Davie

Davie worked as a builder for a large disability service provider for several years.

Not long ago, he began a major home modification for a client who uses a wheelchair.

It was an older home and Davie was worried there might be asbestos. He immediately contacted his manager who told him there was no mention of asbestos in the paperwork.

Still concerned, Davie spoke to the senior builder, also the team supervisor, who had conducted the initial inspection of the property.

The builder told him there was no asbestos at the property.

Davie and his colleagues began demolishing parts of the home and took the material to the local rubbish dump.

The client and his wife stayed in the house during the demolition and remained in the house that evening.

Davie and the other workers returned home to their families and children.

The next day, they continued the demolition.

Davie told the Royal Commission that he pulled off a panel of sheeting and found an asbestos sticker on the back.

He immediately stopped work and sent a sample for testing. The test result was positive for asbestos.

Davie told his manager that the builder had ‘blatantly lied’ about the presence of asbestos at the site.

‘The response of, “Why do you care? You're a smoker,” was just gobsmacking,’ he said.

Davie lost it, and reminded his manager they had exposed the client – a person with disability – to asbestos.

Davie’s manager agreed to file an incident report with the building authority.

Shortly afterwards, Davie received a written warning ‘for using bad language in an aggressive manner’.

A week later, Davie discovered the manager hadn’t filed a report. He contacted the CEO who fobbed him off, giving him information Davie knew to be false.

Davie decided to report the incident himself and made further enquiries about the job.

He discovered the builder had never conducted an asbestos assessment. Yet the quote for the home modifications included almost $3000 for the removal of asbestos.

Davie found other irregularities in the quote, including charges for several hours of report writing that they didn’t do.

‘Multiple items on there that they're getting charged for that were never going to happen,’ Davie said.

‘[The provider] has been issuing fraudulent quotes to clients by including disinformation on items and services, and including additional, unnecessary hours on the quotes submitted to the NDIS and other funding providers.’

Davie continued to investigate and discovered the provider and another organisation had shared information about their quotes, agreeing to inflate certain costs.

He asked an independent builder to provide a quote so he could get an idea of what the job should have cost. He discovered the provider was charging the client with disability more than double market rate.

Davie resigned and gave all of the information to the client, telling him, 'If you ever get sick, or any of your family, this is yours.’

He reported the provider to a number of different agencies including NDIS Fraud Reporting and Scams Helpline, to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and police.

‘Retelling the story over and over again is emotionally exhausting. Knowing how people with a disability have been deliberately taken advantage of for personal and company gain. I was foolish that I believed my senior staff for years. The realisation that it is simply a money grab is enraging.’