Submission 1736

Submission to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee

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

Submitted by: Date: 28 May 2026

Contact details

Introduction

I write this submission as a registered counsellor who works directly with National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants across a range of psychosocial, intellectual, nervous system and physical disabilities.

I support the long-term sustainability of the NDIS. The Scheme must remain viable for future generations. Reform is necessary. Fraud and exploitation within the NDIS must be addressed decisively. However, this Bill appears to place the burden of “sustainability” disproportionately onto disabled Australians rather than targeting the systemic provider misconduct and market failures that have driven excessive costs.

The people affected by this legislation are not statistics, budget figures or administrative burdens. They are human beings already navigating significant barriers simply to survive daily life. Many participants I support already live in chronic instability, poverty, social isolation, housing insecurity and deteriorating mental health. Reducing supports without addressing the underlying failures of the provider market will not create sustainability. It will create harm.

Public policy should be built not only around budgets, but around humanity, fairness and the recognition that disability can affect any family.

Concerns Regarding the Bill

1. Increased Restriction of “Reasonable and Necessary” Supports

The Bill significantly expands the power to restrict what supports participants can access and increases ministerial and rule-making powers regarding what is considered a NDIS support.

Submission 1736

This creates serious concern because it allows broad exclusions to be introduced without adequate parliamentary scrutiny and risks shifting the Scheme away from individualised support.

Participants with psychosocial disability are particularly vulnerable under these changes. Many supports essential to maintaining community participation, emotional regulation, independent living and crisis prevention may increasingly be viewed as “non-essential” despite being clinically and functionally critical.

In practice, I see participants who require:

• support workers to attend community activities to prevent complete isolation,
• assistance with executive functioning and emotional regulation,
• therapies that prevent hospitalisation,
• support coordination to navigate complex systems,
• psychosocial recovery coaching to maintain housing and stability.

Without these supports, participants do not simply become “less independent.” They deteriorate. Relationships break down. Mental health worsens. Hospital presentations increase. Suicide risk increases. Families collapse under unsustainable caring burdens.

Research consistently demonstrates the relationship between inadequate disability supports and worsening health and social outcomes. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has repeatedly reported that people with disability experience significantly higher rates of psychological distress, social isolation, poverty and unmet healthcare needs compared with the general population.

The Bill appears to frame sustainability primarily through cost containment rather than long-term human outcomes.

2. Harm Caused by Narrowing Access and Reassessments

The projected removal or exclusion of approximately 150,000 people from the Scheme is deeply alarming.

Many participants already experience repeated reassessment processes as traumatic. Requiring disabled people to continually prove the permanence or seriousness of their disability creates substantial psychological harm.

For participants with psychosocial disabilities, autism, intellectual disability and chronic neurological conditions, repeated reassessments can trigger:

• severe anxiety,
• emotional dysregulation,
• self-harm risk,
• disengagement from services,
• traumatisation,
• worsening functional decline.

Submission 1736

These are not hypothetical concerns. They are realities observed repeatedly by frontline clinicians and support workers.

The administrative burden itself can become disabling.

I have worked with participants who:

• stopped attending appointments because the process became overwhelming,
• experienced suicidal ideation after funding reductions,
• lost critical support coordination and subsequently lost housing stability,
• were unable to understand NDIA processes without extensive assistance.

A “streamlined” or stricter system may appear efficient administratively while causing profound human damage in practice.

There is already widespread fear and distress within the disability community regarding increasing restrictions to the NDIS. Disability advocacy organisations including the Disability Advocacy Network Australia (DANA), People with Disability Australia (PWDA) and Inclusion Australia have repeatedly raised concerns regarding reforms that reduce participant autonomy, increase reassessment burdens and narrow access to supports.

These concerns should not be dismissed as resistance to reform. They reflect the lived reality of people who depend on these supports to survive safely and participate in society.

The Bill Targets Participants More Than Fraudulent Providers

The stated justification for many reforms is sustainability and fraud prevention. However, much of the Bill appears directed toward restricting participant access rather than addressing exploitative provider practices.

This raises a critical question:

What specific aspects of this Bill directly target provider fraud at scale?

From a frontline perspective, participants are not the primary drivers of financial waste within the NDIS.

The major systemic issues repeatedly observed include:

• providers charging excessive rates,
• inflated assessment costs,
• poor-quality services,
• unnecessary reports,
• service duplication,
• aggressive billing practices,
• unsupported recommendations designed to maximise funding,
• providers operating with minimal oversight.

Submission 1736

Participants themselves are often attempting to survive on inadequate supports while navigating a highly inconsistent market.

It should not cost thousands of dollars for a single functional assessment. Yet this has become common practice.

The current system has enabled significant profiteering by some providers while disabled people themselves are increasingly scrutinised as though they are the problem.

This approach risks punishing vulnerable participants for failures of regulation.

The Commonwealth itself has acknowledged significant provider fraud concerns within the Scheme. The NDIS Fraud Fusion Taskforce and related government reporting have identified organised criminal exploitation, false invoicing, coercive practices and large-scale provider fraud as serious and growing issues.

In 2024, the National Disability Insurance Agency publicly stated that fraud and non-compliant payments could account for up to $2 billion annually.

At the same time, there is comparatively little evidence that ordinary participants themselves are responsible for fraud on a comparable scale.

Many participants already ration supports, skip therapies and go without services due to workforce shortages, lack of provider availability and fear of exhausting funding.

The current reform approach risks targeting those with the least power while failing to adequately confront those profiting from systemic weaknesses.

Practical Alternatives to Improve Sustainability Without Harming Participants

There are numerous reforms that could substantially improve NDIS sustainability without removing vulnerable people from essential supports.

