Safeguarding Policy

• ASIC’s talking points for Michael Phelan’s 60 Minutes interview refer to this research: “For background, the Australian Institute of Criminology assessed that in 2020–21, serious and organised crime cost Australians $60.1 billion, with $9.4 billion attributed to organised fraud”.

ASIC’s did not answer our second question. According to the FOI, the ASIC believes $9bn in total is lost to fraud. So, if Phelan’s claims that up to $6bn or 20% is lost to NDIS fraud is also accurate, the remaining $3bn of fraud must be lost through all other “organised fraud”.

Yes, that includes taxation, social security, and … every-freaking-other-type-oforganised-fraud combined.

In other words, we’ve been asked to believe that the cunning NDIS fraudsters are sneakier than all the fraudsters cheating all other programs – combined – by a factor of two.

I get that this was the upper end of Phelan’s estimation, but it is still asking us to suspend disbelief.

Not having gotten any clarity from ASIC, I turned to the NDIA for the fraud that they’re allegedly emptying out of the Scheme.

Their most recent 2022–23 quarterly report (Q2 of Y10) highlighted that, at 31 December, there was $13.4 million dollars being investigated for alleged fraud.

The NDIS Commission will adopt the codesigned participant safeguarding principles outlined in the NDIA policy and will work with the NDIA to roll out relevant actions, to implement the Policy. By working together we can better support participants to uphold their right to safe and quality supports.

Everyone has the right to live a safe life, free from harm. It is recognised that people with disability are at a much greater risk than others of experiencing violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.

Together with the NDIA, the Commission is committed to supporting and working with people with disability who engage with the NDIS to take steps to uphold their right to be safe, while respecting individual’s rights to make decisions about risk.

The NDIA Policy aims to help participants reduce risks against violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation in their lives by building or enhancing safeguards.

Safeguards are things we can do or actions we can take to manage risks of harm that may be present in our lives.

For some participants this might look like building their capacity to recognise risk of harm and improve safeguarding through accessible information, training and education.

The Policy, implementation plan (both also in Easy Read) and co-design story documents are available on the NDIA’s website: https://www.ndis.gov.au/ participantsafeguarding