The Labor Party and the Liberal Party / National Party coalition have overseen tens of billions of dollars being stolen from the NDIS, and we know it continues today, with some frank admissions by the Health Minister Mark Butler which raises the question of what the Labor Party have been doing since they came to power in 2022.
Federal MP Mark Butler, who is the Minister for Health and Ageing and Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), gave interviews in August 2025 which are very telling and most media, if not all, failed to pick up on Butler’s key admissions.
Let’s have a look at what Butler said in August 2025 and then look at some of my previous reporting on NDIS fraud and you quickly realise that the NDIS is a massive slush fund for fraudsters that has never been reined in by anyone.
On the 20th of August 2025 Mark Butler was interviewed on the ABC’s 7:30 Report and was asked by the host:
SARAH FERGUSON: I just want to come back to the very difficult issue of fraud in the NDIS. The stories have obviously been, frankly, repulsive, about people taking advantage of this generous system. Are you winning the battle with those shonks and fraudsters taking advantage of the NDIS?
MARK BUTLER: We had to start from scratch. The National Audit Office said before 2024, so the scheme had been running for over a decade, there was effectively no real control on fraud and non-compliance within the NDIS. So, we’ve had to build it up from scratch. Bill Shorten, to his credit, started that work, and already we’ve had hundreds of investigations, search warrants and we are starting to crack down. But we’ve got 260,000 service providers in this scheme, only 16,000 of whom are registered. We’ve precious little line of sight about who they are, what they’re doing, what their qualifications are. We need more work on fraud, and we’ve committed to that again today. But we also, frankly, need a more robust system of provider registration. The sort of which you see in aged care, in veterans’ care, in the health system, and frankly, should exist in the NDIS as well. (Click here to read more)
The key part is “The National Audit Office said before 2024” “there was effectively no real control on fraud and non-compliance within the NDIS”.
So, why did it take the Labor Party from when they won the election in May 2022 until 2024 to do anything about “control on fraud and non-compliance”?
It had to be a deliberate decision by the Labor Party to ignore the fraud at the NDIS, from May 2022 until 2024, given everyone knew about it for years.
On the 21st of August 2025 Mark Butler was interviewed on the ABC’s Breakfast show and was asked by the host:
BRIDGET BRENNAN: And do you think you’ll be able to continue to crack down on fraud? I mean a lot of the focus on waste in the NDIS seems to stigmatise families who are trying to get onto the system, when in fact there are so many dodgy providers still out there, Minister.
MARK BUTLER: Absolutely. The problem with fraud and integrity is not a problem with participants. It’s a problem with dodgy providers, people who’ve come to a system that doesn’t have enough discipline and integrity and realised it’s a field day for rip-off merchants. And we have to do better than that. I said yesterday that 15 out of every 16 NDIS providers are unregistered. We have no sense of who they are, what their qualifications are. There’s not enough evidence to support some of the services that are being provided. These sorts of systems of discipline and integrity are common in the health system, in aged care, in veterans care, and they have to be introduced to the NDIS to ensure that participants get the full value for money, but also taxpayers have confidence that this large investment into a scheme that has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people with disability, has integrity, has discipline. (Click here to read more)
In the below video Mark Butler says 1 in 6 grade 2 boys are on the NDIS and in some parts of the country it is 1 in 4 grade 2 boys are on the NDIS.
I wonder if all the parents know their sons are on the NDIS? It sounds like the NDIS is being rorted by fraudsters right across the country.
Conclusion
The fraud and theft in the NDIS being worth $billions every year has been known a long time. For example, previous articles I have published are:
On the 21st of August 2022 I published an article titled “Bill Shorten, Labor’s version of Angus Taylor, is doing nothing about the estimated $6 Billion being stolen from the NDIS. Why?” which starts off:
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. (Click here to read more)
Three years later and not much has changed from what I wrote in August 2022 about the NDIS fraud and theft.
I published another article in June 2023 titled “Bill Shorten and the NDIS is set to become Australia’s biggest fraud scam with tens of $billions stolen” and another article in July 2024 titled “Bill Shorten managed NDIS has fraudulent spending of at least $5.5 billion a year on sex toys, gambling and cannabis etc“.
Mark Butler said in the interview above “Bill Shorten, to his credit, started that work” in relation to “control on fraud and non-compliance within the NDIS”. But Butler contradicts himself when he says “I said yesterday that 15 out of every 16 NDIS providers are unregistered. We have no sense of who they are, what their qualifications are.”.
