Minister Shorten interview on 3AW Mornings with Heidi Murphy
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SUBJECTS: New headspace for Moonee Valley; Bill farewell.
HEIDI MURPHY, HOST: I mentioned just before the news, Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, currently still as of today, the NDIS Minister. And it is until Monday when he exits, ending a long career that featured at its height a tilt at the lodge. If you’ve driven to or from the airport in the past couple of months, you’ll have seen it writ large that he’s leaving his thank you messages up above the freeway. One of the final stops of his farewell tour, an interview here on 3AW, where he’s appeared for quite some time actually in this time slot especially, with Tom’s predecessor, Neil Mitchell. Bill Shorten, good morning.
BILL SHORTEN MINISTER FOR THE NDIS, AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Good morning, Heidi.
MURPHY: Any regrets now that you’re this close to it all being over?
SHORTEN: What did the great man say? Got a few regrets, but then again, too few to mention.
MURPHY: Why are you going earlier than you were planning? I thought it was going to be the end of the month.
SHORTEN: It’s nine days earlier. It’s probably not the most dramatic news you’ll hear today. Well, I’ve got most of the things done for the NDIS that we needed to get done and we have reduced call waiting times at Centrelink and payment processing times and improved accuracy. So, start of the academic year and unfortunate because it’s within 120 days of a likely general election. The voters are not put to the inconvenience of an expensive by-election. So, I did want to avoid that for the voters in nine days. Might as well rip the band aid off. And there’s a few things I’m racing around, finishing up support for local community groups, volunteer grants, sorting out, you know, the Maribyrnong park and the Ascot Vale Panthers and the bowls clubs. But in particular I’m pleased that I was able to convince my colleagues to fund overdue mental health resources in Moonee Valley for our young people between 12 and 25. A new headspace centre which the money’s allocated. It’ll start flowing from middle of this year.
MURPHY: How much money and over how long?
SHORTEN: $6.2 million over four years. What that’ll mean is that, I mean, Moonee Valley is a sort of educational hub in the north and the west. We’ve got a lot of very good government and non gov schools, a lot of kids, a lot of people move here for the – families moving for the education, but our young people do it tough. I’m really, you know, I’ve got my own young kids, but I’m really grateful I don’t have to grow up these days with not just the pressures of the external physical world, but the online world. So, the north and the west probably hasn’t had, I thought, enough mental health resources. There’s five headspace centres across the northern suburbs and western suburbs of Melbourne. Now there’ll be a sixth, which is good news for families.
MURPHY: And is that funding for that one centre on top of the five existing already?
SHORTEN: Yeah.
MURPHY: Or is it’s not shared across them all?
SHORTEN: No, no. It’ll try and do some outreach work into the municipality of Maribyrnong, but it’s basically for – it’ll be based in Moonee Ponds, I understand. There’ll be psychologists, people trained people for whom young people can go and see it. Let’s face it, the community cannot get enough mental health resources and I wanted to make it a sort of a thank you to the electorate. Just couldn’t leave until I’d got that funding sorted. I worked with the council. We surveyed local schools. The demand’s there. Kids have got to be able to talk about issues. Once upon a time, mental health was stigmatised and I’m not saying it’s not unstigmatised now, but kids can be in pain and they don’t know where to go or what to do. Families don’t know where to go, what to do. They want to help the people they love. It’s very debilitating for a family to see their young one who they love not coping and having to, you know, the psychologists and psychiatrists have closed their books and, you know, lists, that is. And so new resources, I genuinely hope will help meet some of the unmet need, even in some of the areas. I mean, Moonee Valley’s got its pockets of disadvantage, but some of it’s quite affluent, middle class. But kids are kids and they do it tough, no matter what the circumstances.
MURPHY: Nowhere near enough, I know. I mean, we had our Mental Health Royal Commission at the state level, a lot of recommendations. That was years ago now. And, I mean, I thought we’d – thought we’d rip the band aid off. The size of that issue, if band aid’s the right word for it, but we don’t appear to be as close to the solutions as we wanted to be.
SHORTEN: Well, you can’t avoid spending more money. Like, I know that some people be driving to work or just sort of thinking about getting ready to go back to work or get the kids back to school, so we can’t afford more money. But mental health’s non-negotiable and we’re learning more about it all the time, but we just need resources and yes, I think we do a lot more and we know a lot more than they did a generation ago. But that doesn’t mean we’ve got all the solutions yet. What I wanted to do for my community in the Northwest, around Moonee Valley and Tulla and Gladstone park is to just get them some resources.
MURPHY: Having this as your last, I was going to say little but you know what I mean, as the last thing that you do is get that funding, put a full stop under it, make sure it’s allocated and away you go. Do you feel as though you’ve left the place better than you found it?
SHORTEN: Yeah, I hope so. Yes, I think so. Yes, I do. I’ve had a rare privilege of being a Member of Parliament. There’s only ever been 1244 individuals since Federation have served in the House of Representatives. The electors here have picked me. I mean, some of them didn’t, but they put up with me for six terms in a row. I’ve never taken that for granted. People mind the grip. Everything I’ve said and done. I’m sure that’s right, but I think even some of my critics say I try and work pretty hard and in the local community I know people don’t all vote for me and that’s fair enough. We live in a democracy. But I know I get around. I know that people know who I am for better or for worse, and I just try and I know I can’t always solve every problem, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
MURPHY: You said, I think earlier, that you’ve guaranteed you’ve ensured there’s shorter waiting times. I thought I was reading these longer waiting times just at the moment on Centrelink and Medicare yesterday, I swear I read that in the paper.
