Submission 1730 — Uniting Communities — NDIS Future Generations Bill | External submission

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1730

Submission

To Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Topic National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Date May 2026

Contact

E advocacy@unitingcommunities.org

P 08 8202 5111

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1730

About

Uniting Communities is an inclusive not-for-profit organisation delivering more than 115,000 connections to support for South Australians each year and has been creating positive change for communities for over 120 years. We advocate for systems change across diverse social justice issues to shape public and social policy that delivers better outcomes for marginalised communities.

NDIS Support Services

Uniting Communities offers personalised NDIS support through one-to-one services that help individuals build independence, engage with their community, and achieve personal goals. Support workers assist with daily living, social participation, and skill development, tailoring services to each person’s unique needs and preferences.

Individualised Living Options Service

Uniting Communities’ Individualised Living Service provides tailored support for people with disability to live independently in their communities. The service is designed around each person’s goals, preferences, and lifestyle, offering flexible assistance with daily routines, decision-making, and community engagement. It promotes autonomy and wellbeing through respectful, person-centred care.

Law Centre

Uniting Communities Law Centre provides free and independent legal help to people experiencing disadvantage across South Australia. We understand that dealing with the legal system can be confusing and daunting and staff in the Uniting Communities Law Centre assist people to work through these challenges. The qualified team provides support with information, advice, representation, referrals, or community legal education.

Disability Advocacy Service

Uniting Communities’ Disability Advocacy Service (DAS) provides free, independent support to help people with disability understand and assert their rights. The service assists with NDIS-related issues, including appeals, by offering legal advice, advocacy, and referrals. Delivered through the Uniting Communities Law Centre, DAS is a multidisciplinary team of lawyers and advocates. Beyond appeals, DAS also supports people outside the formal NDIS review process—for example, assisting those denied access to reapply, providing information and advice on navigating the NDIS system, and linking individuals to broader community supports.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1730

Submission to NDIS (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Amendment Bill 2026

Uniting Communities thanks the committee for the opportunity to provide a submission on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. Legislation of this scale, which introduces many amendments and significant changes, warrants further scrutiny and additional time to refine the provisions and minimise any unintended consequences. Some of the proposed timeframes, including the rollout of the new framework planning in April 2027, are unrealistic, and extended implementation periods are required.

While some of the intent behind the Bill, particularly in addressing financial sustainability concerns, is understandable, many of the proposed reforms raise significant legal, policy, and practical concerns in their application. The parameters of the Bill appear to be driven more by cost containment than by the original rights-based model of the NDIS.

Changes such as the reduction of funding across entire support categories raise serious concerns. While safety considerations are acknowledged, the full extent of the impact on individual safety at this scale cannot be confidently determined. As a result, people with disability who rely more heavily on these supports are likely to be disproportionately affected. The increased reliance on informal supports also necessitates greater support for carers to fulfil these roles effectively.

We are particularly concerned that existing inequalities may be exacerbated, especially for participants without the means or support to advocate for themselves. This includes people with psychosocial disabilities or people who live in rural, remote and very remote areas who may be disproportionately impacted by stricter eligibility criteria. Funding reductions and tightened eligibility risk diminishing quality of life, including independence and dignity, and may result in poorer outcomes across key areas such as community participation, employment opportunities, and daily living supports.

Our key recommendations:

Ensure the NDIS retains a rights-based focus by clarifying that financial sustainability must not override participant need in determining “reasonable and necessary” supports.
Ensure alternative supports are fully in place and accessible nationwide before NDIS eligibility changes commence.
Pause progression of the Bill to enable detailed committee scrutiny and legislative refinement (including scrutiny from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights).
Extend timeframes for the introduction of the new planning framework to ensure robust assessment processes are developed and a sufficiently skilled workforce is in place.
Amend the definition of “functional capacity” to ensure assessments account for environmental and personal circumstances and do not rely on overly narrow criteria.
Amend the definition of “appropriate treatment” to ensure access is not restricted by factors such as cost, availability, or geographic location.
Consider amendments that prevent plan suspension due to non-response without clear safeguards, defined contact standards, and recognition of communication barriers.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1730

Amend the Bill to ensure decisions about whether supports are “effective and beneficial” appropriately balance peer-reviewed evidence, clinical expertise, and participant lived experience.
Strengthen safeguards relating to plan reassessment and renewal, including ensuring participants can request timely reviews, correct errors, preserve flexibility for unspent funds and are meaningfully involved in plan development.
Strengthen safeguards for automated decision-making by requiring greater transparency, independent oversight, and clear review pathways.
Ensure that, when assessing supports for children, the NDIA considers both disability-related care needs and the role of supports in building capacity, rather than relying on broad assumptions of parental responsibility.

