Bill Shorten, Minister for the NDIS, has failed to take any action regarding the $billions being stolen from the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) every year even though he says he has known it has been going on for a long time so much so he continually warned the previous government about the fraud and theft.
Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission CEO Michael Phelan estimates the fraud and theft could be up to 20% of the $30 billion annual cost which puts the total amount stolen from the public purse at $6 billion.
Bill Shorten is the Labor Party’s version of Angus Taylor and if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party don’t take action to make sure Shorten and his crime gang don’t steal from the public purse the Labor Party could have several Ministers under investigation by the new Federal ICAC in the next few years.
Bill Shorten did an interview on the Sixty Minutes program last Sunday and below is a video where Bill Shorten admits he has known for a long time fraud has been going on with the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) but he had so far failed to take any action.
Incoming governments are meant to have policies and plans but Bill Shorten had no policy or plan on how to deal with the fraud at the NDIS. Nor does Shorten mention being briefed on the matter by his department which is very odd, to say the least, given the fraud was such an issue that Shorten raised it numerous times with previous NDIS ministers in the coalition government over several years.
(Click here to watch the full Sixty Minutes story on the NDIS fraud)
Bill Shorten’s background
I have been investigating and writing about Bill Shorten since 2012 and he has a reputation for ripping off some of the lowest-paid workers in Australia when he was Secretary of the Victorian Branch of the AWU from 1998 to 2007 and National Secretary of the AWU from 2001 to 2007.
Bill Shorten is someone who has no morals or ethics and could be best described as the Labor Party’s version of the Liberal Party’s Angus Taylor. You can read the articles I have written about Shorten by clicking here or using the search box at the top right of this page but below are a few of Shorten’s lowlights:
2022: Bill Shorten and Andrew Landeryou weaponize the death of Kimberley Kitching to blackmail Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party (Click here to read)
2019: Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s proven failure as PM versus Bill Shorten’s dirty laundry (Click here to read more)
2018: Bill Shorten’s Labor Party deliberately leaked investigation sex allegations about Emma Husar to end her career (Click here to read more)
2017: Bill Shorten’s cronies charged by police for trying to rig a seat in 2016 Federal Election (Click here to read)
2016: Bill Shorten’s supporters given warning by federal authority to stop stealing from HSU members (Click here to read more)
2015: Royal Commission witness Edward Lockeyer told police he bribed Bill Shorten $40,000 (Click here to read more)
2014: Bill Shorten’s mystery woman. His spy in the Police Minister’s office and the links to the HSU fraud (Click here to read more)
2013: Bill Shorten accused of raping 16-year-old girl in 1986. Victorian police are investigating (Click here to read more)
2012: Has Bill Shorten gotten one of his staff members Pregnant? Shorten calls the lawyers. (Click here to read more)
Once again I will re-enforce the above video has Bill Shorten saying that while in opposition he warned a number of NDIS ministers that they are not doing enough about fraud at the NDIS but in the 3 months he has been in power he’s done nothing. He didn’t even say he has had one meeting on the issue.
NDIS written response
NDIS responded to written questions from 60 Minutes and said:
“An independent report (compiled by Ernst and Young) commissioned by the Attorney-General’s Department estimated the cost of reported and unreported fraud and error against the Commonwealth as likely to be between 3 and 5.95 per cent. The NDIA is unaware of any report suggesting ’15 to 20 per cent’ of Scheme funding may be lost to fraud and wastage.” (Click here to read more)
If the NDIS is right and the fraud is between 3 and 5.95 per cent then it is between $900 million and $1.8 billion per year which still requires a public inquiry to get to the bottom of it.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party need to act
The biggest threat to the Labor Party is themselves and if rusted on Labor Party supporters think turning a blind eye to Bill Shorten will work then they are wrong as those days are long past as the last federal election showed us.
If Labor thinks it’s their turn to govern and act accordingly then they will also lose seats to Community Independents at the next federal election.
