The Real NDIS Fraud Isn't The Fraudsters | Punters Politics

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]This video has been sponsored by Surf Shark.

[00:00:02]>> One thing to come to Sinclair.

[00:00:03]>> Wait, punts. I don't know if you've been following any of this NDIS stuff lately, but there have been some pretty wild scenes.

[00:00:10]>> Are you going to be in a trouble?

[00:00:11]>> Can I ask you?

[00:00:13]>> Is this a legitimate business?

[00:00:14]>> So, first there was this vid exposing alleged NDIS fraudsters in Western Sydney from YouTuber Petulus and online bloke Drew Pablo.

[00:00:23]>> Are you seeing this?

[00:00:26]>> Get out. Hey, that's assault because this is my >> They got screamed at and pushed and broke his Facebook glasses.

[00:00:34]>> Hey, hey, hey, hey.

[00:00:35]>> She just broke the $800 glasses.

[00:00:38]>> That is some top tier YouTube content right there. So anyway, that prompted this response from Friendly Jordies titled Exposing the Scam of Exposing Scams, which was basically just a 20-minute roast of Drew Pavlo.

[00:00:50]>> His video is about as basic X audience capture as you can possibly get. Drew's gone with X because he has the attention span of a B and seems to get genuinely sexually aroused when he gets retweeted by someone in the MAGA administration.

[00:01:01]>> Also, highly entertaining content. And hey, I see where the views are at online. And now it's my turn to weigh in on the real NDIS fraud story that everyone's missing. Uh, unfortunately, my take on this comes with way less entertaining footage. It's not surprising that we have these challenges given that effectively what's happened is governments have just let the market rip.

[00:01:25]>> Oh, it's over. Yeah. Um, surely we can do better than that. We have something.

[00:01:29]Can we sex that up somehow?

[00:01:31]>> It's not surprising that we have these challenges given that effectively what's happened is governments have just let the market rip.

[00:01:39]>> Okay, bit better. See puns, you have to understand that old bloke with the glasses isn't just some ground level scammer from Western Sydney. He was one of the key architects to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Virtually his whole career has been about trying to get the NDIS up for disabled people.

[00:01:56]And what he's saying there in his own special boring way hints at something that no one in the corporate media is prepared to address. The scams, the waste, the blowouts, they were guaranteed. There's a pattern here, punters, and it plays out the same way every single time. And because nobody ever names it, our governments just keep doing it again and again and again, punters, I'm going to show you the pattern that the governments and the corporations really hope you don't notice.

[00:02:30]Okay, so Drew and Pety Boy's video there is doing some big numbers on YouTube. To you, I say, well played. And you can see why. It's got a nice old school occurren affair flavor about it. You know that classic foot in the door scam across with a dinner party at Married at First Sight. I mean, who doesn't want to see a blonde woman screaming in Drew Pavlo's face. So, kudos to you. Bloody well done. Good job. Tip the hat. But I do have to pull them up on one point, and it's this. Wait, real quick. Speaking of scams, they can be pretty hard to spot.

[00:03:01]Fishing emails especially, they look real. They're getting more and more convincing, and one wrong click can compromise everything. And it's not just emails. Every time you're on public Wi-Fi at a cafe or airport, which I frequently do, anyone else on that network can potentially see what you're doing. If only there was some way to help this. Oh, yes, there is. Surf SharkVPN. Have you heard of it? They've come along and sponsored this video and they have a builtin scam email checker that flags dodgy emails before you open them. It monitors to see if your personal data has been leaked, encrypts your connections across all your devices and blocks ads and trackers, too.

[00:03:40]Hopefully not this ad, though. One account covers unlimited devices, so your whole household is covered. And it does all of this while running quietly in the background, which is what good security should do. So, if you're not using it, now's the bloody time, I reckon. Go to surfshark.com/punterspolitics or use code punters politics at the checkout to get four extra months of Surf SharkVPN. We'll help you out and help the channel. Anyway, back to the scams. So, why is it taking people like us to actually look into this? Like, mainstream media doesn't look into it.

