Risk tolerance for harm in NDIS policy

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

1 June 2026

To: Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Re: Supplementary Submission 1.2 to Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Dear Chair and Committee,

This supplementary submission continues from my first two recommendations opposing the repeal of Section 31 and devaluing of lived experience evidence in proposed subsections 34(1E) and (1F), and the human impacts shared in Supplementary Submission 1.1.

I have addressed more provisions, but my consideration, real-world impact assessment of, and proposed amendments to the Bill remain far from complete due to the unreasonable timeframe.

I repeat my closing remarks to DHDA’s supposed New Framework consultation earlier this year:1 Stop ignoring the risks while avoiding the brakes

Once again, I ask those drafting, advising, or signing off on these rules the most important question of all: What risk tolerance for harm are you basing these rules on – and which harms are you still refusing to acknowledge?

• What is the risk tolerance for functional decline?

• What is the risk tolerance for hospital admissions?

• What is the risk tolerance for carer burnout leading to breakdown of informal supports?

• What is the risk tolerance for obstructing our economic participation?

• What is the risk tolerance for deaths resulting directly from you deciding you know more about what we need to address our disability needs than we do, or our teams do, or forcing the wrong supports on us?

• What is the risk tolerance for suicide if you make our lives harder than they already are, rather than easier – or deny us the disability supports that allow us some quality of life?

Because if you cannot accept, own, and admit to the potential consequences of your policy decisions, you have no business dictating those policies.

And you definitely do not get to gaslight us about the real impacts so many of us are feeling and witnessing, as if it’s all for our own good. The impacts we warned you of all along. We have been doing the risk assessments you refuse to, and turning your minds to those risks, for two years. Deflecting or avoiding engaging with risks of harm is not public service. You do not get a free pass to push ahead with changes premised on cutting support to achieve savings without guardrails to ensure your policy decisions do not kill. Pull the emergency brake.

1 Cat Walker, Submission to Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, NDIS rules: Public consultation on new framework planning* (6 March 2026). * Despite the title, no actual rules or details thereof were consulted on.

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 1 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

I submit this applies in even stronger terms to Parliament, and again argue it is entirely undemocratic to intentionally and recklessly ram through such a Bill, while failing to demand thorough risk, human rights, real-world, and downstream impact assessments from the Executive or allow us enough time to digest and respond to it. I know I am not alone, because I’ve read many submissions.

I therefore submit that the Senate proceeding without proper scrutiny through a genuine, extended inquiry of a timeframe accessible to people with disability – one where we are meaningfully engaged on the amendments we wish to see to prevent harm – amounts to misuse of the very power entrusted to Parliamentarians to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth.

Shutting us out of meaningful engagement on this Bill with the intention of rushing it through without proper consultation openly invites the Executive to abuse the vast powers this Bill seeks to grant carelessly – except, perhaps, the drafting care which appears to have been taken to shield the exercise of such powers from scrutiny.

The ‘cost of delays’ narrative already emerging is an attack on the dignity of every Australian impacted by this Bill. All those costs reflect are the consequences of failure to work with the disability community openly, transparently, and collaboratively since 2024, or cuts which cannot and should not be made in the first place, unless Parliament is willing to acknowledge what the downstream or direct human cost, including lives, will be.

We refuse to wear the blame for measures which continue failing the first test of compatibility with our rights under Article 4.3 of the CRPD – compliance with which would have better supported the common goal of a sustainable NDIS that has not had its heart ripped out for future generations.

We are not the problem, and any delay required for proper scrutiny is of Government’s making.

Yours sincerely,

Cat Walker

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 2 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Contents

Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4 Approach to consideration ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 4 Primary Recommendation ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 5 The Bill should be withdrawn and an apology made for the harm caused by the attempt to rush such legislation through with deliberately unreasonable and inaccessible consultation timeframes. Failing this, the inquiry should be extended and submissions accepted until at least August 2026, as per Justice and Equity Centre’s initial submission. …………………………………………………………………….. 5 Previous Recommendations ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 5 (Frighteningly Incomplete) New Recommendations ………………………………………………………………. 5 Further recommendations to Integrity of the NDIS Inquiry, Integrity and Safeguarding Bill 2025 and Annual Report No 2 of the 48th Parliament which should be moved as safeguarding amendments to the NDIS Bill 2026 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 9 The EM has no right to invoke the Registration Taskforce unless Self-Directed Registration is enshrined in the Act ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 14 If it’s visibility Government wants, the Registration Taskforce already defined a perfect solution. The Executive just doesn’t like it. ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 14 Woefully inadequate notes on harmful eligibility changes……………………………………………………… 15 The permanence question must begin and end with non-maleficence. Mortimer J’s judgment in NDIA v Davis honoured this. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 15 The functional capacity issue: Context is everything. Context is safety. Context is reality. One-size-fits- all assessment divorced from context will rarely have any basis in reality and will therefore be fictitious at best. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 15 The flimsy evidence trail for proposed eligibility changes ………………………………………………………. 16 A momentary invitation for the Committee to pause and reflect ……………………………………………… 16 Assumptions v Reality: NDIA advice to the NDIS Review obtained under FOI ……………………………… 16 God powers to cut therapy and community access budgets are based on two entirely false and misleading premises ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 16 The NDIA ought to know precisely how many participants have been denied adequate Core Assistance With Daily Life funding on the basis they can use their Core SCP funding flexibly. These cuts ignore this. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 16 The Department and NDIA want to make our cake and eat it too: If the NDIS is strictly for “significant and permanent disability”, it is the one system where therapy needs to manage the ongoing impacts of severe and permanent disabilities will be ongoing and of higher intensity………………………………….. 17 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 17

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 3 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Acknowledgements

1. I am grateful to the legal experts who have supported the community in working through this complex Bill under extraordinary time constraints.

2. In particular, I offer my sincere thanks to the cherished legal academic (as dubbed in another submission) whose unpublished and strictly objective legal analysis has informed some of my incomplete commentary on what certain aspects of the few parts I could address in time will actually do to people like me, my peers, and our families; and amendments I’ve adopted where possible (in the minutes prior to the deadline) in some nonetheless incomplete recommendations.

Approach to consideration

3. Where possible, my views on provisions of the Bill highlight:

a. Real-world impacts of technical provisions (based on issues highlighted by legal experts and lived experience evidence as to they are likely to play out in implementation)

b. Material risks of harm to participants or prospective participants and their families

c. Fiscal reality checks for those voting on the Bill, should the real-world economic impacts I highlight not be addressed through amendments

4. 1 June 2026: Well, that was the plan, but Parliament didn’t give me enough time to read and list each provision of concern, much less respond to them. I’ve been as across each NDIS Bill and other changes to rules and policies as humanly possible on insufficient functional capacity since March 2024, and I couldn’t do it.

5. How can Parliament be acting in good faith, or legislating for good government, when nobody impacted by this Bill has had enough time and those with the greatest barriers to engaging – or at the highest risk of harm if this Bill passes – have been completely shut out of a democratic process?

6. In the circumstances, the recommendations already listed have not been placed in any priority order and omit many highest priorities entirely because I will miss the deadline.

7. I endorse the following submissions, among many others:

a. Disabled People Against Cuts

b. Occupational Therapy Society (OTSi)

c. Villamanta Disability Rights Legal Service

d. VALID

e. Katy Gagliardi

f. Jarrod-Sandell-Hay

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 4 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Primary Recommendation

The Bill should be withdrawn and an apology made for the harm caused by the attempt to rush such legislation through with deliberately unreasonable and inaccessible consultation timeframes. Failing this, the inquiry should be extended and submissions accepted until at least August 2026, as per Justice and Equity Centre’s initial submission.

Previous Recommendations2

Recommendation 1

Schedule 1, Item 66 should be opposed.

All elements of Section 31 must remain in the NDIS Act in their current form, with direct application to the CEO’s decision-making powers in relation to plans.

Recommendation 2

Proposed subsections 34(1E) and (1F) should be opposed.

The lived experience evidence of the participant must be deemed of equal or greater weight to other evidence and must not be constrained to their experience using supports in the previous plan but include all their relevant lived experience.

(Frighteningly Incomplete) New Recommendations

Recommendation 3

The whole of person amendments and notes negotiated in 2024 must be upheld, and the common-sense approach endorsed by the Federal Court enforced in Agency administration.

Schedule 1, Part 3, Items 28-33 are opposed in full.

2 Cat Walker, Submission No 1 to Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 (14 May 2026). https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=11b8f984-8302-4680-9bbe-73ec8bb54c2c&subId=789656

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 5 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Recommendation 4

The definition and assessment of functional capacity must reflect cumulative, interacting and longitudinal impacts. Assessment cannot be divorced from, or override, evidence of lived reality.

