Submission to the Joint Committee

of Public Accounts and Audit

Submitted by:

The Australian Neurodivergent Parents Association (ANPA)

Date: January 2026

Executive Summary

    1. This submission has been prepared on Gundungurra and Darug Country in the
   Blue Mountains, NSW. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging
  and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded. This always was, and always
     will be, Aboriginal land. We acknowledge our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
  members and recommit to supporting and promoting their sovereignty, leadership
  and governance within The ANPA.

    2. Our submission to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit raises urgent
  and grave concerns about the administration of the National Disability Insurance
 Scheme in relation to children under 9.

    3. We submit that two administrative practices are currently operating at scale and
   require immediate Parliamentary attention:

           a) the operation of the Early Connections program in a way that delays or
          avoids the statutory access and planning decisions for children required by
          the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (Cth), and

           b) the hollowing out of entitlement for children who remain legally eligible
             for individual funding under the NDIS Act and have formally met access
         requirements for the Scheme, but whose funded supports have been reduced
           or removed in practice (constructive removal).

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These concerns are not about policy preference and directly engage the ANAO reports listed for consideration, and terms of reference for this inquiry. They consider whether current administrative arrangements allow the NDIA to comply with the Act and whether Parliament can be assured that lawful decisions are being made. In particular, these concerns engage with Section 5 of the objects and principles of the NDIS Act, which states that the best interests of the child are a paramount consideration under the Act.
NDIA quarterly reporting indicates that approximately 27,000 Autistic and developmentally delayed children under the age of nine are referred each quarter to the Early Connections program by Early Childhood Partners (ECP) (NDIA 2026). This primarily occurs at the point their parents seek access to the Scheme for individualised early intervention supports. This represents a recent and material departure from earlier practice in administering access for this cohort. Previously, families were supported by ECPs in the first instance to apply for access for their child when it was clear they would likely meet access requirements.
We hold serious concerns that these engagements with families may lack a lawful basis. The National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 makes no provision for a pre-eligibility pathway or for diverting children from an eligibility determination once access has been sought through an Early Childhood partner (NDIS Act 2013). This remains the case following the 2024 amendments and subsequent construction of delegated instruments.
Secondly, and distinct from the above issue, many thousands of eligible children within this cohort, who have previously been granted access and NDIS package, have had their funding dramatically reduced in the last 15 months (Senate Estimates 2024, 2025; Morton 2025, 2026). The structure, reasoning and detectable patterns of letters sent to families raise serious questions about whether statutory tests are being applied in substance. The ANPA is concerned that individual evidence is not being genuinely and substantively engaged with, and that this is happening at scale to highly vulnerable children. On the basis of analysis of a large tranche of decision letters we have seen, conversations with families, allied health workers and NDIA delegates, our organisation has formed the view that lawful, genuine states of satisfaction on an individual basis are not being formed by delegates as required by the NDIS Act.
We do not allege individual fault by delegates and stand in solidarity with all frontline workers. Our concern, instead, is that the templated design and reasoning used in the Participant Experience and Circumstances Questionnaire (PECQ) and in the recently deployed PACE software may be generating this outcome at scale. Combined with throughput pressures and, at times, coercive management pressures (shared by delegates), we have formed the view that these factors are materially constraining the decision-making process and environment. We have further formed the view that the cumulation of these factors is a substantive fettering of delegates’ discretion. Concerningly, this is happening rapidly to many children, to the point that it overrides the child’s best interests under Section 5 of the NDIS Act.