If Bill Shorten did such good work, when he was NDIS Minister from 2022 until 2025, on “control of fraud” the first thing he would have done is made sure the people getting paid were registered and qualified otherwise he should have just stood on a street corner handing out the $billions.
Everyone knew long before Labor came to power in May 2022 that fraud and theft was rife in the NDIS and over 3 years later Mark Butler, who is now the Minister for the NDIS, says that 15 out of 16 NDIS providers they are paying are “unregistered” and “We have no sense of who they are, what their qualifications are.”
It shows what a failure Bill Shorten was as NDIS Minister which was no secret, and I wrote about it numerous times.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party knew what was happening at the NDIS on Bill Shorten’s watch and Albanese allowed it to happen and should be held accountable.
How many Labor Party boys and girls have fraudulently made $millions from the NDIS?
Just looking at the $billions of frauds and theft at the NDIS, it becomes clear why Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party set up a fake National Anti-Corruption Commission.
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Categories: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
It’s a disgrace. And apart from all the dodgy “providers”, it’s the perks the NDIS people get. I have a friend whose adult son gets holidays paid for by NDIS and they also pay for her to accompany him. Even she thinks it’s outrageous!
It’s not just NDIS. There doesn’t appear to be any auditing or even scrutiny of what taxpayers’ money is actually spent on.
The government rorts the taxpayer unimpeded
The NDIS and Aged Care, Childcare, and others are mostly managed by for profit businesses. These businesses usually make good money, good profits, from the taxpayer and there is no accountability as to how the money is spent. So rorting is common. And, as a ‘thank you’, these for profit businesses may donate some of it back to the Labor Party (or Coalition). Donations to Labor and the Coalition are necessary to run expensive election advertising campaigns which wins votes and government. Usually the Party with the biggest donation kitty wins government. Labor in the last year or two had over 150 donors donating over $100,000. From donations watch. All that matters to both parties is winning elections. Managing taxpayers money carefully, looking after their citizens is less important.
My disabled, bedridden adult son, 54 ran short of funds in his last plan and asked for an early review. Although he needed more to pay for his support workers, they actually reduced the amount and he now can’t afford weekend, public holiday or emergency call-in workers. At 76, and disabled myself (2 years too old for NDIS when it arrived in our area), I am now the only ‘worker’ helping him during those times. I am very concerned about my own health and how long I can do this! 🙁
How can a multi-billion-dollar scheme like the NDIS, supposedly designed to help vulnerable Australians, operate with such minimal oversight?
Politicians set it up, unregistered providers are effectively looting public funds, and regulators seem to look the other way – so how is it possible that the system allows insiders to profit while the people it’s meant to support are left to struggle?
This isn’t just mismanagement; if oversight is this weak, isn’t it effectively corruption with a taxpayer-funded cover?
Years ago, responsibility for investigating fraud went from the AFP to government departments. This was not a good move. Investigations and prosecutions are not taken seriously by departmental management. Staff art barely trained in investigative practices, unsuitable, lazy or risk averse managers often run these investigations sections. Productivity is minimal as investigations move at a glacial rate. I would argue that investigations sections exist so that the spin doctors can reference a (rare) prosecution to claim that fraud is taken seriously. In my department, one percent of all allegations is progressed to an actual investigation. Government fraud is massive.
Butler says this dodgy service providers are unregistered; we have no sense of who they are and no idea about their qualifications. Given their anonymity, how are government funds transferred to them? Brown paper bags?
The proportion of students with learning or physical and psychological needs in public schools varies between 20% and as high as nearly -third or more depending on school location.
Hopefully the NDIS caters to all their needs and they are not being exploited by fraudulence
Ahhh. The beauty of privatisation. Even without outright ‘rorting’, these privatised schemes are more expensive than if the government ran it, like they did in the good old day. All those individual companies, all with their own overheads (management, advertising, policy-setting, compliance, letterhead, websites and of course profits). You can’t get anything (not even repairs to your wheelchair) without an OT assessment @ $200 ph including travel time. And if the assessment is wrong, there’s no accountability. The private OT just washes their hands of it and tells you to go to another OT.
In my area there are 73 different home care providers for in-home aged care. It would be similar with NDIS.
The Aged Care sector is also a giant fraud-scape. There are companies and organisations (ostensibly not-for-profit but I suspect they’re profiting and pocketing a lot), ripping off elderly people in nursing homes and Medicare at the same time. This also applies to individual contractors working in the Aged Care sector, who now unashamedly quote ludicrously for jobs that have not traditionally cost a great deal of money. For example, providers of in-home care for the elderly charge exorbitant hourly rates that all come out of the home care packages provided by the government, sometimes leaving nothing for extra care that the elderly need, forcing them into nursing homes prematurely because the “budget” has been over-spent.