Cap Assessment Costs

Functional assessments and reports should have regulated pricing caps.

It is unreasonable for providers to charge:

• $2,000–$5,000 for standard assessments,
• excessive hourly report-writing fees,
• duplicated assessments across disciplines.

Introduce:

Submission 1736

• maximum fee schedules,
• standardised assessment templates,
• independent auditing of assessment billing.

Stronger Provider Regulation and Registration

Mandatory registration requirements should be expanded for providers delivering high-risk or high-cost supports.

There should be:

• stronger auditing powers,
• random compliance reviews,
• mandatory minimum qualification standards,
• stronger penalties for fraudulent billing,
• public reporting mechanisms for provider misconduct,
• restrictions on conflicted recommendations.

Participants should not bear the consequences of inadequate provider regulation.

Target Excessive Provider Profit Margins

Certain sectors of the NDIS market have become highly commercialised with little transparency regarding profit extraction.

The government should:

• investigate excessive pricing structures,
• limit unreasonable markups,
• require pricing transparency,
• conduct market reviews into provider inflation.

Reduce Administrative Waste Within the NDIA

Participants and clinicians spend enormous amounts of time repeatedly reproducing evidence already provided.

The NDIA should:

• accept permanent disability evidence long-term where appropriate,
• reduce unnecessary reassessments,
• improve continuity of planners,
• simplify review processes,
• reduce duplicated documentation requests.

Administrative inefficiency itself generates significant Scheme costs.

Invest in Early Intervention and Preventative Supports

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Cutting low-level supports often creates significantly higher downstream costs.

For example:

• reducing psychosocial supports can increase hospital admissions,
• cutting support coordination can result in homelessness or crisis intervention,
• reducing therapy supports can increase long-term dependence.

Preventative supports are not wasteful. They are cost-saving over time.

Improve Oversight of Unregistered Providers

The rapid growth of unregistered providers has created inconsistent standards and increased opportunities for exploitation.

While participant choice and flexibility are important, stronger safeguards are necessary.

This could include:

• mandatory minimum compliance standards for all providers,
• improved worker screening,
• enhanced financial auditing,
• greater powers for the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission,
• mandatory reporting of suspected fraud and exploitation.

Effective regulation should target exploitative business practices rather than restricting legitimate participant access.

Human Rights and Dignity

The NDIS was created following decades of advocacy by disabled Australians for recognition, autonomy and equal participation.

This Bill risks shifting the Scheme toward a deficit-based model focused on minimising expenditure rather than enabling meaningful lives.

Disabled people deserve more than survival.

They deserve:

• connection,
• participation,
• dignity,
• safety,
• independence,
• opportunities,
• stability.

Submission 1736

Policy decisions must recognise the human reality behind funding categories and legislative language.

When supports are removed, the consequences are not abstract:

• people become isolated,
• carers burn out,
• housing is lost,
• health deteriorates,
• crises escalate,
• people die earlier.

These outcomes carry both human and economic costs.

Australia is also a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which recognises the right of people with disability to live independently and participate fully in community life.

Any reforms to the NDIS should be assessed not only against budget outcomes, but against Australia’s obligations to uphold the dignity, equality and human rights of disabled people.

Recommendations

I urge the Committee to:

1. Reject provisions that excessively narrow access to supports through broad ministerial rule-making powers.
2. Ensure any sustainability reforms prioritise provider accountability before participant restriction.
3. Introduce regulated caps for assessment and report-writing costs.
4. Expand provider registration and compliance requirements.
5. Increase fraud investigations targeting providers and organised exploitation.
6. Reduce unnecessary reassessments for permanent disabilities.
7. Protect psychosocial disability supports and recovery-oriented services.
8. Ensure reforms uphold the original intent of the NDIS: enabling disabled Australians to live full and meaningful lives.
9. Undertake genuine consultation with disabled people, carers, clinicians and advocacy organisations before implementing reforms that substantially reduce supports or access.

Conclusion

The NDIS absolutely must remain sustainable for future generations. However, sustainability cannot be achieved by disproportionately removing supports from disabled people already struggling to survive.

Real reform requires addressing the structural drivers of waste and exploitation within the provider market.

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The easiest option politically is to tighten participant access. The harder, but necessary, option is meaningful regulation of the industries profiting from the Scheme.

Disabled Australians should not bear the cost of regulatory failure.

The success of the NDIS should ultimately be measured not only by expenditure reduction, but by whether disabled people are able to live with dignity, autonomy and genuine participation in Australian society.

Any one of us could need these supports one day.

The question before the Committee is not simply how to reduce costs.

It is what kind of society Australia chooses to be when people become disabled.

A society that supports dignity, humanity and inclusion, or one that treats disabled people as expendable when budgets tighten.

The NDIS was established to enable people with disability to live with dignity, autonomy and participation in society. It was never intended to merely keep people alive at the bare minimum level.

It is also important to recognise that disability is not something that only affects “other people.” None of us are permanently able-bodied. We are temporarily able-bodied. Through age, illness, accident, injury, neurological conditions or mental illness, any Australian could become disabled at any stage of life.

At some point, many of us, or the people we love, may need the support of systems like the NDIS.

We must ask ourselves honestly: would we want these proposed measures for ourselves, our children, our parents, siblings, partners or friends if they became disabled tomorrow?

Would we want them subjected to repeated reassessments, reduced supports, increasing barriers to access and a system that treats them primarily as a financial liability rather than a human being deserving dignity and support?

I urge the Committee to ensure that reforms strengthen the integrity of the Scheme without abandoning the people it was created to protect.

Thank you and sincere regards,

A concerned counsellor working within the NDIS space.