‘It’s a simple question’: Ally loses patience

The government minister responsible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Bill Shorten, has defended his record in a heated interview with A Current Affair.

Mr Shorten, a former leader of the Labor Party, appeared on the Channel 9 program on Monday night. His interview was preceded by a story outlining complaints against an NDIS provider named Denise Clissold.

“He’s been dodging us for months,” ACA host Ally Langdon said of Mr Shorten.

“NDIS Minister Bill Shorten finally fronts. And I’ve got plenty of your questions.”

Langdon confronted Mr Shorten regarding providers that “owe the system millions of dollars” while their clients are “left on the street”.

“Concerns were raised about this woman with the NDIS Commission months ago. She hasn’t been banned. Now, clearly she should lose her job – and some might say the same about you,” Langdon said.

“I don’t know where you get to that conclusion, the second part, Ally, but I guess it’s your job to say that,” Mr Shorten replied.

“It’s my job to make sure that these crooks and scallywags are not part of the NDIS. The reality is, that interview you showed makes my blood boil.

“These people are being investigated. I’d love to tell you that I can click my fingers and ban all the bad people tonight. That would be the best outcome. But we’ve got to go through due process.

“At the same time that you contacted us about this shocking example, I immediately contacted our regulators and I said, ‘What are we doing about this?’ And they said they were already investigating it. There are investigations underway.

“This conduct – we’ve got to prove it. I think you’ve done a pretty good job there. So that’s very good, thank you very much.”

“What you’re saying then is that she can take on vulnerable clients until you finish this investigation, which could take months. I mean, who knows how long?” said Langdon.

“Aren’t we protecting the wrong person here?”

“I’m not protecting them,” Mr Shorten said.

“But she’s not banned. She’s not even suspended, Minister,” the host responded.

“Yes, you said that before, and I got that,” said Mr Shorten.

“I’m saying to you that I’ve gone to our investigators and said, ‘It seems like a pretty open and shut case.’ And they’ve said, ‘Minister, we’ve got to go through the processes.’

“But the fact of the matter is, what we saw with this person, I don’t think is an isolated example. When I became the minister two years ago, I was shocked by the fact that there was very little attention paid to fraud detection, catching crooks, getting rid of them.

“In the last two years, we’ve doubled the number of investigators. We’ve put in – there were no systems to catch people. There was no way to check if claims were being inflated, duplicated or indeed ghosted.

“The tools that we had upon me becoming minister were not adequate to adequately police the scheme, so we’re putting through changes in parliament as we talk to improve the detection and prevention of fraud.”

“So do you think the NDIS is in good shape right now?” Langdon asked.

“I think the truth is that, for a lot of people, it’s changing lives and doing a great job. I think for some people, it’s not delivering that,” Mr Shorten answered.

“And I think that the truth is that a majority of service providers are probably doing the right thing, but there’s a minority who seem to view it as their god-given right to fleece disabled people, investors, taxpayers, and they’re not – they’re in it for themselves.”

“But if you can’t even put a stop to a provider like the one we just explained in this story, I would suggest then that the system is failing,” Langdon countered.

Mr Shorten argued that the number of investigations, and the people staffing them, had risen markedly since he took on the role.

“The other thing I have to say, Ally, and this might go against a little bit of your gotcha sort of style of journalism – this argument that these cases mean that the scheme is wrecked, the scheme is not wrecked,” he said.

“Unfortunately, this great Australian tradition amongst an element of the community who think they’ve got a god-given right to rip off taxpayer money and rip off disabled people, but that is not the whole story.

“I’m grateful for you exposing these matters. I actually mean that. Because it just draws attention to the crooks. But what we also need to do is-”

“But then we can’t even stop the crooks in their tracks,” Langdon interjected. “That’s the fundamental problem with it.”

“That’s not right, Ally,” Mr Shorten responded.

“Ally, merely because an investigation hasn’t convicted people tonight on your show doesn’t mean that we throw away due process. One thing I won’t do is let a crook off, Ally, just to get a quick sound bite here tonight.”

“No no, hang on, you had your go,” he added, as Langdon tried to jump back in.

“You wanted me to get rid of the crooks. I get up every morning and do it. Every morning we chase this down.

“But what we’ve got to do is get the budget. We’ve got that now. Get the people. We’re hiring them. We’ve got to get the proper technology to investigate the claims. And I’ve got to get the laws in place.

“I’m glad you’re interested in this issue. But you know, you had a little dig at me before, that you’ve been chasing me for months to come on the show – you interviewed me 100 times on the Today show when you were there, you never raised the NDIS once.

“This, for me, is not just a nightly TV story. This, for me, is a 24-hour passion.”

“Hang on. You want to take it down this path?” Langdon shot back.

“We’re talking to each other now. And let’s think about the people at home who want answers about the NDIS. What we’re hearing from people writing in: it’s not fast enough. We get emails about the NDIS every single day.”

“That’s a fair point,” Mr Shorten said.

“People are coming to us as a last resort, because they don’t feel the system listens to them,” Langdon concluded.

“But you know what? You actually make a fair point. And I did say earlier, I’m grateful for you exposing this stuff,” Mr Shorten said.

Langdon then pivoted to the revelation, reported on Monday, that Mr Shorten’s speech writer was being paid $310,000 a year. She framed it around the issue of “clamping down on waste and fraud”.

“Is it appropriate that you’re spending more than $620,000 on a speech writer over two years?” she asked him, adding that it was “a bad look”.

“What happened, if you’re referring today, to some sort of cheap Liberal tactic in the parliament-” Mr Shorten said.

Langdon interjected again to ask whether that was an appropriate amount of money to spend on a speech writer.

“It is a simple question. I’m asking about the speech writer,” she said.

“The hiring of a speech writer was done by Service Australia. I had no idea what the payment was,” the Minister said.

“So if you’re trying to link me to that, you know, good luck. The point about it is, the person involved, who’s a speech writer, does a very good job. I’m not responsible for negotiating her contract.

“But the NDIS, which is what you got me on here for – I just want to say to your viewers: I hate the crooks. I helped set up the scheme. These people have no place in it.”