Submission 1505
To whom it may concern
I am a social worker and support coordinator, and I can attest to the incredible difference the NDIS has made to many participants. Increasing their autonomy, independence and social interactions has saved and changed lives for the better.
The current narrative saddens me as it portrays people with a disability as a burden on society and a cohort to be punished and excluded, instead of being supported and included.
The government set the price guides and of course, all providers charge the maximum rate because they can. The enormous blow out in the budget is primarily caused by dodgy providers seeing participants as cash cows and not providing a service but just taking participants funds.
I totally understand that the scheme must be sustainable but to publicly shame and accuse people with a disability of being the problem and feeding this narrative to the wider public so they turn on people with a disability is unfair, incorrect and must not continue. There is such segregation already in our society, we cannot allow this discourse to widen the gap and do further harm. We want a society where the vulnerable, disabled and elderly feel supported and treated as equals.
Below are some concerns and suggested alternate proposals -
- The Minister can cut your plan by instrument, with no review (s 34A).
-A percentage of funding can be removed from a support category by legislative instrument. The first cut is locked in: social and community participation, phased in from 1 October 2026 as plans renew. The same power can apply to any support category to any level in future. The EM confirms: “Changes to funding as result of support determinations are not subject to merits review” (¶ 285). For a participant who’s social and community participation funding is what keeps them interacting in the world outside their own front door, including assistance with medical appointments, grocery shopping, support visiting family or friends and engaging in social activities, this change will be devastating.
Alternate idea: Amend s 34A to require that any percentage reduction be preceded by mandatory co-design, or at the very least, consultation with the disability community and a published impact statement, and that affected participants retain individual merits-review rights where the reduction produces a harmful change in their plan.
This is of particular concern for participants with very high support needs. Where a participant requires continuous 1:1 support because of profound behavioural support needs, complex health risks, tracheostomy care, swallowing risks, absconding risk or other intensive needs, a percentage-based reduction to community participation funding does not magically reduce the need for supervision. It simply leaves periods of the day where no safe support arrangement exists. The foreseeable risks include serious neglect, preventable hospitalisation, increased restrictive practices, carer breakdown, placement collapse, increased emergency service involvement, and in some circumstances, life-threatening harm including choking, airway difficulties and self-harm.
The Bill and its associated public commentary risk framing community participation supports as discretionary lifestyle expenditure. That framing does not recognise that, for many participants with complex disability, these supports are inseparable from core safety, supervision, communication, regulation, inclusion and safeguarding needs.
Alternate idea: Amend s 34A so that any percentage reduction to a support category cannot apply to participants whose plan funding for that category reflects high or complex support needs - including but not limited to participants requiring 24/7 supervision, participants with profound behavioural
Submission 1505
support needs, participants with complex health support needs (including tracheostomy, swallowing risk or airway management), and participants with intensive 1:1 support requirements. Provide an automatic exemption mechanism so that a uniform percentage reduction cannot produce unsafe gaps in supervision or support.
The Minister can also cap any support, for any cohort, at any time (s 33(2EA)).
By legislative instrument, the Minister can specify a maximum amount, a maximum intensity (the EM’s example is “12 hours per year of a particular kind of therapy support” - ¶ 515), or a maximum worker-to-participant ratio. It overrides the planner’s reasonable-and-necessary finding - the EM’s Marco example walks through it (¶ 527): planner finds 30 hours of therapy is needed, cap is 25 hours, Marco receives 25. A narrower version sits in s 32K(3D) for new framework plans. My structural concern: new ss 33(2G)-(2H) and 209(2AA)-(2AB) (EM ¶ 1424-1426) allow the cap value to live in a document incorporated by reference, which the Agency can update without Parliament seeing it again. The cap rule stays disallowable; the cap number underneath it does not.
Alternate idea: Require cap values themselves to sit in the disallowable NDIS rule, not in a document incorporated by reference under ss 33(2G)-(2H) and 209(2AA)(2AB).
The “whole of person” approach is being narrowed (s 34(1)(aa)).
