Latest / The Front / Axeman's promise: Mark Butler vows 'no Robo-NDIS’

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Axeman's promise: Mark Butler vows 'no Robo-NDIS’ · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday May nineteen, twenty twenty six. Billionaire businessman and
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Holocaust survivor Sir Frank Lowie is telling the Anti Semitism
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Royal Commission it isn't possible to stop people hating Jews,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: but Australia must stamp out the open expression of racism.
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  Speaker 1: Stephen Rice has an exclusive with Sir Frank live now
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  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au. People with autism
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  Speaker 1: and other disabilities are living in fear over huge reforms
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  Speaker 1: to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. So how does it
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  Speaker 1: feel to be the man wielding the axe? Today? Our
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  Speaker 1: reporter Sarah Eisen joins us with the latest from the
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  Speaker 1: minister in charge of slicing one hundred and ninety billion
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  Speaker 1: dollars and one hundred and sixty five thousand people out
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  Speaker 1: of the NBIS. Sarah's here in just a moment. The
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  Speaker 1: NDIS is a signature labor program, just like Medicare. They're
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  Speaker 1: incredibly proud of it, but now Labour has to slash
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  Speaker 1: it really hard to make sure that it doesn't completely
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  Speaker 1: take over the federal budget. Sarah Eisen is the Australian
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  Speaker 1: senior political reporter and also our in house expert on
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  Speaker 1: the NDIS. Sarah, you spoke to Health Minister Mark Butler,
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  Speaker 1: who's sitting at the top of this very big reform
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  Speaker 1: that's going to have to happen to the NDIS.
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  Speaker 2: Minister, thank you for your time. What is it like
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  Speaker 2: to be there?
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  Speaker 1: I remember we talked about this before you went to
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  Speaker 1: speak to him, and we were both curious about the
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  Speaker 1: kind of emotional burden I suppose of being the person
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  Speaker 1: who has to slash this program which is a very
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  Speaker 1: important part of the lives of some of Australia's most
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  Speaker 1: vulnerable families, people who really need this program as well
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  Speaker 1: as people who've just come to rely on it. What
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  Speaker 1: was your sense from Mark Butler of how he's carrying
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  Speaker 1: the burden what he has to do.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, he was put in this role as a
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  Speaker 3: fixer and you can see he knows his stuff and
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  Speaker 3: he carries it well.
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  Speaker 2: But after a bit more pressing beyond.
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  Speaker 3: You're proud of the Labor government, You're proud of the work,
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  Speaker 3: but what about you personally?
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  Speaker 2: Are you proud or are you guilty?
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  Speaker 1: Sarah interviewed Mark Butler in Parliament and you can hear
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  Speaker 1: the division bells ringing for a vote in the chamber
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  Speaker 1: as they speak.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I'm proud to be in this portfolio generally, you know, medicare,
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  Speaker 4: the PBS, the NDIES, our age care system. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: they really are fundamental pillars to the sort of society
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  Speaker 4: that we see ourselves as having here in Australia and
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  Speaker 4: what we're so proud of. I've seen the change in
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  Speaker 4: circumstances for these hundreds of thousands of people. I know
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  Speaker 4: how deeply attached to this scheme they are. I also
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  Speaker 4: know frankly, how confronted they are about the prospect of change,
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  Speaker 4: how uncertain, indeed anxious many of them are about this change,
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  Speaker 4: and that's overwhelming sometimes as well.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of fear in the community about who's
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  Speaker 1: going to be kicked off this scheme. That the assessment
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  Speaker 1: is that one hundred and sixty thousand people who would
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  Speaker 1: have otherwise been on the NDIS in the future won't
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  Speaker 1: be on it, and that it needs to account for
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  Speaker 1: nearly one hundred and ninety billion dollars worth of savings
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  Speaker 1: to the budget over the next ten years. One of
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  Speaker 1: the changes that Mark Butler is talking about is first
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  Speaker 1: assessing whether people have family supports before they come on
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  Speaker 1: to the NDIS in the first place. Is that basically
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  Speaker 1: means testing.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's something that Mark Butler has talked about
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  Speaker 3: the things that used to be around it for the
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  Speaker 3: NDAs it's both family. But he had this other example
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  Speaker 3: of your local football club would do this sort of thing,
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  Speaker 3: where now we've got twelve million dollar pot of money
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  Speaker 3: of community and social supports that the taxpayers are funding.
