Submission We’ve Been Here Before (NDIS Amendment Bill) Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

About this submission

This is a covering submission. Its purpose is to set out a small number of central arguments against the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, or simply ‘the Bill’, to direct Committee attention towards four detailed analyses, attributed in an attachment, those establishing those arguments against specific provisions within that bill, based on public evidentiary record as well as lived experience. The submission draws from two perspectives: one being personal experience with high complexity support needs under said scheme; another professional practice regarding governance, systems design, accountability architecture institutions. Where reliance lies upon lived experiences, it demonstrates how these provisions would operate practically rather than stand-alone testimony—personal experience accepted specifically tied aspects mentioned above.

Structure of package

The submission deliberately structures itself into one short cover analysis plus four substantial attachments instead single long document:

• Covering Submission - Central argument; map each attachment addresses the Bill; consolidated response Government’s stated case and recommendations.
• Attachment A: When System Forgets Listen - whole-of-Bill system-design & live-experience analysis across Schedules (1–4).
• Attachment B: Considerations Preparing Plan Review Report Peter Gregory – documentary evidence decision logic NDIA already applying which several provisions entrenches.
• Attachment C Commissioning SIL Risk Reinstitutionalisation Peter Gregory — shared-support Home Living commissioning analysis.
• Attachment D Social Economic Community Participation Changes Peter Gregory — proposed reductions community-participation funding mechanism applied cohorts. Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 2

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Section heading note on scope and method

The compressed timeframe for this inquiry does not permit an exhaustive, clause-by-clause treatment of a Bill of this length. The submission therefore makes a disciplined choice. Rather than catalogue every objection, it advances a single organising proposition and proves it: that the Bill examined against its text: reorients the Scheme away from individual participants towards scheme-cost management; anndt hat this reorientation reproduces conditions commonwealth’s own inquires have already identified as unsafe.Secondary pointsaresubordinate tothatpropositionortotheattachments.Thesubmissionacceptsthat reformislegitimatethattcostmattersandthaftfraudoccurs;itconteststhemagnitude design,andhumanincidenceofthisreformandanjustificationsofferedforit.

Executive summary

The National Disability Insurance Scheme was designed to give people with significant and permanent disability lifetime certainty of support, genuine choice and control, and a realistic opportunity to live an ordinary life in the community.

The Bill, on its own text, would convert more than a decade of operational and fiscal drift away from that design into law.The submission’s central findings are these:

• The Bill subordinates the participant to the budget: Across Schedules 1 to 4 It replaces participant-centred planning principles With Principles oriented To scheme Sustainability narrows legal meaning Of Support entitlement And shifts controlling question OF THE SCHEME FROM what a person needs TO What The SCHEME will fund.- **It measures the wrong thing:**Functional capacity test In Schedule abstracts disability From the Person’s environment AND supports measuring something internationally accepted definition of disability says is not disability at all.-IT builds funding cliffsand removes recourse:the bill permits caps below need automatically strips approved one-off capital Funding At plan renewal without A reviewable decision limits unscheduled reassessment Permits suspension On undefined contact thresholdsAnd expands automated Decision-making reducing participants’ practical abilityTo understand Test correct decisions That govern their lives.- *it normalises shared congregate support by administrative means:*New support-determination Planning powers combinedWith reductions Community-participation funding default Shared-support assumptions create structural pathway back toward very settings Disability Royal Commission identified as concentrating harm. - **THE sustainability case does NOT hold ON ITS OWN TERMS:On magnitudes analysed in AttachmentA contraction displaces cost Into hospitals aged care families income support rather than removing it withdraws economic activity and jobs contradicts Government own objective raising disabled people employment while increasing exposure largest category disability-related public Cost.

Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

The submission makes a single recommendation: that the Committee recommend the Bill be withdrawn, and that the Government begin in its place a true, deep, authentic, end-to-end co-design project with the disability community.

The Bill’s defects are foundational, not incidental, anndd the breadth oof what would have to change to make it safe –participant-centred planning principles; a functional-capacity definition built on the interaction of impairmentwith environmentand supports;aendto automatic forfeitureo fapprovedfunding;d efined thresholds before suspension andrevo cation;an integrity architecture aimedatgenuine bad actors rather than ordinary participants;l imitson systemic,nond individualised funding reductions anda default shared-support assumptions,andthe safeguarding oft he participant-directed support—is itself themeasure whyitcannotbe amended into safety.The areas genuine reform will needt o address,set out illustratively an dnot exhaustivelyare at section \(6\).

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Section: Question before the Committee

Because the Senate has referred the provisions of the Bill, the question before the Committee does not whether the NDIS should be reformed but rather if these specific provisions achieve what they promise. This document invites you to evaluate each contested part against five criteria:

• The purpose,
• Government description thereof;
• Likely practical operation;

How the attached analyses address the provisions of the Bill

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Act includes five Schedules:

• Schedule I covers access measures.
• Schedule II focuses on fraud prevention strategies,
• Schedule III addresses governance arrangements including pricing mechanisms; schedule IV introduces new frameworks for service delivery; while schedule V provides transitional rules.

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Section headings:

Subsection titles:

Attachments A - C are described as follows within this document.

Attachment A: The analysis from which collection’s central argument is drawn treats bill evidence against a system ‘stopping listening’ to people served; traces mechanisms provision-by-provision including repeal of participant-centred principles, abstraction of disability environment test inversion reasonable-and-necessary test caps below need automatic forfeiture at renewal suspension revocation on undefined thresholds integrity architecture treating participants compliance subjects automation decision-making fiscal case concludes foundational defects should withdraw rebuild different premises not amended clause by clause.

Attachment B/C/D/E/F/G/H/I/J/K/L/M/N/O/P/Q/R/S/T/U/V/W/X/Y/Z/AA/AAB/ Not present in text provided but typically would be referenced similarly if included here with similar content structure and formatting style.

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

Submission 1922

What Is Already Happening In Practice?

Attachment B includes documentation on how plans should review their practices. The document states:

• Continuous individualized services have been considered available under ‘unspecified exceptional situations.’ This raises questions about sharing such supports among participants, suggesting this issue isn’t new but entrenched within existing processes.

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Section: Government’s Stated Case,

Why It Is Not Made Out

The government’s case rests upon a recurring set of claims regarding reform legitimacy but contests these provisions delivering what is claimed. The table fairly states each claim identified how they are practiced explains why such claims do not hold true fuller treatment noted attachments final column.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill 2026

Submission: We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

The recommendation, and the areas genuine reform must address

The submission makes a single recommendation: That the Committee recommend the Bill be withdrawn, and that the Government begin in its place an authentic end-to-end co-design project with disability community.

Reform produced through this kind will differ significantly but not necessarily degree-wise compared to current bill’s approach which is flawed according evidence points out below:

• Functional capacity (part I) Assessing functional capacity interaction between person’s impairment environment supports consistent social human-rights model CRPD rather than abstraction from environment; -Reassessment(part II) Retain broad participant right seek reassessment where funding inadequate or circumstances change participants underfunded awaiting scheduled reviews; -Impairment-support link part III reasonable necessary principles ensure strengthened impairment support does exclude people whose real needs don’t map neatly onto impairments satisfied access; prevent family contribution assumptions operating as routine cost-shifting; -Support determinations Part IV constrain power set support reductions across cohorts without individual assessment published criteria parliamentary scrutiny, testimony rights.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922 - We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

• Plan renewal (Part 5) : remove automatic forfeiture for approved one-off capital funding at plan renewal. No support should lapse without a reviewable decision.

• Plan suspension*( Part7 ) *: define on Act contact thresholds process preceding suspension revocation. Access not suspended undefined “reasonable” attempts make contact.

• Permanence treatment* tightened criteria do not deny access where treatable impairment gives rise enduring need.

• Other services * safeguards against displacement onto health aged care mainstream systems equipped deliver needed support.

Schedule 2 – Fraud integrity measures

Direct architecture bad actors ensure registration civil-penalty information-gathering record-retention powers target genuine misuse ordinary participants participant-directed arrangements treated compliance subjects protect self-management, direction direct employment clinicians train workers. Claims management (Parts) changes claim times and plan-managing arrangements undermine continuity of support choice viability participant directed thin-market arrangements.

Schedule3 Governancearrangements

Pricing market stewardship reflect actual localthinmarket costs rather than metropolitan benchmarks prevent use engineer default shared-support models. Automation constrain automated decision-making transparency methodology reasons identifiable human decision-maker preserved merits review substantive outcomes.

Schedule4 New framework planning

Restore participant-centred planning require transparency retain or restore substance centric principles repealed section so plans remain anchored to needs circumstances environment goals activities supports disclosure assessment basis funding outcomes adopt no default

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

shared-support assumption such as 1:3without apublished evidencibase demonstrating safetyclinicalappropriatenessandcompatibilitywithArticleoftheCRPDtothousingdecisionskeptseparatesupportdecisions.

Process

• Reformthroughco-design: The longereformationSchemeshouldproceedingenuinepartnershipwithesthedisabilitycommunityatatthedepthatcodesignrequiresnotatspeedabudgetcycle.

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Conclusion

The Scheme works safely and sustainably when it is built around the people who depend on it, and it fails, often gravely, when it is not. The provisions of this Bill, taken together, build a Scheme that listens less:to the participant in the plan,to the evidence in the Commonwealth’s own inquiries,and to the people who are already telling it/plainly/what these reforms will do.The record of foreseeable harm is not speculative;it is documented,/and//is set out/in/the attachments/The/submission asks,the Committee/to/recommend/ that the/Bill/be-withdrawn/,(and///that reform begin in its place through/a true/deep/end-to-end co-design with the/disability community so thatthe scheme/is rebuilt-around-the-people-who-depend-on-it rather than legislating the regression the attachments describe./Flynn & Gregory - joint submission Page [Page number missing])

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

Submission 1922

Attachments

• AttachmentA - *When the System Forgets to Listen:*Systems Design, Human Rights,Safety,andtheHumancostofNDISRegression.*DanielFlynn.

*ConsiderationsofPreparingaPlanReviewReport: ParticipantswithComplexNeeds.*PeterGregory.

CommissioningsilandtheriskReinstitutionalisaton:ACriticalAnalysisofsupportedIndependentLivingReformSharedSupportModelsandthefutureOfIndividualisedDisabilitySupportUndertheNDISPeterGregory. -Social,EconomicandCommunityParticipationChanges.PeterGregory.

WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE

When systems forget, people are harmed. When nations forget, history repeats. A submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations)Bill 2026 Daniel Flynn · Peter Gregory Joint submission The wrapper narrative of an edited collection.The four works referred to throughout are provided as Attachments A–D.Flynn & Gregory —jointsubmissionPage\x9b17

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

Submission 1922

[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ]

To be generated on final assembly of the monolithic document, once the wrapper and Attachments A–D are combined and pagination is settled. (A live, auto-updating contents field follows below; right-click → Update Field once the final document is assembled.)

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before - NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

• The institutions, and what they were
• The reckoning, and the promise we only half-kept
• The institution that never left
• The rights the movement won, and what they were for
• The lesson written into law: the Convention and Article 19
• The blueprint, and the promise made buildable
• The reform era, and the warnings already on the record Movement II – The View from Inside the SchemeAttachment A When the System Forgets to Listen Daniel Flynn Movement III – The Forgetting in MotionAttachment B Considerations for Preparing a Plan Review Report Peter Gregory Movement IV – Shared Support and Reinstitutionalisation[Attachment C Commissioning

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before - NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

• Part 2 — The way back……[Page] [339] Movement VIII – Recommendations and Conclusion…….[Page][343] Part I—Recommendations……………………….[Page][343] Part II–Conclusion :the warning Parliamentmust hear………………[Page][355] References……………………………….[Page][363]

• Submission attachments(primary materials)…[Page][363]
• Legislationand Bills……………[Page][363] Cases……………………………[Page][363] International instruments……….[Page][363] Government,inquiry,and parliamentary sources……..[Page][364] Books,articles ,andscholarly works…[Page][365] Sector,p eak-body ，andre f erence sour ces………[Page ][365 ] News anda nd commentary ……..[P age ][367 ] Appendix B——Clause map ofth eBill ….[Pa ge ][38]
  • Schedule l——Access a n d planning measures …

• Schedu lel——A ccessa ndplanningmeasures...

• Schedulee 4—New framework plannin g....

