PO Box 87 Grange QLD 4051 | Ph: redacted | Email: redacted

24 April 2026

Committee Secretary Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme PO Box 6100 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600

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Dear Committee Secretary

Submission: Inquiry into the Integrity of the NDIS

Thank you for the opportunity to provide submissions on the integrity of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (‘NDIS’), in the context of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (‘Act’).

1. About Intrepidus Law

Intrepidus Law is Australia’s foremost NDIS and disability rights law firm. The Principal and Founder of Intrepidus Law is Belinda Kochanowska, Queensland Law Society Solicitor of the Year 2025 and Australian Human Rights Commission Law Award finalist 2025. Intrepidus Law has a practice focus on providing legal representation in NDIS appeals at the Administrative Review Tribunal and providing expert legal advice on NDIS law. Intrepidus Law is a private legal practice committed to reinvesting in our wider community through our Systemic Advocacy Program.

2. Executive Summary

We are alarmed by many of the NDIS reforms announced on 22 April 2026 as described below. However, we agree in principle with some of the proposed Scheme integrity infrastructure reforms and want to ensure these are built correctly. We argue that new NDIS claim infrastructure should do four things:

• help participants and providers comply with claim requirements, rather than unfairly shifting responsibility to them to satisfy unclear and impractical requirements (part 4);
• prevent non-compliant claims from being submitted in the first place, including through point- of-sale compliance checks in the manner of Medicare (part 5);
• help identify, investigate and respond to fraud with full procedural fairness and natural justice protections, and not misuse other powers to conduct quasi-investigations (part 6); and
• guarantee fair and efficient appeal pathways for each Agency decision in these areas (part 7).

3. Introduction

The integrity and sustainability of the NDIS matters deeply to people with disability, their families, providers – and to us as lawyers working in this space. Scheme fraud is an unsurprising but real problem that must be resolved. Fraud is one component of a larger web of issues affecting the integrity of the Scheme, and is a symptom of the wider problems that need addressing.

On Wednesday 22 April 2026, the Government announced wide-ranging reforms described as a four- pillar plan to “secure the NDIS for future generations”. We are alarmed about the scale and reach of the reform package, particularly regarding changes to eligibility and community participation funding, which risk the re-institutionalisation and further segregation of disabled people. Some of these proposals fly in the face of the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations. Our key point is that no person or support category should be removed from the Scheme until a corresponding support is available through fully funded foundational supports. Nobody can be left behind.

That said, we have previously called on the Government to take fraud and integrity seriously by investing in robust Scheme infrastructure, including consideration of a digital payments system. We welcome the Government’s announcement of this area of focus yesterday.

Whether this succeeds will depend on the effective and fair design of the new systems – built by and with the disability community and those with technical expertise. Intrepidus Law is privileged to be able to offer this combined lived and technical expertise, as members of this community operating ‘at the coalface’ where existing compliance infrastructure is failing people.

4. Infrastructure should help participants and providers comply

Compliance must begin with clarity. At present the Scheme asks participants, nominees, plan managers and providers to satisfy themselves, before every claim, that the claim is:

• For an ‘NDIS support’ under s 10;
• For expenditure in accordance with the participant’s plan per s 46; and
• Submitted in the approved form under s 45A.

It then exposes those people to plan restrictions, debt recovery and strict liability criminal offences if they get it wrong.

As we explained in detail in our earlier parliamentary submissions,¹ this is unworkable on the ground. Plans run to 40 or more pages, are inconsistently structured between participants, and very often do not state with clarity what supports are actually funded. The Agency makes granular line-item

—^1 Intrepidus Law, Submission to Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, Parliament of Australia, Inquiry into the Administration of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (30 January 2026); Intrepidus Law, Submission to Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, Senate, National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 (6 February 2026); Intrepidus Law, Submission to Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, New Framework Planning System Consultation (6 March 2026).

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decisions internally about which supports are reasonable and necessary, but reports those decisions only as aggregated totals under broad headings such as ‘Core Flexible’.

The move to new framework plans proposes more flexibility of spending, which comes with its own risks. For a given plan, there will still be NDIS supports (i.e. on the ‘in’ list) which would not be in accordance with this participant’s plan, which s 46 says providers and participants must not bill to the plan. New framework plans must include clear delineation of any such line.

Participant flexibility over how they spend their money must be maintained, but if a support has been deemed not reasonable and necessary, then it should be clear that it is not in accordance with the plan. When the rules are opaque, honest people fail them accidentally. The Agency, not individual participants and providers, should carry primary responsibility for making compliance achievable.

Recommendation 1

The Committee should recommend that all new Scheme integrity infrastructure should:

• build plans that retain spending flexibility, but are clearly describe any boundaries around what is and is not allowed to be billed to that plan;
• publish plain-English, accessible and translated guidance on obligations, updated as rules change;
• create a pathway for participants to clarify mid-plan whether a support they want to purchase is permitted under their current plan — binding on the Agency for audit and debt-recovery purposes; and
• amend s 46 of the Act so that claimants are only liable for noncompliance where they knowingly non-comply.

