Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025

Role: NDIS Registered Support Coordination Provider

1. Introduction

           welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Senate
   

Community Affairs Legislation Committee in relation to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025.

We are a regionally based, NDIS registered support coordination provider working predominantly with participants who have complex, psychosocial, cognitive, and high support needs. Support coordination operates at the frontline of scheme integrity and safeguarding. Coordinators routinely interpret NDIA decisions, explain rules to participants, prevent inappropriate claiming, manage service breakdowns, and respond to safeguarding risks well before formal regulatory or compliance mechanisms are activated.

This submission takes a blunt and cautionary position. While integrity and safeguarding are essential, this Bill expands enforcement and punitive powers within a system that remains administratively unstable, opaque, and inconsistently applied. Without first addressing foundational NDIA and regulatory failures, the Bill risks compounding harm rather than improving integrity.

2. Integrity Reform Built on a Broken Administrative System

The Bill substantially expands compliance, enforcement, and penalty powers for both the NDIA and the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. However, it does so without addressing core system failures that have been repeatedly identified by the Auditor- General, parliamentary committees, and frontline providers.

Key unresolved issues include: - unclear and inconsistent claiming rules across legislative instruments and guidance materials; - opaque NDIA decision-making with limited explanation or transparency; - unreliable and selectively released data used to justify

Integrity Action; - Post-Payment Compliance Models Driven By Rapid Payment Design;

Delayed And Ineffective Regulatory Responses To Serious Misconduct.

Expanding Enforcement Powers In The Absence Of System Clarity And Stability Risks Misdirecting Integrity Efforts And Punishing Behaviour That Is The Product Of Ambiguity Rather Than Deliberate Misconduct.

3. Support Coordination Already Functions As An Informal Integrity Control

In Practice, Support Coordination Already Performs Many Of The Integrity And Safeguarding Functions This Bill Seeks To Formalise. Coordinators Routinely: - Prevent Inappropriate Claiming By Explaining Rules And Boundaries; - Identify And Escalate Fraud, Abuse, And Coercion; - Stabilise Services When Providers Fail Or Withdraw; - Manage Participant Risk While Waiting For Ndia Or Regulatory Action; - Absorb The Consequences Of Payment Suspensions, Plan Changes, And System Failures.

These Functions Are Performed Without Statutory Authority, Enforcement Powers, Or Commensurate Pricing. The Bill Assumes An Integrity Vacuum That Does Not Reflect Frontline Reality. Instead Of Recognising And Strengthening This Existing Safeguard, The Bill Layers Formal Enforcement On Top Of An Already Fragile System.

4. Increased Risk To Participants With Cognitive And Psychosocial Disability

Participants With Cognitive And Psychosocial Disability Are Particularly Exposed Under The Proposed Amendments. The Bill Relies Heavily On Discretionary Powers, Evidentiary Certificates, And Complex Compliance Concepts That Presuppose Clarity And Understanding That Does Not Exist In Practice.

There Remains No Single, Plain-English Explanation Of Claiming Rules Suitable For Participants With Cognitive Impairment. Expanding Punitive Powers Without First Addressing Accessibility, Clarity, And Procedural Fairness Risks Penalising Participants Who Cannot Reasonably Understand Or Navigate The System.

Support Coordinators Are Often The Only Mechanism Preventing These Participants From Becoming Subject To Compliance Action, Plan Reductions, Or Service Withdrawal. The Bill Does Not Acknowledge This Reality.

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Expanded Regulatory Powers Without Addressing Regulatory Capacity

The Bill significantly expands the powers of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, including information-gathering, banning orders, and enforcement tools. However, existing evidence demonstrates that the Commission already struggles with delayed complaint handling, limited intelligence capability, and slow response to serious matters.

Providing additional powers without addressing timeliness, accountability, and proportionality risks increasing regulatory reach without improving safeguarding outcomes. In practice, this will increase fear and risk aversion across the market while leaving participants exposed to harm during extended regulatory delays.

Market Stability and Provider Withdrawal Risk

The cumulative effect of: - increased enforcement risk; - unclear rules; - rapid payment with retrospective compliance; - suppressed pricing, including for support coordination;

• and administrative instability

is provider withdrawal from complex service areas. This has direct consequences for participants and ultimately increases downstream costs to the NDIA through crisis responses, reviews, and emergency interventions.

Integrity cannot be achieved in a market that is destabilised by governance failure and regulatory overreach.

What the Bill Fails to Address

Notably, the Bill does not address: - NDIA internal governance, ICT failures, or procurement risks; - clarity and accessibility of claiming rules; - transparency and reliability of NDIA data; - recognition or resourcing of support coordination as a system safeguard; - mechanisms to ensure proportional and timely regulatory action.

Without addressing these issues, the Bill risks becoming an enforcement overlay on a system that remains fundamentally flawed.

Recommendations

          recommends that the Committee:

1. Acknowledge that integrity risks within the NDIS are driven in significant part by
 NDIA system design and administrative failures, not solely by participant or provider
   behaviour.

• Require that any expansion of enforcement powers be accompanied by mandatory improvements to rule clarity, accessibility, and transparency.
• Delay or amend provisions that increase punitive powers until NDIA data reliability, decision transparency, and administrative stability are demonstrably improved.
• Recognise and formally value the role of support coordination as a frontline integrity and safeguarding function.
• Require reporting on regulatory timeliness, proportionality, and outcomes as a condition of expanded Commission powers.
• Require enforceable accountability of the NDIA and the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission that is commensurate with the expanded accountability imposed on providers.