JOINT STANDING COMMITTEEE ON THE NATIONAL DISABILITTY INSURANCCE SCCHHEME
Senate Inquiry - Independent Assessments
ADDITIONAL STATEMMENT:
Mmarie Johnsson CEO Ccentre for Digittal Businness Ppty Limitted ABNN: 16 162 122 072
30 Apriil 2021
#
INTRODUCTION
My name is Marie Johnson and I am the CEO of the Centre for Digital Business, a digital services and artificial intelligence company.
Would like to sincerely thank the Committee for the opportunity to provide further evidence building on my submission (submission number 33) into the Independent Assessments and previous submissions.
A drawing on my somewhat unique experience: of lived experience in addition to my deep internal knowledge and experience as former Head of the NDIS Technology Authority.
The wrote the business case for the NDIS ICT systems, and for this to be based on co-design and the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. have an exceptionally deep knowledge of the NDIS processes, and the NDIS ICT system which were delivered by DHS. Have a deep understanding of NDIS capability, operating model and culture. Also have considerable operational knowledge of the cross government capability, systems and architecture on which the NDIS is dependent.
Perhaps somewhat unique, believe there would be very few people with this deep level of direct internal knowledge of and experience in the NDIS operating environment, in addition to the lived experience of interacting with the NDIS.
Have disability in my family: my husband, daughter and grandsons.
My beautiful daughter has a complex and very significant combination of psychosocial disability and physical disability, and has suffered some horrific experiences.
Also provided a submission to the Joint Standing Committee Inquiry into the General Issues Around the Implementation and Performance of the NDIS (Committee Report December 2020). This submission was made together with my adult daughter, who is an NDIS participant. The purpose of providing that joint submission was to illustrate the far reaching and systemic deficiencies of the NDIS for people with psychosocial disability.
The submitted described my daughters’ catastrophic experience in dealing with the NDIS. Her two young sons, my grandsons, also have disability. My daughters’ interaction with the NDIS has not only been tortuous for herself but has been exacerbated by the extreme anguish in dealing with the NDIS for her sons. My daughter made a detailed and harrowing personal statement in that submission, and respectfully refer members of this Committee to her statement.
To reiterate from previous submissions, anticipated the trauma that my daughter would face and yet even with all my detailed internal knowledge and ability to engage solicitors, could not prevent the damaging impact of my daughters’ interaction with the NDIS.
There would be perhaps few other NDIS applicants or families who would have the insight at the beginning of their journey to make such detailed documentary recordings from the outset.
And yet, the systemic issues that predicted and described in previous submissions remain unresolved.
In the application of the proposed Independent Assessments, these systemic defects present an imminent threat to people with disability, especially people with psychosocial disability.
My daughter now feels sheer terror at the prospect of being forced to endure an Independent Assessment.
Other participants also now express the feeling of terror at what is before them.
Independent Assessments
Submission 33 - Supplementary Submission
KEY ISSUES
Building on the issues detailed in my submission (Submission number 33) to this inquiry I would like to cover the following issues which fundamentally affect the operation of the NDIS and the emergent changes which on my experience, present an unacceptable risk to participants and will cause the NDIS to implode.
The issues I will cover are:
- NDIA Defective Systems and Processes: Additional Evidence
- The Bias of the Doctrine of “Fairness”
- The Risk of Algorithms in Combination with the Bias of “Fairness”
- Assistive Technology: Paucity of Actuarial Analysis and Agency Capability
DEFECTIVE SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES: ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE
Lost documents – 80%
In my submission to this Inquiry and in previous submissions, I have provided detailed evidence describing the defective NDIS systems and processes.
The widespread systemic and worsening issue of lost documents is a catastrophic symptom of the defective systems and processes.
On my daughter’s initial application, the NDIA lost her entire NDIS application - including the 400+ pages lever arch folder of medical evidence.
In addition to the photos we took at lodgement, we maintained a detailed chronology and analysis of the various interactions with the NDIS. This chronology shows that on TWELVE times, information was provided/re-sent/re-requested.
The NDIS admits to not having all the documents, and inconsistencies on the part of the NDIS as to what they had and when they received it.
A total of more than 30 medical reports and assessments have been provided to the NDIA over a period of 22 months as part of a seemingly never-ending process of application and review, describing in extensive detail, the diagnoses and impacts of my daughter’s long-standing, complex, significant and permanent psychosocial disability.
