National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1249
Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 I am making this submission as the mother, advocate and nominee of my adult son, , who has a serious psychosocial disability. I support the long-term sustainability of the NDIS. I also support strong action against fraud, overcharging, exploitation and poor-quality providers. However, I am deeply concerned that the proposed reforms risk tightening the scheme around participants, families and genuine supports, rather than focusing properly on the provider-side conduct that is draining the scheme. The NDIS should be protected. But it should be protected by targeting fraud, grifting, inflated pricing, conflicts of interest and poor provider accountability: not by making it harder for people with severe and permanent disability to access the daily supports they need to stay safe, housed, connected and functioning. Psychosocial disability is easily misunderstood has a serious psychosocial disability: schizophrenia. Like many people with this type of disability, he can sometimes present well. He can speak clearly. He can be intelligent, engaging and capable in short interactions. But this does not mean he can reliably manage daily life without support. His functional capacity fluctuates. His ability to organise himself, maintain routine, attend work, manage stress, engage safely in the community, maintain housing and follow through with basic daily living tasks can deteriorate quickly without structured support. This is why I am concerned about any reform that relies too heavily on narrow or “objective” functional capacity assessments. Psychosocial disability is not always visible in a short appointment. A person may appear capable during an assessment while still being unable to function consistently in real-world conditions. Any reform to eligibility, functional capacity, permanence or funded supports must be carefully scrutinised to ensure people with psychosocial disability are not wrongly excluded or underfunded because their disability is complex, fluctuating or poorly understood. ’s experience first became seriously unwell in 2019 and was formally diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2021. He did not finally access NDIS supports until 2025 : six years after he first became ill. ’s NDIS application was not approved easily or quickly. As his mother, advocate and nominee, I had to push his application to the Tribunal level. It took approximately two years to finally have his application approved.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1249
During those years without appropriate disability support, ’s functioning deteriorated significantly. For a period, he was homeless. The delay placed enormous pressure on him and on our family. I believe it also created greater cost for the system overall. This delay did not save money. It shifted the cost onto , our family, the health system, housing services and crisis responses. It is not cost-effective to deny or delay practical supports until a person deteriorates into crisis. When people with psychosocial disability are left unsupported, the consequences can include homelessness, hospitalisation, emergency intervention, police involvement, loss of employment, family breakdown and carer burnout. The NDIS should not measure sustainability only by looking at short-term plan costs. It must also consider the cost of not supporting people early and properly. The cost of inadequate disability support does not disappear simply because it is removed from the NDIS budget. It is shifted elsewhere. When people with serious psychosocial disability are left unsupported, they may become homeless, relapse, lose employment, deteriorate into drug use, become involved with police, appear in emergency departments, require hospital admission, enter crisis accommodation, or become caught up in the criminal justice system. These responses are costly, reactive and far less humane than providing practical support early. If government reforms are driven mainly by a desire to reduce visible NDIS expenditure, they risk creating false savings. A reduction in NDIS spending may simply increase costs in policing, prisons, hospitals, homelessness services and crisis responses. The issue should not be whether support appears expensive in one budget column, but whether the overall system is preventing deterioration, crisis and avoidable public cost.
Daily living and community supports are not luxuries For people with psychosocial disability, supports such as daily living assistance, mentoring, transport, routine-building, community access, exercise-based regulation, meal support, cleaning support and emotional steadiness are not extras. They are often the very supports that prevent crisis. A support worker helping someone get to work, prepare food, attend appointments, maintain a routine, regulate stress, leave the house or stay connected to the community may be preventing a much more expensive breakdown later. The scheme should not treat these supports as optional lifestyle spending. For many participants, they are the difference between stability and deterioration. Support should not be cut because it is working One of the dangers for people with psychosocial disability is that improvement can be misread as evidence that support is no longer needed.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1249
In reality, many participants improve because support is in place. They may be more settled, more engaged, more able to attend work, more able to maintain housing and more able to participate in the community because they are receiving practical, consistent support. Removing or reducing that support too quickly can cause deterioration. This is especially true for psychosocial disability, where functioning can fluctuate and where routine, trust, consistency and relational support are often central to stability. The NDIS must not create a system where participants are penalised for making progress. Progress should be understood as evidence that the right supports are working, not as an automatic reason to withdraw them. Fraud control should follow the money I also want to be very clear: I understand from my own experience trying to secure providers that there are many grifters in the NDIS space. Some providers appear more interested in accessing NDIS funding than in delivering meaningful, participant-centred support. Some services are overpriced. Some providers use vague descriptions, inflated hours, poor documentation or unnecessary services. Some appear to see NDIS participants as funding packages rather than people. This is where the tightening should happen. The existence of fraud should not be used as a reason to make life harder for genuine participants. Fraud control should follow the money. It should examine who is billing, what they are billing for, whether the support was actually delivered, whether the price is fair, whether the support relates to the participant’s disability needs, and whether the participant received genuine benefit. Fraud control should distinguish clearly between provider exploitation and genuine participant need. How the system can be protected from grifters The NDIS could be protected through practical, targeted provider-side safeguards.
