislation will need to change or what new rules would need to be passed, it is clear that rules relating to Section 35 of the NDIS act are amongst them.

Now, what's interesting about this is that Section 35 actually allows rules to be made by the Federal government that may prescribe methods or criteria or other matters which the NDIS Chief Executive must consider when determining reasonable and necessary supports or general supports that will be funded or provided under the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It also allows the government to decide what reasonable and necessary supports will or will not be funded or provided.

RUBY:

So Rick does that mean, then, that the changes to assessments that the government's moving on at the moment could just be the beginning of the changes that it wants to make to the NDIS?

RICK:

That is the fear, you know, if the government rewrites the legislation governing how rules are made by moving the Section 35 power to Category D, as they call it, that this will require only that each state and territory be consulted in relation to the making of the rules. So in theory, once this is done, any Commonwealth minister will be able to bend whatever they like under the scheme and the states and territories will not be able to stop it. So this will be the final step in giving all significant control of the NDIS to the Federal Minister. And this is what has been a long project for them, because even just a couple of years ago, any state could veto such a rule and now they've lost that power.

RUBY:

And so Rick is this all about money or is there a bigger agenda here from the Federal government to fundamentally reshape the NDIS, potentially even dismantle it?

RICK:

Look, I think it's more complicated than that. But there is what I would call an ideological struggle between what the NDIS was set up to do, which was to be a rights-based scheme where people get access to uncapped funding to support them, to live a reasonable and necessary kind of life in the community, just like you and I. And since the beginning, disabled people have learnt that nice promises have a habit of turning sour in the real world unless they fight. And that is the only thing they trust.

Now, even if they were not serious questions about whether the changes will work in favour of participants, trust in the system has been brittle for years. You know, thousands have had support stripped or reduced only to have the decisions completely reversed by competent tribunals and courts.

And they're left to join the dots of the other policy prescriptions and they see a bid for control. That's what it is. It's a bid for control of the scheme and the very future of the NDIS they fought for.

RUBY:

Rick, thank you so much for your time today.

RICK:

Thanks Ruby, I appreciate it.

RUBY:

You can read more of Rick Morton’s reporting on the NDIS in The Saturday Paper.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has apologised for failings in the lead-up to the Christchurch terrorist attacks, following the release of a Royal Commission report. The report found that counterterrorism officials at the time were preoccupied with Islamic extremism, and failed to fully investigate the threat of right-wing extremism. But it also found that police and counterterrorism authorities could not have been alerted about the attack beforehand, because the signs were “fragmentary” and could not be put together at the time. The report recommends a raft of legislative changes, including criminalising planning or preparing a terrorist attack, and strengthening laws around hate speech.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.