It would be more than two years before she would be accepted into the NDIS and have a plan.
As we have documented in extensive details, my daughter’s condition worsened very significantly during the whole NDIS application and review process. Not only was my daughter initially refused the supports desperately needed (due to the NDIA administrative stuff-ups) and suffered and struggled for almost two years in the cruellest way – but my daughter and her psychiatrist both questioned whether it was worth damaging her mental health even further.
As her mother, and with the inside knowledge of the NDIA as to what was causing these issues for my daughter (and others), this situation was incredibly traumatic for me. Persevere and have the system damage my daughter’s mental health, or give up and have my daughter and her family denied justice.
This was a sickening Faustian bargain.
I anticipated the trauma that she would face and that’s why I took photos at the beginning of this nightmare journey - and yet with all my detailed internal knowledge and ability to engage solicitors - I could not prevent the damaging impact of my daughter’s interaction with the NDIS.
Submission 33 - Supplementary Submission
I believe this is a very significant safety issue for people with psychosocial disability. It is our experience that the NDIA processes are not safe.
Following my daughter’s appeal and acceptance into the NDIS, her experience with the LAC for the planning process was equally traumatic and de-humanising.
For us, this was a preview of what an Independent Assessment experience will be like.
in the planning meeting with the LAC, my daughter was forced to state over and over again the extraordinarily intimate details of her complex disability – a humiliating, dehumanising and traumatizing experience - to a stranger - who had not even read her file and in a process absolutely compromised by time pressure.
And with the absence of an ethics framework, what happens when things go wrong in the Independent Assessment process? This will happen. This happened to us in the LAC planning exercise as I have described above. There was no-one to help us as we faced a very grave situation caused by the process. Quite the contrary, there was pressure for the process to continue at all costs.
I again feel sick at the prospect of how she will suffer in an Independent Assessment
A poll of the NDIS Grassroots Facebook group showed that more than 80% of redacted have had documents lost by the NDIA. Not once but multiple times by a great number of people. Including commentary from a provider that they have had the experience of documents lost by the NDIA hundreds of times for people they work with.
And as in the case of my daughter, people report that they are being denied access because the agency says it does not have the documents that have already been sent to support their application. In another case reported, the reports were not placed on file leading to a person’s plan short hundreds of thousands of dollars. People report receiving other people’s documentation — including plans and letters.
You don’t know if the Agency has not received your documents.
There is an emerging culture of the reverse onus of proof for people: as in our case, the need to keep forensic records including photographs to prove what had been sent and when. The reverse onus of proof comes into play again in the application of algorithms.
The issue of lost documents is also being reported in relation to the Independent Assessment pilots. One prominent disability advocate reported that following his Independent Assessment he tried to get a copy of the results. The provider that conducted the assessment said they sent it to the NDIA – the NDIA told him they didn’t have a copy.
The issue of lost documents has been reported in many hundreds of submissions to inquiries of this Committee and other reviews.
lost documents is a systemic failing and the most significant driver of massive operational inefficiency and inconsistency. People call up multiple times, email, wait, engage legal counsel and advocates. The cost of redacted alone would be hundreds of millions of dollars – per year.
Submission 33 – Supplementary Submission
The passing around of spreadsheets of participant data to outsourced providers is how and why participants are being inundated with calls and texts about the Independent Assessments. There is no effective control framework.
As stated in my submission, this will not be remedied by the technical swap-out of the SAP system for the Salesforce CRM: a swap out which will not address the systemic design defects of the overall operating model described in this and previous submissions.
And given the evidence presented to the JSCNDIS public hearings and in submissions of the complete absence of co-design, ‘new’ systems work without co-design will be repeating the very causes of the current systems chaos.
If this same 80% “lost document” factor occurs with 500,000 Independent Assessment documents, this will be a catastrophic failure of privacy, security, human rights and service delivery — it will cause the NDIS to implode — and it will decimate the sector.