Early Intervention Governance, Financial and Legal Risk

Early intervention governance, financial and legal risk to children, families and the Commonwealth: The failure to provide timely, individualised early intervention to eligible Disabled children constitutes a material governance and assurance risk (PGPA). Delays or substitution of early intervention during a critical developmental period create foreseeable and potentially irreversible harm. They further undermine assurance that the NDIS is being administered in accordance with its statutory purposes, and increase the likelihood of long-term cost escalation across the Scheme. Expenditure on early intervention should be understood as an investment rather than a cost: economic analysis commissioned by the Melbourne Institute, provided in their Per Capita Report, and cited by the Hon. Bill Shorten in 2021, estimates a return of $2.25 for every dollar spent through increased participation and reduced downstream demand (Per Capita 2021).
Conversely, reductions in support for children have been identified as carrying macroeconomic risk. A commentary reported by the Australian Financial Review, attributed to Goldman Sachs analysis, indicates that curtailing NDIS supports for autistic children could reduce Australia’s GDP growth by up to 0.3 percentage points over the coming years (Australian Financial Review 2025). The delays and diversions we now see, therefore, expose the Commonwealth to escalating and potentially uncapped fiscal risk. They also heighten litigation risk arising from foreseeable and preventable harm to vulnerable Disabled children arising from improper decision-making under Statute - with assistive precedent likely found in Amato v Commonwealth of Australia 2019 and NDIA v Sutherland 2026.
Knowledge and foreseeable risk, recklessness: These risks are well known. They have been identified in Australian National Audit Office audit findings concerning NDIS governance and risk management, and have been communicated in detail to both the Agency and the Commonwealth through established parliamentary oversight processes. The ANPA and other DPROs, peak organisations and allied health workers unions have been active in notifying the Federal government of the risks of delaying or denying access to individualised early intervention supports. The ANPA therefore raises concerns that the Agency’s conduct may meet the governance and administrative standard for recklessness, and incapacity to foresee and proactively manage risk. We would be happy to provide the Committee with a list and copy of all notices of risk of harm and concern provided to the Agency and Ministers for the NDIS lodged by The ANPA, commencing from late 2024 to now.
Compounding of risk due to unique characteristics of the cohort: This risk is compounded by the fact that many parents of affected children are themselves disabled and cannot realistically rely on legal remedies to protect their children and affirm or restore their access to funded, individualised early intervention supports. Significant scholarship now indicates that Neurodivergent conditions are the most heritable subset of all Disabilities, with Autism thought to be up to 90 percent heritable (Sandin et al 2017; Tick et al 2016).
Parliamentary oversight is required now to prevent further harm and to restore lawful administration of the Scheme. We have provided detailed

recommendations for the Committee to support prompt and urgent action to

re-establish good governance and administrative prudence in the NDIS, insofar as early intervention for children in this cohort is concerned.

Standing and purpose

ANPA is a Disabled People’s Organisation within the meaning of Article 4 (3) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2008, led by Neurodivergent parents of children with disabilities. Most children of ANPA members are NDIS participants, many under the age of 9.

As mentioned above, a significant proportion of parents of children from this cohort are themselves Disabled due to the now well-documented heritability of Neurodivergent conditions, with Autism shown to be up to 90 per cent heritable. This is true for ANPA members, with our membership being made up of 240 Autistic parents, parents with ADHD, pyschosocial disability and various learning Disabilities.

These parents often face barriers to navigating complex and inaccessible administrative and legal processes, including cognitive load, communication barriers, poverty, caring burden, and trauma.

Our submission draws on community members’ experience of the Early Connections program, reassessment processes, plan reductions, and a broad review of decision letters, as well as de-identified accounts from advocates and allied health professionals. We can provide de-identified samples of this evidence to the Committee upon request. We further draw upon the ANAO reports that are the focus of this inquiry; existing legislation and case law; evidence-based expertise and peer-reviewed scholarship from the disciplines of disability, early intervention, allied health, public law, and administrative law; and, finally, our collective lived and professional experience as parents and advocates.

The purpose of this submission is to address the terms of reference while representing our community as a DPRO and to assist the Committee in exercising its oversight role regarding governance, legality, and assurance.

Relevance to the Committee’s terms of reference

This submission is directed squarely to the Committee’s statutory role in examining the efficiency, effectiveness, economy and legality of the administration of Commonwealth programs.

In particular, it engages the Committee’s terms of reference concerning:

Context and Scale

NDIA Quarterly Reports show a sustained and sharp increase in reassessment activity involving children under 9 since the passage of the NDIS Amendment Bill in 2024. This trend has been widely discussed by Disabled People’s Representative Organisations, peak bodies, NDIS professionals, and across both traditional and social media.

This activity has not slowed in recent periods; it has accelerated. The majority of participants reassessed are Autistic children or children with developmental delays under the age of 9. On the basis of Freedom of Information material sighted, The Saturday Paper reporter Rick Morton reported this week that during the first quarter of 2025-26, approximately 21,189 reassessments were conducted, almost double the number in the same quarter the previous year.

This equates to more than 1,600 reassessments per week, or more than 230 per day.

These figures represent a substantial cohort of children in sensitive early developmental windows.

While NDIA reporting does not fully disaggregate outcomes by age, disability type, or decision pathway, the scale of this recent increase alone creates a significant governance and assurance risk that warrants the Committee’s attention.

In early childhood development, missed intervention cannot be compensated for later.

This distinguishes the present issue from routine administrative error affecting adults. The scale and timing of these practices, therefore, elevate the issue from an operational concern to a matter requiring parliamentary scrutiny.

Legislative framework

The NDIS Act establishes a binary statutory structure. A person is either an NDIS participant or they are not. The Act does not recognise or authorise a pre-eligibility pathway, nor does it provide for the material diversion of children away from the Scheme.

Access to the Scheme is governed by sections 21 to 25. Once an access request is made, section 25 requires the CEO to decide whether the access criteria are met.