[00:04:08]You know, the government's obviously not looking into it. So, like, why does it take people like us? People like us, bloss, where have you been? There has been quite a lot of attention on NDIS fraud over the years. You boys are hardly the only people pointing this out, and I'm hardly the only person pointing out that Drew and Pete's claim of a expose is a bit far-fetched. As I said, Friendly Jord's posted a pretty comprehensive video, and look, he had a lot of fun with it. You seriously think I'm afraid to talk about NDIS fraud?

[00:04:39]That would be like me claiming that you're afraid of food? Go on YouTube right now and search help I'm a fat Turkish man. And then when you finish that video, search Friendly Jordies NDIS and you can see that I've been making videos about NDIS fraud before it was cool.

[00:04:52]>> Anyway, go check out the full video if you're a fan of some first class sledging. But I really want to pick up on one particular line from that video.

[00:04:59]Listen carefully.

[00:04:59]>> The NDIS, kind of like every government scheme that involves a bit of the private sector, became a massive vehicle for fraud under the Liberal government.

[00:05:06]>> Okay, so not the Liberal government bit cuz punts, trust me, this is a problem for all sides of politics, but just a little bit before that. every government scheme that involves a bit of the private sector.

[00:05:18]>> What does he mean by that? If it happens to every government scheme, that suggests that all this NDIS fraud should have been expected. No, come on. There is no way that we could have seen any of this coming. It's not like people were warning us over a decade ago that privatizing the NDIS could lead to dodgy operators more interested in profit than people. Oh, hang on. What's this? It's a news story from 2015.

[00:05:40]NDIS warnings privatizing scheme could lead to dodgy operators more interested in profit than people 2015. Punters, we were warned about exactly this 10 years ago. Honestly, punters. Track this bloke quoted in the article down and ask him to give you the lot of numbers. His name is Steve Turner and he was the assistant general secretary of the public service association of New South Wales. And according to this article from over 10 years ago, he wrote, quote, worried that the move to a market-based system would open up the floodgates to for-profit disability service providers. We don't want shunky providers coming up like the pink bat scheme, Mr. Turner says. Punts, if you are too young or too politically disengaged to remember what the pink bat scheme was, uh, Google it or GPT or whatever we find information as these days, it was bad. dodgy companies were popping up all over the place to install government subsidized insulation in people's houses and uh there were fires and deaths as a result. We're talking things like a bankrupt telemarketer who was allowed to register as an insulation installer after very little training and then a 25-year-old bloke who signed up to work for them was electrocuted and died. It is terrible stuff. So sure, we can scream at NDIS scammers in the streets of Lemba, but my hot take is that maybe we should be directing some of our blood boiling rage at the bloody people who designed the system so that these scams were virtually guaranteed to happen. And let me tell you, it's not just the NDIS. There is a pattern here.

[00:07:10]And when it comes to privatization, once you see it, you can't unsee it. I'm talking childare, universities, vocational education and training.

[00:07:17]Everything that should be a public good but quickly turns to has a common denominator. But before we get to that common denominator, let's start with what a public good is in the first place. All right, so pretty much whatever your political persuasion, most of us can agree that there are certain things in life that we need for a society to function well. But those are often things that don't really turn a profit. Think firefighters, police, or the hospital. We don't leave these things to the free market because we all agree that no matter how rich or poor you are, everyone should have access to life-saving and lifechanging basic services. And the point of these services is to deliver services. And what's more, we can hold the government to account if they're doing a bad job of providing them. But anytime the government turns what should be a public service into a private industry, it means it becomes profit driven. Meaning the point of the service is now to make money out of them. And when delivering good quality services comes at the cost of the profit, which one do you think loses out? In the pursuit of profit, companies will always find ways to cut costs. Scammers find loopholes to steal money, and the punters who are meant to be helped suffer from it. The business's bottom line becomes more important than the public good. Ultimately, the cost to the taxpayer, and ultimately, the cost to you and me, regular taxpaying punters, actually goes up. And the NDIS is just the latest in a long line of examples of this. I'll get to some of those examples in a minute, but we'll kick off with a brief backstory of the NDIS because I don't know if anything anywhere has suffered a worse reputational crash than Australia's national disability insurance scheme.