Movement I — The Collection’s Executive Summary, and Introduction, Scope and Method

Part 1 – The collection’s executive summary

This is a submission to the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. It is not a single essay, and it is not a folder of attachments.It is an integrated edited collection: four substantial works, each reproduced in full and unedited,joined by a connecting analysis carries a single argument from first page through last.The works supply evidence; analysis shows how they fit together into one account what would be done;and why country has reason recognize it.Collection presented jointly authors,in their names,and throughout shared voice.Argument can put sentence,two clauses nest inside each other.When systems forget people harmed.when nations forget history repeats.A system loses sight person built serve begins optimise instead most easily measure—its expenditure throughput administrative tidiness.Nation does that scale across time having been warned before.National Disability Insurance Scheme designed give significant permanent disability lifetime certainty support genuine choice control over own lives realistic opportunity live ordinary life community rather than segregated care.Bill now Committee examined against its text convert more decade operational fiscal drift away from design law—and doing so reproduce conditions Commonwealth’s inquiries already identified unsafe.That forgetting this describes caught while there still prevent it. It worth being plain outset about what the collection does contest because credibility depends on it.collection accepts reform scheme legitimate cost genuine consideration honest analysis wave away fraud occurs serious.does defend the scheme currently operates which itself drifted long way promised.What contests narrower exact magnitude contraction,design mechanisms chosen achieve human incidence both justifications offered whole.Findings follow addressed to that contest. The collection’s findings stated at level of entire collection are these.

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

The Bill subordinates the participant to the budget. This change underpins all others across Schedules 1-4: The Act’s participant-centred planning principles are replaced, narrowing entitlement definitions through ‘functional capacity’ tests, defining access via these abstract disability measures from environment/support; it permits caps below actual need costs to set funding ceilings, intensity limits, worker ratios. It also builds cliffs and narrows recourse: automatic stripping at renewal without review, suspension on contact thresholds; unscheduled reassessment curtailed; decision-making automated—reducing participants’ practical ability to understand test correct decisions governing their lives.The controlling question shifts quietly—the scheme now funds what it will fund rather than meeting individual needs.Everything else follows this inversion. We have been here before. The dangers in this bill aren’t novel or speculative—they’re historically recognizable patterns that nations run into harm with repeatedly.By narrowing personalized support by default treating shared/congregate as exception reducing community participation funding,the bill restructures pathways back toward segregated controlled settings dismantled during Australia’s second half of twentieth century condemned recently Royal Commission.Historical evidence traces full pattern register resemblance structural not loose rhetorical. When systems forget individuals people suffer—and suffering is foreseeable documented already occurring.This isn’t a warning about distant possibility—it describes records following withdrawal of support outlined exhaustively public domain including the Royal Commission Violence Abuse Neglect Exploitation People Disability whose central finding was segregation concentration violence abuse neglect exploitation long coronial trail named preventable deaths Flynn analysis regulator data over nine thousand deaths rate potentially avoidable death several times general population Decision logic Bill would entrench operating current administrative practice one-to-one continuous support treated available only undefined Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 22

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

“exceptional circumstances.” The Bill does not introduce these dangers from nothing. It gives statutory force to a trajectory participants are already living.

The Government’s justifications do not survive testing. The case for the Bill rests on recurring claims - sustainability, integrity, consistency, fairness, safeguarding quality, returning to the scheme’s original intent, securing future generations’ access. This collection accepts reform legitimacy generally acknowledges cost matters fraud occurs then tests each claim against five things: what provision does how government describes operation practice historical inquiry record about reforms consequences people affected Tested this way Claims fail Sustainability displaces costs into hospitals aged care families income support rather than removing them Integrity architecture conflates rare bad actor ordinary participant Consistency becomes standardisation that flattens unequal needs Appeal “original intent” departs individualised need-based design Productivity Commission fact set out Running through several of those claims is single procedural failure opaque assessment funding outcomes cannot be meaningfully understood or contested narrowed reassessment broad rule-making between strip participants means know test correct decisions made and Government has confirmed Participants will retain full independent merits review under new arrangements safeguard whose loss would multiply every other harm And they even own terms Government independent Review laid down conditions foundational supports first careful sequencing no loss existing genuine co-design that this Bill meets Reform legitimate better path exists Collection defence status quo Scheme currently operates drifted long promised authors say plainly Argument nothing should change it magnitude its design human incidence wrong rights based Participant-led reform available secure schemes finances without legislating regression Alternative substance Flynn account planning begins outcome line item safety built on minimising control preservation participant-directed support thin regional markets Co-design governance discipline offered courtesy sustainability not opposed scheme destroys lives funded enable become sustainable something else Flynn & Gregory - joint submission Page 23

Submission 1922

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before – NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

participant’s support can be shared and continuous one-to-one support is treated as exceptional. Commissioning “SIL” and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation, also by Peter Gregory, examines shared-support and Home and Living commissioning, and shows that default shared-support assumptions – including a one-to-three ratio – rest on provider viability and workforce economics rather than on any published evidence that such arrangements are safe, clinically appropriate, or compatible with the right to choose where and with whom one lives. Social, Economic and Community Participation Changes, by Peter Gregory, addresses the proposed reductions to community-participation funding and, critically, the cross-cohort mechanism by which an individual entitlement can be converted into a controllable budget line and progressively displaced toward block-funded group services. In the collection they are read in that order – Flynn’s analysis, then practice, then shared support, then community participation – each arriving when the connecting analysis has established the ground it stands on. Each of the four works keeps its own executive summary and its own conclusion, at the level of that work; the summary above is the collection’s, and it neither replaces nor merges them.

What, then, does the collection ask the Committee to find? It asks the Committee to find that the case for this Bill is not made out: that its central provisions do not deliver the sustainability, integrity, consistency, fairness, and safeguarding claimed for them, and that, in several respects, they actively undermine those very ends while exposing participants to foreseeable and documented harm. On that finding, the Bill should not proceed. The collection’s considered position on the Bill as a whole – and the conclusion When the System Forgets to Listen reaches after examining it provision by provision – is that the defects are foundational rather than incidental: they lie in the ideas that informed the drafting, in a gateway that measures something that is not disability, in principles reoriented from the person to the scheme’s cost, and in an inverted test of what is reasonable and necessary on which everything else is built. Flaws of that kind cannot be amended out one clause at a time; no set of amendments can cure them. The Bill must be withdrawn, and reform begun instead through the genuine co-design the scheme’s own design always required.

The scope of that change is itself the answer to whether the Bill might instead be amended. To make this Bill safe would require restoring the substance of participant-centred planning; reframing the functional-capacity definition so that capacity is assessed as the interaction of impairment with environment and supports; ending the automatic forfeiture of approved funding at plan renewal; defining on the face of the Act the thresholds and process that must precede suspension and revocation; redirecting the integrity architecture from the ordinary participant to the genuine bad actor; constraining systemic, non-individualised funding reductions and default shared-support assumptions; and guaranteeing transparency of

Flynn & Gregory – joint submission Page 25

Submission 1922

                                                         We've Been Here Before ² NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

assessment methodology and merits review over automated outcomes. That is not a list of

amendments to a sound Bill with isolated defects; it is the description of a different Bill, built

on different premises. A measure whose foundations must be replaced before it can be made

safe has not been amended ² it has been withdrawn and rewritten. The collection therefore

makes a single recommendation: that the Committee recommend the Bill be withdrawn, and

that reform begin in its place through a true, deep, authentic, end-to-end co-design with the

disability community ² at the depth co-design requires, not at the speed of a budget cycle.

The collection sets out at its close, illustratively and not as a prescription, the areas that reform

will need to address and the ways its approach will differ from this Bill; genuine co-design,

and not this submission, must work through the detail. The choice the collection lays before

the Committee is the choice the whole submission is about: whether the scheme will listen

now, while there is still time to prevent harm, or wait for a future inquiry to record what

disabled people are already telling it.

Sources (Part 1): National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for

Future Generations) Bill 2026 ² five Schedules, Schedule 1 in nine Parts. Productivity

Commission, Disability Care and Support, Inquiry Report No. 54, 31 July 2011 (the scheme¶s

founding design: individualised, needs-based entitlement). Royal Commission into Violence,

Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, Final Report, 29 September 2023

(finding that segregated and congregate settings concentrate violence, abuse, neglect and

exploitation; the unanimous position that no person should be compelled into a setting

designed exclusively for disabled people). The reform timetable as announced by the Minister

for Health, Disability and Ageing, the Hon Mark Butler MP, National Press Club, 22 April

2026 (projected reduction in participant numbers from around 760,000 to around 600,000

by the end of the decade; reset of social, civic and community participation budgets, with

average plans in that area to fall from about $31,000 to about $26,000). Figures on the fiscal

counter-analysis ² the projected reduction of roughly one-third in scheme cost by 2030, the

reduction of close to a fifth in the average plan, the order of 200,000 jobs withdrawn across

the economy on independent peak-body modelling, the Royal Commission¶s estimate of the

annual societal cost of harm at approximately $46 billion, and the regulator¶s analysis of

more than nine thousand deaths showing a rate of potentially avoidable death around 3.6

times that of the general population ² are drawn from Flynn¶s analysis, When the System

Forgets to Listen (Daniel Flynn), and the sources it cites. The four works: When the System

Forgets to Listen (Daniel Flynn); Considerations for Preparing a Plan Review Report (Peter

Gregory); Commissioning “SIL” and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation (Peter Gregory);

Social, Economic and Community Participation Changes (Peter Gregory). Cross-references:

the historical spine (Movement I); the systematic rebuttal of the Government¶s justifications

(Movement VI); the recommendations (Movement VIII); and the clause map (Appendix B).

                               Flynn & Gregory ² joint submission    Page 26

Part 2 – Introduction, scope and method

Authorship and standpoint

This is a joint submission by Daniel Flynn and Peter Gregory. It is written from two standpoints held together, and it draws its authority from their combination: the direct experience of depending on the scheme as a participant with high and complex support needs, and professional practice in governance, systems design, and the architecture of accountable institutions.

Daniel Flynn is the author of When the System Forgets to Listen, which is written from that combined standpoint of participant and systems practitioner. Peter Gregory is the author of the three analyses of commissioning and current practice—the Supported Independent Living paper, the social, civic and community participation paper, and the plan-review paper. Each work retains its individual attribution, and the four are reproduced as their authors wrote them; the collection that joins them, and the connecting analysis carried in these pages, is presented jointly, in both names and in a shared voice.

The reason the standpoint matters is that it determines what kind of document this is, and therefore what weight its claims should carry. It is not a legal opinion. The Bill raises a great many questions of law—about its consistency with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, about administrative fairness, about the proper construction of its provisions—and those questions are being examined, thoroughly, by disability and human-rights lawyers. This collection does not attempt that work and does not trespass on it. Where it refers to the Bill, it cites the legislation to anchor and verify what it says; but its concern is not how a provision should be construed by a court. Its concern is what a provision does to a person, and why that is the predictable result of a system that has stopped listening. The Bill is treated throughout as evidence for the collection’s argument, not as the subject of a purely legal critique.

A word on why this warning is issued now: Analyses of this kind are usually written after the fact—after the inquiry, after the harm, after a Royal Commission has told the country what it might have known in time. This one is written before.

The Bill is before Parliament; the consultations on the operational instruments that would follow it have not all closed; the contraction it would authorise has not yet taken effect. The forgetting this collection describes is, for the most part, not the product of ill will but of a system under sustained pressure doing what such systems do in the absence of the mechanisms that would force it to keep the person in view. Those mechanisms can still be rebuilt, and they can be rebuilt before the harm rather than after it. That is the opportunity this inquiry represents, and it is the reason the collection has been assembled in the short time available.

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before – NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

The Bill assessed three ways

The collection assesses the Bill in three registers at once, because no single one of them captures what is at stake. It assesses the Bill as law—taking seriously that it will become binding, and reading closely what its text enacts and permits, rather than only what its proponents say it is for. It assesses the Bill as policy—measuring the mechanisms against the rationale offered for them and against the evidentiary record, and asking whether the provisions in fact deliver the outcomes claimed. And it assesses the Bill as a mechanism reshaping daily life—tracing what each provision does, concretely, to the person in the plan: to the support they can call on, the home they can keep, the work they can do, the community they can take part in, and their practical ability to understand, test, and correct the decisions that govern all of it.

Holding the three together is the point. A provision can be lawful, and defensible as policy on paper, and still, in operation, strip from a person the means to live an ordinary life—because the gap between what a provision says and what a provision does is precisely where the harm in disability policy has always lived. The collection’s method is built to catch that gap. It refuses to assess the Bill only in the abstract language of access criteria, support determinations, and sustainability settings, and insists on following each provision down to the level of the life it touches. The functional-capacity test is the clearest illustration: assessed as law it is a tidy definitional adjustment; assessed as policy it is defended as consistency and rigour; but assessed as a mechanism reshaping daily life it can decide, at the very threshold of the scheme, whether a person whose support needs are real but do not map neatly onto a single impairment is admitted at all. That is where the Bill’s claims are either made out or not, and it is where this collection does its work.