I endorse and adopt OTSI’s concerns and recommendations on functional capacity.

Recommendation 5

Schedule 1, Part 8, Items 88-94 should be opposed in full.

If Part 8 proceeds, appropriate and available treatment should uphold the Federal Court interpretation in Davis, not override it in predictably harmful and inequitable ways. In lieu of time for full consideration, I adopt the following suggested amendment to the permanence provisions:

Amend the proposal to reflect ‘an appropriate treatment is one likely to result in a substantial improvement or alleviation to those impacts of an impairment which would otherwise qualify the individual for the NDIS.’ [As assessed by our treating professionals, in our contexts.] The requirement that anything which ‘materially improves or alleviates the impact of the impairment’ disqualifies you should be redrawn. People should only be asked to try programmes that could result in all of their affected life domains being above the functional threshold for NDIS access.

Recommendation 6

In lieu of more time, I adopt the following suggested amendment to the Minister’s powers to slash budgets indiscriminately (or in overtly discriminatory ways), to “ensure impact assessment, harm tracking and enhanced parliamentary scrutiny of the Minister’s new ‘flat rate, percentage cut to supports’ powers”:

(i) Amend to place any specific participation and capacity cuts directly in primary legislation or time limit this power as a transitional provision to ensure parliamentary scrutiny.

(ii) Amend to require a regular, independently conducted ‘audit of human and functional impact related to partial funding of assessed needs’ statement with ministerial response to be published.

(iii) Legislate that an intersectional impact analysis and survey report must be tabled alongside any future instruments when introduced.

(iv) Impose a duty to promote intersectional equality and to assess human rights impacts in administering the scheme.

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 6 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Recommendation 7

Schedule 3, Part 2 provisions regarding automation should be opposed in full until:

• An Ethics and Human Oversight Framework for compliance activities and any automation activities (with direct reference to all relevant obligations under the CRPD) is enshrined in the NDIS Act

• Review rights for compliance events under Sections 45, 46 and related provisions are enshrined in the NDIS Act

I additionally adopt the following suggested amendments to “shift the sections on automation from permission slips towards effective governance and oversight”:

→ The section 59D(1)(a)(i) trigger must be amended to include any partial automation “where the computer arrangement is substantially and directly related to the taking of an administrative action and its output would, without meaningful human intervention, determine the outcome of that action.”

→ Require the tabling of an independent assessment of compliance with the Ombudsman’s better practice automation checklist alongside any future instrument authorising partial automation/tech assistance of functions in budgeting and planning. Or require that authorisation be done by primary legislation.

→ Legislate a strengthened framework for the independent oversight, evaluation and case sampling of assisted and automated decision-making in assessments/budgeting into this Bill.

→ Amend the phrase ‘sufficiently objective’ to ‘objective’ or ‘involves factual determinations or arithmetic calculations suitable to be performed by a computer’ to protect Parliament’s right to fully scrutinise high risk automation.

→ Amend s 59D(3) to require the CEO to also be satisfied that there exists reasonable and proportionate human oversight over the computer arrangement.

→ Amend to require that any computer programme must reach an evaluative determination ‘consistently and only as outlined’ in the standard operating procedure, not just operate consistently with it.

→ Require the standard procedure document to include the business rules governing human intercession or review and the allocated staffing level.

→ Require reporting of the median length of time to make a substituted decision following a complaint in the Annual Report.

→ Designate the National Disability Insurance Agency as subject to the Commonwealth Scheme for Detriment Caused by Defective Administration. [See Further Recommendation 12]

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 7 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Recommendation 8

In lieu of more time, I adopt the following suggested debt safeguard amendments:

(i) Legislate an exception to ensure a ‘missing paperwork debt’ will not be raised where the agency can, through readily available evidence, inquiry or inference, or engagement with the participant, provider or nominee, confirm entitlement to the amount.

(ii) Ensure this Bill and/or future rules include reasonable excuses or intention requirements for not keeping or retaining a record obligation for participants/nominees. These need to proactively cover inadvertent loss, natural disaster so this is not regarded as relevant non compliance in decision-making elsewhere in the Act. I note similar protections are inserted into primary legislation in the case of our taxation system.