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  Speaker 2: So I think it's about taking into account like are
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  Speaker 2: you living completely.
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  Speaker 3: Alone and have no one in your life that maybe
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  Speaker 3: could quite easily also drive new places or maybe fill
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  Speaker 3: some gaps. Mark Butler has said before for there was
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: life before the NDIS, and that's what he's sort of
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  Speaker 3: trying to reinvigorate when it comes to both philanthropy and
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  Speaker 3: other stuff that really vacated the field because you know,
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  Speaker 3: it wasn't needed as much and the same as some
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  Speaker 3: of those familial relationships and community and all of that
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  Speaker 3: just dried up. Is trying to really re enliven all
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  Speaker 3: of that and get people thinking, again, Okay, my child
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  Speaker 3: has these challenges, now, is it fair enough for the
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  Speaker 3: taxpayer to pay for every time they want to go
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  Speaker 3: to a certain event that they have to be driven
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  Speaker 3: by taxpayer on a transport and accompanied by a certain
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  Speaker 3: person the whole time. Or is it worth having a
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  Speaker 3: conversation about kind of what's fair and what's available outside
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  Speaker 3: of those taxpayer front its supports.
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  Speaker 4: That's going to be a tough change, but it's an
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  Speaker 4: area which is growing frankly, far too fast. We need
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  Speaker 4: to get that growth back down and we need to
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  Speaker 4: see that equality in that area.
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  Speaker 1: There's clearly been a shockingly poor design of the NDAs
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  Speaker 1: and then shockingly poor I would suggest implementation. What is
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  Speaker 1: your sense of how much he feels like he's been
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  Speaker 1: lumped with the burden of fixing something that shouldn't have
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  Speaker 1: been broken in the first place.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there are times I feel like in the last
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  Speaker 3: few months, particularly it is National Press Club address that
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  Speaker 3: he does also talk about being handed the growth targets
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  Speaker 3: by National Cabinet. Now, of course it's something that he
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  Speaker 3: knows and he's been in discussions with the Prime Minister
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  Speaker 3: and people about it. But this idea of the Prime
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  Speaker 3: Minister and the Premier seeing at the table and deciding
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  Speaker 3: on a thing and hardening him this figure and going
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  Speaker 3: all right, and now do it. And so to say
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  Speaker 3: you know I was given or I've been tasked with
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  Speaker 3: is interesting language.
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  Speaker 4: This has been a scheme that's seen frankly, far too
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  Speaker 4: much money wasted and far too much fraud and sharp practice.
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  Speaker 3: So that's a bit of honesty about that bit of
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  Speaker 3: honesty about the fact that there are inherent design flaws
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  Speaker 3: in something that labor created.
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  Speaker 1: I was donne in some of your reporting by the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: amount of money on average that is being spent on
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: each individual plan in the ndis what is that average
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  Speaker 1: and how is it so expensive given that so many
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  Speaker 1: participants do only have, for example, mild to moderate autism.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a hugely varied scheme, so I think
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  Speaker 3: the average plan might be something like sixty seven thousand dollars,
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  Speaker 3: But then you also have plans worth over a million dollars,
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  Speaker 3: and that of course would be for someone who like
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  Speaker 3: this completely immobile needs twenty four hour support modifications to
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  Speaker 3: their home. So it's a huge variation. But what we've
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  Speaker 3: learned is that there is a thing called community and
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  Speaker 3: social supports and participation supports, and so that goes to
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  Speaker 3: things like social outings. It might also be you know,
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  Speaker 3: surfing lessons somewhere, but the average of that is something
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  Speaker 3: like twenty seven thousand dollars or over thirty thousand dollars.