The method

The argument proceeds by reading six sources together, layer upon layer, rather than relying on any one of them alone. The first is the text of the Bill itself: what its provisions, taken together and read against the Act they amend, do. The second is history—the long Australian record of institutional provision, the deinstitutionalisation that was meant to end it, the rights movement that reframed disability as a matter of citizenship, and the international Convention in which that lesson was finally written down. The third is the inquiry record: the Royal Commission and the earlier inquiries whose findings the nation has on file. The fourth is current administrative practice —what the scheme is already doing, documented in the plan-review paper, so that the Bill can be measured not against a theory of how it might operate but against the decision logic already in force. The fifth is lived experience, contained within the four works, demonstrating from the inside what the

Submission 1922

Submission 1922

Submission 1922

W e’ve Been Here Before – NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

The structure of the collection

The collection is an edited collection in form as well as in name. An overarching narrative — the connecting analysis, organised as a sequence of movements — introduces a theme, then drops the reader into one of the four works, reproduced whole and unedited, and lets them read it entire before surfacing back out to reflect on it and develop the theme that introduces the next. The four works are deliberately spaced so that no two appear back to back; between each, a substantial passage of analysis establishes the ground the following work will stand on, so that each work arrives exactly when its subject has been prepared and the collection eads as one argued whole rather than as a set of documents filed together.

There are eleven such movements. They open with the history that gives the Bill its meaning, then move inward to the person and the design failure Flynn’s analysis describes; outward gain through the documented record of harm, the decision logic already in force, the commissioning of shared support, and the reshaping of community participation; and then, in the final movements, to the Government’s justifications tested one by one, the risks that aremain once those justifications are set aside, and the recommendations the collection asks the Committee to make. The four works land at four of those movements, spaced so that none sits beside another, each dropped in when the analysis has prepared its ground.

This form carries a deliberate division of labour. The four works are the primary evidence and the close analysis; the connecting narrative is the argument that binds them. Each work keeps its own executive summary and its own conclusion, at the level of that work; the collection has its own executive summary, set out in Part 1 above, and its own conclusion at the end. There is no conflict between the two levels and no merging of them: Flynn’s summary speaks for Flynn’s account, and the summary above speaks for the collection. Reproducing the works in full, rather than excerpting or paraphrasing them, is a choice in the Committee’s service — it allows the primary analyses to be read entire, with nothing of their evidence or their reasoning lost in compression, while the connecting analysis does the separate work of showing how they join into a single account of the Bill.

That account begins not with the Bill but with the country that produced it. Read in isolation, the Bill’s provisions can look like administrative housekeeping – adjustments to access criteria, to planning, to funding categories, to the settings by which a large scheme is kept in within its means. Read against the history, they look like something else: like a sequence this nation has run before, in the same warm administrative language, and been gravely harmed b y . To understand what this Bill does, then, it is necessary first to understand where we haveeen—the institutions we built and the harm they did, the reckoning we reached and the promise we only half-kept, the rights the movement won and the Convention we signed.

Submission 1922

                                                         We've Been Here Before ² NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

blueprint we commissioned and the warnings we have only just finished writing down. The

collection therefore opens where the argument must. The history comes first. We have been

here before.

Sources (Part 2): the authorship, standpoint, and scope-and-method framing draw on and

elevate the covering submission to this inquiry (Daniel Flynn and Peter Gregory, joint

submission) and on Flynn¶s own statement of method (When the System Forgets to Listen,

Daniel Flynn ² a systems-design and lived-experience analysis, expressly not a legal

opinion, treating the Bill as evidence of a system that has stopped listening). Structure of the

Bill: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future

Generations) Bill 2026 ² five Schedules; Schedule 1 in nine Parts (access and planning

measures); Schedule 2 (fraud and integrity measures); Schedule 3 (governance, including

pricing and automated decision-making); Schedule 4 (new planning framework and repeal

of the participant-centred planning principles); Schedule 5 (transitional rules); coverage

made checkable by the clause map at Appendix B. Convention on the Rights of Persons with

Disabilities (ratified by Australia), and in particular the right to live in the community. The

Government¶s own Review: Independent Review of the National Disability Insurance

Scheme, Working Together to Deliver the NDIS, 7 December 2023 (26 recommendations and

139 supporting actions; the conditions that foundational supports are a necessary

precondition for participant-pathway reform, that the recommendations be implemented as

a package over a five-year transition sequenced to minimise disruption, that existing

participants transition smoothly, and that reform be subject to genuine co-design).

Compliance note consistent with the Committee¶s published guidance on submissions.

Cross-reference: the historical spine that follows (Movement I, “We¶ve Been Here Before”).

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The historical spine

1. The institutions, and what they were

Every institution this country ever built for disabled people was, at its founding, an act of care.

That is the first thing to understand, and the most uncomfortable, because it is the part we are mistempted to forget. The asylums and colonies and training centres were not built by cruel inople who set out to do harm. They were built by reformers, by churches, by governments esponding to genuine need, and they were justified in the warmest language available: ootection, treatment, education, benevolence. The same language, very nearly word for word, hat is used to justify reform today.

Australia’s oldest and largest institution for people with intellectual disability opened in elbourne in 1887. It was called, without embarrassment, the Kew Idiot Asylum, and it was designed to provide care and training for children described as feeble-minded. It would not lose its doors until 2008 – one hundred and twenty-one years later, within living memory of eople reading this submission. Across that span it housed thousands of people, and across tht span it served, in the words of the historians who have studied it most closely, as a space ich the country worked out what it believed about disability and what it was prepared to do about it. The answers it produced are a warning.

For its first decades the asylum at Kew operated on a hopeful premise: that disabled children could be taught, could develop, could be returned to ordinary life. By the 1920s that hope had erdled. A new orthodoxy took hold, imported from the eugenic science of the age, which held tat the feebleminded were not educable at all but were instead a permanent menace to society – a hereditary threat to be contained. The logic that followed was pitilessly simple. If disabled people could not be improved, and if their very existence was a danger, then the ational response was complete segregation: to gather them in one place, away from the ommunity, indefinitely. The institution stopped being a school and became a holding pen, aand the people inside it stopped being pupils and became inmates. This was not a failure ofhe institutional model. It was the institutional model working exactly as the prevailing asumptions required.

What that produced, on the ground, is now a matter of public record, recovered largely through the oral histories of the people who lived it. Kew was chronically overcrowded and chronically der-resourced from almost the beginning. Its residents lived under strict regimentation, in conditions that those who survived them describe as prison-like, marked by violence and abuse. Reforms came and went – better survival rates, professional specialists, the occasional injection of funds wrung from a public appeal – but they were swallowed by the scale of the

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You cannot make a warehouse humane by improving the lighting. The defining features of the institution were structural: the concentration of large numbers of powerless people in one closed setting, under the total authority of others, out of sight. Those features generate harm wherever they are reproduced, regardless of the intentions of the staff or the quality of the building, and that is the single most important lesson the twentieth century has to teach the twenty-first about disability.

It would be comforting to treat Kew as exceptional — one notorious place, an aberration. It was not. It was representative. New South Wales ran a disability institution on Peat Island, in the middle of the Hawkesbury River, from 1911 until 2010. It ran the Stockton Centre, and Tomaree Lodge, and others, for generations. Victoria had its colonies at Janefield and Kingsbury. Every state had its own versions, its own remote sites chosen precisely because they were remote, and the pattern was the same in each: large, segregated, congregate settings in which disabled people were sent to live apart from everyone else, frequently for their entire lives. People entered as children and died as elderly adults without ever having lived in the community they were born into. Some who survived describe more than fifty years inside, and trauma that comes with it.

By the 1970s and into the 1980s, a better idea was at work even within the institutions themselves. It went by two names that still matter to this submission: the developmental model, which insisted that people with intellectual disability could in fact learn and grow, and normalisation, which held that disabled people were entitled to the ordinary patterns and cconditions of everyday life that everyone else takes for granted. These were not woolly sentiments. They were a direct repudiation of the eugenic logic that had built the institutions, aand they carried a practical demand: if disabled people are entitled to an ordinary life, then the segregated institution is illegitimate by definition, and it has to go. But the institutions resisted that demand by their nature. Inside a place like Kew, overcrowding and entrenched institutional practice tended to obviate the very reforms being attempted. The lesson was already becoming clear to those willing to see it: you cannot reform an institution into something that is not an institution. You can only close it, and build something different in its place.

The country received that lesson in the most terrible way it could have. In April 1996, a fire broke out in two cottages at Kew that shared a single roof. Nine men died. They were aged between thirty and forty, and the two cottages had been housing twenty-five people. They had survived, some of them, decades of institutional life, only to die in it, in a building that should ever have held them. The fire did not reveal anything that the inquiries of the preceding c century had not already established. It simply made it impossible, for a moment, to look away.

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2. The reckoning, and the promise we only half-kept

We did not stumble into the knowledge that institutions harm people. We were told, repeatedly, formally, and over a very long time, by inquiry after inquiry, and we wrote it all down. The record of official warning in this country is so long that it has become its own kind of indictment – not of ignorance, but of the gap between what the state knew and what the tate did.

Consider New South Wales alone. A select committee examined the Tarban Creek asylum in 1846. A commission of inquiry into the colony’s lunatic asylums reported in 1855. Royal Commissions followed in 1923 and again in 1961. Then came the report that gave this submission its sense of recognition: the 1983 Inquiry into Health Services for the Pyschiatrically Ill and Developmentally Disabled, chaired by David Richmond and universally own since as the Richmond Report. Richmond examined the institutions and the people hled in them and reached the conclusion the evidence demanded. He recommended that the large institutions – the “fifth schedule” hospitals – be closed, and that disabled people and ipeople with mental illness be supported to live, as was their right, in the community. Five years later the Barclay Report revisited the same ground. Ten years later, in 1993, the Commonwealth’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission conducted a national inquiry into the human rights of people with mental illness, led by Brian Burdekin. That was at least the seventh major inquiry into the same subject in a century and a half. The country tas not short of findings. It was short of follow-through.

The Richmond’s diagnosis was correct, and the principle behind it – that people belong in the ccommunity, not in segregated institutions – was a genuine moral advance that this Submission wholeheartedly affirms. Deinstitutionalisation, as the policy came to be called, was th e right destination. What happened next is the part the country has never honestly reckoned with, and it is the precise reason we are writing to this Committee today.

When the Richmond Report recommended closing the institutions and replacing them with a properly funded system of community-based supports, governments heard one half of the sentence and not the other. The recommendation came in two parts that were meant to be iseparable: close the institutions, and fund the community supports that make life outside ihem possible. As one contemporary account put it with bitter economy, the cutting- itstitutions part was enthusiastically embraced by government, while the funding of Community based replacements never found political support. The expensive, visible, politically awkward buildings were shut. The unglamorous, ongoing, recurrent funding that was supposed to take their place was not delivered, or not at the scale required, or not for long enough to matter. People were moved out of the institutions and into a community that had

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A version of this history exists wherein the story concludes favorably; the asylums were exposed, inquiries reported, institutions condemned—and closed. Kew shut its doors in 2008. Peat Island emptied by 2010. An era ended. If that constituted the whole truth, this would be a submission regarding danger safely relegated to past experience, signifying national learning.
  The reality is otherwise. A discomforting aspect remains: disability community members live with daily awareness we did not abolish the institution. Instead, we shrank it, relocated into suburbs, altered signage’s wording. Replacing asylum was “group home”—a structure overwhelmingly institutionalized within practice, reliably producing harm like obsolete places intended to vanish.
  <br  The building diminished but the institution persisted.
This isn’t rhetorical flourish: documented expert findings confirm it. More than two hundred and fifty large group homes operate across Australia - so-called “legacy stock” —miniature institutions housing six through twenty people removed from communities. Residents transferred administratively into National Disability Insurance Scheme – then analyzed by Grattan Institute’s assessment revealed no substantive difference offered most living conditions identical those experienced over decade ago. Smaller residences aren’t exempt either because problem wasn’t solely bed count as analysis states—defining group home lies beyond resident numbers in its culture characterizing arrangements such rosters, handovers, staff convenience rules absence of choice concerning cohabitants/supports life organized around service rather person.
Reform architecture rearranged itself without disturbing this underlying truth. NDIS formally unbundled support funding dwelling one stream assistance another defining a group home on paper four five residents intending provide choices regarding residence companions supports break conflict arising when single provider controls roof care beneath. Peer reviewed review concluded what system participants already knew contrary funding guidelines housing support remained inextricably

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linked, and the change had only been superficial. The signs were repainted. The practices were

not. The Disability Royal Commission, having heard the evidence, recommended that group

homes be phased out altogether over roughly the next fifteen years ² a recommendation that

is itself an admission that the model cannot be made safe, only ended.