Early intervention is a core purpose of the Act, reflected in sections 3 and 4. Importantly, for children, section 5(f) requires that the best interests of the child are paramount in all acts don under the Act.

Issue 1: Early Connections

Early Childhood Partners (ECPs) were established to help families navigate access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and to support children who meet the statutory criteria to enter the Scheme. Their role was to assist families to progress toward access to individualised early childhood intervention supports under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013.

Historically, this involved practical assistance and guidance. ECP workers helped families understand eligibility, gather evidence, obtain assessments, lodge access requests, and move through access and planning decisions in line with the Act.

Families now report a materially different experience under the ‘Early Connections’ program, which is a new part of the NDIA’s Early Childhood Approach. This change is recent - post the 2024 Amendments to the NDIS Act - and is affecting children at scale. While some familiar elements remain, new steps have been introduced that change how parents seek access for their child.

Critically, these steps can delay, stall, or prevent progress on access requests.

We do not allege bad faith, improper intent, or misconduct by any individual ECP staff member or organisation. Many families describe staff as caring and supportive. The concern

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is structural. ECPs are now required to follow Agency-designed processes that differ from their original role.

When the NDIS Act is interpreted in line with its purpose, as set out in its objects and principles, there is a serious question as to whether ‘Early Connections’ and the ‘Early Childhood Approach’ are authorised under statute, or may be occurring ultra vires - beyond the authority of the Agency.

The Act is clear about its purpose. It is intended to support people with disabilities through timely, individualised supports, including early intervention. For children, this reflects a clear legislative position: early intervention should not be delayed where disability-related needs are evident, and access is sought or clearly contemplated.

In practice, families report that contact with ECPs often involves detailed questioning about their child’s development, functioning, family circumstances, and existing supports. Despite this, families are frequently not encouraged to lodge an access request at the outset. Instead, many families where a child is Autistic or has developmental delays are advised or materially encouraged to delay applying until they have tried or exhausted “mainstream supports”.

Rather than progressing access once a child’s disability-related needs are clear, families are commonly directed to services such as child health nurses, parenting programs, general practitioners, or information resources. Families are also referred to the Early Connections program itself, delivered by ECPs as an internal program. In practice, families describe this as a facilitated playgroup delivered over a set number of sessions before any access request is progressed. You can view a video on the LifeStart website to get a sense of the program.

Although Early Connections is sometimes described as “individualised” by the workers delivering it, families report that it mainly involves group play activities, parenting strategies, and general social or communication skill development. These supports are not disability-specific and tailored to the individual child. They cannot replace individualised therapies such as occupational therapy (e.g., for self-injurious behaviour) or physiotherapy for mobility needs.

Families also report that many of the services they are directed to were already known to them and often already in use before contacting the NDIS. Therefore, the redirection does not provide new support. It substitutes generic services for the individualised early intervention funding that the Act was designed to provide, in line with the objects and principles and importantly, section 5 - the best interests of the child.

Individual, direct, tailored and prompt early intervention support for children with developmental delays is the international best-practice model. That which materially interferes with, delays or diverts this approach cannot reasonably be said to be in the best interests of the child.

Critically, under this approach, no access decision is made, and no written reasons are

given. Families are left without participant status, without funded supports, and without any

decision they can request a review of.

The Act sets out a clear decision pathway. As mentioned, once an access request is made, the CEO must decide whether the access criteria are met.⁶ The Act does not allow this decision to be deferred indefinitely or replaced with diversionary programs.

While the Act allows the Agency to provide information and referrals, those powers are supplementary.⁷ They do not authorise the substitution of information provision or generic programs for access or planning decisions. Interpreting them that way conflicts with the Act’s purpose when read as a whole and risks administering the scheme in such a way as to conflict with what Parliament intended for these children when legislating the Act.

From a governance perspective, responsibility for this rests with the National Disability Insurance Agency. ECPs are contracted delivery partners operating within Agency-designed programs, funding arrangements, and instructions. Under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act), responsibility for lawful administration, proper use of public resources, and effective risk management remains with the Agency and cannot be contracted out.

Australian National Audit Office reports on the NDIA and other outsourced Commonwealth programs have consistently warned that where program activity replaces statutory decision-making, accountability and transparency are weakened. Where access decisions are not made, reasons are not recorded, and review rights do not arise, the safeguards built into the legislation are bypassed.

For these reasons, the operation of Early Connections raises a governance issue squarely within the scope of this inquiry. The issue arises from Agency program design and control, not from the conduct of individual workers, and warrants scrutiny against the requirements of the NDIS Act and the PGPA Act, as well as established principles of public administration.

Plan Reviews and Variations

The trigger is most commonly a scheduled reassessment, a plan variation, a change-of-circumstances request, or an internal review, most often initiated by the Agency rather than requested by families, and sometimes with little warning or time to prepare (which materially affects the outcome). Once a review is opened, supports previously accepted as reasonable and necessary are reassessed against revised internal policy logics.