Section 34(1)(aa) adds the word “directly” - supports become fundable only if the need arises directly from a qualifying impairment. As Darren O’Donovan notes, this “erects a medicalised barrier on the claiming of support.” For people whose disabilities interact - physical and psychosocial, or sensory and cognitive - that interaction may stop being funded.
Alternate idea: Delete the word “directly” from s 34(1)(aa), restoring the whole-of person approach achieved in the 2024 amendments.
Plans auto-renew and unspent funds are not rolled over (s 50A).
From 1 February 2027, when a plan ends it is automatically renewed for 12 months by operation of law - and is not subject to merits review (EM ¶ 352). But the Bill makes no distinction between one-off funding you’ve already used and one-off funding you’re still waiting on. A custom wheelchair on order? A home modification quoted but not yet built? A vehicle modification still being finalised? On the literal text of s 50A(2)(b), that funding disappears at the plan end date. The variation power in s 47A cannot rescue it - variations adjust supports that are in the plan; they don’t restore supports stripped from it by operation of law. The EM’s “Soraya” example carefully picks a participant whose wheelchair has already been purchased (¶ 472); it never addresses the participant whose chair is still on order. This feels like an easily fixable and likely unintentional drafting oversight.
Alternate idea: Amend s 50A(2)(b) so that one-off funding which has been quoted, ordered or otherwise actioned at the plan end date carries over until the support is provided and claimed or 12 months after renewal, whichever is earlier.
Asking for an unscheduled reassessment becomes much harder (s 48A). The Agency now has 90 days instead of 21 to decide AND the “deemed decision” safety net is gone, AND the change must be “significant and ongoing” - with informal-supports changes only counting if “unanticipated.”
Submission 1505
Alternate idea: Retain the 21-day decision timeframe for unscheduled reassessment requests, restore the “deemed decision” safety net for missed deadlines, and remove the “unanticipated” qualifier on informal-supports changes.
There is also no emergency reassessment pathway. The Bill treats all unscheduled reassessments the same. But for a participant whose support arrangement has collapsed, whose housing is at risk, whose behaviour support needs have escalated, or who is facing an immediate safety risk, 90 days is not a timeframe - it is the period in which harm happens. The current scheme has no statutory fast-track pathway for these participants, and the Bill does not create one. It should.
Alternate idea: Insert into s 48A a separate emergency reassessment pathway with a statutory 14-day decision timeframe, available where the participant, a nominee or a treating practitioner certifies that the participant faces an urgent safety, housing, behavioural or support-breakdown risk. Provide that a missed 14-day deadline is a deemed decision in the participant’s favour pending final determination.
Plan suspension and revocation can happen without you knowing (ss 40A, 30(1A)).
The CEO can suspend a plan after “reasonable attempts” to contact the participant - but neither “reasonable attempts” nor the minimum period before such attempts can be deemed exhausted is defined in the Bill. A participant could be overseas for two weeks, in hospital, in a mental-health crisis admission, in the middle of a family bereavement, or simply have a phone number that’s been changed - and find their plan suspended. Suspension for 90 days = revocation under s 40A. Worse, s 30(1A)(a) allows direct revocation without the 90-day window if reasonable attempts have been made. None of the protected circumstances participants would expect - hospital admission, mental health crisis, bereavement, short-term overseas travel, communication breakdown - is named in the Bill. The Agency’s administrative discretion is the only safeguard, and it isn’t enough.
Alternate idea- Define “reasonable attempts” in s 40A and s 30(1A) as requiring evidenced contact attempts via every channel the participant has provided (phone, email, post, and any listed emergency contact, nominee or support coordinator), documented and spread over a minimum 60-day period. Build in protected-circumstance exclusions that pause the clock - hospitalisation, mental health admission, bereavement, family emergency, overseas travel of less than 6 weeks, and communication breakdown outside the participant’s control. Remove the direct-revocation pathway in s 30(1A)(a); the 90-day suspension window in s 40A does the necessary work without removing the safety net.
Thank you for your time.
Yours sincerely