(iii) Individuals will otherwise need to argue that they did not ‘knowingly’ fail to comply with the Act to access a special circumstances waiver. That section 195 ‘knowingly’ standard should be updated to include “but the CEO is satisfied that act, failure or omission was justified in the circumstances” to match the social security law’s recent domestic violence and coercive control amendments.

Recommendation 9

In lieu of more time, I adopt the suggestion to “Amend Part 6 of the Act to ensure ‘reasonable and necessary’ retains a focus on outcomes and overall needs reduction - short termism is not sustainability”, in addition to my Recommendations 1 and 2:

The proposed section 34(1)(g) should be opposed. Failing that: “one moderating amendment would be to require ‘In determining the appropriateness of any service system under section 34(1)(g), the CEO must have regard to the non-existence of any alternative support declaration regulating the matter’. This would clarify the delegate cannot engage in categorical reasoning in relation to service divisions over which Federal and State governments have failed to reach agreement on or legislate. The proposal is best removed in favour of refreshed definitions of NDIS support or alternative support declarations.”

Amend the proposed section 34(1G) and 34(1H) to retain a focus on addressing the disability specific needs of children beyond those which can be described as general parental responsibility [as I am sure many others have addressed in detail…]

Recommendation 10

Schedule 1, Part 9, Items 96-101: Declared alternative support criteria must be subject to a ‘comparable support which would achieve the same outcome’ test; there must be clear criteria which must be met before the Minister can be satisfied under proposed s25B(6); and all provisions should be subject to the actual existence, availability and sufficiency of alternative supports.

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 8 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Recommendation 11

Insert into Section 4: A positive duty on the Agency, Ministers, and other parties communicating about the Scheme to comply with Article 8 of the CRPD, particularly when discussing Scheme integrity and sustainability.

Further recommendations to Integrity of the NDIS Inquiry,3 Integrity and Safeguarding Bill 20254 and Annual Report No 2 of the 48th Parliament5 which should be moved as safeguarding amendments to the NDIS Bill 2026

8. The unreasonable timeframe for consideration of this Bill is thrown into even sharper relief by the strict scope applied to consideration of the previous Bill, which saw my submission to that inquiry and associated recommended amendments rejected as out of scope. While I acknowledge the Committee’s eventual reconsideration and acceptance of my contribution as Submission 52, this was so late in the process that the report itself refers to receiving only 51 submissions.

9. This Bill seriously escalates the dangers of the provisions I opposed in the last Bill, as well as those dangers my additional proposed amendments sought to safeguard against.

10. Likewise, my 26-page contribution to the Integrity inquiry made 16 recommendations, many of which require legislative change and are safeguards which absolutely must be in place as guardrails for provisions in this Bill which create massive scope for abuse of power and harm, including death, by defective administration.

11. This brings me back to an amendment I have proposed numerous times, including in Submission 52 on the last Bill, also highlighted in legal commentary on this Bill over the past fortnight, and the associated amendment I proposed to apply equivalent conduct standards to the NDIA.

12. As I said last time: The absence of such equivalent standards of conduct and associated redress for participants, in the face of the Agency’s being exempt from the CDDA Scheme (due to its status as a CCE), sends a clear message to the Agency and participants alike that equivalent conduct by the

3 Cat Walker, Submission No 6 to Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Inquiry into the Integrity of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (26 March 2026). https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=288881c7-88a3-4e45-9039-4b00344bccff&subId=787720 4 Cat Walker, Submission No 52 to Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 (6 February 2026). If the Committee reviews just one submission, make it this one: https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=b335ce8a- 029a-4f6b-87c5-e637b6449cde&subId=787554 5 Cat Walker, Submission No 7 to Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Annual Report No. 2 of the 48th Parliament (18 March 2026). https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=3053f7b0-222c-4823-a52f-0f43c36ffb90&subId=787534

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 9 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Agency is permissible and participants are not entitled to expect the same standards of conduct or freedom from harm resulting from NDIA acts, omissions or maladministration.

13. Legislate actual guardrails and redress for harm, not pinkie promises. Legislate accountability. How else can we have any faith whatsoever in the intended use of automation?

Recommendation 12

Table an amendment which ends the National Disability Insurance Agency’s longstanding technical exemption from the Compensation for Detriment caused by Defective Administration (CDDA) Scheme, and which applies the same standards of and penalties for harmful conduct introduced in the NDIS Bill 2025 to the Agency and its staff.