Therefore, we put to the Committee that plan reviews and variations are the main mechanisms through which the Agency applies new policy settings to existing plans. Families report that, during these reviews, early intervention and allied health supports are reduced or removed on the basis that the child can instead rely on “mainstream services”, informal supports, or generic community programs. In many cases, supports are removed without any funded alternative that addresses the child’s identified disability-related needs.

In Mizzi v National Disability Insurance Agency [2025] ARTA 2155, the Tribunal confirmed that satisfaction under section 34 must be formed separately for each support and must be based on probative material. The Tribunal rejected generic reliance on the existence of other service systems as a substitute for the statutory analysis required by the Act. We put to the Committee that this same form of engagement is evident in a large number of decision notices we have reviewed, which show similar language and superficiality within reasons.

The authority in Mizzi directly engages practices in which references to mainstream supports are used as the primary justification for removing funded supports, rather than undertaking a support-by-support assessment as required by the NDIS Act.

Even where some funding remains, shortened funding periods materially limit plan usability. To begin, funding periods frequently do not align with provider availability or service waitlists. They can also be difficult and overwhelming to understand for parents with low literacy, where English is not their language of origin, limited access to a computer or phone, or undiagnosed Neurodivergence.

In practice, funding may expire before therapy can reasonably commence or be delivered with continuity, or families feel too overwhelmed by the added complexity of funding periods to deploy needed supports. They also strongly fear incurring debt and will therefore avoid using funding altogether. This is particularly significant for children who require consistent, relationship-based support during a sensitive window that does close.

Families further report a narrowing of choice and flexibility within Capacity Building supports, especially for early intervention and allied health. Plans increasingly restrict provider type, service modality, or intensity. Where choice is narrowed to provider models that are ineffective for the child, the plan may meet formal funding requirements but fail to deliver reasonable and necessary supports in substance.

These supports are chosen because they are effective, build genuine capacity, and reflect neuro-affirming practice that respects dignity, autonomy, and family-centred decision-making. Over several decades, the neurodivergent community has developed, articulated, and

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defended these approaches through sustained self-advocacy. They are not preferences of convenience; they are the product of lived experience and hard-won progress away from deficit-based models that caused harm.

Families report that where supports do not align with neuro-affirming practice or with widely shared community values, they will disengage from those services, even where funding is available. This is not a transient reaction or resistance to change. It reflects a settled position across much of the community that returning to practices experienced as harmful, coercive, or misaligned with a child’s identity is not acceptable.

As a result, families consistently report that they would rather forego funded supports altogether than accept services that undermine dignity, autonomy, or the child’s well-being. This has direct implications for plan effectiveness and utilisation. Supports that are inconsistent with contemporary practice and community expectations will not be used, regardless of administrative pressure or policy design.

Attempts to compel engagement with culturally inappropriate supports for children through restriction or substitution do not alter this outcome, in part because the principle of self-determination is too closely held within our community to be departed from for any reason. We have journeyed long to reach the current community conviction of our rights under the UNCRPD; we will not now let go, in any instance.

This is not raised as a matter of policy preference or advocacy. It is raised because the Agency’s continued reliance on restriction, substitution, or culturally inappropriate supports reflects a failure to properly discharge its statutory functions. By persisting with approaches it knows, or ought reasonably to know, will not be taken up by a defined cohort, the Agency has placed itself out of alignment with the objects and principles of the NDIS Act, which give domestic effect to the UNCRPD.

This failure engages material governance obligations under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (Cth). In particular, it raises concerns under s 15, which requires accountable authorities to promote the proper use and management of public resources, and s 16, which requires the establishment and maintenance of an appropriate system of risk oversight and management.

Continuing to fund, control, mandate or substitute supports that are foreseeably ineffective for a significant cohort does not constitute efficient, effective, economical or ethical use of public resources. Nor does it reflect adequate identification or mitigation of known delivery, legal, and reputational risks. This is a failure of proper administration and stewardship, not a disagreement about policy design.

Instead of tailored, effective, culturally appropriate supports for the child, families report being steered toward more standardised service models delivered by large providers, often by junior or less-experienced staff working under supervision. These models are commonly less individualised and less responsive to the child’s needs. In many cases, they also draw

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down more funding from plans due to higher overheads and layered delivery structures, without delivering equivalent benefit.

The practical effect is that plans may exist in form but do not operate in substance. Funding is absorbed by supports that do not assist the child, creating both a risk to the child, through lost developmental opportunity, and a fiscal risk to the Commonwealth, through expenditure without commensurate benefit. For children in early developmental windows, ineffective or delayed intervention has consequences that cannot be remedied later through additional funding.

