Submission 1769
29 May 2026.
NDIS Bill Submission
I am an NDIS participant with a serious, ongoing and permanent disability that greatly effects functionality in daily life.
The NDIS support and services have assisted me, generally, in maintaining a more stable level and slowed deteriorating functionality by supported inclusion in physical activities, social activities and community activities. It has also assisted in preventing and/or slowing deteriorating functionality in areas of communication and participation reducing harmful self isolation that is specifically disability related and in home care and support .services.
This Bill proposes to reduce the most important and effective services and support the NDIS provides to assist with challenges my disability brings to my life. It will reduce my choice and control. It will also be unable to follow through with adequately funding the majority of professional medical report recommendations (from both treating medical professionals and independent professional medical recommendations) compiled to inform the NDIS what supports and services are the most effective for stabilising and reducing the high risks of rapidly losing functionality and delaying deteriorating health conditions. The loss of functionality related to my disability increases
Submission 1769
costs on the public purse by increasing health support needs through long hospital admission requirements that follow lack of recommend supports and service.
I, like many other PWD who live independently, do not have friends, family or community members that can supply the professional care needed to aid my disability requirements.
The proposed bill introduces the use of computer programs with the power to automate administrative action. I find this to be very concerning as the disability I have has many differing effects (with different people) on functionality and the required services and supports that are going to be effective. I do not feel an automated system has the ability to adequately or safely comprehend these disability and personal variations in effective disability support and services requirements, nor the variations in functionality under differing conditions.
The treating team of medical professionals’ recommendations should not be able to be overridden by an automated system nor less qualified in medical qualifications administrative staff. Safety is no accident.
The Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) is a very important part of our government. It provides the checks and balances to make sure our publicly funded government services are meeting their legal charter obligations and requirements. This process needs to be accessible to NDIS participants, family and care providers to manage the faults
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everyday errors commonly occuring within the NDIS and NDIA to assist the department in repairing and improving where it is failing to meet the stated charter. Without the participants being able to access the ART the NDIA/NDIS processes are less able to improve, be assessed for effectiveness or repair the dysfunctionalities in the system. It is important to prevent the blocking of accessible administrative review processes for people with disabilities (PWD) via the ART.
The Administrative Review Tribunal is there to make sure our Federal Government Departments are following their legal charter obligations. It is a necessary part of keeping our public systems functioning as they are being publicly funded to do. It is the checks and balances part of the system and is definately reasonable and necessary. To not allow this Federal Government Department to have its’ processes checked is not an effective way to improve government departments nor sustain reasonable quality or legal obligations. Following thus current path and bringing in this Bill is reducing public trust in the system.
As a person with a disability I recognise the importance of ensuring the long-term sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). I support the need for reform. However, I am deeply concerned that the current approach is disproportionately targeting participants and their families, rather than addressing the systemic inefficiencies and exploitation within the scheme itself.
At present, funding reductions and increased scrutiny
Submission 1769
appear to be falling most heavily on those the NDIS was designed to support, the PWD, while widespread issues involving fraud, price inflation, and unethical provider behaviour remain insufficiently addressed by the department. The complaints section of this department can feel like a black hole that only spits out inconsistent information. I have already been through the Commonwealth Ombudsman to have some of the huge misplacement of documentation and inconsistent information provisions addressed. This department is definately able to be improved but I feel that is highly unlikely to happen with the proposals of reducing checks and balances and giving overriding ability to change the system, at any time ,directly into the hands of one serving minister, without parliamentary discussion or debate. That part of this Bill feels quite absurd to be being proposed.
It is difficult to comprehend why participants are being asked to justify essential supports, recommended by professional medical treating teams and external private Occupational Therapists reports and thorough independent assessments. My personal disability requirements differ from other people who have the same diagnosis which is another reason why automation is not going to be effective. The NDIS administration staff and plan assesors are more likely to be effective and save cost (while creating harm reduction) if they actually read the professional medical reports requested and provided. This is definitely a consistent area that has been shown clearly, by the ART process, to have a great deal of room for improvement.
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Recent evidence presented to a parliamentary inquiry indicated that approximately $3. 7 billion-around 8.3% of total NDIS expenditure-was attributed to “integrity leakage” in the last financial year. This highlights that the problem is not participant overuse, but systemic weaknesses that allow misuse of funds at scale. This can be rectified internally within the NDIA/NDIS department without cutting support plans or harming NDIS participants, their families, their carers or their support and service providers. Why isn’t this being addressed within the new Bill?
It has been noted during the recent National Press Club gathering that unscheduled NDIS plan reviews are contributing to huge cost increases while being run without notification. NDIS participants being cold called without notification and questioned without being informed why or that a Plan Review is underway, without adequate support, is completely unreasonable and unnecessary and leads to administrative plan assor staff making poor and harmful decisions. This creates more administrative burdens on an already under pressure department, which again, leads to more errors as is being shown with the ART outcomes and ART cases that are resolved just prior to ART hearings. The legal administrative costs of this dysfunctional section of the NDIA/NDIS administration can be repaired. Why isn’t this known area of excessive NDIA/NDIS cost being addressed by this Bil I?