- Random audits of high-billing providers Providers with unusually high billing patterns should be subject to random audits. This could include providers with very high total claims, unusual weekend or public holiday billing, repeated travel claims, identical invoice descriptions across many participants, sudden spikes in billing, or unusually high use of particular line items. A random audit should require the provider to produce a sample of: • invoices; • support logs or case notes; • service agreements;
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1249
• participant or nominee confirmation; • travel records where travel is claimed; • evidence that the support related to the participant’s disability needs. This should be a provider accountability measure, not a burden shifted onto participants and families. 2. Practical proof that support was delivered Evidence should be proportionate and respectful. For most supports, evidence should mean accurate invoices, dated support logs, rosters, service agreements, participant or nominee confirmation, and travel records where relevant. Photographs or videos should not become routine requirements. They may be intrusive, humiliating or inappropriate, especially for participants with psychosocial disability. Visual evidence should only be used where it is directly relevant, proportionate and freely consented to. The test should be whether the provider can produce a coherent, auditable record showing what was delivered, when, by whom, for how long, at what cost, and how it related to the participant’s support needs. 3. Crackdown on inflated NDIS pricing Providers should not be allowed to charge inflated prices simply because a participant has an NDIS plan. If a service costs less for a non-NDIS customer, the provider should be required to justify any higher NDIS price by showing additional disability-related work, risk, complexity or documentation requirements. Participants should not be treated as open cheque books simply because they have NDIS funding. 4. Stronger conflict-of-interest rules There should be tighter controls where a provider recommends a service, supplies the service, writes reports supporting the service, manages the participant relationship and financially benefits from the outcome. Participants and families need clear disclosure of conflicts of interest. The system should not reward providers who create demand for their own services without proper independent justification. 5. Better tracking of provider ownership and phoenixing Dodgy operators should not be able to close one business and reopen under another name. There should be stronger links between ABNs, company directors, beneficial owners, provider registration, banning orders and previous compliance history.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1249
The system should be able to identify patterns where the same people are repeatedly involved in poor conduct, even if they operate under different business names. 6. Tiered provider regulation High-risk supports should have stronger registration and compliance requirements. This includes supported independent living, behaviour support, personal care, medication-related supports and services involving high vulnerability. However, the system should not crush small, good independent providers with excessive bureaucracy. Many participants rely on smaller providers because large agencies can be expensive, impersonal, inflexible, unavailable, or profit driven. A tiered system would allow stronger controls where risk is high, while still allowing genuine low-risk supports to operate with sensible safeguards. 7. Participant protection when reporting dodgy providers Participants and families are often the first to notice exploitation, but they may be afraid to complain because they rely on the provider or fear losing supports. There should be safe reporting pathways, protection from retaliation, and fast replacement supports where a provider is suspended or removed. Participants should not be punished for provider misconduct. If a participant has been manipulated, overcharged or poorly served by a provider, the focus should be on protecting the participant and recovering funds from the provider where appropriate. Accountability must not become the purpose of the scheme I accept that more documentation may be necessary. But the NDIS must not become a system where everyone is so focused on paperwork, compliance and fear of audit that the actual support becomes secondary. The purpose of the NDIS is not paperwork. The purpose is genuine support for people with permanent and significant disability. Good documentation should support good care. It should not replace care. For families like mine, the priority is not extracting money from the scheme. The priority is keeping a vulnerable person stable, housed, connected, functioning and out of crisis. Recommendations I recommend that the Committee consider amendments or safeguards to ensure that:
- reforms do not narrow access for people with serious psychosocial disability;
- functional capacity assessments consider real-world functioning over time, not just presentation in a short assessment;
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1249
- supports that maintain daily living, routine, community access, emotional regulation, housing stability and work participation are recognised as legitimate disability supports;
- fraud control focuses primarily on providers, billing practices, conflicts of interest, price gouging and non-delivery of services;
- provider audits are targeted, proportionate and focused on high-risk or high- billing patterns;
- evidence requirements remain practical and respectful, without routine use of photographs or videos;
- participants are not punished for provider misconduct;
- small genuine providers are not driven out by excessive bureaucracy;
- any savings measures consider the human and financial cost of delayed or denied supports;
- the scheme remains focused on practical, genuine support rather than becoming a paperwork-driven compliance system. Conclusion I support protecting the NDIS for future generations. But protecting the NDIS must not mean making it harder for genuine participants like to receive the supports they need. The system should be tightened around grifters, inflated billing, poor provider conduct and exploitation. It should not be tightened around people with serious disability who are already struggling to survive, stay housed, maintain routines and remain connected to the community. If practical disability supports are reduced or delayed, the cost does not disappear. It is simply shifted into hospitals, homelessness services, policing, courts, prisons and unpaid family care. The NDIS should remain focused on its core purpose: genuine, practical support that helps people with disability live safer, more stable and more dignified lives.