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  Speaker 3: So just that package in people's plan has exploded, and
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  Speaker 3: Mark Butler has seen that and said, well, actually it's
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  Speaker 3: been growing so much that we do need to get
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  Speaker 3: that down from twelve billion a year. That's just on
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  Speaker 3: those kinds of supports, and we need to reduce it
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  Speaker 3: given that on a few years ago it was at
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  Speaker 3: four billion dollars.
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  Speaker 2: Those are the hard questions and I think he's tackling.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things he's also talking about is automated assessment.
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  Speaker 1: Now this rings alarm bells in the mind of everyone
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  Speaker 1: who remembers robodebt, where the government tried to do an
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  Speaker 1: automated matching of people's financial records between one government department
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  Speaker 1: and the next. We saw with robo debt that was
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  Speaker 1: an absolute catastrophe and lots of people who had done
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  Speaker 1: nothing wrong had the stress and the fear and the
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  Speaker 1: financial pain of being penalized for things that they hadn't
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  Speaker 1: done wrong. How does Mark Butler reassure Australians in it
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  Speaker 1: when he's speaking to you about why this is not
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  Speaker 1: going to become the robo ndis.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the automation is about automated decision making, and people
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  Speaker 3: are very worried about that being automated assessments, and so
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  Speaker 3: you trying to get an assessment is now there's no
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  Speaker 3: human as part of that. What he's saying is by
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  Speaker 3: doing this it allows for some really low level administrative tasks.
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  Speaker 2: In the NBAS.
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  Speaker 3: And I don't think people who might not even access
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  Speaker 3: the NBAS, I don't think they're under any illusion about
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  Speaker 3: just how much bureaucracy and so on that there is there.
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  Speaker 3: So he's saying that automated decision making part of legislation
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  Speaker 3: he's brought in to bring that into the NBAS is
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  Speaker 3: meant to do really basic bottom tier stuff, meaning that
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  Speaker 3: you have the expertise to actually focus on some of
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  Speaker 3: the decisions that need much more attention.
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  Speaker 1: He's Sarah's question to the minister.
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  Speaker 3: There is some concern we talk about automative decision making,
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  Speaker 3: robotic comes to mind. Why is that they're given some
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  Speaker 3: of the dangers we've seen in the past.
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  Speaker 4: When it comes to that, Yeah, I think there's real
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  Speaker 4: opportunity to use some of that automation in basic administrative tasks,
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  Speaker 4: rudimentary tasks that frankly, we don't want our very highly
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  Speaker 4: trained public servants doing.
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  Speaker 3: So it's almost saying, because this has happened, we know
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  Speaker 3: what to look out for. Again, the question is it
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  Speaker 3: might not be him, that might be other governments that
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  Speaker 3: this now is in the bill, and some cynics would
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  Speaker 3: say what it allows is for you know, something like robodebt.
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  Speaker 3: It was illegal, whereas this is kind of in legislation.
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  Speaker 3: Does that protect governments in this way? So it's a
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  Speaker 3: very vexed discussion.
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  Speaker 4: But you're right to point out the very recent, painful,
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  Speaker 4: at some times tragic experience that I think we're still
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  Speaker 4: all have in the fun of our mind with robodebt,
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  Speaker 4: and so making sure that we're careful about the risks
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  Speaker 4: that humans are always in the loop in making important decisions.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. So what should worried parents take from all this?
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  Speaker 1: One of the things I was done to learn in
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  Speaker 1: your reportings here about the DIIS as it exists now
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  Speaker 1: is that you can have unlimited reassessments of your program.