Corruption in politics has to stop and on the Labor side at the federal level Bill Shorten is at the heart of it and the Labor Party needs to take action fast otherwise in a year or two the federal Labor Party will be embroiled in corruption scandals the same as the Liberal and Nationals are now.
Bill Shorten hasn’t stayed in politics because he wants to help others it’s because he wants to help himself to the public’s purse which as it currently stands, and as the Liberal Party and National Party have proven, is able to be done almost without accountability or punishment. But a true and just federal ICAC could change that fast.
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Categories: Anthony Albanese, Bill Shorten
I emailed Bill Shorten regarding a friend’s NDIS funding being put in categories he could not access, not for EXTRA funding. That was passed on to NDIA who replied to me in part – “…I understand that you are also requesting for the Minister to make a new decision approve SDA funding into (your friend’s) plan, however this cannot be done. There are certain processes that need to be followed in order for funded supports to be included into a participants plan, including meeting the reasonable and necessary criteria.
AND YET HE INTERVENED PERSONALLY FOR SOMEONE ELSE!!!
“…NDIS Minister Bill Shorten has personally intervened to end a long-running funding dispute between a Tasmanian grandmother and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA)…”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-19/bill-shorten-intervenes-to-end-ndia-funding-dispute/101346254
It took the 7.30 report for him to do anything. The bureaucrats need to pass things on or they should be sacked.
Ha. I’m going to presume the writer has no love for Bill Shorten. And although I dont disagree with some of the comments, its all a bit too simplistic to insinuate that there’s something ‘dodgy’ going on. As a long time but now retired APS worker, I’m very familiar with the degree of oversight & diligence that exists to ensure that public funds are accounted for in the child care sector, having worked for DHS (Centrelink) for 30 years . BUT the writer needs to factor in that although the Fed LNP made promises that it would honour the NDIS scheme, when Labor lost the election back 9 years ago, the picture they had of what the NDIS would look like was very different to Labors vision. So it was implemented with very little robustness in its checks & balances to ensure that businesses were accountable for spending of ‘tax payers money’. I mean why would the Fed LNP curtail these businesses from turning a quick profit when many new business would be owned by LNP supporters ? My understanding is that the Albanese Govt WILL look at rorts and stop them. BUT its not just that. The whole NDIS needs attention, right from the start to begining. And it also needs to be delivering services too, whilst a far ranging, in depth review is taking place .
Wasn’t the NDIS setup to be a vehicle for fraud? Desperate people who must approach the government through a middle tier of sharks and grifters. Just like the vocational education scams of (not so) old and very close to the way the private job agencies, aged care and superannuation industries work. Any money arriving at the end user means money lost to the middle tier.
Shane has summed up Shorten pretty well. But there is much more.
1) While he was Victorian Australian Workers Union (AWU) Secretary he dudded the lowly paid Chiquita mushroom by a deal with the company cut their entitlements and for some of the savings donated to the AWU.
Chiquita Mushroom workers say they were in the dark and dudded by Bill Shorten’s union
By Anna Patty. October 21, 2015 — 6.35pm https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/chiquita-mushroom-workers-say-they-were-in-the-dark-and-dudded-by-bill-shortens-union-20151021-gkep7j.html
Four women who worked as mushroom pickers have told the royal commission into union corruption they were kept in the dark about an employment deal Labor leader Bill Shorten oversaw that lowered wages in return for unusual payments to the union he led at the time.
The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption has been probing the Australian Workers Union’s deal with Victorian mushroom grower Chiquita Mushrooms in the early 2000s, when Mr Shorten was union secretary.
2) when Shorten decided in was time to get into politics, in 2006, he visited Victorian numbers man, George Seitz, now deceased, and said ‘I want to be PM’. So Seitz swung the numbers he controlled behind Shorten as the candidate and told the sitting member for Maribrynong, Bob Sercombe he wouldn’t have Labor’s support.
So Shorten entered parliament in 2007. People criticise Morrison for his entry as a candidate. Shorten is no different. But it is kept quiet.