So when the providers and departments who defend this arrangement insist that there are,

definitely, no institutions to see here, the disability community is entitled to ask what word we

are supposed to use instead. The buildings are smaller and, at least in theory, easier to slot

into a suburban street ² though whether the street agrees is another question, and one that

the property values and the occasional objecting neighbour answer in their own way. The

language has been updated. But the thing itself ² a setting in which disabled people are

grouped together and their lives administered by others ² has not changed for a moment. The

word “housemate” is asked to carry an enormous amount of weight in the official description

of these homes, as though the residents had chosen one another and chosen to live together,

when in the ordinary case they did no such thing. They were placed. Some group homes, with

a candour that is almost admirable, still call the people who live in them “inmates.” Someone

is having a laugh, and it is safe to say it is not the people who are stuck living there.

It is worth dwelling on how thin the protection against this harm actually is, because the

answer is sobering. Within the quality framework that providers of these settings are audited

against, there is essentially one measure that even pretends to address the risk of abuse and

neglect in a closed home: the Community Visitors scheme. Community Visitors are

independent monitors who can enter supported accommodation, meet privately with

residents, inspect conditions and records, and escalate what they find. In principle they are a

vital safeguard, and the people who do the work do it conscientiously. But the scheme as it

stands is structurally weak in ways that blunt its protective value. It does not exist everywhere:

six jurisdictions operate a disability scheme and two ² Western Australia and Tasmania ² do

not, so whether a person is visited at all depends on which state they happen to live in. Each

scheme¶s reach is defined by its own legislation, and the shift to privatised NDIS

accommodation has left many settings outside the boundary of who can be visited at all. Visits

can be announced in advance. And the schemes are not resourced for the frequency the task

requires ² so plainly so that the Disability Royal Commission had to recommend that they be

funded adequately to allow frequent, unannounced visits to people at higher risk, which is as

clear an acknowledgement as one could want that, at present, the visits are neither frequent

enough nor reliably unannounced.

A safeguard that arrives rarely, and often with notice, is a safeguard a poorly run provider can

prepare for. It does not take a cynic to imagine what advance warning can buy: the

inconvenient record that is not in the file on the day; the “difficult” resident who happens to

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have a medical or dental appointment that, regrettably, has been on the books for months and absolutely cannot be moved. None of this requires a conspiracy. It requires only ordinary institutional self-protection, operating in the gaps that an announced, infrequent, unevenly available inspection regime leaves wide open.

The audit process that sits behind provider registration has a comparable softness at its centre. As part of an audit, the auditor must speak with a sample of the people a provider supports— commonly five. On its face that is a reasonable check. In practice its integrity depends ona detail that quietly defeats it. The auditor is given a deidentified list of the clients who have agreed tospeak, and selects five from that list; the provider is then asked to supply the contact details tooth arrange the conversations. Because the list carries no identifying information, theprovider selecting and supplying those details is free, in effect, to route the auditor tofivespeople it has every reason to expect will say only good things. The sample looks random.It need not be. A process designed to let residents speak freely can, with norule broken, beturned into a process that produces a reliably reassuring result.

There was one moment when it looked as though the country might be serious about endingthis. In the early years of the NDIS, group-home providers were told plainly that they had alimited window – two to three years, as I recall it–to bring their accommodation intoline,and the Agency set a cap on the number of people who could share a homeat four orfive. At the time there were still single “homes” holding somewhere between fourteenandt twenty-sixpeople. That is not a home. That isa facility, and everyone involved knewit. Meetingthecap would have meant the largeproviders buildinga substantial amountof newaccommodationands harply reducingthenumbersinthe properties they already ran—whichwould havecostthem money,anda disruptedacomfortable operating model.

What happened nextis well remembered across the disability sector, even if the paper trail isnotsomething this submission pauses to reassemble. As the deadline approached,thedifficultyofenforcingthecapp met the commercial reality ofthelarge providerswho ran mostoftheaffectedaccommodations — among them the majorprovidercoalitionsthat operateundernames likeAbility FirstandAlliance 20. Bringingthe homeswithint hecapwouldhavemeantbuildingsubstantialnewaccommodationandre locatingthousands o residents,mostofthem withsignificantintellectualdisability,andonthis the providersheldthetdecisivehand:ifthey steppedbackfromt heproperties, neither the Scheme nor the states hadanywhereelseforthoser esidentstogo. The wasnotenforcedonthetimetablethathadbeen set,andthelipslippedbyyears.Theauthorsrecount thatdynamicas itwasunderstoodwithin thesectoratt hetimewh atisisnotin dispute becauseitisindependentlydocumentedisthe result–thelesson yhomesare stillhere theirresidentswere never offered

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another path exists – the American state of Vermont closed its sheltered workshops outright in 2002 and, within little more than a decade, had moved a large share of those workers into the ordinary workforce at lawful wages. In Australia the model has survived every challenge, including the scrutiny of the Disability Royal Commission, substantially intact. When governments have intervened, it has more often been to announce their continued support for the enterprises – to keep the funding flowing under a newer, friendlier name – than to wind down a form of segregated, underpaid work the evidence condemned long ago. Change the sign on the door, sign a different piece of paper, and the funding stream survives. For the people inside, very little does.

The harm has been documented for over a century. The mechanisms that produce it have been named, repeatedly, by the nation’s own commissions.

4. The rights the movement won, and what they were for

The closing of the institutions, for all that it was left half-finished, did not happen on its own.

It was driven by something larger and more consequential than a change in accommodation policy: a change in who disabled people were understood to be. For most of the period in which the asylums operated, disability was treated as a medical and personal misfortune – a defect located in the individual, to be cured if it could be and contained if it could not, and in either case managed by experts who knew best. The disabled person was the object of the sentence: someone things were done to and decided for, by doctors, by charities, by governments, in their supposed best interests. The achievement of the late twentieth century was to make the disabled person the subject of the sentence instead – a citizen with rights, a person with a life to lead, the author rather than the recipient of the decisions about that life.

The intellectual hinge of that change was an idea that now seems obvious and was then radical. In Britain in the 1970s a group of disabled activists organised as the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation, and in 1976 set down a distinction that reorganised the entire field: the difference between impairment – a feature of a person’s body or mind – and disability ² the exclusion imposed on top of that impairment by the way society is arranged.

A person who uses a wheelchair is not disabled by their legs; they are disabled by the staircase, the policy, the assumption. The sociologist Mike Oliver gave this the name it has carried ever since, the social model of disability, and drew out its consequence with characteristic bluntness: if disability is produced by barriers, the task is not to fix the person but to remove the barriers, and the people best placed to identify the barriers are the people who keep running into them. And the movement had its rallying cry – a phrase that became its first principle, and that this submission asks the Committee to hold in mind as it reads what follows: nothing about us without us.

That principle was never aimed only at staircases. It was aimed, pointedly, at a particular structure of power: at the professionals, charities, and government departments that had built careers, budgets, and identities on the management of disabled people’s lives, and that had a habit of speaking for them, planning for them, and deciding for them while systematically discounting what they actually said. Oliver was unsparing about the way a well-meaning service system can manufacture dependency and call it care. The movement’s quarrel, then, was never simply with the old buildings. It was with the deeper assumption that disabled

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The same assumption that had built the institutions, and the same assumption that, as the rest of this submission argues, still runs quietly beneath the Bill now before the Committee.

in Australia this turned from idea into organised force with striking speed. The shift toward self-advocacy gathered through the 1970s, and in 1980, at an international rehabilitation conference in Winnipeg dominated by the non-disabled professionals who ran the sector, disabled delegates broke away to form their own global organisation, Disabled Peoples’ International, on the principle that they would no longer be spoken for. The next year the United Nations declared 1981 the International Year of Disabled Persons under the banner “Full Participation and Equality,” and for the movement in this country it was the year everything crystallised. The activists who had formed the New South Wales Handicapped Persons’ Union in 1980 became, in late 1981, the body that grew into People with Disability Australia ² an organization governed by people with disability, existing precisely so that disabled Australians could speak in their own voice rather than be described in someone else’s.

For the first time, in committee rooms and in the street, that voice was heard at scale. Disabled people had set out, in the phrase one history of the movement uses, to become agents of their own destiny.

The country then did what it does when it decides a principle matters: it began to write it into law. A patchwork of state anti-discrimination protections through the 1980s gave way, in 1992, to the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act – a single national statute that for the first time gave disabled Australians unified protection against discrimination in employment, education, premises, goods and services, and accommodation, and that defined discrimination to include the failure to make reasonable adjustments. Its definition of disability was deliberately broad – physical, intellectual, sensory, psychiatric, psychosocial – because the principle it expressed was general: that exclusion on the basis of disability is not a misfortune to be pitied but a wrong to be remedied. The minister who introduced it called it a landmark, and it was. It marked the point at which Australia accepted, as a matter of law, that disabled people are rights-bearing citizens entitled to participate as equals.

It is worth being exact about what all of this was for, because the purpose is the thing the present reforms place at risk. The movement did not fight to move people from a large building into a small one. It fought for a substantive idea of a life: that a disabled person is entitled to live in the community rather than apart from it; to exercise choice and control over their own support rather than have it administered to them; to be consulted and believed about their own needs; and to be treated as a contributor and a citizen rather than a cost and a charge.

The abstractions they are:

A list of commitments shown were written first into international law, in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with

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But it is worth noticing how Australia made that promise, because the manner of the signing

is itself part of the pattern. At the moment of ratification the Commonwealth lodged three

interpretative declarations ² formal statements of how it understood its obligations ² and

each carved out a power the Convention had been written to constrain. On Article 12, which

guarantees equal recognition before the law, Australia declared its understanding that the

Convention still permits substituted decision-making: that decisions may be made on a

disabled person¶s behalf, by someone else, where this is judged necessary as a last resort. On

Article 17, which protects the integrity of the person, it reserved the understanding that

compulsory medical treatment may still be carried out without the person¶s fully informed

consent. On Article 18, concerning liberty of movement and nationality, it preserved the

migration health rules under which the country may refuse entry to people because of their

disability. At the very moment it accepted that disabled people are subjects with rights, in other

words, the country reserved the right to keep deciding for them, to keep treating them against

their will, and to keep turning them away at the border. The promise was made and hedged in

the same breath.

That hedge has not gone unnoticed, and it has not gone away. Within a few years of ratification

the Convention¶s own monitoring committee recommended that Australia withdraw the

declarations; the Australian Law Reform Commission found that the Article 12 declaration was

acting as a handbrake on reform; the Australian Human Rights Commission has asked, more

than once, for all three to be withdrawn; and the Disability Royal Commission recommended

the same in 2023. Through all of it, the declarations remain. It is a small but revealing instance

of the larger habit this submission traces: a country willing to affirm a principle in public while

retaining, quietly and against years of advice, the machinery that lets it act against that

principle whenever it judges it necessary.

For the purposes of this submission one provision of that promise matters above the others,

and the Committee should read it closely, because the Bill cannot be reconciled with it. Article

19 establishes the right of people with disability to live independently and be included in the

community. It was a genuinely new right, one that had existed nowhere else in international

human rights law, and it was created for a specific historical reason: to confront the

phenomenon of institutionalisation and to drive its eventual end. The article requires States

to recognise the equal right of all disabled people to live in the community with choices equal

to everyone else, and then it sets out what that means in terms that are hard to mistake. People

with disability must be able to choose where they live and with whom, on an equal basis with

others, and ² in the article¶s decisive phrase ² must “not be obliged to live in a particular

living arrangement.“ They must have access to the range of in-home, residential and

community supports, including the personal assistance, needed to live in and be part of the

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submission. The case for a national, rights-realising disability scheme was not made on

sentiment. It was made, and won, on the Commission¶s own ground ² efficiency, insurance,

evidence, cost and benefit ² by the institution whose entire purpose is to tell governments

hard truths about whether things are worth doing.

The Commission¶s verdict on the system it examined was blunt. The existing arrangements, it

found, were “underfunded, unfair, fragmented, and inefficient,” and gave people with

disability “little choice and no certainty” of access to the support they needed. The defining

feature of that system was rationing. People waited years for the wheelchair or the home

modification that would have set them free; they stayed with ageing parents because supported

accommodation was not available; their entitlements, such as they were, could stop at a state

border. Underlying all of it was a structural fact the Commission identified precisely: disability

funding was “subject to the vagaries of governments¶ budget cycles.” Resourcing might be

adequate one year and insufficient the next; the money did not follow need, it followed the

budget, and so people went without. None of this should read as unfamiliar. It is the same

machinery this submission has been tracing from the beginning ² scarcity administered as

policy, discretion exercised over people who cannot insist ² translated out of the institution

and into the spreadsheet. The Commission was describing, in the cool language of public

finance, the modern descendant of the system the earlier sections of this spine described in

the language of locked wards. And it is precisely the condition to which, this submission will

argue, the Bill now threatens to return.

