Thread by @lukehgomes

Services Australia and new minister Linda Reynolds fronting the community affairs committee for spillover #estimates now.

How many robodebt refunds made to date? $724m, 96.4% of eligible customers.

Reynolds says she is "very familiar" with and "passionate" about the NDIS. Was asked if she asked for these specific portfolios.
She won't reveal private conversations with the PM. But she thanks him for staying in regular contact with her while she was in hospital and on leave

Labor's Nita Green trying to ask questions re Brittany Higgins. Chair Wendy Askew says they're not relevant to today's hearings

Green asked Reynolds if she wants to apologise to Higgins in public (as opposed to a written statement). "I'm disappointed but not surprised you've raised this matter," Reynolds says.

"I am working with the AFP, I'm assisting with their investigation into this matter." "Highly inappropriate", to comment further, Reynolds says.

Answering questions on this would "potentially compromise" the AFP investigation, says Reynolds.

Why did you call Ms Higgins a "lying cow"? Reynolds say the issues go to the "heart of the AFP investigation". "That is where it rightly should sit."

Linda Reynolds has made a very long opening statement. Says she has been hearing themes of "fairness, consistency, transparency" and "most of all respect" during her first month.

Reynolds notes funding is not "capped" like a grants program, but "instead limited by the principle of reasonable and necessary".

But she says no one has the same definition of "reasonable and necessary", and that's something that must be adressed. Notes the scheme needs be and flexible but also "remain sustainable". 🚨

Reynolds: "How do we stop the drift" from "social insurance" to, as its been described to her, a "welfare scheme" which was "never the intent of the original scheme".

Reynolds: Costs increasingly far "more significantly" year on year than was expected.

This is one of the longer opening statements I've ever seen at Senate estimates...

Reynolds says there is a 12.5% per annum increase in participant packages. "That is unsustainable over the longer term," says Reynolds,

"People who are already on plans, their plans are more than doubling," says Reynolds.

She says data clearly demonstrates participant outcomes are improving the longer people are in the NDIS, but a drop in people who are "high functioning" and increase in people who are "low functioning". Says that is alarming.

"Is the NDIS making people less functional over time?" Reynolds asks, apparently seriously.

Reynolds says it's put to her that "planners, being human, don't like to say no". "This is why the NDIA commenced this reform agenda" some time ago.

Reynolds says "reasonable and necessary" supports should come with some boundaries.

Catching up, so going to skip a section on questions put to Linda Reynolds and Martin Hoffman by Nita Green. theaustralian.com.au/nation/ndis-ap…

See here for more details. The CEO basically has taken everything on notice, citing privacy.

https://twitter.com/bluntshovels/status/1389045208193536001?s=20

Jordon Steele-John thanks Reynolds for her "detailed statement". He says there was previously a "combative" relationship between former minister Stuart Robert and the disability community. And still a "very low level of trust" with the NDIA. "It's never been this bad."

Reynolds notes the budget is in a week and, "I will certainly be releasing more information" in relation to scheme costs etc.

Reynolds acknowledges independent assessments have caused "angst".

Nita Green asking about the sustainability action taskforce. When was it established? Not a specific date, says Martin Hoffman, but set up "over a period of weeks" at start of the year.

More details: theguardian.com/australia-news…

We have started to increase "focus" on sustainability. How many staff? "Small team" of "half a dozen or so", Hoffman says. Green wants a specific answer. Hoffman: "half a dozen". The taskforce's work is funding within existing resources.

Hoffman seems absolutely delighted to be answering questions about this. (He does not.)

Hoffman not really answering questions about whether the taskforce has KPIs to make savings. He says its aim is to meet the portfolio statement spending allocations.

Hoffman says the agency is taking "appropriate" steps through the taskforce to act within its funding

Of the Sustainability Action Taskforce, Linda Reynolds says "this is business as usual".

Green asks how is the taskforce going to slow growth in spending per participant? Reynolds just keeps ignoring the question.

There we go. Hoffman on the SAT's actions on scheme spend. Primary focus is "clarification of reasonable and necessary". "It's that sort of discipline and clarity" across reasonable and necessary.

Hoffman notes the agency recently released about 80 pages of documents, the "Would We Fund It?" page ourguidelines.ndis.gov.au/would-we-fund-…

Green: When were you planning on telling NDIS participants you were setting up a sustainability taskforce? Hoffman doesn't really answer. Green asks if they were going to tell the public?

Hoffman: "I think participants well understand the scheme needs to be sustainable". Doesn't answer whether they were going to tell people about the taskforce.

Jordon Steele-John: Can you provide a copy of the latest NDIA sustainability report? Hoffman takes it on notice. Same goes for the actuarial data that informs that.

A little puzzled there have not been many questions on independent assessments so far. Senators waiting for the upcoming joint standing committee hearings, perhaps

Steele-John asks Hoffman why the NDIA has published statements suggesting independent assessments are a given, despite Reynolds saying it is a "pause". Hoffman denies the statement undermined minister

🚨🚨🚨 Linda Reynolds: "I have at no time said that we won't proceed with independent assessments in some form."

And then: "most of the feedback I've heard to date is not actually about the need to have them at all because that is something that has been long known."

Reynolds: "I've been very, very clear ... that it is imperative for all of the reasons we have said that we go ahead with some form of functional independent assessment."

Basically, independent assessments are happening. They have just been delayed: Reynolds says "What form they take is very much the subject of consultation."