14. There is insufficient time to summarise – or even cite the paragraph numbers of – the carefully developed commentary and cases made for amendments proposed in the other submissions I put intellectual and emotional labour into this year (linked in footnotes) which make up the remainder of the recommendations in this section.

15. If the Committee cannot see the case for adopting these recommendations without time to read arguments made in the below submissions, or for me to connect them to items of this Bill, chalk it up as further evidence for the ‘wildly inadequate timeframe for consideration of this Bill’ column.

Recommendation 13

Amend Section 30 to require that the CEO must state particulars of evidence which lead the CEO to believe a participant may no longer be eligible, and the reasons for proceeding with a referral for eligibility reassessment.

Recommendation 14

Align Section 10 to the dominant purpose of support, to be interpreted consistently with faithful pursuit of the relevant international obligation(s) under the CRPD. The draft Section 10 proposed in Submission 183 to the second NDIS Bill 2024 inquiry is recommended as a starting point for consultation on a principles-based definition capable of being formalised as a participant-led outcomes and compliance framework.

Recommendation 15

Repeal ss 10(4) to (8) of the NDIS Act 2013 and substitute the previous definition and boundaries of s 34(1)(f) into s 10(4) as per Supports for Participants Rules 2013 whilst developing a community-led definition of NDIS support and negotiating interfaces.

In addition: This must include a positive duty to resolve interface issues in the best interests of the safety, wellbeing and independence of the participant until permanent rules are negotiated which include a ‘nobody falls through the cracks’ clause.

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 10 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Recommendation 16

A principles-based definition of NDIS support under Section 10 should be developed with the disability community through a parliamentary inquiry.

This should occur in tandem with the below Integrity recommendation.

Recommendation 17

Such an inquiry to define a community-endorsed, principles-based definition of NDIS support could simultaneously develop an ethical compliance and outcomes framework to be operationalised through existing data lake infrastructure and self-service options in the participant portal and myNDIS app.

This compliance and outcomes framework should be based on a holistic range of qualitative data points which link funded supports to CRPD obligations and meaningful, participant-led outcomes aligned to the objects and general principles of the NDIS Act.

Recommendation 18

Amend s209(3)(a) to provide that the Minister must comply with the four Gunning Principles before making Transitional Rules under amending Acts or any category of NDIS rules affecting the rights or obligations of participants under the NDIS Act 2013:

a) Public consultation must occur when proposals are still at a formative stage, not when issues have been predetermined; and

b) There must be sufficient information to give ‘intelligent consideration’; and

c) Information regarding the proposal must be sufficiently available, accessible, and easily interpretable for consultees to provide an informed response; and

d) There is adequate time and ‘conscientious consideration’ must be given to the consultation responses before a decision is made.

Recommendation 19

Insert a requirement that NDIS rules and Transitional Rules may not commence until after the disallowance period, and that failure to consult on full exposure drafts of any NDIS rules or Transitional Rules is immediate grounds for disallowance.

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 11 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Recommendation 20

Insert specific review rights for Section 45 and 46 determinations into Section 99.

Recommendation 21

Insert at s211(3) that a person, body or organisation may submit a dissenting consultation report to the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation during the disallowance period.

This section should further provide that any such dissenting reports are to be tabled in the Senate during the disallowance period, and dissenting reports raising human rights issues are to be brought to the attention of the Joint Committee on Human Rights for further scrutiny and response during the disallowance period.

Recommendation 22

Repeal provisions of the NDIS Act which inappropriately delegate the following matters “generally implemented only through Acts of Parliament”:

• “rules which have a significant impact on human rights and personal liberties”

• “procedural matters which go to the essence of the legislative scheme”

Recommendation 23

Insert an additional function of the NDIA at s118(1)(bb) of the NDIS Act to ensure all activities relating to s118(1)(ba) comply with the CRPD, are ethical, and uphold the highest standards of procedural fairness in all processes relating to participants, with regard to disability-related procedural accommodations and vulnerability indicators.

Recommendation 24

Insert a requirement that the Agency must maintain a version-controlled copy of all current operational guidance and policies regarding participant manual payment reviews, debt determination and debt management, including regular human rights impact assessment reviews.

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 12 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Recommendation 25

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights should inquire into all NDIS legislation and delegated legislation and monitor human rights impacts in implementation of reforms until at least one year post full implementation of all reforms to planning and eligibility.