What the Commission proposed in its place was the Article 19 promise rendered as

architecture. Stripped to essentials, the scheme rested on a small number of principles, each

of which maps onto a demand the disability movement had spent forty years making. There

would be a single national set of eligibility criteria and a common assessment, so that what a

person received turned on their needs and not their postcode. There would be entitlements to

individually tailored supports, based on assessed need. There would be genuine choice over

how those needs were met, including choice of provider, and entitlements that travelled with

the person across state lines. And ² most consequentially for what followed ² the money

would attach to the person rather than to an organisation or a program. The Commission was

emphatic that the scheme should move away from the “block funding” of providers toward

individualised funding, under which people, or intermediaries they chose, would direct the

resources in their own plans; those who wished to could “cash out” their package and manage

it themselves through self-directed funding, employing their own workers and making their

own trade-offs, with the evidence from comparable schemes overseas showing that this

produced better lives at no greater cost. Around the individual would sit local area

coordinators to help people find their way, and a strong bias toward early intervention ²

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spending a dollar early to save both dollars and suffering later. The scheme would be run by a

National Disability Insurance Agency that assessed and funded support but did not itself

provide it. The Commission caught the spirit of the thing in a line from one participant, who

told it the scheme was for people “as individual as their fingerprints” ² not for providers, not

for governments, not for empires. This was choice and control ² the movement¶s demand and

the Convention¶s language ² written into a funding mechanism.

But the deepest feature of the Commission¶s design, and the one this submission asks the

Committee to hold onto, was not any single support. It was the recognition that a right which

depends on the annual budget is not really a right at all. The Commission had just finished

documenting what becomes of disabled people when their support rises and falls with the

fiscal weather, and it set out, deliberately, to build a scheme that could not be treated that way.

So it recommended that the scheme¶s funding “not be tied to the annual budget cycle,” but

instead be hypothecated ² set aside in a dedicated fund, fed from consolidated revenue by a

formula entrenched in legislation, and buffered by reserves in the manner of a genuine insurer.

It recommended that the entitlement to reasonable support be enshrined in legislation. It

recommended, in plain words, that the scheme be given legislation “that protected the scheme

from political influences.“ The entire apparatus of insurance ² the separate fund, the actuarial

discipline, the long-term management of liabilities ² existed to serve a single end: to make

the entitlement turn on assessed need, and to place it beyond the easy reach of a future

government in search of savings.

The Commission was not naive about cost, and it matters to the honesty of this submission to

say so plainly. It made financial sustainability a specific statutory obligation of the Agency¶s

board, its management and the minister; it proposed that merits review be unable to widen

eligibility or entitlement; it built in safeguards against soft assessments and against fraud. The

point was never that the scheme should be uncapped or undisciplined. The point was the

direction of the relationship between need and money. In the Commission¶s design, assessed

need was the master variable and the financing was arranged around it; sustainability was to

be secured through insurance discipline, early investment and good data, not by capping what

people were entitled to receive. And ² this is the passage the Committee should weigh most

carefully of all ² the Commission named the failure mode in advance. It warned that the

scheme would be undermined at its core if governments¶ funding contributions ever again

came to reflect the vagaries of their budget cycles, or were set by “arbitrary criteria” such as

holding spending to a fixed path “despite growing needs.” Written in 2011, before a single

participant had been enrolled, that is a near-exact description of the logic on which the 2026

Bill is built. The Commission did not merely design the scheme. It told the country, in advance,

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The first was the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Established in 2019, it delivered its final report on 29 September 2023: twelve volumes, almost seven thousand pages, two hundred and twenty-two recommendations, built from the evidence of more than eight hundred witnesses across thirty-two public hearings in every state and territory, and from the experiences of close to ten thousand people. On the question at the very centre of this submission, its central finding was unambiguous, and it was unanimous. People who live, learn and work in segregated and congregate settings are more likely to be subjected to violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Every one of the six commissioners agreed that reform was needed to ensure that no person is ever compelled into a setting designed exclusively for disabled people. They divided only on how quickly such settings should be dismantled: four of the six recommended that group homes be phased out within fifteen years, and three of them – Commissioners Bennett, Galbally and McEwin, two of whom live with disability themselves – would have gone further, phasing out segregated education and employment as well, describing segregation as “an unconscionable policy default for Australia in the 21st century.” But the disagreement was about pace, not direction, after all.

The finding beneath it was shared by them all.

That finding is the most authoritative confirmation the country could possibly have of what the third section of this spine described. Congregation concentrates harm. The institution’s logic is dangerous wherever it survives, whatever it is now called, and however benign the brochure. It would be difficult to imagine a worse moment – measured against the nation’s own most exhaustive inquiry into the abuse of disabled people – than designing funding arrangements that quietly make congregate and shared provision the path of least resistance.

It is worth recording too, what became of these findings. When the Government responded in 2024, it accepted outright only a small fraction of the two hundred and twenty-two recommendations - by disability organisations’ count, thirteen - and the recommendations directed at segregation were among those it set aside on the stated ground that the commissioners had been divided. The division of the experts became the reason to do almost nothing. That, as well, is a pattern this submission has met before.

The second inquiry was the Independent Review of the NDIS. Announced in October 2022 and co-chaired by Professor Bruce Bonyhady and Ms Lisa Paul alongside a panel of experts, it delivered Working Together to Deliver the NDIS on 7 December 2023 – a report of some three hundred and thirty pages with twenty-six recommendations and a hundred and thirty-nine supporting actions drawn from more than ten thousand contributors over two thousand recorded personal stories and close to four thousand submissions. Its diagnosis wasn’t that the scheme had become too generous; rather, it noted its near ubiquity: the sole source of support for many disabled people because supports which ought to be available elsewhere have disappeared.

Submission 1922

                                                         We've Been Here Before ² NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

surround it ² in health, in education, in early childhood, in the community ² had thinned

away, partly because the scheme¶s own design gave states and mainstream services an

incentive to retreat and leave the Commonwealth to pay. The Review¶s central structural

answer was therefore to rebuild those surrounding supports ² “foundational supports,”

outside the scheme ² and, just as importantly, it set down the order in which reform had to

proceed if it was not to hurt the people it claimed to help.

It is here that the Review matters most to the present inquiry, and it matters in a particular

and careful way. Much of the disability community does not regard the Review as its own

document. Its members point to the fiscal frame that came before it ² National Cabinet had

already imposed an eight per cent annual growth cap on the scheme in April 2023, months

before the Review reported, so that the financial answer was substantially fixed before the

question had finished being asked. They point to the prominence in the process of the largest

service providers and their peak bodies, whose language of “market stewardship” the Review¶s

market chapters notably echo. And they point to the genuine co-design the Review itself called

for, which the community says has since been honoured mostly in its absence. They point to

recommendations that appear to have been made without substance or evidence to support

them. A glaring example is the recommendation that funding support for people with complex

needs (Particularly those requiring 24/7 support) should be based on a 1:3 shared support

ratio without any evidence to support the recommendation or it¶s origin. It is as though the

recommendation was written to confirm a predetermined funding policy or practice rather

than being drawn from the evidence presented to the Review. These concerns are real, and

they belong on the record. But the argument this submission makes does not rest on any of

them, and so they can be set aside. Take the Review entirely at its word. Read it as what its

critics say it is ² the government¶s own review, conducted on the government¶s own terms,

with the scheme¶s sustainability written into its objectives. Even then, even on that reading,

the Review laid down conditions that this Bill does not meet.

The Review said, in plain terms, that its recommendations “must be considered and

implemented as a package over a five-year transition period,“ and that implementation had to

be sequenced to “minimise disruptions for participants, providers and workers.” It said that

“improved availability, quality and effectiveness of foundational supports is a necessary

precondition for a range of other reforms, including for the participant pathway.“ It said that

existing participants should move across to any new arrangements smoothly, without losing

the support they rely on. And it said the work should be genuinely co-designed with disabled

people. These were not the community¶s demands forced upon a reluctant government. They

were the government¶s own review¶s conditions, attached by the review to its own

recommendations.

                               Flynn & Gregory ² joint submission    Page 50

Submission 1922

*We’ve Been Here Before² NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Set the reform timetable beside those conditions and the gap is plain², and it is the Government’s own timetable, set out by the Minister in April 2026, that opens it. The reforms do not arrive as the single, supports-first package the Review required. They arrive as a staggered sequence in which the cuts move first and the supports, if they arrive at all, arrive last. From late 2026, the budgets attached to social, civic and community participation – the funding that lets people leave the house, work, and take part in the life of their communities– begin to be reset downward, with the Minister signalling that average plans in this area should fall from around thirty-one thousand dollars to around twenty-six thousand. The new eligibility rules, which replace diagnosis-based access with standardised functional-capacity assessments and on which many people’s place in the scheme will turn, are to be phased in across 2027 and 2028. The new planning framework itself, originally promised sooner, has had to be put back to April 2027 because – on the Government’s own account – the system was not ready and more design work was needed. Meanwhile the foundational supports the Review called the precondition are not built. A National Agreement on Foundational Supports commenced only in February 2026; the supports themselves are still being designed, depend on further funding and on agreements with states and territories that have so far responded warily, and – in the words of the national peak body for people with disability – carry “no confirmed start date or guarantee they will be in place before other changes take effect.” The precondition is not scheduled to precede the change. It is not guaranteed to arrive at all.

The delay to the planning framework is no reassurance, because the resets to people’s budgets and the contraction of the scheme do not wait for readiness. The Government has said it expects participant numbers to fall from around seven hundred and sixty thousand today to around six hundred thousand by the end of the decade – a reduction of some hundred and sixty thousand people– without yet saying who will lose their place, or how. A contraction on that scale, set in train while the supports meant to catch people remain unbuilt and unguaranteed, is the withdraw-first pattern written at the scale of a population. And it is why this inquiry is not a formality: much of this timetable cannot lawfully proceed unless the Bill before the Committee is passed. The Bill is the key that turns it. The Committee is not being asked to comment on something already settled; it is being asked to decide whether the sequence described here is allowed to begin.

And it is, exactly, the second clause of this submission’s organising sentence made concrete. When systems forget, people are harmed; when nations forget, history repeats. The country is repeating now, in the precise grammar the Review tried to rule out, the pattern this spine has traced from the asylums forward: withdraw the support first, promise the replacement later, and leave the disabled person to fall through the gap that opens in between. It is the same sequence the deinstitutionalisation era ran – the closures embraced, the community supports

Submission 1922

WWe’ve Been Here Before – NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

ever funded to match² and it is the sequence the foundational supports precondition was writen to prevent. We have, once again, learned the lesson, written it down in our own official report, and then set about ignoring what we wrote.

The record as it stood when the Bill now before the Committee was introduced: A Royal Commission that found, on the largest body of evidence ever gathered, that congregation and segration concentrate harm. A Review that² even on the most sceptical reading available, even taken as the government’s own² said foundational supports must come first, that the eforms must move together as a package, that disruption to existing participants must be minimised, and that disabled people must help design the changes that govern their lives. The Bill is the measure of whether any of that was heard.

the remainder of this submission turns from the history to the bill itself. It does so in the order the collection has been built: First through the works of evidence and analysis gathered here, which show from the inside what the scheme’s failures already cost real people; Then through the Government’s justifications for this Bill, tested one at a time against the Bill’s own ovisions and against the review’s own words, with the crosswalk between the two set out in full at Appendix F; And finally through what a lawful, rights-respecting reform would actually look like, and the recommendations this submission asks the committee to make. The History is now complete. What remains is to hold the bill up against it ² Against the institutions we buit and the harm they did, against the reckoning and the promise we only half kept, against the Rights the movement won and the convention we signed and hedged, against the blueprint i commissioned and the warnings we have only just finished writing down. The country has in before. It does not have to arrive in the same place again.

Flynn & Gregory – joint submission Page 52

Movement II – The View from Inside the Scheme

The spine established one proposition: this country forgets disabled people by habit, not by accident. It withdraws a support that has grown expensive or awkward, and fails to fund the replacement that was the whole justification for the withdrawal. It did this when it closed the asylums and left the community supports unbuilt. It is positioned to do it again—at the scale of a whole population, on its own published timetable. That is the second clause of this submission’s organising sentence: when nations forget, history repeats.