The “Wall of Pain“
in May 2016, | presented a body of co-design work called the “Participant Journey Map” to the Agency’s Executive. This work, undertaken by my team within the NDIA, was a co-designed graphical illustration and analysis of the then state of systems and processes (and forecast) of the through-life participant experience — and the resulting whole of operating model costs. This body of work has been presented to numerous internal and external public forums, including to the global World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) conference in Perth in April 2017. [File attached.]
during 2017, following Full Scheme Launch, the Agency undertook further work documenting the participant experience of systems and processes. The output of the 2017 work was so extensive that stick-it notes literally covered the wall of a hallway. Video footage of the hallway was taken and also used in internal and external workshops. This hallway became known as the “Wall of Pain”. [Video File and Image attached.]
in briefings as I was leaving the NDIA in June 2017, I was asked what should the Agency do going forward. I emphasised that it was absolutely essential that the Agency continue to develop its internal co-design capability as we had started and as outlined in the Business Case. (It is my understanding that this was abandoned.)
the final point | made was my observation that | had not seen one senior executive stop and look at the
Note:
it was because of my detailed knowledge of the “participant journey”, that I had the misery of knowing exactly what my daughter was in for.
The Bias of the Doctrine of “Fairness”
the concept of“fairness“, which has made its way into NDIA internal communication and
is a biased and discriminatory concept. As elaborated in detail in my submission, the lack of an ethics framework creates the very conditions for such problematic concepts to become normalised.
It is not fair that % of people’s documents get lost: documents that are of the most personal nature,
information.
It is not fair that people get denied access because their documents are lost: as happened with mydaughter and many other people.
It is not fair that people wait two years for a wheelchair and when it arrives it is no longer suitable.
It is not fair that the NDIA is not a Model Litigant
And it’s not fair that people live in fear and terror of dealing with the NDIA and losing their supports.
The Doctrine of “Fairness” and Indigenous Communities
A report was prepared for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, on the Evaluation Report.” It is a disgraceful read of the failure of the implementation of the NDIS in remote Indigenous Communities. This Committee has heard first hand evidence of that. The Evaluation Report found that: Stakeholders agree that the Co-Design project is incorrectly named as it was designed in thenational Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) head office without their input.”[Emphasis added] The lack of resources about the NDIA in Language was reported by 12 of fourteen service providers to have significantly hindered the ability of East Arnhem communities to understandand engage with the NDIS.“ “It is unrealistic for individuals to work out how to access service providers, how to get onthe portal etc. and draw down on funds, and navigate all the logistics of the scheme to manageplans. Even businesses can’t navigate it yet.” And so it is not fair that co-design has not occurred at all and not with Indigenous peoples. active discrimination. means that the language barrier is a major determinant / obstacle toIndigenous people’s understanding in context and access to services.
Plan Value to Reduce Over Time
it is not fair that the NDIA tells participants that they should expect their overall plan value reduceover time. This statement is utterly absurd. And mendacious. I would like to see the analysis thisstatementis based on – any assumptions open for public review and debate. the impact of people’s disability changes and deteriorates over time. People parents die. Children grow. People don’t new legs. condition ofpeople psychosocial fluctuates. This akin to saying that people use Medicare reduces overtime.
ALGORITHMS & ROBO-DECISIONS: THE BIAS OF “FAIRNESS” AND THE REVERSE ONUS OF PROOF
In my submission to this Inquiry (submission number 33) | made extensive commentary on the additive impact of algorithms.
To recap:
The JSCNDIS needs to be alerted to the linkages between future blockchain and facial recognition applications as a means to control and monitor NDIS participants, and the risk that algorithms pose for people with disability in accessing services.
Algorithm generated robo-plans arising from the Independent Assessments are the first step.
The application of blockchain would see the robo-plan services transacted using blockchain programmable “smart money”. Access to these transactions for NDIS participants is likely to involve a facial recognition identity verification. Access to services for people with disability might be stopped by a negative but biased facial recognition algorithm.
| would like to add further commentary to this, given the pursuit of the doctrine of “fairness” by the NDIA, in an environment of horrendous complexity impacting a community significantly disadvantaged.
Perhaps the most concerning aspect and gravest risks of the changes being prosecuted is the triangulation of three factors of discrimination:
the use of algorithms; the promulgation of the doctrine of “fairness”; and the emergence of the reverse onus of proof.
The doctrine of “fairness” is a concept and political slogan utterly loaded with bias. And in the absence of ethics, “fairness” is an instrument of discrimination. The doctrine of fairness must be replaced by the doctrine of justice.
In 2020 in the United Kingdom, there was outrage and political fights over the use of “unfair algorithms” to make all sorts of government decisions.