Unnecessary NDIS plan reviews are a common occurance
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that rarely find the mistakes in the NDS Plans, despite mistakes being clearly notified. This can also be improved within the department to save costs. It has been found that the initial plans often fail to accurately capture the full impact of a person’s disability. Participants are then forced into review processes simply to secure adequate and reasonable supports. When those still fail to be adequately funded the cost to participants’ health and the public purse are increased unnecessarily. Addressing planning quality at the outset would reduce the need for costly reassessments and further, higher costs incurred in the kegal challenges to incorrect decision, that can often be easily rectified by actually reading provided documentation. Why isn’t this known, basic public services requirement deficiency within the NDIA/NDIS being addressed in this Bill?
I heartily agree with another NDIS participant’s statement were they stated:
“I am also concerned by suggestions that community and social participation supports should be reduced due to perceived misuse by support workers. If there are issues with worker conduct, then it is the responsibility of providers and regulators to address this directly. It is not appropriate to penalise participants by reducing access to supports that are critical for inclusion, independence, and wellbeing.”
-effectively matters. Being an included part of community activities through supported access has also shown to be very effective at maintaining levels of functionality with my specific disability needs which is clearly backed up by medical research and my professional medical teams’ recommendations and independent OT report recommendations. Why is this reasonable and necessary disability support being cut? Can the department show how isolating PWD will not lead to higher dysfunctionality levels and the following higher care costs in a majority of PWD cases?
For many PWD these supports are not discretionary. I rely on community participation funding to attend medical appointments, maintain my Assistance Animal health and handler skills, maintain obligations for face to face communication, manage shopping, attend exercise needs and medical recommendations to leave the room to prevent deterioration of my condition through being supported to be involved in outdoor activity and I try, with support, to maintain the ability to attend community events and participate in activities with other people. These are fundamental requirements to prevent deterioration of functionality in my daily life, not luxuries. They are challenges related directly to my disability. Without this support I am actually terrified of what may happen.
I feel growing frustration, and also observe it within the disability community, about NDIS plan decisions being made remotely, without adequate understanding of individual PWD
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circumstances often in contradiction to face to face assessments of treating medical professionals, support staff reports, occupational therapists reports and in contradiction with the medical science behind these recommendations (even when that medical evidence is clearly supplied by medical professionals in their sent but often unread reports). An example of this (within my NDIS plan and others who share some of my disability requirements) are the known, ongoing and persistent inconsistencies within the department when it comes to covering the small cost and useful, reasonable and necessary services of a medically referred Assistance Animal under the Assistive Technology section of the NDIS.
Why hasn’t this mostly, more cost effective support requirement problem of inconsistent and often rejected NDIS funding support for Assistance Animals within the NDIS funding allocations been addressed in this Bill?
I applied for the NDIS when my treating medical professional (who is a Professor in his field and is highly regarded as extremely knowledgeable about my specific disability) recommend an Assistance Animal (AA) as likely to be the most effective a way to maintain functionality and some independence while having the AA care related costs covered under the NDIS plan support system for PWD. My self trained Assistance Animal is now fully qualified, has passed 2 required Public Access Certification Tests (PAT) over the last 3 years, fully meets the NDIS requirements for an Assistance Animal under the assistive technology section yet still isn’t being funded which has pushed me
- Submission 1769 (and a huge number of other participants) to have decisions reviewed and reassessed, often refused again then having to go all the way through the extremely costly (on PWD health and the public purse) ART process. This part of the NDIS feels very unnecessary and terribly unreasonable as well as being proven to be inconsistently judged by highly subjective, under qualified and unable to comprehend proven documentation NDIS plan review administrative employees. This is an unnecessarily costly part of the system as the NDIS Senate Enquiry clearly showed. I do not understand why this area of cost saving has not been addressed in this Bill.
The Australian public are questioning how the Government can afford substantial tax concessions and areas where spending our public spending has drastically increased without supplying adequate or logical reasoning or public parliamentary discussions or debate, while at the same time tightening access to needed services and supports for some of the most vulnerable Australians.
A sustainable NDIA/NDIS must be built on providing a Federal Government Department capable of consistently meeting their charter obligations while providing a trustworthy, consistent and effective public service that can adequately provide medically recommend disability support and services. Challenging professional medical recommendations to support PWD should be rare, not common.
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Believe me, the medical professionals are sick of writing report after report and having their recommendations ignored and often even clearly stated as unread by the NDIS plan assessors and plan review assessors. The ART has also shown where the system is in need of repair. The participants and experts in the field provided clear, useful and well considered recommendations during the recent NDIS Senate Enquiry. The last NDIS Senator provided the framework for changes …
All of this appears to have been ignored.
I don’t understand why. It feels like illogical use of our public infrastructure funding by our elected representatives. It is definitely eroding my trust in the current Federal Government ability to govern effectively and I find that sad.