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Submission - Parliament of Australia (NDIS)
Submitted by: Inclusion Tree Date: January 2026
M: PO Box 126 PLUMPTON NSW 2761
E: hello@inclusiontree.com.au
W: www.inclusiontree.com.au
P: 1300 126 123
ABN: 586 234 17336
We commit to reconciliation and acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’, their histories, cultures and communities. We acknowledge the lands of Australia were never ceded W:and wewww.inclusiontree.com.aurespect the Aboriginal and Torres Strait IslanderABN: peoples586 234as the traditional17336 custodians of the land
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Executive Summary
Inclusion Tree welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Parliament of Australia’s inquiry into the administration of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). As a service delivery organisation working directly with people with disability, families, and communities, we see firsthand both the transformational potential of the NDIS and the administrative barriers that undermine participant rights, choice and control, and service continuity.
Findings from the Auditor-General’s reports across 2024–25 and 2025–26 demonstrate systemic governance, compliance, data, and regulatory weaknesses that materially impact participants, providers, and the long-term sustainability of the Scheme. Combined with the practical experiences shared by participants and advocates, highlight an urgent need for reform in administrative transparency, procedural fairness, market oversight, data integrity, and regulatory responsiveness.
Inclusion Tree strongly advocates for:
- Full alignment with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) as a governing principle for all administrative and regulatory decisions.
- Protection and restoration of participant choice and control as foundational to the NDIS design.
- Transparent and reviewable administrative decisions, including clear reasons for decisions, accessible pathways to internal and external review, and strengthened oversight.
- Capacity-building inside the NDIA and NDIS Commission to ensure consistent, human-rights–aligned decision-making.
This submission synthesises Auditor-General findings, contemporary evidence, and Inclusion Tree’s on-the-ground experience to present concrete recommendations for structural reform.
1. Introduction
Inclusion Tree is a community-based service delivery organisation supporting people with disability to live full and meaningful lives. Our services span capacity building, community inclusion, support coordination and direct support. We serve participants across metropolitan, regional, and rural areas, including culturally and linguistically diverse communities and people with complex support needs.
The NDIS has fundamentally reshaped the disability support landscape. Yet both participants and providers are increasingly burdened by administrative complexity, opaque decision-making, inconsistent NDIA communication, and delays that jeopardise supports and outcomes.
Auditor-General reports from 2024-25 and 2025-26 confirm these lived experiences at scale. Core themes include:
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- ineffective or inconsistent governance
- unclear compliance frameworks
- weak preventative controls
- inadequate data systems
- slow or incomplete response to emerging risks
- fragmented oversight between the NDIA and NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission
As a service provider, we see every day how these issues reduce participant choice, create financial instability for providers, and erode public trust in the Scheme.
2. Australia’s Commitments Under the UN Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Australia is a signatory to the UNCRPD, which requires that people with disability:
- exercise choice and control over their supports
- access services in inclusive environments
- have equal recognition before the law
- receive supports on the basis of dignity, autonomy, and full participation
- have access to justice, including review of government decisions
The NDIS was built to operationalise these principles through:
- individualised budgets
- person-centred planning
- consumer-directed supports
- transparent administrative processes
- independent review
However, administrative failures identified in audits—including unclear claim rejection reasons, inconsistent decision-making, delays in plan approvals and reviews, and lack of data completeness—reduce or remove participants’ ability to meaningfully exercise these rights.
When a participant cannot understand a decision, cannot correct errors, or cannot access timely review, they are denied procedural fairness—a clear breach of Article 13 (Access to Justice) and Article 21 (Freedom of Expression and Information).
Administrative reforms must be grounded in the UNCRPD as a legally binding framework, not an aspirational guideline.
3. Maintaining Participant Choice and Control
Choice and control is the core feature of the NDIS model. It requires:
- flexible funding
- ability to engage providers of the participant’s choice
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- autonomy in selecting service approaches
- transparent pricing and claiming mechanisms
- personalised, not standardised, planning
However, systemic issues now constrain choice:
3.1 Constraining Market Access
The Auditor-General found that the NDIS Commission lacks visibility into the large, unregistered provider market, despite 42% of plan-managed payments flowing to unregistered providers. We do not believe regulatory gaps directly impact risk, and restricting access to unregistered providers without viable alternatives limits participant choice—especially in rural and remote areas.
3.2 Administrative Barriers
Participants experience:
- claim rejections without explanation
- delays in plan approvals, variations, or renewals – sometimes years
- communications written in inaccessible language
- inconsistent advice from NDIA staff
- reliance on automated processes without adequate human oversight
These issues disproportionately affect:
- self-managers and direct employers
- people with complex needs
- participants in crisis
- those without advocacy support
- culturally diverse communities
- rural and remote participants
Choice cannot exist without clear processes, transparent communication, and the ability to act on decisions.
4. Transparency, Procedural Fairness and Reviewability
Administrative transparency is essential to maintaining public trust.
4.1 Clear Reasons for Decisions
We highlight that:
- claims are often marked “Rejected” with no explanation or right to appeal
- plan decisions lack human-rights-aligned reasoning
- families cannot understand NDIA correspondence without specialist translation
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- errors or inconsistencies are left unaddressed
- the definition of risk is not clear or consistent
The Auditor-General confirms that:
- the NDIA has not established fit-for-purpose compliance frameworks
- review pathways for automated claim decisions are unclear
- decision-making lacks documented reasonable rationale
- performance and compliance data is incomplete or unverified
Without clear reasons, participants cannot exercise their review rights. Participants must always have the right to independent reviews of all aspects of their plan and funding.