Controversially, the use of opaque algorithms to calculate the grades of secondary school students disproportionately impacted disadvantaged students who were denied access to universities. This provoked so much public anger at its perceived unfairness…that the government was forced into an embarrassing U-turn.
But the socio-economic discrimination problems are far bigger for both Australia and the UK alike. The UN special rapporteur for extreme poverty, Philip Alston, warns that the UK is “stumbling zombie-like into a digital welfare dystopia”. Alston argued that too often technology is being used to reduce people’s benefits, set up intrusive surveillance and generate profits for private companies.
A further extraordinary case in the UK over a period of twenty years, is the case of the UK Post Office knowingly using software which had fatal flaws, which made it look like employees stole tens of thousands of British pounds. The UK Post Office insisted the software could be trusted. Local postmasters — who could not prove they hadn’t stolen funds ( ie the reverse onus of proof) - were convicted of crimes they did not commit and sent to prison.
In the UK Post Office case
It has been recently reported that after fighting for decades, 39 people are having their convictions overturned in what is being reported as the largest miscarriage of justice the UK has ever seen.
Society is only at the beginning of the era of algorithms, and yet we see the horrific impact of the triangulation of these three factors.
In the case of the Independent Assessments and broader changes being prosecuted by the NDIA, these three factors – algorithms, the doctrine of “fairness” and the reverse onus of proof – are being applied intentionally as part of a strategy targeting a group within the community: people with disability.
This is not inadvertence. This is systemic discrimination by design and it will harm people.
e I would like to re-emphasise here my commentary in media reporting through InnovationAus:
“What they’re saying is ‘we have to make it fair’, but one of the problems with algorithms is the bias that’s built into algorithms. What we’re going to be seeing here is a bureaucratic notion of fairness constructing the algorithm without any visibility or transparency, or co-design about what the algorithm actually says.” “Whose notion of fairness are they actually talking about? This is going to create enormous problems.”
The widespread application of algorithms changes the relationship between the citizen and the state, creating an enormously disproportionate power imbalance. The doctrine of “fairness” shapes opaque algorithms that enable policies of the reverse onus-of-proof and non-appealable processes targeting people with disability.
ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY: PAUCITY OF ACTUARIAL ANALYSIS & AGENCY CAPABILITY
I would like to address a number of serious factors around Assistive Technology which directly impact Scheme sustainability. These factors appear to not have been taken into account in the narrative around sustainability and this would appear to be a significant omission that would distort the forward analysis of Scheme sustainability. The first factor is looking at the size of the AT market, the transformative impact of AT on jobs and the NDIS, and the astonishing lack of analysis regarding AT: an absence of analysis that must call into question the agency’s prosecution of the narrative around sustainability. The second factor as part of reform, is the need to create a culture of ROI on the beneficial adoption of AT, and for this to be a factor in the analysis of Scheme sustainability.
The AT Market
In November 2017, in my then capacity as a National Board Director of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), I appeared before the Senate Committee on the Delivery of Outcomes Under the National Disability Strategy 2010–2020. The estimated $40 billion assistive technology market over the next 10 years is of enormous interest and significance to the Australian technology and innovation sectors, and the Australian economy more broadly. If, as the Productivity Commission has estimated, the spending on human services is expected to reach $300 billion per annum, the Assistive Technology (AT) market could potentially be around $4 billion per annum.
A much larger market than the $1.06 billion per annum estimated in the 2015 NDIS assistive technology strategy.
And that $40 billion over 10 years is just the Australian market.
Emerging from global R&D efforts underway, breakthroughs in computing power and design are driving the parallel convergence of technology solutions for disabled and ageing populations, with considerable mutual benefit.
And universally, innovations emerging from and for these populations, will benefit all people who in everyday life experience functional or situational disability.
Commercially, this means that improved features, functionalities and user design are beneficial to all consumers universally.
Accessibility is THE most significant global commercial opportunity.
And this is why I had proposed the establishment of a “Council of Advanced Innovation” for extreme accessibility in the business case, through which Australia could shape, influence and engage local and global research and development, in standards and technology innovations.
Paucity of Analysis
So given the massive AT market there is a paucity of analysis by the NDIA. Deep analysis and future casting is urgently needed, to provide essential insight for the sector, on the shifts and possible futures of the AT and innovation industry. Without this, of what use is financial forecasting on Scheme sustainability? In a number of Submissions, the Australian Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Association (ARATA) highlighted two critical points. Firstly, there is insufficient rigorous research evidence regarding assistive technology. And secondly, there are currently systemic deficiencies and a culture against presenting an ROI of NDIS funded AT over time. Specifically ARATA emphasised the need for…
“…methods to create a culture of selection of AT based on ROI.”
