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Australian Government Minister Bill Schoten has vowed to put an end to fraud that is damaging the Federal Government’s National Disability Insurance System (NDIS). This costs more than $ 1.5 billion ($ 1.06 billion) annually.
The announcement will be made later report According to Herald Sun on Sunday, criminal organizations are targeting NDIS, obtaining personal information about Australians and creating false invoices, inflated invoices, and ghost payments. I did. The Australian Crime Information Commission states that 5% of the $ 29 billion ($ 20.54 billion) plan was lost in fraud.
Talk to ABC Insider Program On Sunday, Shorten said these were “the same people of organized crime who were robbing family day care plans.”
“There is little more sneaky in life than a scammer who is supposed to go to the disabled makes money,” he said.
“I definitely want to see all the options on the table to ensure the protection of taxpayers’ money,” Schoten added, adding that NDIS is “the only lifeboat in the ocean for Australians with disabilities.” explained.
Introduced in 2013 by then-Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard, NDIS currently covers support services for 580,000 Australians and is projected to be cared for by the National Disability Insurance Agency by 2030. It has been.
Initially, the program cost $ 22 billion annually, but is now projected to cost $ 59 billion by 2029-30.
Shorten, the new minister of NDIS Said An Australian who wants to keep NDIS’s spiral cost trajectory in check, but wants more Australians to be covered by this plan.
But Terry Burns, a former senior adviser to two federal health ministers under coalition Prime Minister John Howard, warned that it would be impossible for the federal government to “give all wishes” when it comes to health care funding. ..
“Always,’you can spend $ 1 billion here, $ 1 billion there,’ or’you can, you can’,” he told The Epoch Times on April 22. Our healthcare. We are not looking at it overall. “
Mr Burns said that part of the problem is that voting people are accustomed to seeing health care “in terms of quantity, not quality,” and that political parties are hesitant to participate in a tough debate on this issue. I said that.
“Discussing it means blame and responsibility, and no one wants to go that way,” he said.
NDIS currently costs taxpayers more than Medicare, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison argued in a discussion at the People’s Forum on April 20 that NDIS is “worthy of an investment.”
“Each person with a disability is different … you need to tailor the program to each person,” said the former Prime Minister.
However, the central right coalition government has introduced reforms to streamline NDIS in an effort to make it more financially sustainable.
While helping people with disabilities, the program exacerbates costs, including unlimited grants, a broader list of people with disabilities including mental health issues, and a wide range of services including access to sex worker services for people with disabilities. He was criticized for design flaws.
Mr. Shorten now accuses the former administration of creating “bureaucratic formalism and a maze of waste” and “administrative nightmares” in its rationalization efforts.
“But they left a welcome mat in the back door. I don’t think there was enough in the system sense or chasing individual scammers and syndicates to stop the scam.”
Daniel Y. Teng contributed to this report.
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Nina Nguyen is a Sydney-based reporter. She covers Australian news with a focus on social, cultural and identity issues. She is fluent in Vietnamese. Contact her at [email protected].
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