Recommendation 26

The NDIS Act be amended to incorporate the following upstream safeguards into support needs assessments (s32L):

• Items repealing the whole of person compromise of 2024 should be opposed in full

• Insert subsection 32L(1A): Assessment must be undertaken by an AHPRA-registered professional independent of the NDIA and of the participant’s choice

• Insert subsection 32L(4)(ab) to ensure assessors must have regard to information or reports provided by the participant

• Proposed subsection 32L(10): Assessed need for any ancillary support to be funded under the NDIS in order to carry the intended outcome of an NDIS support into effect

• Proposed subsection 32L(11): Requirement for quarterly independent evaluation sampling quality and accuracy of needs assessments, to be published within 30 days

• Proposed subsection 32L(12): Needs assessment must relate assessed needs to findings of material fact with disclosure of any information held by the Agency supporting those facts

• Proposed subsection 32L(13): Assessor or CEO may override needs assessment if reasonably necessary to capture complex needs and/or facilitate a tailored and flexible response to individual needs of the participant

Recommendation 27

An Ethics and Human Oversight Framework enshrined in the Act, including processes for capturing and responding to the unique and intersectional vulnerability indicators and accessibility needs of NDIS participants in compliance activities, and redress for harm (as per conduct and CDDA recommendation).

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 13 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Recommendation 28

Any statutory ethics framework must encompass the unique ethical risks and vulnerabilities arising from implementation of behavioural insights, choice architecture, nudging, and associated integrity ‘risk profiles’ are accountable to disability-related needs, including suicide risks relating to specific cohorts and intersectional risk factors.

This should incorporate a positive duty of care on the Agency.

Recommendation 29

Parliament should amend the NDIS Act to adopt the self-directed registration category in the form proposed by the Registration Taskforce led by Natalie Wade.

This should not be confined to direct employment/services-for-one arrangements (as implied by subsequent consultation materials): The arrangements proposed by the Taskforce responded directly to exemplary community consultation and ensure integrity and visibility measures do not sacrifice individualised support.

The EM has no right to invoke the Registration Taskforce unless Self-Directed Registration is enshrined in the Act

If it’s visibility Government wants, the Registration Taskforce already defined a perfect solution. The Executive just doesn’t like it.

16. As I told the Guardian back in 2024:6

Mandatory registration of support workers would “block access to the supports I need most, inhibit genuine community connections and my investment in that community, and make me extremely unsafe,” Walker says… “The more that conversation [about safety] has gone on, it has become very clear to me this is not about visibility of safety and risk, this is about visibility of money.”

17. As I subsequently highlighted in the aforementioned submissions and others, the self-directed registration category provides visibility to Government without sacrificing the choice and control over arrangements we deem safe – but only if adopted in the form proposed by the Taskforce. Predictably, I’m out of time to quote the bits the Government is yet to acknowledge. Please draft an amendment directly from the text of the Taskforce advice and NOT from the Department’s narrowed take on it. I assume multiple submitters have addressed this and invite a request for information from the Secretariat if not.

6 Stephanie Convery and Sarah Basford Canales, ‘Outrageously scary’: NDIS participants fear proposed changes will give them less choice and control, The Guardian (13 April 2024). https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2024/apr/13/australia-labor-government-ndis-scheme-changes-comment

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 14 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

Woefully inadequate notes on harmful eligibility changes

The permanence question must begin and end with non-maleficence. Mortimer J’s judgment in NDIA v Davis honoured this.

18. Before Parliament considers killing off the commonsense precedent in Davis, I remind this Committee why it was so important, and why the now-Chief Justice’s view should be honoured:

[Questions] of the construction and operation of the NDIS Act should be approached with a reasonable degree of common sense.

The NDIS Act is beneficial and remedial legislation designed to operate in relatively high volume decision-making, in a pragmatic context, and in respect of people (and their families and carers) already facing great challenges in their daily lives.

The NDIS Act’s construction and operation should not be beset by parsing, technicalities and distinctions which make the legislative scheme more difficult to comprehend and administer, including for first instance decision-makers and the Tribunal on review.

19. In real life – including my life – we are not ‘anxious’ about the proposed changes. We are rightfully, rationally terrified about the far-reaching adverse impacts the proposed definition of permanence will have, and the manner in which this will disproportionately impact those already facing incredible difficulty in our daily lives as a direct result of complex, multiple or interacting impairments, in real-world contexts where those difficulties honoured in Davis could be disregarded as an excuse to abandon those with the greatest barriers, including disability barriers.