4.2 Access to Administrative Review
Australia’s administrative law framework requires:
- Reasons
- Internal review
- External review (ART or successor body)
Barriers within the NDIS administration include:
- delays in processing internal reviews
- decisions varying between NDIA regions and planners
- lack of procedural fairness in processes
- absence of transparent performance reporting
Transparent, consistent, reviewable decision-making is non-negotiable.
5. Key Findings from Auditor-General Reports Relevant
to the Inquiry
Across multiple reports, consistent issues emerge:
5.1 Ineffective or Incomplete Compliance Frameworks
- Foundational controls (identity verification, pre-payment checks) were missing until 2024.
- Compliance frameworks do not reflect current practice.
- Large volumes of non-compliant claims are detected only in limited pre-payment audits.
5.2 Poor Data Quality and Incomplete Intelligence
- IT systems (including the Commission Operating System) contain incomplete or inaccurate data.
- Lack of visibility of unregistered providers inhibits risk-based regulation.
- No assurance over data held by the NDIS Commission.
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5.3 Lack of Fit-for-Purpose Regulatory Approach
- The NDIS Commission does not yet apply a consistent risk-based regulatory model.
- Monitoring is reactive rather than proactive.
- There is insufficient market oversight to prevent service interruptions or provider withdrawal.
5.4 Weak Internal Governance
- NDIA Board oversight is inconsistent in responding to underperformance.
- Conflict-of-interest management is underdeveloped.
- Risk frameworks have not been updated to reflect emerging NDIS risks.
5.5 Inadequate Communication with Participants
- Correspondence is unclear, inconsistent, and inaccessible.
- Claim and plan guidance is not aligned with system terminology (e.g., “core budget” vs. portal categories).
- Participants waste funds preparing for reviews that do not occur due to lack of notice.
These failures have real impacts: service disruptions, financial stress, and erosion of trust.
6. Impacts on Participants and Service Providers
Administrative dysfunction is not an abstract concern—it affects daily life.
6.1 Impacts on Participants
Participants experience:
- loss of essential supports due to unexplained claim rejections and bad planning decisions
- inability to retain workers
- heightened risk of exploitation by unscrupulous providers
- increased mental health stress
- isolation when support coordination and service delivery supports lapse
- financial hardship for self-managers paying upfront for later-rejected claims
6.2 Impacts on Providers
Providers experience:
- administrative burdens that divert resources from frontline service delivery
- delays in payment
- financial pressure in supporting participants needs when not matched with funding to ensure continuity of care and participant safety
- unpredictability in plan renewals
- difficulty navigating performance reporting requirements
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- increased compliance workload due to unclear guidance
This environment increases provider burnout and reduces market stability, directly limiting participant choice.
- Recommendations for System Reform
Inclusion Tree proposes the following reforms:
7.1 Embedding Human Rights Principles
- Make UNCRPD obligations explicit in NDIA decision-making criteria.
- Require human-rights impact assessments for all major policy or system changes.
7.2 Strengthening Choice and Control
- Preserve access to both registered and unregistered providers with proportionate risk-based safeguards.
- Simplify claiming categories and ensure alignment with plan terminology.
- Ensure NDIA communications meet plain-language and accessibility standards.
- Co-design all changes with those that are impacted.
7.3 Improving Transparency and Procedural Fairness
- Mandate clear, specific reasons for all administrative decisions, including automated ones.
- Require NDIA to provide participants with real-time explanations and corrective guidance for rejected claims.
- Establish efficient internal review timeframes with independent oversight.
7.4 Strengthening External Oversight and Review Rights
- Maintain and enhance the role of the Administrative Review Tribunal.
- Require NDIA and NDIS Commission to publicly report on all review outcomes, reasons, and timeframes.
7.5 Strengthening Governance and Accountability
- Update risk frameworks annually and publish them.
- Ensure Board oversight includes mandatory follow-up on underperformance.
- Document and manage conflicts of interest consistently.
7.6 Building Data and Systems Capability
- Prioritise fit-for-purpose IT systems that support accuracy, accessibility, and interoperability.
- Implement quality assurance frameworks for all compliance and intelligence functions.
- Ensure visibility of the unregistered provider market through data sharing.
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7.7 Reducing Administrative Burden
- Introduce streamlined processes for predictable plan renewals.
- Provide participants with minimum 90-day notice before plan rollover or structural changes.
- Fund provider training to improve compliance and reduce inadvertent errors.
7.8 Risk-based does not mean risk-averse
In implementing a risk-based regulation framework for both NDIS plans and NDIA internal processes, it is critically important to understand that this does NOT mean that absence of risk but instead must involve judgements about reasonable risks, everyday risks and risks by participants. Do not standardised risk-averse regulatory behaviours because this will inevitably lead to limiting the opportunities and activities of participants.
- Conclusion
The NDIS remains one of Australia’s most significant social reforms. Its promise, however, is jeopardised by administrative opacity, governance weaknesses, and regulatory gaps that undermine participant rights, constrain choice, and place pressure on service providers.
Reform is urgently needed—not by diminishing participant autonomy, but by strengthening the systems designed to support it.
Inclusion Tree calls on Parliament to:
- reaffirm the centrality of the UNCRPD
- restore and strengthen participant choice and control
- embed transparency and procedural fairness
- ensure strong, human-centred, accountable governance
- invest in data, systems, and risk-proportionate regulatory capability
- ensure risk identification is personalised and based on participant perspective
Through these reforms, Australia can restore the NDIS to its intended purpose: empowering people with disability to live ordinary lives with extraordinary possibilities.