And this AT market research analysis needs to be linked to not only a future view of the AT market for products and services – but what the future jobs market looks like. Exponential technologies are re-shaping what we understand to be “assistive technology” and the inter- relationship with and the nature of jobs. What does the rapid adoption of exponential technologies mean for the massive Australian AT market and the disability and aged care workforces? The dilemma for the fragile aged care system and disability services, is that whilst these are the epicentre of the “jobs growth”, more of the same will not fix the problem. For years, government, industry and research bodies have produced reports looking at “future jobs“ and areas of growth and gaps. Consistently, the two areas with the biggest projected employment growth are health care and social assistance - 38 per cent employment growth in these two categories alone. Various reports estimate that the health and disability care sectors are driving a voracious demand for 70,000 additional jobs in the next few years. But 70,000 of the same jobs of today – for the future – is a meaningless statement.
Page 10
So the question is, how is Scheme sustainability a function of this figure in combination with assistive technology?
We don’t know, because the analysis has not been done.
What we do know is that there are 3 billion people globally engaging with the massive online gaming platforms, and these environments, platforms and technologies are rapidly becoming mainstream support and therapy services. That is, these technologies augment jobs, therapies and services. Are the 70,000 forecasted Australian jobs and people ready for that world? The 2016 Senate Inquiry into The Future of Australia’s Video Game Development Industry acknowledged the growing demand for gaming innovations in health, education and training. But even with the Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda, the Senate Inquiry lamented:
“…it is not apparent that the Government has given explicit attention to interactive game development and the potential for Australia’s future that this industry could provide.”
Assistive communication tools and immersive technologies based on gaming platforms are in clinical and consumer use for behaviour adaptation and sensory therapies. Easy-to-use at home devices already exist, Internet of Things, sensors and companies like Apple continue to add health and safety monitoring capabilities to their smartwatches. In my evidence to the Senate Committee on the Delivery of Outcomes Under the National Disability Strategy 2010-2020, I spoke about an actual example of a physiotherapist consulting with patients on the other side of the country by using a digitally connected exoskeleton. This would be a life changing servicing innovation for many people and create new domestic and export therapeutic services. ROI in this case is not a like-for-like comparison between a wheelchair and exoskeleton. An exoskeleton does not replace a wheelchair: the combined augmented life-long benefits were documented across all dimensions of life. This actual example from an exoskeleton NDIS provider demonstrated the human impact, time and cost of proving ROI involved in introducing new servicing innovations for NDIS participants. But ROI is not accepted which must undermine the concept of value for money. And because of the paucity of analysis of AT, the impact of such innovations on Scheme sustainability and economic benefits is not known. The article “Second Best” by a former Senior Local Area Coordinator (LAC) also spoke about the NDIA’s resistant culture regarding the investment benefit of AT innovations. [REFERENCE: https://therebuttal2.com/2021/04/26/second-best/] I would add to questions around culture, there is a significantly capability deficit within the NDIA regarding knowledge about AT innovations. As I mentioned previously, the reason why this is important is that advances in AT innovations not only support independence and are an investment over time, but these shape the nature of jobs. All these factors are determinants of Scheme sustainability. In the “Second Best” article, the former LAC described the situation of a woman who had a lower limb amputation. This woman needed to upgrade her prosthetic as it was old and often fell off. The woman had numerous reports from various OTs regarding a prosthetic that had a microprocessor as this was more appropriate.
The NDIS Approval Issue
The NDIS wouldn’t approve it. They wanted this woman to have a cheaper fixed type of prosthetic which was not suitable for her circumstances. The article stated that whoever the NDIA expert was didn’t feel the benefits of the microprocessor were enough to justify the cost. The participant was virtually housebound for two years because the prosthetic that she had was unsafe.
In another example, the “Second Best” article talks about the situation of hearing impaired people who have been fighting with the NDIA over visual alert systems such as “Visualert” and haptic alert systems. In Australia smoke alarm legislation is very strict. For hearing people the alarm must be heard from wherever they are in the home.