These outcomes are reflected in the decision letters associated with significant funding reductions. ANPA has reviewed a large number of such letters. Common features include:

reliance on templated language with recurring structures
generic references to mainstream services, without analysis of availability, suitability, or effectiveness
limited engagement with individual evidence provided by families or treating clinicians
absence of clear reasoning demonstrating how statutory criteria were substantively applied

While reasons are provided and evidence is listed, there is little explanation of how that evidence was assessed or how it informed the outcome. The reasoning path the delegate used to reach satisfaction is not apparent to the child’s representative.

In practice, this produces eligibility without entitlement. The child remains a participant, but the plan no longer delivers the reasonable and necessary supports that justified access to the Scheme in the first place.

The NDIS Act does not contemplate participant status without meaningful plan content. Once a person is a participant, the Scheme is intended to operate through funded supports. There is no mechanism in the Act for a reduced or hollow entitlement. For children, thi concern is heightened by section 5 of the Act, which emphasises early intervention and outcomes and reflects a best-interests logic embedded in the Schemes design.⁶

These matters fall squarely within the Committee’s Terms of Reference, including consideration of whether the Scheme is being administered in accordance with the NDIS Act, whether decision-making is transparent and properly reasoned, whether public expenditure represents value for money, and whether governance and accountability arrangements are adequate.

They also align with findings of the Australian National Audit Office. In ANAO Report No. 34 (2021–22), Effectiveness of the Board of the National Disability Insurance Agency, the ANAO emphasised the Boards responsibility to ensure that operational practices align with

Legislative Intent and Risk Management

legislative intent and that risks arising from administrative settings are identified and managed. ⁷ Across other ANAO performance audits examining NDS planning and administration, the ANAO has identified risks relating to planning quality, persistently low plan utilisation, outsourced delivery models, and loss of transparency where program settings displace statutory decision-making.

Constraints on funding periods, narrowing of choice within Capacity Building, and the displacement of effective supports with less effective alternatives all contribute to low plan utilisation. As the ANAO has observed, low utilisation is a governance signal, not merely a participant behaviour issue.

A plan that cannot be meaningfully used, or that funds supports which do not fit, cost more and deliver less, does not represent value for money for the Commonwealth.

From a public administration perspective, these issues directly engage the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013. Under sections 15 and 16, the accountable authority must ensure the proper use of public resources and maintain effective systems of risk oversight and internal control. Administrative settings that produce unworkable plans, ineffective expenditure, and foreseeable harm to children raise serious questions about compliance with those duties.

Taken together, these practices raise questions about whether current planning and review settings provide Parliament with assurance that the Scheme is being administered lawfully, efficiently, and in accordance with its stated purposes.

Upstream Decision-Making Systems That Constrain And Fetter Decision-Making: PACE And PECQ

PACE and PECQ are now central to how the NDIA manages access, planning, reassessment and review decisions. PACE is the Agency’s main digital system for these functions. PECQ is an internal questionnaire used in the early childhood pathway to structure how information about a child is collected and assessed.

These administrative tools are meant to support decision-makers, not to replace the legal task required by the Act. The law requires the CEO or delegate to review the evidence, engage with the materials, and apply the NDIS Act to reach their own decision and genuine state of satisfaction.

Information provided to ANPA by NDIA delegates, advocates and allied health professionals indicates that, in practice, these systems often shape outcomes before a formal decision is made. Delegates report that PACE restricts available options through set pathways, defaults and mandatory fields. PECQ similarly structures early childhood assessments, placing greater weight on some factors and less on others. Advocates report

being told by NDIA staff that it is difficult, discouraged, or unsupported to depart from outcomes suggested by the system.

When systems limit what decisions can realistically be made, individual judgment is considerably reduced. This creates a risk that decisions follow system settings rather than the requirements of the NDIS Act. In these circumstances, a decision may appear to be made by a person, but the outcome is largely determined by the system.

This pattern is well recognised in public administration. Research has shown that discretion can shift from decision-makers to system design, meaning key choices are made upstream and are hard to see or challenge (Bovens and Zouridis 2002). Other work describes this as “black box” administration, where it is difficult to understand how evidence leads to outcomes (Pasquale 2015).

Professor Terry Carney has warned that this is particularly risky in social security and Disability systems, where decisions must account for individual circumstances and heightened vulnerability (Carney 2018; 2023). Research on system rigidity also shows that highly constrained systems are more likely to produce repeated errors, especially where individual judgment is needed (Woods 2017).

These risks engage basic principles of administrative law. The NDIS Act requires the CEO or delegate to form genuine states of satisfaction when deciding access, eligibility and reasonable and necessary supports. These are real legal judgments. They are not box-ticking exercises, and the ANPA fears that this has indeed occurred for our children, and for many other Disabled participants.

