And I think maybe if we had started the NJS with clearer lines, it would... been in a very different situation but I guess because of the new the newness and the immaturity of the scheme they've let it run and maybe too long and now they're really over correcting things

Yeah, for sure.

And look, I totally hear that, right? And I think it's a very logical argument to, I guess, make the distinction between what's valued and what's imported and, I guess, what's affordable and that kind of stuff.

And I think my counter-argument to that, or I guess my response to that would be, and I've heard this said a few times, that whatever they cut from the NDIS... they're not saving that they're just kicking it down to another bucket and i've heard a few different uh people people say this and i think um i guess one of my i guess responses to that is that i guess this is maybe opens up a larger can of worms that might flow into a second episode on the podcast um but i think my i guess one of my responses to it is that If we fund it in its early intervention stage, whether it be respite, one-to-one support, intervention, whatever it is, if we fund that, right, I'm not too bothered what hat it wears or what bucket it's in, whether it's the NDIS bucket, the child protection bucket, thriving kids bucket.

I'm not too bothered about the bucket that it comes in.

What I'm concerned about is that if it's going to cost $10,000, it's going to cost $10,000 whether it's coming from child protection, NDIS, or from thriving kids or whatever it is.

My concern is that if it's not funded in this stage of life or in this stage of the person's life, we will end up funding it in another way and you know an incredibly extreme example and i i'm not trying to paint a broad brush but i i just want to give i guess one specific made-up story that kind of illustrates the point that um and i guess this is really real for pay loss but you know, a $10,000 respite as an intervention for somebody that then, you know, linked them in with supports and greater capacity building, there has been times that that's stopped criminal offending cycles and illicit substance dependence and stuff like that, which taxpayer would pay in incarceration rates and and you know i'm not sure the most recent figures of how much it costs a day to have somebody uh incarcerated but like that's a significant cost to the taxpayer when you also think about things like emergency services and stuff and so i guess one of my responses when we talk about things like funding i think in australia we can collectively agree um regardless of where you sit politically.

restaurants

There's a first.

But essentially, yeah [chuckles] so essentially, I think I was having a chat with somebody, and we were talking, we do that fun game of like, "If you won the lottery, what, what would you like l- life look like?" kind of thing, right? Now, keep in mind, at this point, I'd already been reflecting deeply on how do I draw from the stuff at CY and how do I make that accessible to young people in out-of-home care? 'Cause essentially my, my, I, I re- I, I felt really strongly about the young people in out-of-home care having access to the s- to the stuff that I was seeing at CYC.

I was like, "Man, these kids really need to go four-wheel driving, camping, roasting marshmallows, catching their fresh fish," like all these amazing things.

And so I didn't have that growing up, right? So it's kind of like I, I knew the feeling of growing up without a dad, being a low, you know, being in housing commission and going to pa-- and, and just kind of like hearing about other rich kids going to, like, Gold Coast and doing all these cool family vacation and not having access to that, and I guess what that did to my internal working model.

So some of that lived experience kind of informed when I looked at my, the young people I was working with out of home care, being like, "Man, these kids really deserve like a fishing trip.

They, they deserve like a campsite they can say is theirs." And, and some of the stuff that other families get to say, like, "Oh, my dad always takes us to Lakes Entrance every Easter," or something like, right? Like our kids in out-of-home care, they don't get to say those sentences.

And, and, and it represents much, something much deeper.

Okay