[00:08:50]Back in 2013 when it was introduced, people loved the idea of having a publicly funded safety net and support system for people with disabilities so that they could, I don't know, live their lives with dignity. I mean, who wouldn't like that? The prime minister at the time, Julia Gillard, literally cried when she announced this in parliament.

[00:09:07]>> The idea of a national disability insurance scheme, has found a place in our nation's hearts. Disability care starts in 7 weeks' time, and there will be no turning back. I commend this bill to the House.

[00:09:25]>> It was a strong start. Unfortunately, she didn't get to see it through though.

[00:09:29]Labour got booted, the Liberals came to power, and as the years went on, the impact of the NDIS on the nation's finances has become a blowout. At one point, the scheme was projected to cost a 100red billion more than any other social service. And that along with a whole bunch of other problems.

[00:09:46]>> She just broke the $800 glasses >> has meant that we are indeed starting to see a lot of people suggest turning back on the NDIS. Even everyone's favorite everyman, old mate corporate Carl Stephanovic, was having a good chat with billionaire Clive Palmer on his new pod the other day. And check out the title he gave it. NDIS is draining the economy. Clive Palmer explodes on the scam ruining our country. Now, there is a title design for YouTube.

[00:10:13]>> The waste in the NDIS is got to come to an end.

[00:10:16]>> Well, I don't know any social welfare system in the world. We have private enterprise taking 10% margin off the top and assessing how much you pay to people so that they can get a higher 10% margin.

[00:10:28]>> Pants, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but Clive Palmer is right. The NDIS being delivered by a private enterprise is the real issue here.

[00:10:35]Because here's the thing. When the government offers a service to the public, say education, healthcare, disability support, it measures how successful the program is by its outcomes. Are sick people getting better? Are disabled people getting the help that they need? Are people learning stuff at school? I am too smart. I am too smart. SMT. Now, I'm not suggesting that the government does these things perfectly. But if you ask me, there is only one thing worse than the government running a public service. And that is a for-profit private corporation that is incentivized to drive up prices running it. And we are living in the era when both sides of politics think that running public essential services like a business is just the best way to run everything. I think it's safe to say I strongly disagree. Let me explain why using the NDIS as a case study. Puns, the way the NDIS works is the government gives people on the scheme taxpayer money, their own budget basically. Then these people have to choose which private providers to spend their money with. It's not quite full privatization, but it's pretty bloody close. Let's call it pseudo privatization. So the thinking behind this is that people with disabilities are essentially consumers who should be given the choice of how to spend their money in the same way you or I choose which cafe to get our coffee from. And in theory, all this let the market decide logic means that the best providers come out on top. In the same way that the cafe that makes the best coffee at the lowest price becomes the most popular. There's just one big problem with this. See, the things that you need to live your life when you've got a disability aren't really the same type of things as a consumer product like coffee. And also, having an allocated budget of government money given to you isn't the same as spending your own coin. There just isn't as much incentive for people to shop around and find the best deal. Anyway, this whole market model is, by all accounts of anyone who's had anything to do with it, uh, not bloody working. And here are four of the main reasons why. First up, duplication of costs. If you're going to be a private business, you need your own business name, your own logo, your own office, your own admin team. Maybe you're the nurse next door with a love heart and a franapany. Maybe your classy life with, I don't know, a a blue curve and a dot with a leaf. Maybe you're shine on services with a star made out of five abstract figures reaching out for some kind of hug. It's inspiring.

[00:12:57]These are all real NDIS providers, by the way, as are all of these. I'm not saying any of them are doing a bad job.

[00:13:04]I'm just saying before you can even get started helping disabled people, you've got to get your branding locked down, your website sorted. Then you need your own polo shirts, your own vehicle decals. Hell, you better get a graphic designer to knock one up for you. Bills, bills, bills. Office aircons need a service. Rents gone up. Overheads, baby.

[00:13:21]And you've got to get your money back, plus 10% on all costs your business incurs. So, mark those invoices up. If this was just something that was being provided by the government, none of that stuff would be required. It had all come through one organization. Sure, probably with a terrible name like disabilare.