3) as Rudd wasn’t a member of the dominant Labor right, from early on he was targeted to be removed. From Wikileaks, why Assange is ignored by Labor:
“ Secret US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in December 2010 revealed that “protected sources” of the US embassy were pivotal figures in Gillard’s elevation. For months, key coup plotters, including senators Mark Arbib and David Feeney, and Australian Workers Union (AWU) chief Paul Howes, secretly provided the US embassy with regular updates on internal government discussions and divisions within the leadership.
As early as June 2008, (Rudd was only elected in November 2007) the American ambassador identified Gillard as the “front-runner” to replace Rudd. In October 2009—eight months before the coup—Arbib informed American officials of emerging leadership tensions. Arbib, was a key apparatchik in Labor’s then powerful New South Wales right-wing faction.”
This Arbib connection with the US has been documented by the Sydney Morning Herald.
The coup on 24 June 2010 was organised by Labor’s right faction ‘faceless men’ – Bill Shorten, Don Farrell, David Feeney,…
4) http://www.afr.com Phil Coorey. Faceless men want power in Labor, not Labor in power
24 June 2020 — Tears after the coup: Deposed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2010. …
In another interview Don Farrell said he would do it again to make sure the Labor right was in charge. Albanese is only a figurehead, Shorten will be deciding Labor policy.
5) Shorten and Gillard kept all Howard’s policies when Gillard gained the PM role in 2010. He is a big supporter of business and I would quite believe he won’t come chasing any companies who ripped off the taxpayers with the NDIS. Do they donate to the Labor Party?
6) And unlikely he will go after the $40billion out of the $100billion of Jobkeeper given by Morrison and Frydenberg to businesses, private schools, churches who didn’t drop their income to the loss threshold set by the government.
https://www.afr.com › rear-window. Joe Aston
JobKeeper wasted $40 billion, not $27 billion, but who’s counting? – AFR
Dumped on Monday, October 11, when everyone was watching Freedom Day.
All of the major newspapers dutifully reported that between April and September 2020, $27 billion in JobKeeper was paid to recipients who didn’t experience a 30 per cent turnover decline.
If only $27 billion was all it was!
On page 40 of the report, Treasury explains that its analysis is based upon a $47.6 billion sample of the $70.3 billion paid in the first phase of JobKeeper. For reasons that are arguably flimsy and inarguably self-serving, Treasury’s analysis excluded all of the JobKeeper paid to not-for-profits like rich private schools and stadium churches and to subsidiaries of consolidated groups like Specsavers and Harvey Norman…..
He would fit well in the Liberal Party.
Didn’t Rudd’s missus pocket a 100 million from running a racket, sorry business, finding employment for the disabled, etc? There are grifters in all the parties.
Imagine where a trillion dollars in the nuclear subs fiasco, sorry project, will go!
Run a bolted on two party system for a century, and it will be overflowing with piglets!
Ingeus Limited, was developed by Therese Rein, wife of ex PM Rudd, is a British-based, Australian provider of employment and health programmes, services for young people, training and skills support, Labour hire and probation services.
She was awarded the Human Rights Medal by the Australian Human Rights Commission in December 2010 for her long-term dedication to human rights, especially the rights of people with disability. After her husband was removed from the PM role by the Labor right faction.
The Labor right and Murdoch media would not want this known.
To add more to my earlier post, Gillard belonged to the Labor left, but to accept the PM role she would need to support the Labor right agenda.
Which was not to increase Newstart from $35/day. And we know even to the 2019 election Shorten didn’t want to either. Remove single parents from extra benefits when their youngest child reached age 8. And criticise Rudd’s spending to get Australia through the GFC.
Labor’s priority was a budget surplus, the Liberals policy as well, meaning many middle and lower income people’s needs would be ignored.
Behind the scenes he will working with his mate Bill to dethrone Antony and have himself as PM… no doubt. His aim has always been to be Prime Minister just like Matthew Guy who told people at his high school that one day he will be Victorian Priemer.