SHORTEN: You read it in the Daily Telegraph, a sort of reheated Liberal press release. The fact of the matter is that the Centrelink and Medicare are fundamental core services. Now during COVID we surged up, which was appropriate. Belay delivery, we surged up. If you take the COVID era out of these statistics for the first time in a decade plus we’ve reversed the job cuts at Centrelink so there’s more people working in the frontline offices like in Airport West or in Newmarket, in my own electorate and right around Australia. But I know because I get the data, people are waiting less time to get the calls answered. Every metric I’ve got is better than it was, say in mid-2017, 2018.
MURPHY: All right, well, we’ll road test that. Are they shorter wait times? Last time you’ve tried to ring Centrelink or Medicare?
SHORTEN: I should say, though, if you’re on hold, you won’t feel it’s shorter. So, I’m not saying people aren’t waiting and I’m not saying there aren’t long waits in some cases, but I’m saying that
when I look at the 60 million calls, which I have not – I mean, individuals experience is valid for them, but I know that we’ve put on 3,000 extra people and I know that we’re getting more payments out the door and they’re more accurate. I know because I help run the class action on Robodebt and then the Royal Commission that the payment accuracy is a lot better. I also know that the calls on the macro level are less, because do you know what? We get less complaints. That doesn’t mean that it’s perfect by any means. But now what we’re doing is hiring more assessors so we can process age and disability pensions. I think that’s been a sort of a laggard in terms of treatment of people. But sure, we’ll just keep working. I mean, it’s a bit like painting the Harbour Bridge. When you’ve done it, you just start again, don’t you?
MURPHY: Yeah. Or the West Gate Bridge, I think you could use the analogy even. Now you’re heading off to Canberra to run a university. Right. Are you gonna – I think you’re gonna miss the cut and thrust of politics a fair bit. Is that fair to say?
SHORTEN: I think I will, yeah. I’ve got mixed feelings. Do you leave politics when you’re disgraced, kicked out, you’ve got health issues, or do you leave at your own timing? A little fun fact which will probably send some of your listeners to sleep is that of these 1,244 men and women who’ve been lucky enough to be elected to Parliament – and no one before me in my family ever was – only 216 got to give a goodbye speech. There was a famous British historian who described life in the Dark Ages as short, nasty and brutish. I guess the public don’t mind, but the life of a politician can take you up and down. But I wouldn’t trade back a minute. You know, I’ve got to lead the Labor Party, which is just an incredible privilege. I’ve got to help establish the NDIS and then try and get it back in the correct direction. I’ve got to help organise a class action for the victims of Robodebt. And I’ve got to meet a lot of amazing Australians and represent Australia on the international stage. Like my family were battlers. For all the goods and bads, the ups and downs, I consider myself privileged and lucky and I just want to keep helping but in a new way.
MURPHY: Are you going to continue to haunt the place a little? Offer some views, some commentary from outside or is this once you’re out on Monday, you’re out?
SHORTEN: I don’t think I’ll be watching Question time.
MURPHY: Not a sucker for punishment. No. All right, I understand.
SHORTEN: I want to contribute to public debate. I mean, I’m now going to be working my new job as CEO or Vice Chancellor and President of the University of Canberra. That’s a vocational university. It’s quite famous for being a university which gets a lot of first-in-family people to ever go to university. So, that really suits my values of turning people with a disadvantaged background and giving them – education is the best way from turning disadvantaged to advantage. There are public debates. I’m interested in the future of this country. I’m interested in young people. I’m interested in how we have inquiring minds. I’m interested in how we help adults reeducate. I’m interested in making sure that universities reflect the community, in this case Canberra. And I’m interested in making sure that the teachers, the staff and the researchers have a positive experience too. I mean, at the end of the day we can dig up all the stuff out of the ground we want, but the best asset we’ve got is the innate exceptional abilities of Aussies.
MURPHY: So, you won’t be lost to public debate then by the sounds of that, you’ll have a few things to stick the oar in on.
SHORTEN: To the people who are sick of my voice, I’m sorry. And to the people who are going to miss me, don’t, you know, don’t get out of the box of tissues yet. But I’m not going to do the day to day. I’m looking forward to a less partisan debate though. I want to focus on the issues, not play the man.
MURPHY: All right, final question for you. The ads on the freeways, who’s paid for those?
SHORTEN: They came out of my communications budget.
MURPHY: Right.
SHORTEN: And they’re a lot cheaper than me writing to everyone. I think politicians should say thank you. It’s great and they will come down when I’m gone.
MURPHY: They haven’t been tagged or anything. They haven’t been, you know-
SHORTEN: You can read about instead, you know, what’s the best bed for your back or you know.
MURPHY: Make way for some other advertiser. All right, Bill Shorten, thank you very much for your – for your time this morning and all the best with it in the future.
SHORTEN: Good on you, Heidi. I look forward to keeping in touch. Take care. Bye.