The “Second Best” article offered that hearing impaired people would need a similar system. OTs and audiologists around Australia have being recommending visual alert systems because it keeps hearing impaired people safe. According to the “Second Best” article, the NDIS is refusing these. Instead funding only cheaper systems that rely on batteries, pagers and WiFi. These systems do not meet the same strict safety requirements that hearing systems must meet.
The “Second Best” article goes on to observe:
“Governments are always happy to spend billions of dollars on roads because it creates jobs and stimulates the economy. For some odd reason when it comes to investing in a similar way in people with a disability it’s no longer an investment.”
As ARATA stated, creating a culture of ROI – not just “reasonable and necessary” - is absolutely necessary to fully leverage the $40 billion AT market to transform the jobs and skills market.
Can you imagine robots as support workers, monitors and companions in people’s homes and in supported accommodation? The robotics industry is undergoing what has been described as a “…Cambrian explosion of growth…”. Can you imagine a robot training a person with disability, to perform work remotely. And for this to be funded as capacity building as part of a person’s NDIS package.
The result is that a host of jobs that seemed out of reach for remote work are likely to be firmly in the remote-work orbit within the next 10 years. And people with disability, as avid gamers and experienced users and developers of these technologies, could translate these skills into remote work opportunities.
And even the most fundamental of human rights and basic human care - for an incontinent person to be kept clean – is a domain of radical innovation. Innovation almost impossible to imagine, given the reports from the Royal Commissions of the appalling rationing of incontinence garments.
The 2020 Report of the “Global Incontinence Products Industry” projects that the global market for incontinence care products will reach US$17 billion by 2025, with product innovation driven by RFID and sensor wafer chips. Sensors will detect when the diaper has been soiled, as well as monitor body temperature, detect abnormalities in urine composition, and even help prevent bed sores by tracking how long it’s been since a person has moved.
Could smart diaper data, sensors and data analytics become part of a quality and safeguard framework? Think about what this would mean for the skills and management of attendant care staff.
And while there is an urgent need for discussion about jobs as part of Scheme sustainability, this discussion is incomplete without a discussion on the rapidly changing nature of work, an augmented services and care ecosystem of AI, robotics, immersive technologies, sensing and remote servicing. Given the pace of change, these exponential technologies provide a new paradigm for rethinking what we mean by unmeetable demand and sustainability. So given the changing mix of presence, scale and exponential reach in terms of time and location, I wonder how the definitions of regional, remote and very remote might need to adapt so as not to unintentionally limit innovation. Or unnecessarily exacerbate or cause “thin markets”. So once again, how can an actuarial perspective on Scheme sustainability not take into account the advances in and participant investment funding for AT innovations? The original PC Report recognised that innovation was absolutely necessary for Scheme sustainability.
It is unfathomable that the agency and the government is driving a narrative on Scheme sustainability, when the actuarial forecasting itself lacks any analysis on the adoption of AT and exponential technologies.
SUMMARY
We all accept that the NDIS needs reform and in my Submissions I have detailed specific areas where reform is urgently needed so that people do not continue to suffer harm and disadvantage. Like Medicare, NDIS covers all Australians. I believe that all Australians should be gravely concerned that the flawed Independent Assessments and related legislative changes have progressed so far, without oversight - measures that have been shown to damage people. Reform starts with the internal operations of the NDIA – including the actuarial function – and legislative amendments to include a legislated co-design framework and a legislated ethics framework. Transparency is essential. A prominent legal advocate in administrative law, Darren O’Donovan recently offered a model upon which reform might be based:
“We seriously need the domestic version of a Peace Summit for the NDIS. Public submissions, actuarial modelling public, software for building plans public. Appoint a trained arbitrator and publish all minutes.”
The disability community has long fought to end the institutionalisation of disabled people: this is the promise of the NDIS. The changes that are being advanced by the Government and NDIA will have the effect of imposing a digitised automated form of institutionalisation and discrimination.
The first principle in any government servicing must be: "first, do no harm".
With this first principle of an ethics framework, beneficial co-designed reform can take place.
Marie Johnson CEO Centre for Digital Business Pty Limited
30 April 2021
12
Biography: Marie Johnson
Marie Johnson is the CEO of the Centre for Digital Business. She is an accessibility advocate, and a recognized global speaker and commentator on artificial intelligence; technology; digital services; ehealth; cyber; identity; biometrics; and innovation.