But a nation is an abstraction, and “history repeats” is a quiet phrase for something that is never quiet for the people it happens to. The pattern does not befall “the sector” or “the scheme.” It befalls a person, in a home, on the morning the rostered worker does not come, or when the funding for a wheelchair runs out before the wheelchair arrives. What reads in a budget paper as a movement on a line is lived, at the other end, as a body left unmoved, a medication not given, a choke not noticed. The first half of this collection showed the country forgetting at the altitude of its own history. The task now is to bring the argument down to the ground the forgetting actually lands on – from the nation to the person, from the second clause of the sentence to the first. When systems forget, people are harmed.

to make that turn, the collection opens with a work written from the one vantage point from which the harm can be seen whole: from inside it, and with the discipline to explain it. It is the work from which the argument that runs through this whole collection is drawn. When the System Forgets to Listen is the work of Daniel Flynn, who has spent two decades both depending on the National Disability Insurance Scheme as a participant with high and complex support needs and working in governance and systems design. It is written from two chairs at once: the person whose life the scheme funds, and the analyst whose trade is understanding why large systems fail the people they were built to serve. The lived experience is the evidence; the systems analysis is the method; the work’s authority comes from holding the two together.

The combination answers the two ways a work like this is usually set aside. A submission written purely from lived experience can be dismissed as anecdote—moving, but particular. A submission written purely from technical expertise can be dismisssed as abstraction — rigorous, but remote from the lives it would rearrange. When the System Forgets to Listen resists both, because each standpoint disciplines the other. The lived experience ties every structural claim to a consequence a real person would feel; the analysis shows that what happened to one participant is the predictable output of a design, not the misfortune of a single case. The result is what the Committee most needs and is least often given: an account that explains a mechanism and shows its human cost in the same breath, so the governing question

Flynn & Gregory – joint submission Page 53

Submission 1922

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before² - NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

shows the same forgetting at the scale of a single life – and insists, as the spine did, that the warning is being issued before the harm, while the Bill is still before the Parliament. The coun­try wrote its his­tory af­ter the fact, in the lan­guage of re­gret. This pa­per is writ­ten in time, in the langauge of preven­tion. What it asks is the one thing the rec­ord shows the na­tion has al­ways foud hardeset: to lis­ten now, whilst listning can stil chaneg teh out come.

it is reprodced herin ful an undited.

Flynn & Gregory – Joint Submission

p. 55

Submission 1922

When the System Forgets to Listen

Systems Design, Human Rights, Safety, and the Human Cost of NDIS Regression

Prepared by: Daniel Flynn Date: 28^th May, 2026

Submission 1922

W H E N T H E S Y S T E M F O R G E T S T O L I S T E N 2

C O N T E N T S

Executive summary...........................................................................................................5

The warning Ȅ what happens when systems stop listening………………………………… 10

      Introduction.................................................................................................................10

 Chapter 1 The system was built to serve people, not itself..................................... 12

 Chapter 2  Listening is a safety control..................................................................... 13

 Chapter 3 The difference between risk management and risk transfer.................15

The original promise Ȅ choice, control, ordinary life, and rights………………………… 17

 Chapter 4 The 2011 blueprint and the promise of the NDIS...................................18

   The diagnosis the blueprint began with................................................................ 18

  What the blueprint actually promised...................................................................18

   The condition the blueprint attached: co-design as a precondition of success..19

 How the preconditions were stripped away......................................................... 20

 Chapter 5 The UNCRPD and the right to live in the community......................... 23

 Chapter 6 What "a good and ordinary life" actually means.................................. 26

 Chapter 7  Disabled people are not merely cost centres.........................................27

The design failure Ȅ safety reforms that became unsafe……………………………………..29

 Chapter 8 Good intent is not good design..............................................................29

 Chapter 9 The high-intensity support changes as a case study............................ 30

 Chapter 10 The historical working model................................................................ 31

 Chapter 11  Medicalisation is not the same as safety............................................... 32

 Chapter 12 Thin markets and regional reality.........................................................35

 Chapter 13  Standardisation can protect some and abandon others......................36

 Chapter 14  False co-design and the capture of language....................................... 37

 Chapter 15 The eight tenets of co-design Ȅ and the system that stopped
      listening....................................................................................................................... 39

The Lived Reality……………………………………………………………………………………………… 44

  Displacement, Loss of Home, and Loss of Ordinary Life........................................ 44

 Chapter 16 Twenty years of self-directed support.................................................. 45

 Chapter 17 When "sorry, we can't make it" is a safety event................................. 48

 Chapter 18 Community connection is a safety control.......................................... 50

 Chapter 19  Displacement from home.......................................................................51

 Chapter 20 What would be required to rebuild life...............................................56

 Chapter 21 The problem with shared ratios.............................................................61

Submission 1922

W H E N T H E S Y S T E M F O R G E T S T O L I S T E N

Chapter List

• Chapter 22 Choice of home, housemates, and support workers……………..63
• Chapter 23 The regression toward robotic service delivery……………………………..65
• Chapter 24 Support as the infrastructure of contribution……………………………….66
• Foreseeable Harm Foreseeable harm – the people the system was warned about……………………………. 71
• Chapter 25 Foreseeable harm as a fact, not a prediction………………………………….71
• Chapter 26 The Royal Commission’s findings as the central record…………………72
• Chapter 27 The longer record – the campaign, the Senate inquiry, the long deinstitutionalisation……………………………………………………………………………………..74
• Chapter 28 The coronial trail…………………………………………………………………….76
• Chapter 29 Mortality data and investigative journalism as parallel public records …………………………………………………………………………………………………78
• Chapter 30 What the record establishes – and what the Bill does anyway…….79
• The Bill – how current reforms risk legislating regression…………………………………..81
• Chapter 31 The stated purpose and the real question………………………………………81
• Chapter 32 The change beneath all the others – rewriting whose plan it is…… 84
• Chapter 33 Measuring the wrong thing – functional capacity, the “naked person”, and what disability actually is……………………………………………………………86
• Chapter 34 Reasonable and necessary, and the quiet inversion of the test……… 89
• Chapter 35 Caps, ratios, and the abandonment of individualised support……….90
• Chapter 36 The plan that resets itself – automated forfeiture and the wheelchair that never arrives…………………………………………………………………….92
• Chapter 37 Suspension by silence – the power that punishes the unreachable 94
• Chapter 38 Information powers and the auditing of a life…………………………… 96
• Chapter 39 Fraud, compliance, and the imagination of the participant as a risk97
• Chapter 40 Registration, plan management, and the shape of the market……. 98
• Chapter 41 Automation and the disappearance of the decision-maker………….. 100
• Chapter 42 The new planning framework and the assessment that misses the person…………………………………………………………………………………101
• Chapter 43 The cost the government is not counting – fiscal, structural, and moral……………………………………………………………………………….102
• Chapter 44 The longer pattern – Bills are events; design failures are trajectories ………………………………………………………………………………. 109

The way back – a rights-based, safety-based, participant-led alternative…………… 112

• Chapter 45 Start with the outcome, not the line item……………………….112
• Chapter 46 Safety through harm minimisation, not zero-risk fantasy……… 114
• Chapter 47 Rebuild co-design as the discipline it actually is……………..115

Chapter 48 Preserve participant-directed support, and protect the clinicians who

make it work.

Chapter 49 Design for thin markets, not metropolitan averages.

Chapter 50 Keep disability supports in hospital where they are needed.

Chapter 51 Redesign oversight around real outcomes.

Conclusion – the warning Parliament must hear.

The content this paper has established.

What is at stake.

The false choice the reform asks the country to accept.

To borrow Santayana – what foreseeable harm now requires us to remember.

What is asked of the reader.

Closing

References

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

Submission 1922

W H E N T H E S Y S T E M F O R G E T S T O L I S T E N 5

Executive summary

This paper forms part of a submission concerning the Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026. It examines the Bill, and the longer trajectory of policy decisions that produced it, through the combined lens of systems design and lived experience – asking not whether the Bill is lawful, which is a question for others, but what it will do to the people the National Disability Insurance Scheme exists to serve. This summary states the paper’s central claim, the evidence on which it rests, and the recommendations it makes to the Parliament; it is written to be read on its own, and the full argument follows in the body.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme was designed in 2011 to do something specific and worthwhile: to give people with significant and permanent disability lifetime certainty of support, genuine choice and control over their own lives, and a realistic opportunity to live an ordinary life in the community rather than in institutional care. That design, set out in the Productivity Commission’s Disability Care and Support report, was sound. It was also conditional. The Commission attached to it two preconditions for long-term success – a protected, certain funding base, and sustained co-design with the disability community – and warned that the scheme would need both to keep working across the decades. Both were among the first things abandoned.

This paper traces what has happened in the fifteen years since, and arrives at a single conclusion: the scheme becomes dangerous to the people who most depend on it whenever it stops listening to them. It is not a claim that the scheme was badly conceived, that cost does not matter, or that no inefficiency exists. It is a claim that a long accretion of operationally expedient and fiscally convenient decisions has progressively departed from the original design, with the cost borne by participants with high and complex support needs and by the long-term viability of the scheme itself – and that the legislation now before the Parliament, the Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026, would convert that drift into law.

Submission 1922

W H E N T H E S Y S T E M F O R G E T S T O L I S T E N 6

The paper’s findings, in brief, are these.

The scheme’s funding was deliberately left exposed. The entrenched, formula-based

funding the Commission recommended was never built; twice Ȅ in 2014 and again

in 2017 Ȅ successive governments declined to put the scheme on a secure footing,

and chose instead to treat it as ordinary annual expenditure. A scheme funded as a

protected entitlement is governed as an investment; a scheme re-argued each

budget is governed as a liability. The decade delivered the second.

Reforms presented as safety measures have too often produced the opposite. The

changes to high-intensity supports illustrate the pattern: a framework that, on its

face, preserved the worker-delivered, clinician-trained model that has kept people

with complex needs living in the community, but that Ȅ through its interaction

with professional-liability rules, thin markets, and audit pressure Ȅ made that

model unsustainable in practice. The result has been the withdrawal of the

clinicians the model depends on, and the displacement of people from their homes.

This is not safety; it is risk displacement, and it lands hardest on the people least

able to absorb it.

The harm that follows the withdrawal of support is not speculative. It is

documented, exhaustively, in the public record: in the Royal Commission into

Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, which found

that congregated and group-home settings have not eliminated institutional harm

and estimated the annual societal cost of that harm at approximately $46 billion; in

a parliamentary record stretching back through the 2015 Senate inquiry that found

the abuse of disabled Australians in institutional settings to be an "epidemic"; in a

long coronial trail of named, preventable deaths; in the regulator's own analysis of

more than nine thousand deaths, showing a rate of potentially avoidable death 3.6

times that of the general population; and in a decade of investigative journalism.

The harm is foreseeable not as a worry but as a record Ȅ a record held by the very

institutions of the Commonwealth now legislating in apparent disregard of it.

The Bill, examined against its own text, would: replace the participant-centred

planning principles in the Act (the statutory expression of choice and control) with

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

Submission 1922

W H E N T H E S Y S T E M F O R G E T S T O L I S T E N
7 principles oriented to scheme sustainability; define disability through a “functional capacity” test that excludes the person’s environment and supports — measuring, in effect, something the modern and internationally accepted definition of disability says is not disability at all; permit caps on funding, support intensity, and worker- to-participant ratios to be set below the cost of a person’s actual need; automatically strip approved one-off and capital funding from a plan at its renewal, with no reviewable decision attached, in a way that can be fully automated; allow suspension and eventual revocation of a participant’s access on undefined thresholds of “reasonable” contact attempts; and build an integrity architecture that treats participants as compliance subjects rather than as the people the scheme exists to serve. Taken together, these provisions reorient the scheme away from the participant and toward the budget. The reform is being justified as sustainability. On the magnitudes its own architects have published—a reduction of roughly one-third in projected scheme cost by 2030, achieved partly by removing some 160,000 current participants and partly by preventing the entry of a larger group who would otherwise have joined, alongside a reduction in the average plan of close to a fifth—the paper finds the sustainability case does not hold even on its own terms. The contraction will withdraw, on independent peak-body modelling, around 200,000 jobs across the economy; it will push disabled people and their family carers out of the workforce and onto income support, transferring cost from one part of the federal Budget to others rather than removing it; it contradicts the government’s own stated objective of raising the chronically low employment rate of disabled people; and it will force participants back into the very settings the Royal Commission has just identified as the locus of the worst harms — increasing, not reducing, the largest category of disability- elated public cost. A scheme that destroys the lives it was funded to enable has not become sustainable. It has become something else. The paper does not argue for the status quo. It argues for a return to the design the Commission set out and the conditions the Commission attached to it. Part 7 sets out what that requires: planning that begins with the participant’s outcome rather than the line item; safety built on harm minimisation rather than zero-risk

WHEN THE SYSTEM FORGETS TO LISTEN

8

avoidance and on the early intervention the allied health professions have practised for half a century; the eight tenets of genuine co-design, built into the scheme as a governance discipline; the preservation of participant-directed support and the protection of the clinicians who make it work; design for thin markets rather than metropolitan averages; continuity of disability support through hospital admission; and oversight that measures real outcomes, openly and with the community, rather than administrative outputs alone.

