TheNDIS regulatoris investigating a Queensland-based disability housing and support provider – which collapsed in March with more than half a million dollars in tax debt — after residents made complaints alleging that their support needs were not being fully met.
Several former residents and staff claim the company, Core & Capacity Disability Support Pty Ltd, had not provided adequate care for people with disability and imposed restrictions on residents that isolated them from the community.
The former residents and staff also allege the company failed to file some rental bonds and operated audio-recording cameras throughout the accommodation complex it managed in the Brisbane suburb of Acacia Ridge; leading residents and staff to fear their private conversations could have been listened to.
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Core & Capacity provided accommodation and disability support services to participants of the National Disability Insurance Scheme until the federal court ordered it be wound up in insolvency on 19 March due to $507,782.84 in unpaid taxes, corporate records and court documents show.
Guardian Australia can reveal NDIS participants are still being housed anddisability support services being provided at the same site in Acacia Ridge, under new companies registered shortly after the Australian Taxation Office launched federal court proceedings to wind up Core & Capacity on 15 November.
A spokesperson for the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission said, in response to questions from Guardian Australia about the residents’ concerns, thatit was “currently looking into these matters,” while the liquidator for Core & Capacity has told creditors in a report filed with ASIC that she intends to launch an insolvent trading claim.
The director of Core & Capacity, Liam Luppino, said it was never his intention to cause distress and that the allegations against the company are “misguided”. “I’m just quite sad about how it all unfolded,” he said.
Core & Capacity offered independent living options (ILOs) for people with disability, pitched as a flexible housing and support arrangement.
NDIS participants were given standard rooming house leases, but with added conditions guaranteeing the company 22 hours of one-on-one support work a week, paid for by the resident’s NDIS funds, and banning external support workers from the premises without the company’s written permission.
In the midst of insolvency proceedings, Core & Capacity staff began to issue residents with new agreements for rent and disability support. The agreements, seen by Guardian Australia, used Core & Capacity branding but requested payments be made to two different companies: CCDS Acacia Ridge Operations and CCDS Acacia Ridge Housing.
Those companies were registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) on 6 December and 23 January under the name of Deborah Luppino, the mother of Core & Capacity’s director, secretary and ultimate shareholder, Liam Luppino.
The wind up order in March came just days after a resident was found dead in the Acacia Ridge complex.QueenslandPolice said the resident’s death did not appear to be suspicious. The events were not related.
Guardian Australia has confirmed that multiple complaints have been made to the NDIS Commission about the conduct of Core & Capacity, including one as early as November 2023. But an investigation did not begin until February, after Labor MP Graham Perrett and Greens senator Larissa Waters intervened on behalf of a former resident and constituent, Shaun Bickley.
Bickley has been contacting authorities about Core & Capacity for six months. He told Guardian Australia he was deeply frustrated by what he felt was too little action for vulnerable people in the company’s care, coming too late.
“I’m verbal, have good supports, used to work in disability advocacy, can contact MPs and reporters, and everything I did was still ignored. What chance did anyone else there have at being heard?” Bickley said.
Bickley and another former resident, Ron Bath, told Guardian Australia they felt the disability support they received at Core & Capacity was inadequate.
Correspondence from Bickley to the company, seen by Guardian Australia, documents numerous instances in which he queried the quality of his support and billing on his plan. In November, he cancelled his service agreement with the company on grounds including allegations that support workers frequently arrived late, left early, and supported other participants while on individual shifts with him. The company offered to investigate, but Bickley elected instead to make a complaint to the NDIS Commission outlining these and other concerns.
Bath described similar experiences with his support workers. “They’d come and do the cleaning, then go and sit under the carport and play with their phones,” said Bath. “They didn’t want to know me but [the company was] happy to send me invoices.” Bath did not formally complain to the company as he did not expect to live there longer than six months.
Luppino vehemently denied that the support provided had been inadequate. “We were there to help, not take advantage of them,” he said.
Former staff and residents claimed that at times the personal care of high-needs residents was visibly neglected, with incontinent residents observed in soiled clothes, and inexperienced support staff rostered to work with very volatile or aggressive residents.