Courts have made clear that statutory satisfaction cannot be arbitrary or merely assumed (Buck v Bavone 1976). Decision-makers must understand the law correctly and substantively rely on material that can support the decision (Bennett 2000).

Administrative arrangements cannot be used to avoid these duties. In Plaintiff S157/2002, The High Court made clear that systems or structures cannot lawfully shield unlawful decisions from review. Where decisions are effectively pre-set or not truly made, they are unlawful. Courts have also said that decisions based on illogical or irrational reasoning are legally unreasonable (SZMDS 2010), and that simply listing evidence is not enough. Decision-makers must genuinely consider what the evidence shows (Bettencourt 2021).

The Agency often cites the presence of a “human in the loop” in response to these concerns. However, human-in-the-loop does not solve the problem if the person cannot meaningfully deviate from what the system produces. Human involvement may exist in form, but not in substance. We urge the Committee to examine this issue closely and to require the Agency to demonstrate, with practical evidence, how delegates are forming decisions - and to persist past ‘human in the loop’ style reassurances.

The issues above concern whether the Scheme is being administered in accordance with

the law, whether decisions are transparent and reviewable, and whether governance arrangements allow Parliament a line of sight into the Scheme to be confident that statutory duties are being met. They align with findings of the Australian National Audit Office and engage the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013.

The ANAO, for instance, has identified problems with the NDIA’s ability to explain how performance measures are calculated and to clearly justify early intervention settings. As mentioned, the ANAO has also identified low plan utilisation, opaque planning processes, and weak links between inputs and outcomes. These are firmly governance risks rather than minor operational issues.

Sections 15 and 16 of the PGPA require the accountable authority to use public resources properly and to manage risks. Where systems reduce decision quality, constrain lawful judgment, and cause foreseeable harm, including harm to children and potential breach of Section 5, there are serious questions about whether those duties are being met.

10. Senate Estimates and a lawful pathway to Thriving Kids

Further to the points raised earlier regarding diversion of children to ‘mainstream supports’, on 4 December 2025, during Senate Estimates, Shadow Minister for the NDIS Senator Ann Ruston questioned Minister for the NDIS Senator Jenny McAllister about how children are being moved, or will be moved, from the NDIS to the proposed Thriving Kids program. Senator Ruston inquired as to the design of that transition.

No clear statutory pathway was identified on the public record by the Minister or the Agency.

We contend that this is because no such pathway is legislated.

12. Risk arising from support reduction, removal, threat, or delay

Early childhood intervention operates within a limited and time-critical developmental window. When supports are reduced, removed, delayed, or made uncertain during this period, the effects are immediate and, in many cases, cannot be fully reversed later. This is not a theoretical concern. Families report predictable and recurring impacts when plans are cut back, shortened, or destabilised through review and variation processes.

When funded supports are withdrawn or disrupted, families report:

Loss or regression of skills, including communication, self-care, emotional regulation, mobility, and independence, that had been built through consistent therapy.

Escalation of distress and behaviour, including increased anxiety, meltdowns, aggression, withdrawal, or self-injurious behaviour when therapeutic supports cease or become inconsistent.
Breakdown of therapeutic relationships, where experienced providers cannot be retained due to funding reductions, shortened plan periods, or restrictions on provider choice.
Interrupted or abandoned early intervention, particularly where funding periods are too short to secure a provider or complete a therapeutic block.
Increased reliance on crisis responses, including emergency departments, acute mental health services, or crisis intervention pathways, when early intervention supports are no longer in place.
Disruption to education and early learning, including reduced attendance, exclusion from settings, or withdrawal from preschool or school due to the lack of available supports.
Increased caregiving burden on families, with parents required to provide complex behavioural, therapeutic, or personal care supports without training, respite, or assistance.
Deterioration in parental mental health, including sustained stress, exhaustion, anxiety, and burnout. Many affected parents are themselves disabled, reflecting the high heritability of autism and other forms of neurodivergence.
Heightened risk to siblings, including exposure to unsafe situations, reduced parental attention, and increased household stress.
Financial strain occurs when families attempt to self-fund essential supports to prevent regression or crisis, often at a high personal cost.
Disengagement from the Scheme occurs when families delay contact, avoid reviews, or withdraw from processes altogether to protect remaining supports or family wellbeing due to the impact of contact with the Agency.

Section 5 of the NDIS Act

These impacts engage section 5 of the NDIS Act, which requires that actions under the Act respect the dignity of people with disabilities, support their participation and inclusion, and prioritise early intervention where it will reduce future support needs. Administrative practices that produce sustained fear, withdrawal from engagement, loss of dignity, and missed developmental opportunities are difficult to reconcile with those principles.