The paper’s recommendation to the Parliament follows necessarily from that finding. It is not that the Bill should be amended. The paper demonstrates that the Bill is fundamentally flawed — flawed in its foundations, not its details: it measures, as the gateway to the scheme, something that is not disability and that the scheme’s own founding Convention says is not disability; it replaces the participant-centred principles that express choice and control with principles oriented to the scheme’s cost; and it inverts the meaning of reasonable and necessary, building everything else on those inverted foundations. A flaw of that kind cannot be amended out, because it lies in the ideas that informed the drafting rather than in any single provision an amendment could reach. There is no version of this Bill, however amended, that is safe or fair. The only course consistent with the evidence is that the Bill be withdrawn, and that a genuine process of co-design begin in its place Ȅ co-design as this paper defines it, with disabled people sharing authority from the start over the ideas, the design, the instruments, the implementation, and the monitoring, and free to consider every path forward rather than a predetermined one. Part 7 of this paper sketches the substance such a process would be likely to recover; it is offered as an indication of what genuine reform contains, not as a substitute for the co-design that alone can legitimately produce it.

The choice before the Parliament is, in the end, the choice the whole paper is about: whether the scheme will listen now, while there is still time to prevent harm, or whether it will wait for a future inquiry to tell the country what disabled people are already saying. The record of what they are saying is in front of the Parliament. They have done their part.

Submission 1922

The remainder of this paper makes that case in full. The introduction that follows sets out what the paper is, the disciplines it draws on, and the structure of the argument; the eight parts after it carry the analysis, the lived testimony, and the evidence on which the summary above rests.

Submission 1922

W H E N T H E S Y S T E M F O R G E T S T O L I S T E N 10

P A R T 0 1

The warning – what happens when systems stop listening

Introduction

it is worth being clear at the outset about the kind of document this is, because it determines what weight its claims should be given. This is a systems-design and lived-experience analysis. It is written by someone who has spent two decades both depending on the scheme as a participant with high and complex support needs and working professionally in governance, systems design, and the architecture of accountable institutions. It draws its authority from two sources held together: the direct experience of living inside the system the paper describes, and the analytical disciplines used to examine how systems succeed and fail.

it is not a legal opinion. the Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 raises a great many questions of law — about its consistency with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, about administrative fairness, about the construction of its provisions — and those questions are being examined, thoroughly and well, by disability and human-rights lawyers. This paper does not attempt that work and does not trespass on it. Where it refers to the bill, it cites the legislation to anchor and verify what it says, but its concern is not how a provision should be legally construed; its concern is what a provision does to a person, and why that is the predictable result of a system that has stopped listening. The bill is treated throughout as evidence for the papers argument, not as the subject of a legal critique.

nor is this paper a defence of the status quo. the scheme as it currently operates is not the scheme the 2011 blueprint described, and this paper is in many respects a

Submission 1922

W H E N T H E S Y S T E M F O R G E T S TO LISTEN 11

sustained criticism of how far the current scheme has drifted from that design.

There are real inefficiencies in the scheme. Fraud occurs, and it is serious. Costs matter, and sustainability is a genuine consideration that no honest analysis can wave away. The paper concedes each of these things plainly, and then makes a different argument: that none of them justifies the magnitude, the design, or the human incidence of the contraction now proposed, and that the contraction will, on the evidence, fail even on its own fiscal terms while doing grave and foreseeable harm.

The paper is built in eight parts. This first Part sets out the three foundational propositions on which everything else rests — that the system exists to serve people rather than itself; that listening to those people is not a courtesy but a safety mechanism; and that much of what is presented as risk management is in fact risk transfer. Part 2 establishes the baseline: the 2011 blueprint, the rights framework drawn from the Convention, the meaning of an ordinary life, and the case against treating disabled people as costs. Part 3 examines the design failure—how reforms presented as safety have too often produced the opposite—and sets out the discipline of genuine co-design. Part 4 is the lived reality, written in the first person, and is the evidentiary and moral spine of the paper. Part 5 establishes that the harm which follows is foreseeable, assembled entirely from the public record. Part 6 examines the Bill against its own text, and the fiscal, structural, and moral costs its own case does not count. Part 7 sets out the alternative. Part 8 returns to the central warning and addresses those in a position to act on it.

A final word on why this warning is issued now. Papers of this kind are often written after the fact—after the inquiry, after the harm, after the country has been told by a Royal Commission what it might have known in time. This one is written before. The Bill is before the Parliament; the consultation processes for the operational instruments that will follow it have not all closed. The forgetting this paper describes is not, for the most part, the result of ill will. It is the result of a system under pressure doing what systems under pressure do, in the absence of the structural mechanisms that would force it to keep the person in view. Those mechanisms can be rebuilt, and the chapters that follow are the case for rebuilding them while it still makes a difference.

Submission 1922

W H E N T H E S Y S T E M F O R G E T S T O L I S T E N 12

Chapter 1 The system was built to serve people, not itself

Every large system, left to run, tends to optimise for the things it can most easily

measure and the pressures it most immediately feels. A disability support scheme

feels budget pressure immediately and measures expenditure easily. It feels the

pressure of administrative complexity immediately and measures throughput easily.

What it does not feel immediately, and cannot measure easily, is whether a

particular person is living a life they would recognise as their own Ȅ whether they

are safe in their home, present in their community, able to work or study or

contribute, in control of the arrangements that shape their day. Those things are

the entire purpose of the scheme, and they are precisely the things a system under

pressure will tend to stop attending to, because nothing in its daily operation forces

 it to. This is the first proposition of the paper, and the one the title turns on: a

system can, in a real and operative sense, forget the people it was built to serve.

 It matters, then, to be precise about what the National Disability Insurance Scheme

actually is, because the public debate has increasingly described it as something it is

not. It is routinely discussed as a welfare payment, a line of social-services

expenditure, a transfer from taxpayers to recipients Ȅ a program to be made

affordable. For the people at the centre of this paper, it is none of those things. It is

infrastructure. It is the set of supports that make daily life physically possible: that

make breathing, eating, bathing, communicating, moving, working, parenting,

participating, and being safe possible. For a person who depends on a ventilator, on

complex bowel care, on trained workers to transfer them or to manage a

tracheostomy, the supports the scheme funds are not assistance with life; they are

the conditions of it. To call that "welfare" is a category error, and it is a category

error with consequences, because what a system believes it is funding determines

what it believes it can cut.

The consequence shows itself most sharply at the point of failure. For a person with

low support needs, a missed shift or an undertrained worker is an inconvenience Ȅ

a frustration, a delay, a day gone wrong. For a person with high and complex needs,

the same events are not inconveniences; they are dangers. A worker who does not

arrive can mean a person left in bed, unfed, unmedicated, or unable to manage a

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bodily function that does not wait. An undertrained worker can mean a ventilator mismanaged, a transfer done unsafely, a pressure injury begun, a choke unrecognised. An inappropriate support ratio can mean that the one-to-one attention a person needs to be safe is simply not present when the moment comes.

These are not hypothetical edge cases; they are the ordinary, foreseeable failure modes of a system that supports people whose lives depend on it, and they are the reason this paper treats support failure as a safety matter rather than a service-quality one.

This is the key line to hold onto as the rest of the paper unfolds, because the entire argument about cost and sustainability turns on it. When a planning decision, a funding cap, or a budget process concludes that a particular support cannot be funded, the meaning of that conclusion depends entirely on who the person is. For some people, “we cannot fund that” means reduced convenience. For the people this paper is about, the same words mean reduced safety, reduced participation, reduced life, and – in cases the later Parts will document from the public record – reduced survival. A system that does not hold that distinction firmly in view will make decisions that look, on its own ledgers, like prudent economy, and that are, in the lives they touch, something far graver. The scheme was built to serve those lives. The moment it begins to serve its own convenience instead, it stops doing the only thing that justified building it.

Chapter 2 Listening is a safety control

If the first proposition is that the system exists to serve people, the second follows directly from it and is, if anything, more often forgotten: listening to those people is not a matter of courtesy or good manners. It is a safety mechanism – a load-bearing component of how a disability support system stays safe – and a system that stops listening does not merely become less pleasant to deal with. It becomes less safe, in a way it cannot see from the inside.

The reason is a basic principle of systems design. Any system that operates in a complex, variable, real-world environment depends on feedback loops to function safely: mechanisms by which information about how the system is actually performing flows back to those who design and run it, so that failures are detected

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The predictable results follow in sequence: a system that does not listen will misidentify the risks that actually threaten people, because it is woking from a model of their lives rather than their lives; it will design safeguards instead, paper; an each traces back to the same root: the feedback loop was severed, and the system stoppped knowing what it was doing.

A safe disability support system must be able to safety sensor. a test of whether it has listened.

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and corrected before they compound. Remove the feedback loop, and a system loses the ability to tell the difference between working and failing; it continues to execute its procedures, generating outputs that look orderly on paper, while therealityon the ground diverges further and farther fromwhattheproceduresassume. Inadisabilitysupportsystem, themostdirectandinformation-richfeedbackloopavailableisthelivedexperienceofthepeoplethesystemsupports. Theyaretheonestowho knowbeforeanyoneelseandoftenbeforeitappearsanydatasetwhenasupportmodelisfailing, whenasafeguardishollow, orreformthatlookedsensibleinapolicydocumenthasmadetheirlifelesssafe. Thisiswhythetreatmenoflivedexperiencenotasoftorsecondaryconcern. When asystemtreatsaccountsdisabledpeoplemerelyanecdotal, asemotionalasinconvenientasscondarytothehardercurenyadministrative dataitisnotmakingadefensiblemethodologicalchoiceItisswitchingoffitsprimarysafetySensorThepredictableresultsfollowsequence:aSystemthtdoesntlistenwillmisidentifytherisksactuallythreaten peoplebecauseworkingfromamodeltheir livesratherthan theirlivesdesignsafegurdsaddressriskitimagines rather thanexistproducingfalss safeguardsrecurthroughoutthispaperandmeasurewrong outcomescongratulating itselfonthemetricscan collectwhilethingsmattergo unmeasuredunseenEach ofthesefailure safetytracesbacksameroott feedback loopwassevered systemstoppedknowing what wasdoing Thereisasimpletstwhether a Systemclaimsbe safe actually istest whetherithaslistenedAsafe disabilitysupportsystemmustableanswerconcretlywhat happensat thepointswhereparticipantsmostexposedWhat happenstheworkerdoes notarrive? What happenthevtilatorfails? Whathappenshospitalstaffcannotmeetaperson’sdailydisability supportneedsduringadmission?Whahappenwhenaregionalmarket hasnocliniciansortrainedworkersavailable?Wht hppns whenstandardizedtrainingdoesn’tcverparticularperson’saactual needs. Wha ppenwhentarticipant cannotrespondtoanagencycontactattemptwithinbureaucratic timeframehatp pen personfundingcutfrozenor

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delayed? These are not rhetorical questions; they are the real situations in which people are harmed, and the answers are known – known to the people who have lived them. A system that has listened will have answers, because it will have heard these scenarios described and designed for them. A system that cannot answer them has not listened, and a system that has not listened is not safe, whatever its in documentation claims. The later Parts of this paper return to each of these questions in turn; the point here is that the questions themselves come from listening, and the inability to answer them comes from its absence.

Chapter 3: The difference between risk management and risk transfer

The third foundational proposition concerns a distinction that the language of reform persistently blurs, and that this paper will rely on throughout: the difference between managing a risk and merely moving it. Reforms presented in the vocabulary of safety, integrity, and sustainability frequently describe themselves as risk management. Many of them, examined closely, are not managing risk at all. They are transferring it – shifting it off the government’s ledger and onto someone else’s: onto participants, onto families, onto hospitals, onto thin markets, onto informal supports, onto undertrained workers. The risk does not disappear. It lands somewhere less visible, and usually somewhere less able to bear it.

The distinction is worth stating precisely, because everything depends on it. Genuine risk management begins by identifying a foreseeable harm and then designs and resources a control that actually prevents it, or reduces its likelihood, or limits its consequences – and it retains responsibility for the harm throughout. Risk transfer performs none of those steps. It identifies a harm, or a cost, that is currently sits with the system, and it relocates the exposure to some other party, while presenting the relocation as though it were a solution. The system’s own books look better afterwards; its accountability has been discharged on paper. But nothing has been controlled, prevented, or made safer. The harm has simply been moved to where it is harder to see and easier to disown.

