Submission to the inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025

Committee Secretary Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs PO Box 6100 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 E-mail: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au

  Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania,

Submission to the inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 6 February 2026

The Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025. We urge the Committee to recommend that the Bill be passed through Parliament.

The NDIS is central to Australia’s commitment to supporting people with disability, and the implementation of effective safeguards is critical to ensuring dignity, independence, and inclusion for participants.

The Uniting Church in Australia, both at a national level and through the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, has expressed its support for the inclusion and support of people with disability to reach their full potential and live flourishing lives. The relevant resolutions of the National Assembly and Synod meetings are provided in the Appendix.

The Uniting Church has members who are NDIS participants and their carers.

UnitingCare and Uniting agencies are also disability service providers on the NDIS. The following submission did not obtain input from these providers.

We support the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission having more enforcement tools. Giving a regulator more options enhances their ability to apply an appropriate sanction or penalty for misconduct. Effective deterrence is achieved when penalties are:

• Proportionate
• Fair;
• Swift;
• Certain;

1 Chris Leech, ‘Detect and deter or catch and release: Are financial penalties an effective way to penalise deliberate tax evaders?’, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Australian National University, Working Paper 6/2018, April 2018, 40.

• Memorable; and,
• Incentivise and provide a pathway for the reintegration of the offender into compliance. Very few enforcement arrangements achieve the above criteria, especially in relation to being “swift”, so that the penalty is applied shortly after the offending behaviour.

Memorable means that when a penalty is imposed, it must be publicised to the broader body of reporting entities to provide greater general deterrence.2

Braithwaite argued that the ‘trick’ to successful regulation is to impose the fitting sanction as needed without undermining a regulator’s capacity to persuade.3 The greater the range of sanctions available to a regulator or law enforcement agency, the more effectively it can impose the appropriate level of sanction. As Becker has argued, The desired outcome is to allow a regulator a penalty structure that optimally deters socially undesirable behaviour.4

Overly severe penalties can risk alienating the offender from the system and the law enforcement authority, which can negatively affect their compliance behaviour.5 All penalties risk stigmatising those penalised and pushing them further away from voluntarily complying, particularly if those penalised feel they have been treated unfairly.6

Conversely, penalties that are too soft do not work as effective general or specific deterrence.7

While the Bill does not change the wording of Section 73ZDA of the NDIS Provider Register, we suggest that some amendments could be considered. Ideally, the Commissioner should be required to keep the NDIS Provider Register in a form that maximises accessibility for NDIS participants and their carers. Further, it should be a requirement that the NDIS Provider Register include a section on persons whose NDIS registration has been revoked, including information about the revocation. The current drafting allows the Commissioner discretion if such deregistered persons are listed in the NDIS Provider Register.

Dr redacted\n **Senior Social Justice Advocate\nUniting Church in Australia\nSynod of Victoria and Tasmania\nCentre for Theology and Ministry\n29 College Crescent\nParkville Victoria 3052\nE-mail:\nPhone: \n\n 3

Appendix: Resolutions of Uniting Church bodies relevant to people

with disability

Resolution of the Unitting Church in Australia National Assembly meeting The 2018 meeting of hundreds of Uniting Church representatives from across Australia adopted the following resolution:

\tThe Assembly resolved:

\t\t18.18.01 to adopt the following ‘Statement of Access and Welcome’ as a starting \t point for further conversation and action regarding justice and equality for people with disability as it provides a basis for the Assembly and Synods to develop their particular response to this matter. In accordance with the Uniting Church Basis of Union, the Church is a fellowship of reconciliation, “a body within which the diverse gifts of its members are used for the building up of the whole, an instrument through which Christ may work, and bear witness to himself” (Paragraph 3). In light of this, The Unitting Church affirms that:

\t\t(a) Christ is most fully present when all people in the Body are unconditionally accepted as people of worth. All people are created in the image of God, including people with disability;

\t\t(b) along with all members, the faith, gifts, hopes and dreams of people with disability are to be valued and honoured; and

\t\t(c) God is a God of justice and peace who seeks reconciliation amongst all people.