[00:13:38]That's actually pretty good. Uh, they can have that one. And a logo that probably looks like a ' 80s screen saver, but who gives a The disabled person would be getting the help they need without all the middlemen.

[00:13:51]So, we all know the free market works by businesses competing for customers and us punters deciding how to spend our money. But you see, disability support isn't frozen yogurt. You know, you can live without frozen yogurt. It's not a need. It's not even a want for most sane people. So, who then decides what you need? Who decides what your budget should be? Well, at the moment, it's the people on the private side of this equation who have a huge influence on determining your budget. They tell the NDIS case managers what the individual people need for their care. And they have an incentive to argue that you need more and more and more because the more money that is allocated to you, the more money there is to be made. And then once you've been given your budget, you're incentivized to spend all of it because if you don't, it might be cut down next time. The normal competitive pressures that work in theory to keep prices down just do not exist. So, this is very different to when you're spending your own money in the free market when you decide, "No, you know what? I won't splurge on frozen yogurt today. It's too expensive. It tastes like shit." If only there was some kind of model that could help determine how public money could be spent in a way that got a great bang for buck. Oh, wait. There is. It's called Medicare, but that's a story for another time.

[00:15:06]Let's say you live in a rural area where there might only be one or two qualified providers for some kind of specialized support service. You can't really shop around for the best deal then, can you?

[00:15:15]You've got no options. Those providers can basically charge whatever they want.

[00:15:20]That's a monopoly wearing market clothes. Even NDIS participants can see that this market model is a lie. One participant named Vardet Liza wrote this piece entitled The Truth Behind the NDIS Scheme: A Participants Nightmare. She points out in the landscape of the NDIS, the power seems to be held by a select few, mainly those who monopolize the arena for profit. CEOs and coordinators with large companies and marketing campaigns dominate the field, set up a website, and with little training or experience churn money that was designed to help disabled people live better lives. Private companies churning money that was meant to help disabled people.

[00:15:56]I don't think I was told about that bit when Julia Gillard announced it.

[00:15:59]>> This above all is why Australians are so overwhelmingly supportive of disability care. And so Ps on top of all of that, NDIS participants need to not just navigate all this savvy marketing to find the best provider, but also be careful to avoid the dodgy operators and the scammers that are out there. Let's just compare this to other types of public service. Imagine your house caught on fire and you had to choose which firefighting service to call and put it out. What if you chose the wrong one? They had a pretty logo and a great website, but when they showed up, they had faulty hoses cuz they bought the cheap off Teeu to cut cost. That isn't that far off the experience some punters are having with the dodgy NDIS providers today.

[00:16:41]Speaking of dodgy providers, we are now spending a royal butt ton on enforcement and fraud investigation regulation because so many dodgy puns have realized that they can set up an NDIS provider business and milk the system. But every time you hear calls for cracking down on scammers, that's really just calling for spending even more money to not fix the core problem. I know I'm repeating myself here, but punters, this is what happens when you build the system like this. It's happened before. Once again, don't take my word for it. Let's return to the nerd I showed you right at the beginning of all this. Remember he said >> it's not surprising that we have these challenges given that effectively what's happened is governments have just let the market rip.

[00:17:26]>> But he went on to say you only have to look at the vocational education and other areas to see that if you let the market rip particularly where you have vulnerable clients participating in those markets or customers as they are sometimes called likely to be exploited.

[00:17:40]That's right. The NDIS isn't the only system suffering from the effects of private operators. Here's a new story on private colleges.

[00:17:47]>> There are 4,000 private colleges in Australia and industry insiders estimate about a third of them are shony.

[00:17:54]>> Here's one on the major problems in childare.

[00:17:56]>> If you know anything about private equity, it's not that surprising. They take over services in order to squeeze as much profit out of them as possible.

[00:18:06]>> Here's the final nerd academic opinion I'll show you and it's from a book called Designing Social Service Markets, Risk Regulation, and Rentseeking. Don't fall asleep with me, punters. I promise you this book is is just as outrageous as Drew and Pete's video. He >> is. I DIDN'T CARE. I'M NOT GOING TO SPIT IT.