I have been meaning for a long time to write a report on this as I had direct experience when, as co-Enduring Power of Attorney and Guardian, I was looking after an elderly friend before and after being placed in a nursing home, where she was treated very poorly whilst simultaneously being robbed by both the nursing home and the providers of doctors and nurses to the nursing home.
These (what have become) habits are Australia-wide, too. After nine or ten serious meetings over three years with nursing home management, and unsuccessful attempts to meet with the aforementioned staff service provider, we never did get to the bottom of the issues before my friend passed away a couple of months ago. I have been too exhausted by it all to write my report but now, after reading this article, I am determined to get the knowledge down on paper and forwarded to someone who actually cares.
Deregulation, full for profits and undertrained staff proliferate in this sector, as they do in aged care, childcare and employment services. John Howard started this rot and every coalition government since has enabled the fraud and abuse that has proliferated. Labor needs to kick out all dodgy independent and unregistered providers. To date, they have failed. Just as the NACC has failed.
This beyond ludicrous. It is obscene. Whether it’s political parties or economic fraudsters the strategy is the same: build a website with noble aims and declare your program a success. Bank the proceeds. Our country is one of mutual back slapping, mates’ rates and kickbacks. Problems are meant to work themselves out in the end with no government oversight or control. Fraud is accepted because to point it out or act against it would see any government out of office. None of those tradies with $60,000 SUVs got them by working at $20/hr and they are not going to vote for anyone who takes those benefits away. They got them by government tax deductions and hand outs. It’s the same in every industry — finance, health care, property, farmers, miners. It’s the same PR gas lighting flooding our public media and government. It is the same neoliberal lie we see everywhere, that government control is always bad and private enterprise is good. You end up with a nation of predators and the preyed upon. Just ask the renters having their wages stolen just to keep their landlords in comfort. A nation of fools without ethics, values or vision. Vote Labor and Liberal last every time. Get them out.
We need a legal reform, a bill that says any person or agency misusing or misappropriating Federal funds given for a specific program purpose must reimburse those funds with the debt surviving any bankruptcy proceedings, Further, depending on the scale of financial abuse, fund recipients will be banned from receiving any further government program funds of any kind (other than personal Centrelink benefits). Criminal charges may be imposed upon individuals for egregious abuses. Companies receiving those funds could not be wound up to defeat the financial liability and company directors and shareholders would be liable for the debts. Restraints on receiving government funding would come into effect immediately an indictment was issued until the courts had ruled on the matter.
We have seen this with private companies running child care. Rather than meeting new oversight standards of staffing, training and electronic monitoring they simply closed their businesses. This same exit from industry would almost certainly occur in NDIS, aged care and sham private education agencies catering for foreign students. Similar legislation should apply to protect consumers from losing their life savings to dodgy builders and financial investor scams. These actions are all criminal. Theft is never legal. These abuses need to be defined as such in law and forcefully prosecuted.
In case people think this is too harsh just think back to the 1990s. Howard gave $250,000 grants to elderly farmers to sell their farms and move to town. The grants were quarantined from Centrelink benefits assessment and any bankruptcy proceedings. That’s Howard bribing his electoral base. It’s about time the public and the government had the same protections from crooks.
Great heads-up by KCA – and boy did you nail it Fred!
As to the Great Unregulated Aged Care Industry, good luck with your report Suzy Bender. I’ve suffered through something similar – plus dealing with the incredulous denial of distanced and disengaged non-carers – and can empathise with your exhaustion and grief.
What a magnificent con is the notion of ‘small government’ with its suggestions of fairness and equality when it is simply a free pass for government and corporate grifters to rip off the taxpayer. For Labor to be indulging in such polemics alongside its laggard response to its very own self-created NDIS monster signals its ideological shift to the right and a betrayal of its voter base. Why wasn’t a regulatory framework built into Shorten’s model in the first instance?
I wonder if the ‘Overton Window’ applies to our acceptance of this insidious culture of rort in Australian society?
All very dismaying, whatever’s going on.
I know of a NDIS client who recieves funding to do their hoise cleaning, mow their lawn and do the shopping.
Yet this same person works for themselves full time as a NDIS provider earning thousands $$per week, doing cleaning, taking clients shopping, holidays and gets up to $20,000 per month looking after a client while their carer goes on a holiday.
How is this allowed…
NDIA replied; NDIS clients are encouraged to work and earn as m7ch as they need.
There are other NDIS stories I could tell how the NDIS is being abused and used.