5. Infrastructure should prevent non-compliant claims being submitted

If we are going to have a compliance focus for the NDIS, then a focus on point-of-sale infrastructure would be preferable, to shift the burden of compliance off participants and providers to the Agency’s systems. We reach this conclusion because transacting in the current Scheme requires providers and participants to wear serious legal risks which they often cannot protect themselves against. This gives the Agency substantial power to interfere with people’s lives:

• to restrict participant choice and control (ss 46 and 474A),
• levy debts that can destroy lives and livelihoods (s 46), and
• lock providers out of the market for any reason or none (see below). A fairer and safer system for everyone would guarantee plan flexibility, while prevent things the Agency has already determined are not reasonable and necessary from being billed at all.

The Government’s announcement of a digital payments system, with the Agency having visibility over every claim before payment, is a welcome step. In our submission, Medicare is an appropriate reference point, where providers submit a claim for verification in real time against a publicly codified schedule of funded items and services. Claims that are not compliant cannot be submitted.

Integrity requires procedural fairness and natural justice

The NDIS Act already contains largely fit for purpose investigatory powers. Chapter 4 part 3B of the Act, together with the Regulatory Powers (Standard Provisions) Act 2014, supplies a framework for warrants, information-gathering tied to investigations, rights of reply and criminal-procedure protections. In recent practice, however, the Agency has bypassed those powers and instead repurposed ss 45 and 45A of the Act — which are pre-payment information-gathering provisions, not fraud provisions — to conduct quasi-investigations. ‘Manual locks’ are imposed on every claim from a given provider, indefinitely, without particularised allegations, without a right of reply, and without an appeal pathway.

Tip-offs raise a further concern. The Agency currently accepts anonymous tip-offs via its website, with no visible safeguards against malicious, vexatious or false reports. That is an obvious vector for competitor businesses and for perpetrators of family and domestic violence to weaponise against small businesses and self-employed participants. This risk is particularly acute for providers owned by women. A system in which unverified allegations can trigger indefinite payment holds, without a right of reply and without a presumption of innocence, is not an integrity system.

Recommendation 3

The Committee should recommend that all new Scheme integrity infrastructure should:

• require the Agency to use its proper Act chapter 4 part 3B investigatory powers when it suspects fraud or serious misconduct, rather than relying on ss 45 and 45A to run quasi-investigations;
• restrict manual claim reviews to anomalies in specific, identified claims, rather than unparticularised assumptions about a provider’s or participant’s overall bona fides;
• where a payment is held or a claim denied on integrity grounds, require the Agency promptly to provide particularised written reasons and a genuine right of reply; and
• introduce safeguards against malicious, vexatious or false tip-offs, including a right of reply, a presumption of innocence, and appropriate review before any payment-affecting action is taken.

7. Integrity requires a fair and efficient appeal pathway

A system is only as good as its ability to correct its own errors. Every decision in the integrity chain —a claim denied, a payment held, a debt raised, a plan restricted, a plan management status changed, a registration suspended or revoked, a banning order made — should be accompanied by a fair and efficient appeal right. At present, decisions under ss 45 and 45A of the Act are not reviewable at all, and other appeal pathways in the chain are too slow, complex and expensive to be genuinely accessible to unrepresented participants and small providers.

The Administrative Review Tribunal is already overburdened with NDIS matters driven by first-instance decisions that lacked reasons, evidence or procedural fairness. A well-designed integrity architecture makes most appeals unnecessary; a badly-designed one floods the Tribunal.

Recommendation 4

The Committee should recommend that all new Scheme integrity infrastructure should:

• provide an express internal and external appeal right for every Agency decision that denies, holds, reduces or recovers a claim, or restricts a participant’s plan or plan management arrangements;
• require every such decision to be accompanied by detailed, particularised written reasons sufficient to enable an informed decision whether to appeal;
• resource first-instance decision-making and internal review to a standard capable of resolving the great majority of disputes without recourse to the Tribunal; and
• ensure appeal pathways are accessible and appropriately supported for unrepresented parties, including by securing ongoing funding for the NDIS Appeals Program.

8. Conclusion

People with disability and providers feel the consequences of poor Scheme infrastructure every time they use the NDIS as it is. There is a clear need to improve the NDIS to improve lives and livelihoods. But all reforms to the NDIS must stay true to its foundational principles and promises. People with disability must retain flexibility and autonomy over their lives and receive the supports that they need. Everybody who needs support should be able to access it.

Core to fixing the NDIS will be developing robust systems and infrastructure which protect it in the way Australians expect. This should be infrastructure which helps the people who use the Scheme to comply with its requirements and cuts off opportunities for non-compliance. But Scheme integrity also means a fair Scheme to use – where people are afforded natural justice and a fair go.

We would welcome the opportunity to give oral evidence to the Committee.

Yours faithfully

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Belinda Kochanowska Principal Solicitor / Founder Intrepidus Law

Prepared with Trinity Ford Project Lead, Systemic Advocacy Program Intrepidus Law