Consultation

Schedule 1 Access and Planning Measures

(Part 1 – Defining functional capacity)

Defining functional capacity as the ability to undertake activities “without assistance from other people, assistive technology or modifications,” while excluding the impact of a person’s environmental and personal circumstances, will significantly affect the accuracy of assessments. Environmental factors play a critical role in determining the types and level of support required, and their exclusion risks producing incomplete or misleading determinations.

A strict approach to eligibility thresholds will exclude individuals who fall just below the criteria but still require substantial support. Foundational Supports, that are intended to support this cohort of people, are not yet available. Additionally, participants may face increased waiting times, with response periods extending from 21 days to 90 days, leading to prolonged delays in accessing necessary supports.

Given that the threshold and assessment process for measuring functional capacity have not yet been developed and will be largely informed by a technical advisory group, we are concerned that adequate representation will not be ensured. It is unclear what mechanisms will be in place to guarantee representation across the wide range of, and often complex, disability types, each requiring careful and nuanced consideration.

Furthermore, we anticipate that errors made during functional capacity assessments will create additional system pressures. Rather than allowing for discrete components of an assessment to be reviewed or corrected, participants will be required to undergo the assessment process again. This is likely to contribute to further backlogs in an already overstretched system. We provide further comments under the planning framework below regarding the potential risks associated with implementing a standardised assessment model.

Part 2 – Limiting unscheduled plan reassessment

We are concerned about the impacts of limiting access to unscheduled plan reassessments. Where a participant’s funds are exhausted early, a reassessment request may be denied unless there has been a significant change in support needs, raising concerns where plans are underfunded. It is also unclear

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1730

whether participants will have the opportunity to review draft plans and provide feedback as to funding levels prior to finalisation, risking plans that are woefully underfunded, resulting in months of going through a stressful review process to try and fund their NDIS plan correctly. It is unclear whether participants will have grounds for a review when plans are underfunded and don’t meet the needs of participants, creating adverse, and possibly life threatening, consequences.

The proposed 90-day timeframe for NDIA responses is dangerous, particularly in cases involving significant life changes or fluctuations in capacity. If they are suddenly left without informal supports, or there is prolonged hospitalisation, participants could be left vulnerable in the community. With the removal of automatic refusal after this period, it is unclear what recourse participants will have if the NDIA does not respond to a request, and on what grounds a review could be sought. These changes appear to weaken safeguards by not explicitly requiring consideration of participant safety. Limiting reassessment requests to participants, plan nominees, or guardians does not reflect the realities of many participants, who may lack strong informal supports and rely on advocacy services to act on their behalf. Requiring changes to be ongoing excludes temporary but significant circumstances, such as short-term injuries or disruptions to care, from qualifying for reassessment. In these cases, participants may be limited to plan variations, restricting appropriate and timely responses to changing needs.

Part 3 - Strengthen link between an impairment and need for support

The insertion of the requirement that supports arise “directly from an impairment or impairments” risks reducing access to tailored supports by overlooking broader contextual factors, and represents a departure from holistic, whole-of-person approaches. For example, in one case, a person with both a vision impairment and hip condition required a mobility device. Their vision impairment prevented them from driving, while their hip condition limited their ability to walk. Neither impairment in isolation fully explained the need; rather, it was the combination of both that created the functional requirement.

The Bill removes earlier provisions (introduced in the 2024 amendments) that recognised this interaction, including the ability to fund supports where needs arise from multiple impairments working together or from the participant’s circumstances, such as their environment or location. This shift risks excluding legitimate and necessary supports that do not meet a narrow, single-impairment threshold.