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  Speaker 1: So if you have a child who's on the NDIS
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  Speaker 1: right now, and you request a reassessment for whatever reason
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  Speaker 1: that can happen as many times as you like. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: that would impose a massive cost burden on the bureaucracy
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  Speaker 1: to keep doing that. And there may, of course be
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  Speaker 1: good reasons why that needs to happen, especially with children
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: who are growing and maturing, But I doubt many of
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  Speaker 1: those reassessments results in a lower taxpayer spend. What did
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Mark Butler say about the way the new system will
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  Speaker 1: treat that and also trying to get some sort of
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  Speaker 1: consistency across the ndis.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's picked out the reassessment as a huge issue
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  Speaker 3: and pointed to some of the cost blow arts as
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: being pretty much directly related to that. There had been
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  Speaker 3: so many reassessments like eighteen thousand, and as you say,
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  Speaker 3: more than fifty percent of them. Quite a lot of
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: them ended up with more money and more plans. But
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I found the way that he invoked age care as
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: a really good example of what he and the governor
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: trying to do here. He talked about in age care
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: and home care packages, there are nine tiers of funding.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you've got very basic tier one that's ten
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars or so, to the tier nine eighty ninety
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars, and you've got all tiers through that, you're assessed,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: you get into a bracket.
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  Speaker 2: It's clear, it's predictable.
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  Speaker 4: We're not going to that degree of planning obviously in
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: this scheme, but we want to make sure that we
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: have the ability to set budgets rather than having effectively
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: seven hundred and sixty thousand different budgets, we have a
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: little bit more consistency, and so we.
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  Speaker 3: Need to get to something that is reflective, while not
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: exactly the same of how that operates in home care,
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  Speaker 3: in being assessed, having a bracket that is reasonable to
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: expect for funding and for a budget, and then being
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: able to properly plant from their track growth better constrained
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  Speaker 3: growth when needed, all of that and I found that
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  Speaker 3: really interesting point. He brought that up someone unprompted. You know,
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  Speaker 3: I wasn't asking about age K At the same time,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: it makes you realize what's also in his mind as
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: he's looking at how to improve. As I said, what
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  Speaker 3: he calls that predictability that's needed to really make a difference.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: People with autism and the parents of children with autism
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: are probably feeling the most fear right now, as in
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: they're likely to be kicked off this scheme. That's what
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: they think. What would you say to the parents of
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: a child with autism who might be relatively high functioning,
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  Speaker 1: who's doing okays, managing to get to school, about whether
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: they'll be on the NDIS in a few years time.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I think the thing that you know, Butler
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  Speaker 3: and all these other experts have talked about all the
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: time is the NDAs being this lifeboat in the ocean.
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  Speaker 3: It sounds scary when it feels like you're kicking people
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  Speaker 3: off a lifeboat, and of course.
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  Speaker 2: That makes sense.
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  Speaker 3: And right now, if you're on that lifeboat, you can't
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: actually see anything else in that ocean, which we're being
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: told is happening. But you know, a lot of these
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: changes won't come in for at least a couple of years.
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  Speaker 3: We've seen with age care and other things. If it's needed,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: there are delays to make sure that it's not just
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  Speaker 3: a barren wasteland for people who might feel this anxiety.
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  Speaker 3: And it is a huge part of the public discussion.
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  Speaker 3: It's getting a lot of coverage, and you know what
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  Speaker 3: that means is the scrutiny on them getting this right
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  Speaker 3: and on people not feeling like they're being kicked off
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: a life folk to sink is really high, and the
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: debate parliamentary bills and amendments, all of that is going
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: to stay really high so that they and we as
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: a country get this as right as possible for those
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: parents and for everyone.
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  Speaker 1: Really, Sarah Eison, thank you very much, Thank you. Sarah
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Eisen is a senior political reporter with The Australian. To
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: see her full interview with Health Minister Mark Butler, check
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: out The Australian's YouTube channel. Plus for all our expert
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Canberra reporting and analysis, visit the Australian dot com dot
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  Speaker 1: a u