An internationally experienced entrepreneur, Marie has an unparalleled track record across the public and private sector delivering significant technology, innovation and digital services transformation programs encompassing revenue, business, social services, payments, identity, immigration visa operations and disability services. The diversity of roles covers service delivery operations, global technology industry strategy, Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Architect, board director and advisor. Marie was the Head of the Technology Authority of the National Disability Insurance Agency.
Marie conceived and led the global co-design effort with people with disability to deliver “Nadia” the first AI powered digital human for service delivery. Grounded in human rights, this work sparked a global industry and appetite for AI powered digital humans.
Following Nadia, Marie designed and created the artificial intelligent “Digital Human Cardiac Coach”, introduced at the global Singularity University Exponential Medicine Conference in San Diego November 2019.
The strategic framework “Co-Design for AI ©” which she developed, embeds Human Rights in service design.
In addition to large scale service delivery operations, Marie has led the strategy and implementation of significant reform programs across the digital machinery of government:
- Australian Business Number (ABN) registration in joint task force with the ATO.
- The Business Entry Point, initiative of the three levels of government.
- Chief Technology Architect for the $1Billion Health and Human Services Access Card programme.
- Collaboration with the Reserve Bank of Australia on innovation in payments and information services initiating Payment Delivery Reform.
- Service Delivery Reform technology business cases bringing together Centrelink, Medicare Australia and Child Support.
- Developed and delivered the $700 million Visa Pricing Transformation (VPT) programme; and delivery of the Global eMedical system to 100 countries in partnership with Citizenship and Immigration Canada at Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC).
Marie was influential in the Australian Financial Systems Inquiry, which recommended the need for a federated digital identity framework as a critical element for the future robustness of Australia’s financial systems.
The egovernment and digital initiatives Marie has led have been also been recognised globally.
These include the United Nations Public Service Award in the category “Application of ICT in government: egovernment” for the Business Entry Point (www.business.gov.au) which she led for 5 years.
In 2005, the US Government awarded Marie an O-1 Visa (Individuals with Extraordinary Ability or Achievement) to take up the role leading Microsoft’s Worldwide Public Services and eGovernment business, including Microsoft’s Identity Strategy in Government. Microsoft noted Marie’s egovernment knowledge “…is unique in the world and is of particular interest to Microsoft as we pursue our egovernment strategies”.
In 2006-2007, Marie was named “Innovative CIO of the Year – Australia”. In 2013, Marie was named one of Australia’s “100 Women of Influence”. In 2019, was awarded the “Exceptional Woman of Excellence” at the Women Economic Forum (WEF) in Perth. WEF is the largest gathering of women entrepreneurs & leaders worldwide.
For many years, Marie was an invited member of the Accenture Global CIO Advisory Council; an Independent Member of the Australian Federal Police Spectrum Programme Board; and an elected National Board Director of the Australian Information Industry Association. In 2019, Marie was faculty at Singularity University Exponential Medicine (San Diego).
Marie served as an Inaugural member of the Australian National University (ANU) Cyber Institute Advisory Board.
In 2020, Marie delivered the 2020 Kenneth Jenkins Oration to the National Disability Services National Conference.
In 2021, Marie is the Patron of the Tech Girls Movement Foundation. www.techgirlsmovement.org
Qualifications
MBA (Melbourne Business School); Bachelor of Arts; Harvard University Kennedy School of Government Senior Executive Fellows Program; and Graduate of Australian Institute of Company Directors
More Information: www.marie-johnson.com
REFERENCES
Article: “No Fairness in the Harm Caused by Algorithms” https://www.innovationaus.com/no-fairness-in-the-harm-caused-by-algorithms/
Article: “Second Best” https://therebuttal2.com/2021/04/26/second-best/
Article: “Not just A-levels: unfair algorithms are being used to make all sorts of government decisions” https://theconversation.com/not-just-a-levels-unfair-algorithms-are-being-used-to-make-all-sorts-of- government-decisions-145138
Article: “Bad software sent postal workers to jail, because no one wanted to admit it could be wrong” https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/23/22399721/uk-post-office-software-bug-criminal-convictions- overturned
‘Robo-planning’ will ‘blow-up’ NDIS: key architect https://www.innovationaus.com/robo-planning-will-blow-up-ndis-key-architect/
14
<!-- source-release-page: 15 -->
<a id="source-page-15"></a>
## Source release page 15
069969060800