These impacts are also relevant to the Committee’s Terms of Reference. They go directly to whether the Scheme is being administered in accordance with the Act, whether decision-making supports participant wellbeing and engagement, and whether governance arrangements are managing foreseeable risks arising from administrative settings.

From a public administration perspective, these are not isolated individual harms. They are systemic and foreseeable consequences of how reviews, funding periods, and provider choice are currently operating. The Australian National Audit Office has repeatedly emphasised that public entities must identify and manage risks that affect outcomes, not only financial performance. Sustained stress, disengagement, and loss of effective early intervention are outcome risks that require active governance oversight.

Under sections 15 and 16 of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, the accountable authority must ensure the proper use of public resources and maintain effective systems of risk oversight and internal control. Where administrative practices lead to ineffective supports, increased crisis demand, and long-term cost escalation due to missed early intervention, this raises questions about whether those obligations are being met.

Taken together, the evidence shows that the reduction, removal, threat, or delay of supports has concrete and damaging effects on children, families, and scheme integrity. These impacts are not incidental. They arise from administrative settings and decision practices and warrant examination by the Committee as matters of governance, risk management, and lawful administration, rather than being left to families to address through individual legal remedies that are inaccessible in practice.

Recommendations

Require evidence of lawful formation of statutory satisfaction

The Committee should require the NDIA to provide detailed evidence of how statutory satisfaction under sections 21, 25 and 34 of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (Cth) is formed, recorded and reviewed in practice for children under 9, including within:

the Early Connections pathway
reassessment and plan variation processes
decisions relying on the asserted availability of mainstream or foundational supports

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This evidence should demonstrate how individual evidence is engaged with, weighed and relied upon in substance, rather than through templated or system-driven reasoning.

Reject the use of Early Connections as a substitute for statutory decision-making

The Committee should make clear that the Early Connections program cannot lawfully be used to delay, discourage, deter or replace statutory access or planning decisions once access to the Scheme is sought.

The Committee should require the NDIA to identify the precise statutory authority relied upon for any practice that results in children being diverted away from access determinations or application for individualised supports via NDIS for any period of time, and, in the absence of such authority, recommend the immediate cessation of those practices.

Require transparency of decision architecture, including PACE and PECQ

The Committee should require the NDIA to provide transparency regarding the role of PACE, PECQ and related structured tools in shaping decision outcomes for children, including:

how these tools constrain or permit departure from system-generated pathways
how qualitative evidence, professional reports and longitudinal material are treated
how alternative outcomes are recorded and justified where system defaults are overridden
to what extent internal notes are included in and materially influence decisions by delegates and material outcomes.

This information should be made available to the Committee and, where appropriate, to the Australian National Audit Office.

Strengthen internal error detection and correction for child decisions

The Committee should recommend reforms to ensure that internal review and correction mechanisms for children’s decisions:

are structurally independent from throughput pressures and system defaults
are not constrained by the same decision architecture that produced the original decision
are capable of genuinely reconsidering evidence and reversing error

This recommendation is directed to governance integrity and risk containment, not service expansion.

The Committee should request that the Australian National Audit Office undertake targeted assurance work examining whether NDIA decision-making systems affecting children support lawful administration, including:

whether statutory discretion is being preserved in practice
whether system design enables traceability and intelligible reasoning
whether current arrangements provide Parliament with sufficient assurance

This work should build on existing ANAO findings concerning governance maturity, performance reporting and system visibility.

Given the live and potentially irreversible risks to children in early developmental windows, The Committee should recommend interim protective measures for children under 9 while system-level assurance work is undertaken.

These measures should be framed as risk controls, not findings of fault, and should operate to prevent further harm arising from delayed access, hollowed entitlement or system-driven defunding during periods of administrative change.

The Committee should recommend coordinated scrutiny by the Australian National Audit Office and the Commonwealth Ombudsman of NDIA decision-making affecting children in this cohort from 1 October 2024 onward, with a focus on whether decisions were made in accordance with the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (Cth), including the proper formation of statutory satisfaction and compliance with administrative law principles.

Where systemic issues are identified that raise reasonable concerns about lawfulness, decision integrity or error at scale, the Committee should recommend that the NDIA, under ministerial oversight, undertake a structured process to identify and lawfully remake affected decisions, rather than relying on individual families to seek review.

The Committee should further recommend that the Attorney-General be notified of the findings for the purposes of whole-of-government legal risk oversight and consistency with Commonwealth administrative law obligations, noting that this is not a referral for enforcement, but for assurance, coordination and systemic risk management.

7. Require substantive engagement with Disabled People’s Organisations

The Committee should recommend that all reforms, reviews and administrative changes affecting children under the NDIS comply substantively with Article 4(3) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

This includes ensuring that Disabled People’s Organisations are involved in a way that is

transparent, independent and capable of influencing outcomes, consistent with General Comment No. 7, rather than through consultation that is procedural or advisory only.