\tIn seeking to be a community of reconciliation, the Unitting Church acknowledges that, for many people with disability, its life and faith have not always borne witness to this vision. The Unitting Church seeks:

\t\t(a) to embody a community life that, in its theology and practice, is accessible to all people;

\t\t(b) to ensure that within its own life, people with disability are treated justly and have their hopes and rights realised; and

\t\t(c) to advocate for justice and equality for people with disability in the wider community.

\t18.18.02 to request the Standing Committee to develop disability access guidelines for use at all events and activities overseen by the Assembly and to encourage each Synod to develop similar disability access guidelines for use at Synod events and meetings;

\t18.18.03 to encourage each Synod to develop Disability Action Plans in accordance with the federal Disability Discrimination Act 1992, with the aim of eliminating access barriers pertaining to:

\t\t(i) Attitude/Theology and access and welcome;

\t\t(ii) Communication; and

(iii) Physical Environment.

18.18.04 to request the appropriate Standing Committee to arrange for the development of an appropriate liturgical response that acknowledges the historical exclusion experienced by many people with disability. Resolutions of the meetings of the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania The 1998 meeting of hundreds of representatives of the Synod from across Victoria passed the following resolution:

   98.5.4.5     The Synod resolved:

    In keeping with the spirit of resolutions made in the International Year of Disabled Persons, and in the light of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) (Cwth: 1992):

    (a) To affirm its commitment to creating a Church that is for all people with disabilities (as defined in the DDA) and in all aspects of its life, free from discrimination.

    (b) To appoint a Task Group to develop and implement an Action Plan under the DDA in compliance with Section 61 of that Act. The initial phase would be to undertake an audit of current practices within the life of the Church that may discriminate (including unintentionally) against people with a disability, including, but not limited to, physical or sensory barriers, informational or attitudinal barriers, and any other elements of proclamation, teaching, fellowship or service.

    (c) That the Standing Committee be asked to appoint members of the Task Group.

    (d) That the Task Group report to the 1999 Synod with its recommendations, including financial and staffing implications and a schedule of action.

The 2022 Synod meeting adopted the following resolution:

The Synod resolved:

1) To support the full implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Australia.

2) To call on the Victorian Government to:

   a) Amend the Victorian Disability Act to

              i)  recognise the right of people with disabilities to spiritual expression, and this be referenced in all Victorian State Disability Action Plans;

               ii)  ensure that the Victorian Government will provide essential supports to people with disabilities where the National Disability Insurance Scheme fails to deliver such supports;

                iii) establish a Victorian Commissioner for Disability Inclusion who:

            (1) oversees compliance with the state disability plan and disability action plans;

            (2) has a duty to support, advocate for, and promote the rights and well-being of people with disability across Victoria, like the functions of the

                               5

Commissioner for Children and Young People and the Victorian

Commissioner for LGBTIQ+ Communities; and

(3) upholds the rights of all people with disability in Victoria, in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities;

iv) require all organisations that receive funding from the Victorian Government above a reasonable threshold should be required to have a meaningful disability action plan;

v) ensure that any use of restrictive practices be a last resort in response to the isk of harm to the person with disability or others. The use of restrictive practices should also comply with the human rights principles contained within the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;

vi) create an offence to hinder, obstruct, intimidate or threaten a Community Visitor carrying out their functions; and

vii) allow designated people on the Community Visitors program to be able to visit all forms of accommodation that the National Disability Insurance Agency has introduced, accommodation provided by the Transport Accident Commission and all accommodation that is connected or managed by, or on behalf of, a disability service provider.

b) Develop Minimum Accessibility Standards for mainstream services with guidance to Victorian businesses on how to improve their inclusivity. The Standards should be backed by a complaint mechanism. An education program should be conducted in the Victorian community on accessibility;

c) Establish a central register of disability residential properties that Community Visitors are able to inspect;

d) Establish a Disability Deaths Registrar modelled on the State Coroner’s Victorian Suicide Register and accompanying review;

e) Ensure people with disabilities leaving prison are provided with appropriate transitional planning for post-release, including direct referrals to disability services, housing and other funded in-community supports.

3. To write to the Victorian Premier, the Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers, the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers to inform them of this resolution.