The functional capacity issue: Context is everything. Context is safety. Context is reality. One-size-fits-all assessment divorced from context will rarely have any basis in reality and will therefore be fictitious at best.

Legal issues

20. Endless, which I fear, because we all know they will be litigated harshly. No time to address.

Human impact and material risks of harm

21. Terrifying, extensive, and one of the many reasons Parliament is acting irresponsibly with our lives.

22. Moreover, this approach risks falsely underreporting the most complex and compounding impacts.

23. I am one of those impacted by this issue and deserve to be heard on it. I have been denied a fair hearing on one of the most serious provisions with frightening consequences if passed, including real-world risk assessment in my life.

Fiscal reality check for every politician voting on this measure

24. Huge. Denied time to address. Ditto for the permanence provisions.

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 15 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

The flimsy evidence trail for proposed eligibility changes

A momentary invitation for the Committee to pause and reflect

25. I intended to start the eligibility provisions discussion here, but the voices of participants have been so seriously sidelined over the past two years that I was genuinely worried it would distract from my consideration of those sections and the amendments I want to see. I raise this because I think it is important for the Committee to reflect on this, and the value judgments Parliament as a whole has been making about whose evidence matters through these reforms.

26. Put another way, I suggest that the same problems I highlighted with the proposed evidence hierarchy in Submission 1 are manifesting in the democratic process of Parliamentary inquiries. This has broadly been justified by the promise of consultation on delegated legislation by the Executive, when even the Joint Standing Committee has admitted the Executive has not allowed us to be adequately heard – much less, in my opinion, taken seriously.

27. It is in that context that I now interrogate the flimsy evidence base for these policy measures and the Executive’s approach to developing them, and invite the Committee to reflect on the weight it should give to official submissions on the measures it is required to make recommendations to Parliament on. (1 June 2026: Yet another matter of extraordinary significance I have been denied the time required to articulate properly and with care.)

Assumptions v Reality: NDIA advice to the NDIS Review obtained under FOI

28. Another highly relevant argument anybody voting on this should be interested in. The Agency and Department will no doubt be heard on these measures at hearings, and yet the underlying assumptions will not be properly scrutinised even where relevant evidence and context exists.

29. 2023 advice obtained under FOI makes the following assertions now relied on to support proposed amendments and delegation of critical details to subordinate legislation… Well, I was going to quote the parts I intended to rebut, but I am out of time. And it hardly seems fair to amplify those statements without right of reply as a participant potentially impacted by proposed measures ultimately derived from such assumptions, despite the relevance to this inquiry. I invite requests for this analysis if the Committee also wishes to properly scrutinise such assumptions.

God powers to cut therapy and community access budgets are based on two entirely false and misleading premises

The NDIA ought to know precisely how many participants have been denied adequate Core Assistance With Daily Life funding on the basis they can use their Core SCP funding flexibly. These cuts ignore this.

30. The intended 50% cuts, even if applied at reassessment, will blatantly ignore unmet ‘critical’ daily life support needs and leave many underfunded. Considering the Core SCP budget is used by many, me included, for luxurious, unsustainable things like… support to see the doctor.

Supplementary Submission 1.2 Cat Walker 1 June 2026 Page 16 of 17

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1 - Supplementary Submission

31. I have ample examples, as countless submissions have addressed. This is barbaric and anybody who disliked COVID lockdowns at all should oppose these provisions. We don’t need segregated group activities. We deserve support to live our lives like everybody else does.

The Department and NDIA want to make our cake and eat it too: If the NDIS is strictly for “significant and permanent disability”, it is the one system where therapy needs to manage the ongoing impacts of severe and permanent disabilities will be ongoing and of higher intensity

32. In the absence of time: What the heading says.

Conclusion

33. I have nothing further to add to the sentiments in the cover letter, recommendations desperately needed, or analysis of the Bill’s provisions, that I can do justice in what is left of this afternoon…

34. …except to thank the Committee Secretary and Secretariat team for their hard work under the extraordinary time constraints imposed on the community and the resulting flood of submissions.

35. I acknowledge and appreciate the role you play in our democracy, whoever is running it, and that in moments like this, you are often the first to read stories and fears that may be difficult to receive (especially when many can only tell Parliament how this Bill will hurt them in such a timeframe, rather than how to fix it), but which are so, so important to be held and heard by our Parliament. Thank you for your part in ensuring that they are.

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