Submission regarding National Disability

Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025

I am an NDIS participant. I’m in my late 30s, have complex care needs due to my medical, physical, neurological, genetic disabilities; yet my NDIS plan only covers 2 of my mental health disorders.

I live in Metropolitan Melbourne as this allows me the widest access to specialists and providers, despite the costs rarely being covered by my NDIS plan or Medicare.

I have previously worked as a disability reference group member for council, and have even been awarded publicly for my advocacy in access and inclusion.

Prior to becoming disabled in 2019, I worked in call centres and customer service roles for private health insurers. Over those 5 years I became uniquely familiar with the intricacies of funding healthcare and disability support needs.

My submission to Parliament today aims to highlight some concerns I have as both an NDIS participant and as someone who has been in a customer facing position similar to that of NDIA employees.

Primarily, I’m concerned about what I read in the EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM1, circulated by the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Senator the Hon Jenny McAllister)

Section One proposes both vague and sweeping reforms to how the NDIA will operate in the future.

For the first 37 indexed pages of the document, the act focuses exclusively on punishing offenders of a crime against property/the NDIA, and ignores the actual victims; the participants who were exploited or abused.

As someone who has had this occur with Occupational Therapists overcharging for reports, cleaners trying to charge above quoted prices for work they didn’t do, it leaves us, the participants, with lasting damage too. I’ve called my support coordinator, melting down in tears more than once when realising I’ve been exploited, even having overheard a cleaner saying on the phone (please forgive this slur) that I was “too retarded” to notice a half done job.

Even though this violated consumer law, discrimination law, and NDIS law, I highly doubt a tougher penalty would deter this hate speech from occurring.

Part 4 – Plan Variation, Items 9 – 10 – Section 47A of the proposed bill states that the CEO of the NDIA should have absolute authority to change a participant’s plan without any consultation, and no avenue for recourse on the participant’s behalf. Should the CEO decide to integrate AI or automated workflow processes to approve or modify plans, they would have absolute power to cut funds with no recourse or access to the Administrative Review Tribunal. This is especially problematic because AI systems have been proven to be inherently ableist2, sexist, and incapable of comprehending emotional or social impacts.

A study from Monash University’s Submission to the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with

disabilities states “AI systems present a multitude of challenges including replicating and entrenching bias; enabling over surveillance by governments; fuelling misidentifications in predictive policing; facilitating discrimination in recruitment, employment, the provision of public services and welfare” 3.

Article 12 of the ICESCR, cited in the very bill will are discussing today, states “the right of everyone is the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.”4

Computers don’t have a physical body, so they can’t experience fatigue, chronic pain, mobility difficulties when interacting with society and are limited by the data set they are modelled on. If my rare genetic connective tissue disorder is not a part of the AI modelling, it cannot be granted appropriate supports or care.

Further, I am constantly being told by providers to supply my entire plan to them so they can draft a service agreement. This means a company that isn’t even capable of a basic phone privacy check now has my extensive medical data and under privacy laws, as they are using it for business purposes, they can then sell it to data brokers, spam marketers and fraudulent caller databases.

This should be illegal, as disabled folk are more likely to be victimised, abused or exploited according to data outlined in the Royal Commission into disability safety5.

When I worked for a health insurer we had a privacy breach that impacted one family. The ATO prepopulated the address field for a family’s tax statement, and my employers posted it to the husband. They did not more that the address for the wife and children was different, as they had a family violence order in place and we’d just given him their new address.

This one computer error unchecked by a human cost the company over $1million in legal, moving and medical expenses. Statistically, disabled folk are at a much higher risk of carer abuse and domestic violence. My point here is that administrative oversight can have massive impacts on the people who need the services of the NDIA.

While on the topic of data security and privacy within customer service roles, I would also like to highlight that it’s come to my attention that a company called Serco is currently recruiting CSC staff in Melbourne. They handle contracts for all kinds of marketing businesses, retailers, etc. When working on phone calls, I was paid a pittance but offered performance bonuses for hitting KPIs like resolving the call in under 3 minutes, only taking 30 seconds to record notes on a caller’s account. This means call staff are directly financially impacted by calls that exceed the kpi.

For example, if the caller uses the relay service, or is hard of hearing, has a cognitive disability or has a carer they need to note on the call. These things all impact the employee’s personal stats, and often breed resentment

• when the staff can’t resolve the call fast enough. This means disabled people get substandard service, rarely get

treated with respect and employers prioritise KPIs over customers; in this case, vulnerable and often confused

disabled people just trying to understand what is happening with their NDIS funding to ensure their care needs are met.

Integrating I-CAN assessments by clerical staff who might have received training by the University of Melbourne will lead to a higher rate of rejected NDS applications, will result in inappropriate plan reviews and by removing the client’s ability to review with the review tribunal erases agency, autonomy and the rights of the disabled person, who already has to fight tooth and nail every day against unsolicited advice from strangers, bbiased medical practitioners and sometimes even dangerous input from family or carers. Exercise actually increases my pain and fatigue, my neurological conditions prohibit me from doing mindfulness and while I would benefit from routine, my disabilities are dynamic and flare at random. A computer wouldn’t understand this and would restrict my funding.

As you can tell, I’m eloquent and tertiary educated. My last plan review suggested speech pathology just because I have autism.

I’d also like to address the proposal that only digital claims will be accepted henceforth. It creates barriers for NDIS participants who are vision impaired, cognitively disabled, who are illiterate or physically unable to use digital devices through financial or physical barriers. It makes claiming even more difficult, or forces reliance and expenditure on support coordinators.

This is in direct conflict with values stated in the very document being used to make these amendments to the NDIA legal requirements.

The NDIA operates as though it is a for-profit insurer, funded by the government. Except, it’s not. The NDIS is supposed to be a service that assists disabled people with funding and resources to allow us access to formal supports, care, allied health and assistive technology. If it were a business, disabled folk would have the same rights as any Australian consumer when services are ineffective, or dangerous. Stripping us of the Administrative Review Tribunal, the involvement of qualified registered allied health professionals during our plan assessments and integrating AI to save on staff wages is abhorrent.

Senator Jenny McAllister signed off on the Executive Summary of this bill, which states both that “Proposed amendments will not directly impact participants.” It also states “The Bill is compatible with human rights because it … is consistent with the CRPD, ICCPR and ICESCR. To the extent that it may limit human rights, those limitations are reasonable, necessary and proportionate.”

I pose a direct question to the Honourable Minister McAllister; “Since limiting the human rights of disabled folk would, in fact, directly impact participants of the NDIS on a very personal level, which of those two statements is true?”

In closing, I ask all members of the senate to remember that disabled people, whose rights are a reasonable sacrifice in exchange for the NDIS, still vote. As do their families, carers, community support groups, and the

allied health providers who would lose work should I-CAN tools replace them. We also ask you to remember

the lives prematurely ended, the $1.2 billion cost, the royal commission launched and the lost trust of the

Australian people last time the government chose to sacrifice the rights of 470,000 of our nation’s most

vulnerable people6 for unconstitutional and fictitious debt created by computer automation. I beg you to reflect

on this last paragraph before making any decisions regarding the new bill amendments.

Choosing to prioritise lowered expenditure on health and social security tells disabled folk that their comfort, safety and dignity are a sacrifice this senate deems reasonable, necessary and proportionate, as to ensure

long-term integrity and sustainability of the NDIS.

Thank you for your time.