Part 4 - Support determinations

Granting the Minister power to impose broad funding reductions across categories, such as social and and community participation and capacity-building, without regard to individual circumstances, is problematic. These changes will also limit appeal rights, as group-based funding decisions are not reviewable where individual circumstances have not been considered, even in cases affecting participant safety and wellbeing.

An unintended consequence of these group-based funding decisions is that certain cohorts of people funded under the NDIS will be adversely affected. If a cohort of people access the specific type of support, then cutting that support across the board will have a greater impact on that cohort of people. Within a disability context, this may arise where a particular cohort, such as people with psychosocial disability, disproportionately relies on capacity‑building supports like support coordination or psychosocial recovery coaching. If these supports are reduced or restricted across all participants, this cohort is likely to be more

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1730

adversely affected than others, as those supports play a critical role in enabling them to engage effectively with services and maintain stability.

In addition, the inclusion of caps within statements of supports, such as maximum funding amounts, limits on duration or frequency, and prescribed worker-to-participant ratios, is likely to result in participants receiving less support than has been assessed as necessary. This risks embedding structural underfunding and reducing the capacity of plans to respond appropriately to individual needs.

Part 5 - Plan renewal

Proposed changes to plan renewal, including the removal of the ability to roll over unspent funds, risks driving unnecessary spending while also limiting access to critical supports. For example, in regional or remote areas where providers are scarce and waitlists are long, participants may be unable to access supports before their plan ends and therefore lose those funds. Importantly, there is no requirement for a “renewed plan” to be prepared in consultation with the participant. This means a plan could be extended for a further 12 months without the participant being able to identify changes in their support needs or circumstances. This will disproportionately affect those already on insufficient plans, as well as participants who are less familiar with the scheme, including people with intellectual disabilities, limited informal supports or language barriers.

Additionally, where plans are renewed rather than reviewed, participants may be transitioned into new arrangements, such as funding periods and updated support determinations, without a clear avenue for review. This risks locking participants into settings that may not reflect their current needs or circumstances.

Part 6 - Reasonable and necessary supports

The proposed amendments to the Objects of the Act, specifying that the NDIS provides supports that are reasonable and necessary “so far as is consistent with the financial sustainability of the scheme,” represent a significant shift in how the scheme’s purpose is defined.

These changes risk shifting decision-making about “reasonable and necessary” supports away from participants’ individual needs and towards considerations of financial sustainability. This is contradictory to the NDIS’ original principles where individual support needs were the paramount consideration, prioritising participant choice and control.

By contrast, this amendment risks redefining the scheme’s focus in a way that will limit its ability to respond appropriately to participant needs, with financial considerations taking precedence over the delivery of adequate and tailored supports.

Part 7 - Plan suspensions

The proposed power to suspend a plan where the NDIA has made unsuccessful attempts to contact a participant may place individuals at risk of losing essential supports. It is unclear how this will operate in practice, including how “reasonable attempts” will be defined and what safeguards will be implemented.

A range of factors may affect a participant’s ability to respond, including communication barriers and the need for tailored engagement approaches, particularly for people with psychosocial or mental health

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1730

conditions. Participants should not be at risk of losing supports simply because they have not responded to repeated contact attempts, such as calls from unknown numbers. Clear, robust protocols are needed to minimise subjective decision-making, including defined contact standards and requirements for evidence where decisions are subject to review.

Part 8 - Tightening meaning of permanence to reduce access where an impairment can be treated

Requiring individuals to have undertaken all “appropriate treatments” without regard to personal circumstances risks excluding people who genuinely need support. This approach fails to account for financial barriers, as well as geographic limitations affecting access to services, particularly in regional areas. In practice, requiring extensive treatment before accessing the NDIS may delay support, especially where treatments take years to demonstrate outcomes or provide only limited benefit. This may disproportionately disadvantage people with progressive conditions, where treatment may slow, but not prevent, decline, despite ongoing and significant support needs. Applying a “treatment exhaustion” requirement to early intervention also undermines its purpose, as it delays access to supports designed to prevent deterioration and reduce long-term costs.