They complained that the company operated cameras throughout the complex that recorded both video and audio, including in the staff room and shared indoor areas. Signage on the site indicated the presence of security cameras but some staff and residents said they were initially unaware that they recorded audio and said they felt uncomfortable with private conversations potentially being recorded.
Guardian Australia has seen extracts of surveillance footage of a resident falling down a set of stairs at the Acacia Ridge site, in which speech is clearly audible.
Guardian Australia has also seen evidence suggesting the company also failed on at least four occasions to file the residential bonds it collected from tenants with the Queensland Residential Tenancies Authority, an apparent breach of the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008. Residents were able to get their bond money back from the company when they left, but some were concerned that the funds may not have been kept with the appropriate authority.
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Luppino said all Core & Capacity’s staff were required to have or be enrolled in a certificate 3, but that the company could only operate within the parameters of a participant’s NDIS funding.
“So yes, there would have been times when participants were un-cared for, because they only had limited amounts of funding,” Luppino said. “In reality, they should have gone to a SIL [Supported Independent Living] home where they would have had more care, but they weren’t funded for a SIL home. Often support coordinators would get them in with us because it was better than nothing.”
He said while the on-site cameras did record audio, “they were never used with ill intent” and no personal conversations were recorded.
Luppino said the company’s procedures had always required rental bonds to be lodged, but he had attempted to address the issue of non-lodgement when it had been raised with him late last year.
Residents said they were also prevented from having visitors after 10pm. Visitors at other times were required to register their personal details and the reason for their visit with the company.
Bickley said the ban on external support workers coupled with the restrictions on visitors had the effect of isolating residents from the community. “Only support workers would see us, at best, unless we broke the rules and risked eviction,” he said.
“That made me feel like a prisoner,” Bath said. The rules effectively prohibited his daughter from staying with him, “so we had to sneak [her] in without them knowing.” He said his six months living at the complex “left a life scar on me”.
Luppino said he implemented the ban on external support workers to prevent sub-standard providers from taking advantage of participants. “I feel horrible that they felt trapped. That was never our intention,” he said. “I wanted to create a little community of people that felt like they belonged.”
Luppino initially told Guardian Australia the restrictions were a Brisbane city council requirement for rooming houses. A spokesperson for Brisbane city council said there was no such council rule or regulation. Luppino later clarified that it was a condition of the head lease held by the company.
On 16 April, Core & Capacity’s administrator, Kaily Chua from Rodgers Reidy, an insolvency and forensic accounting firm, said in her report to creditors, filed with ASIC, it was her assessment that “the Company’s failure was caused by poor strategic management and poor cash management.”
Chua said in the report she intended to initiate an insolvent trading claim, but was still determining particulars, as Luppino had allegedly provided incomplete and partial information to liquidators, including failing to disclose a loan of $117k from Core & Capacity to another of his businesses, Luppino’s Hair.
The company became aware of its tax debt in February last year, Luppino said, but was unsuccessful in negotiating a payment plan. In an affidavit filed in federal court, he said he had received an offer on a residential property he owned in Mount Warren Park, and intended to use the proceeds of the sale to pay off the tax debt. At the time of publication, the property was still listed for sale but marked as “under contract”.
ASIC records list the Mount Warren Park property as Luppino’s address, as well as the registered address and primary place of business for the new companies that have taken over operations at Acacia Ridge, and the residential address of their director, secretary and shareholder Deborah Luppino, his mother.
Liam Luppino said he had “nothing to do” with the creation of the new companies. “At the time I just wanted to let it all go,” he said. “But my mum, who is a very caring person, said if I do let it go, participants will be put on the street and have no support, so she decided she’d start her own company and look after them. At least that way they’d get some care.”
Deborah Luppino did not respond to questions from Guardian Australia.
Chua has reached out to the National Disability Insurance Agency to request they assist NDIS participants at Acacia Ridge who may have been affected by the company’s collapse, she said in her report.
The NDIA would not comment on the investigation.
“Where there is any risk to participants or the scheme, the NDIA will implement whatever compliance controls are necessary including contacting participants and supporting them to move to more appropriate providers,” a spokesperson said.