14. Conclusion

These risks are live, systemic, and irreversible. The children affected cannot protect themselves, nor can their families in most cases. Their parents are usually Disabled too and often cannot easily access legal remedies, or access them at all.

Parliamentary intervention is required now before risk and scale increase further. The need for this intervention is critical and cannot be emphasised strongly enough.

References

Legislation

National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (Cth)
Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (Cth)
Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth)

Case law

Amato v Commonwealth of Australia (Federal Court of Australia, VID611/2019, 27 November 2019).
Avon Downs Pty Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1949) 78 CLR 353
Buck v Bavone (1976) 135CLR 110
Bennett v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (2000) 96 FCR 364
Plaintiff S157/2002 v Commonwealth of Australia (2003) 211 CLR 476
National Disability Insurance Agency v Sutherland [2026] FCA 3 (14 January 2026).
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZMDS (2010) 240 CLR 611
Bettencourt v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs (2021) 287FCR 1; [2021]FCAFC 172

Mizzi and National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIS) (2025) ARTA 2155

Australian National Audit Office

Reports as provided by JCPAA Inquiry page, Australian Parliament House.

Parliamentary material

Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (2023) Report 499: Inquiry into the Annual Performance Statements 2021-22, Parliament of Australia, Canberra

Senate Estimates, Community Affairs Legislation Committee (2025) Evidence given by the Minister for the NDIS and NDIA officials, 4 December 2025, Parliament of Australia

NDIA publications and data

National Disability Insurance Agency (2024–2025) NDIA Quarterly Reports, Canberra

National Disability Insurance Agency (2025–2026) NDIA Quarterly Reports, Canberra

National Disability Insurance Agency (2025) Early Childhood Approach: Early Connections, NDIA website

Government and law reform reports

Australian Law Reform Commission (2014) ‘Equality, Capacity and Disability in Commonwealth Laws’, Report No. 124, ALRC, Sydney

Productivity Commission (2014) ‘Access to Justice Arrangements’, Inquiry Report No. 72, Productivity Commission, Canberra

International law

United Nations (2006) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, United Nations, New York

Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2018) ‘General Comment No. 7 on the participation of persons with disabilities’, United Nations

Public administration, systems and administrative law scholarship, heritability studies

Bainbridge, L. (1983) Ironies of automation, Automatica, 19(6), 775–779

Bovens, M. and Zouridis, S. (2002) ‘From street-level to system-level bureaucracies’, Public Administration Review, 62(2), 174–184

Carney, T. (2014) Social Security Law and Policy, Federation Press, Sydney

Carney, T. (2018) Automation, discretion and social welfare law, University of New South Wales Law Journal, 41(3), 1018-1049

Carney, T., Ramia, G., Wailes, N. and Wong, E. (2019) ‘When tailor-made case planning met Taylorism and the algorithms’, Melbourne University Law Review, 42(3), 780-842

Pasquale, F. (2015) The Black Box Society, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA

Sandin, S, Lichtenstein, P, Kuja-Halkola, R, Larsson, H, Hultman, CM & Reichenberg, A 2017, ‘The heritability of autism spectrum disorder’, JAMA, vol. 318, no. 12, pp. 1182–1184, https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2017.12141.

Tick, B, Bolton, P, Happé, F, Rutter, M & Rijsdijk, F 2016, ‘Heritability of autism spectrum disorders: a meta-analysis of twin studies’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, vol. 57, no. 5, pp. 585–595, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12499.

Woods, D. D. (2015) Four concepts for resilience, Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 141, 5–9

Woods, D. D. (2017) ‘Resilience engineering concepts for socio-technical systems’, Safety Science, 91, 6-16.

Economics and media reporting relied upon

D’Rosario, M & Lloyd-Cape, M 2021, False economy: The economic benefits of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the consequences of government cost-cutting, Per Capita, Melbourne, viewed January 1, 2026.. https://percapita.org.au/our_work/false-economy-the-economic-benefits-of-the-ndis-and-the-consequences-of-government-cost-cutting/

Australian Financial Review 2025, Moving autistic children off NDIS will hit GDP: Goldman Sachs, 25 August, viewed December 24, 2025.

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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/moving-autistic-children-off-ndis-will-hit-gdp-gold man-

Morton, R 2026, Exclusive: One third of reassessed NDIS plans see cuts to funding, The Saturday Paper, 10 January, viewed January 25, 2026. [https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/2026/01/10/exclusive-one-third-reasses sed-ndis-plans-see-cuts-funding](https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/2026/01/10/exclusive-one-third-re asses ed- ndis -plans-se e-cut s-fu n ding )