Schedule 2 – Fraud Measures

Part 1 Registration of NDIS providers

Uniting Communities submitted recommendations to the Inquiry into the Integrity of the NDIS, including expanding mandatory provider registration to all providers delivering face-to-face, personal, or financial decision-making supports. We also recommended that registration requirements apply to provider entities and key personnel to strengthen oversight and prevent fraud.

We welcome the introduction of mandatory registration requirements and note the focus on providers delivering supports to participants at greater risk of abuse and/or exploitation. However, we consider that this should extend to all face-to-face service delivery to ensure consistent safeguards across the scheme.

Part 6 - Registered plan management providers

Strengthening safeguards and restrictions for plan management providers is an important measure. In particular, the requirement that plan managers cannot deliver other supports to participants is a critical safeguard against conflicts of interest.

Schedule 3 – Governance arrangements

Part 2 - Automation of administrative action

The expanded use of automated decision-making (ADM) across planning and payment systems, without high level safeguards and oversight, risks systemic errors affecting large numbers of participants through incorrect decisions. While the Explanatory Memorandum suggests ADM will be limited to payments, approval of legacy plans, and rejection of claims, the expanded powers afforded to the Minister may enable broader application over time. There are also indications that ADM may be used within framework planning processes to drive efficiency.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1730

Any framework or rules governing ADM should be developed in consultation with relevant sector expertise, particularly given the limited parliamentary oversight proposed. Effective use of ADM will rely on transparency. We welcome the current safeguards in the Bill, including requirements to publish standard operating procedures and notify participants when decisions are made using ADM.

Schedule 4 – New framework planning

As outlined in our earlier submission on the new framework planning, standardised assessments, if not implemented carefully, risk failing to capture the complexity of many disabilities. Information released to date suggests assessors may not be required to have sufficient disability-specific expertise, and that assessment tools may not adequately reflect clinical complexity. Without a robust and well-informed assessment process, there is a significant risk that plans will not accurately reflect participant needs, potentially exacerbating existing inequities. There are also questions regarding whether there is a sufficient, appropriately skilled workforce to undertake these assessments at scale.

Standardised approaches may result in overly rigid, one-size-fits-all decisions, weakening accountability and undermining procedural fairness. They may also rely heavily on participant self-reporting, placing pressure on individuals to articulate complex needs and nuances associated with their disability. Some participants may overestimate their functional capacity, further contributing to inaccurate assessments. Participants with communication and intellectual disabilities and those from CALD communities will be particularly impacted.

These risks mirror challenges observed in the aged care sector, where inadequate assessment processes led to widespread issues and the need for subsequent corrective investment. We urge the Australian Government to ensure a thorough and well-designed assessment framework is established from the outset to avoid unnecessary costs and increased risks for participants.

Foundational supports

Current timeframes, including those for new framework planning, appear insufficient given the requirement for each state and territory to establish new foundational support systems. This includes expanding existing services, many of which are already at capacity and developing new supports to meet demand from both NDIS participants and those who are ineligible.

In addition, foundational supports are currently framed primarily for people within the NDIS, rather than those who are unable to access it. It is critical that supports are available for individuals who may lose eligibility but continue to require assistance with daily living before any large-scale reduction in participant numbers occurs. Without an adequately established system, former participants may be forced to rely on already stretched health services, other state-funded supports, or informal care from families who are not equipped to meet their needs. A nation-wide review of the foundational supports system will be required following implementation, to ensure needs are being met in the absence of NDIS supports.

The role of ART

While the Explanatory Memorandum provides some clarity on matters that can and cannot be reviewed, the overall role of the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) in implementing these changes remains

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1730

unclear. Greater clarity is needed, alongside careful consideration of whether the ART has sufficient resourcing to manage any increased demand, particularly given existing capacity constraints.

Conclusion

We appreciate the opportunity to provide input on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. While improving the financial sustainability of the NDIS is important, it must not come at the expense of the Scheme’s foundational principles of individualisation, and participant outcomes. Without careful design and implementation, the proposed changes risk reducing access to essential supports and exacerbating existing inequalities. It is critical that any reforms maintain the integrity of the NDIS as a rights-based scheme and ensure participants continue to receive the supports they need to live with dignity, independence, and full community participation.