[00:18:22]>> ARE YOU SEEING THIS? ANYWAY, it's all about how inefficiency and lowquality services are typical problems whenever the Australian government has turned social services into markets, which again is something that both major sides of politics love to do. Now, there's a chapter in here about exactly this, and it uses the story of one bloke to show just how badly it fails. It talks about Francis, age 20. He has autism and an intellectual disability. And Francis could not get the help he needed because, quote, "Providers were refusing clients like Francis on the grounds that they presented a business risk." Think about that for a second. Think about if you showed up at a public hospital and they said, "Yeah, nah, sorry. we're not going to treat you because you're a business risk. Or if you were assaulted and you went to the cops and they were just all like, "Yeah, we're not going to investigate this crime because you're a bit of a business risk." This is what we have ended up with because we have pseudo privatized the NDIS. I think it goes without saying, but I'll say it.

[00:19:21]There are some things in this world that should not be seen as a business.

[00:19:25]Punters, this privatization pattern is everywhere. Just look at the chapter titles in this boring AF book. daycare, refugee settlement services, employment services, superanuation. Don't get me started on superanuation. Private nursing homes, social housing, the list goes on and on. The political powers at B keep telling us that privatization is all about improving efficiency and creating competition and making things better. But let's take a look at this book's conclusion. Despite of off-re repeated claims about the benefits of marketization, the case studies presented in this volume have shown that in practice the design of social service markets in Australia has often contributed to rent seeking, low service quality and/or inequality. And I think we all keep finding out the hard way that it's more expensive as well. Even old mate Elbow seemed to once upon a time know that this was not the right way of doing things. Here he is back before he was PM giving a speech on his vision for the country. The contracting out of essential public services is not in the national interest and must stop.

[00:20:30]It's time to put human beings and human dignity back into human services. Now, in all fairness, we can't blame Albo for the privatization of the NDIS. This was all kicking off well before he became the boss, but he absolutely hasn't done much to fix the structural problem in the last 5 years. But he is right about one thing that it's not in the national interest to get private companies to run essential public services. You know whose interest it is in the profit hungry rich punts that run those companies and are pulling your taxpayer dollars out of their customers pockets to give them shitty services in return.

[00:21:05]It all quite frankly massively sucks. So much of the conversation about cutting costs at the NDIS is about reigning in eligibility for funding and cracking down on scams and frauds and rots. And sure, that might be part of the solution. But is anyone stopping to think about why there are so many scams and rots in the first place? Ross Gittens, a financial journey for more than four decades, couldn't have put it better than this. He says, "The best thing our polars have done in decades is also the worst. The great misstep of our age has been the privatization of many government-owned businesses and the outsourcing of taxpayer funded services to private providers. Why aren't we talking about how privatization has completely and utterly failed here? Is it just because it's way easier for the media to get people worked up with exciting footage of alleged scammers getting busted?

[00:21:58]>> I JUST GOT A CLOSE ON YOUR HAND.

[00:22:00]>> OH, OKAY. SORRY, I didn't see it.

[00:22:01]>> That's all well and good. Like I said, no objection here to calling out frauds, but I think it's really missing the forest for the trees. The biggest rot of all is happening legally, systemically, and at scale. It's ripping off taxpayers. It's exploiting disabled people. And even if you don't really care about all of that, it's making the whole thing cost way more than it should. Why are we throwing more money at something to get a worse result? So, let's just say the next doors that I want to see getting pounded on are those of whoever decided that setting the NDIS like a private market was a good idea in the first place. So, Pete, Drew, go find them. Go do your thing. Massive thanks to We the Punters over on Patreon. These are the punters that keep me making the videos that I think are important, like this one. And not just videos that get the clicks. I hope this can get some clicks, uh, so we can stop bloody repeating the same mistake for bloody ever. If you like the channel, want to support your punters.com, get yourself some merch. Hats, too. Thanks to Surf Shark for sponsoring this video.

[00:23:01]Discount code hookup is in the description below. Feel free to share this with a punter who might not know just how scammed we are all getting. And I'll catch you in the next video.

[00:23:10]Cheers, puns.