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The pattern, once named, becomes visible everywhere in the current reforms, and the later Parts of this paper document each instance in detail. Pushing a person toward hospital when their NDIS supports fail is risk transfer: the person is not safer in a ward not configured for their disability support needs; the risk and the cost have merely moved from the scheme to the health system. Expecting families to absorb unmet support needs is risk transfer: the need does not vanish, it is loaded onto unpaid carers until they, too, break. Requiring a participant to prove why a shared support ratio is unsafe for them – rather than the system demonstrating that it is safe – is risk transfer: the burden of the system’s cost-saving is placed on the person least equipped to carry it. Treating thin regional markets as though they can deliver metropolitan service models is risk transfer onto the participant who lives where the services are not. Using standardised training categories that do not fit a person’s actual, complex needs is risk transfer onto the worker sent in undertrained and the person they support. Ceasing or reducing a support while asserting that a mainstream system should manage the issue is risk transfer dressed as demarcation. In each case the move is the same, and so is the sleight of hand: a relocation of exposure is presented as a reduction of it.

This is the key line the paper will return to whenever a reform claims the language of responsibility: a system has not made a person safer by moving them from the NDIS budget line to a hospital bed, to a family in crisis, or to an institutional setting. It has only made its own ledger look more responsible while making the person’s life less safe. The test of any provision that presents itself as managing risk is therefore a simple one – does it prevent the harm, or does it merely move it?– and it is a test that a great deal of the legislation now before the Parliament does not pass. These three propositions – that the system exists to serve people, that listening to them is a safety control, and that moving risk is not the same as managing it – are the foundation on which the rest of this paper is built. The chapters that follow show, in detail and against the record, what has happened as each of them has been forgotten.

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P A R T 0 2

The original promise ² choice, control, ordinary life, and rights

This Part establishes the baseline against which everything that follows is judged. It

 is deliberately placed before the analysis of design failure, because a departure can

only be measured against the thing departed from. The argument of this paper is

not that the National Disability Insurance Scheme was badly conceived. It is that

the scheme was, in its essentials, well-conceived Ȅ and that the years since have

been a slow, accreting departure from that conception, driven less by what disabled

people need than by what was administratively convenient, politically defensible, or

 fiscally expedient in any given year.

To make that argument, this Part does four things. It returns to the 2011 blueprint

and shows that the blueprint did not merely propose a scheme; it specified the

conditions under which the scheme would succeed or fail Ȅ and that two of those

conditions, sustained co-design and protected funding, were among the first things

abandoned. It then sets out the rights framework, drawn from the Convention on

the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, that gives the scheme its moral and legal

foundation. It defines what "an ordinary life" actually means, because the phrase

has been used so often that its content has been allowed to thin. And it confronts

directly the idea that people with high and complex support needs are best

understood as costs to be managed.

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Chapter 4 The 2011 Blueprint and the Promise of the NDIS

The diagnosis the blueprint began with

The National Disability Insurance Scheme did not emerge from nowhere.

A diagnosis emerged. In 2011 the Productivity Commission delivered its inquiry report Disability Care and Support, publicly released on 10 August 2011, and the diagnosis it offered was unsparing. The Commission found that the disability support arrangements then in place across Australia were inequitable, underfunded, fragmented and inefficient, and that they gave disabled people little genuine choice and no certainty that support would be available when needed. It went further than cataloguing faults. It concluded that existing arrangements could not honestly be described as a system at all — that various programs, payments and services did not work together toward any coherent outcome (Productivity Commission 2011).

That finding matters for this paper because it tells us what the NDIS was built against: rationing by postcode and good luck; being told, effectively, that necessary support might simply be unavailable one year or state or program. The Commission’s central recommendation followed directly from the diagnosis: Australia needed a coherent national system with substantially more and better-directed resourcing—critically—a decisive shift in decision making power towards people with disabilities and their families (Productivity Commission 2011). This reform wasn’t initially about spending but redistributing authority away from systems to individuals, using funding as an instrument rather than its purpose.

The blueprint actually promised lifetime support and certainty instead of crisis driven episodic intervention. It pledged measured support based on…

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reasonable and necessary for the individual, rather than by what happened to be available. It promised that funded supports would be grounded in evidence and sound practice. And it promised social and economic participation as an objective in its own right – not a hoped-for side effect, but a purpose the scheme existed to serve (Productivity Commission 2011).

When the scheme was legislated, that purpose was carried into law. A bill to establish the NDIS was introduced into the Commonwealth Parliament in November 2012, and the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 passed both houses in March 2013, with trial sites commencing from July 2013 (People with Disability Australia 2022; NDIS 2026). The Act was framed expressly to give effect to Australia’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the scheme was described from the outset as social insurance rather than welfare – a distinction that, as later Parts of this paper will argue, the scheme has increasingly honoured in name more than in operation (People with Disability Australia 2022).

This is the first half of the blueprint: a rights-based, insurance-based, participant-directed scheme, designed to replace a non-system that had failed disabled people for generations. On the evidence, it was sound. The argument of this paper does not require defending every detail of the 2011 design, and it does not pretend the scheme was ever going to be simple to build. But the foundational architecture – certainty, lifetime horizon, reasonable and necessary support, decision-making shifted to the person, participation as a goal – was right. It is the foundation this paper asks Parliament to return to.

The condition the blueprint attached: co-design as a precondition of success

There is a second half of the blueprint that is too often forgotten, and it is decisive for the thesis of this paper. The Commission did not present its scheme as a finished object to be switched on. It presented reform as work that had to be built, deliberately and in stages, with the disability community as a partner rather than an audience. The point was made plainly at the time: significant foundational work

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had to be done before the design could be settled, and that work needed to begin immediately and in partnership (Australian Government 2011).

in other words, the blueprint treated sustained engagement with disabled people not as a courtesy, and not as a launch-phase formality, but as a structural condition of the scheme working at all and continuing to work across the decades ahead. This is the same point made, in systems-design language, throughout this paper: lived experience is the disability support system’s most direct feedback loop, and a system that loses that feedback loop loses the information it needs to detect its own failures. The Commission, in effect, designed that feedback loop into the reform.

The promise of the NDIS was never only a promise about what would be funded. It was also a promise about how decisions would continue to be made – with disabled people, not merely for them.

How the preconditions were stripped away

What happened next is the beginning of the story this paper is really about. Within months of the Act passing both houses, the political ground beneath the scheme shifted. The government that had legislated the NDIS lost office at the September 2013 federal election, and the incoming government did not share the founding vision in the same terms (NDIS 2026). The change was not merely a change of administration. Over the decade that followed, the public conversation about the scheme was steadily reframed. What had been presented as a generational social investment – a once-in-a-generation reform comparable to Medicare – was increasingly discussed as a line of expenditure: billions of dollars of cost, measured against the budget, rather than billions of dollars of return, measured against the lives, participation, and prevented harm it produced. Australian media analysis of the period bears this out: the dominant frame applied to the NDIS became cost-as- problem, and that framing carried a persistently negative portrayal of the scheme (Chinnappa et al. 2025).

The funding architecture tells the same story, and it is here that the Coalition’s posture toward the scheme first becomes visible. When the Productivity Commission considered the question in 2011, its preferred recommendation was unambiguous: the Commonwealth should finance the entire cost of the scheme

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The system’s funding was sourced from consolidated revenue paid into a legislated National Disability Insurance Premium Fund under a formula entrenched in legislation—precisely so that the scheme’s funding could not be rationed away year to year. A hypothecated tax was considered but expressly not recommended, on the ground that full hypothecation could lack flexibility (Productivity Commission 2011; The Conversation 2013).

That entrenched, certain funding base was never built. The half-percentage-point Medicare levy increase—from 1.5 to 2 per cent—was a measure of Labor’s 2013 Budget, supported at the time by the Coalition in opposition and commenced on July 1, 2014 with its proceeds directed into the DisabilityCare Australia Fund (Department of Finance 2026). By the time the increase took effect Tony Abbott was Prime Minister, his government did not move to place the scheme on footing it had been previously advised upon. The levied funds were never fully quarantined for use within this program - instead they became part of an allocation pool which states would only draw down against when conditions are met rather than being guaranteed as entitlement based on pre determined formulas designed earlier during planning stages – all dependent now however still reliant heavily both consolidated revenue streams alongside regular annual budget reviews too( Department Of Finances’ official records indicate such shifts occurred ; UNSW research corroborates these observations ). The first opportunity given towards securing long term stability proved missed.

A second chance presented itself but declined outright . It has always remained understood that costs associated directly will inevitably escalate over periods requiring additional financial support beyond initial allocations; consequently ,during their own budgetary process back then Turnbull administration proposed exactly what needed doing namely further increasing levies from two percent up toward twenty five-percent mark just so growing expenses could be covered—yet ultimately abandoned plan favoring general taxation income alternatives mirroring actions taken subsequently matched later onwards.(UNSW reports confirm details surrounding events like those mentioned while Guardian newspaper also documented similar occurrences).

The pattern is significant: twice Commonwealth possessed clear opportunities establishing secure foundations underpinning longevity through measures entrenching levy along with dedicated funding mechanisms ensuring sustainable growth trajectory following commencement phase, yet each instance saw rejection under successive Coalition governments opting treat NDIS ordinary government expenditure line item subject periodic review.

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argued for and against at each budget like any other. I do not present this as a neutral fiscal accident, and the consequences were not neutral. A scheme whose funding is treated as a settled, protected entitlement is governed as an investment; a scheme whose funding is re-argued every year is governed as a liability. The Commission’s blueprint asked for the first. The decade that followed delivered the second — and it is that choice, repeated and made in the face of explicit advice, that largely accounts for the fiscal position from which every later argument about “sustainability” has since been launched.

The funding decisions were not the whole of it. They sit within a longer pattern, sustained across roughly a decade of successive Coalition governments, in which the scheme was constrained, under-resourced, and reshaped through several channels at once. Three examples stand for many. First, resourcing: in the 2014 Budget the Abbott government imposed an Average Staffing Level cap of 3,000 on the National Disability Insurance Agency’s direct employees—against the agency’s own estimate that full implementation would require around 10,000—a cap that forced heavy reliance on outsourced labour hire and that both the Productivity Commission and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet later recommended be scrapped (AAP FactCheck 2019). Second, access: from 2020 the Morrison government pursued compulsory “independent assessments”, under which a government-contracted allied health professional would determine a participant’s funding through a single assessment of a few hours; the proposal was opposed by a coalition of disability advocacy organisations and by the NDIS’s own Independent Advisory Council, and was abandoned in July 2021 only when state and territory ministers refused to endorse it (Guardian 2021; Canberra Times 2021). Third, money treated as saving rather than support: the under-resourcing and staged rollout produced repeated scheme underspends — reported at $1.6 billion in the 2019 Budget, and at larger sums cumulatively across the rollout—which were allowed to register as budget improvement rather than being reinvested in the people the scheme existed to serve (CPSU 2019; AEU News 2021).

What links these otherwise disparate measures is a single tendency: the reassertion of more traditional structures of authority over disabled people’s lives— standardised assessment in place of individualised judgement, provider and system

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control in place of participant direction, eligibility narrowed by diagnosis or

impairment category, and “reasonable and necessary” reinterpreted from a test

applied to a person's actual support needs into a lever applied to an overall budget

(Green Left 2023). It is this tendency that the paper treats most seriously, and that

the Parts which follow take up in detail. The independent-assessments episode is

especially telling, because it failed for precisely the reason the blueprint had warned

 of: it was imposed rather than co-designed, and the disability community, given the

chance, refused it.

The conclusion of this chapter is therefore not that the NDIS was a flawed idea

poorly received. It is the opposite. The idea was sound, and the blueprint even

specified the conditions Ȅ sustained co-design and protected, certain funding Ȅ

under which it would keep working. Those two conditions were among the very

 first to be eroded. Everything this paper later describes as a "design failure" is, at

root, the predictable consequence of running the 2011 scheme without the 2011

preconditions.

Chapter 5 The UNCRPD and the right to live in the community

 If the Productivity Commission supplied the blueprint, the Convention on the

Rights of Persons with Disabilities supplied the floor beneath it. The NDIS Act was

framed to give effect to Australia’s obligations under the Convention, and that is

not decorative drafting (People with Disability Australia 2022). It means that the

scheme's decisions are not only policy choices to be weighed against the budget;

they are, in part, the means by which Australia discharges binding international

human rights commitments. When supports are narrowed, when people are

channelled into congregated settings, when choice over one's own home and

support is removed, the question is not merely whether the scheme has saved

money. The question is whether Australia is still meeting obligations it freely

accepted.

The Convention also settles something more basic, which the rest of this paper

relies on: what disability actually is. On the modern, internationally accepted

understanding, disability is not the same thing as a medical condition, and it is not

the same thing as a functional limitation. It has three distinct elements, and only

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the third is disability itself. There is, first, a medical diagnosis – a condition arising from accident, injury, illness, disease, a congenital condition, a chromosomal variation, or another cause. That diagnosis carries, second, a functional impact: a l limitation in undertaking certain activities. But disability is the third element – the hardship, restriction, and exclusion a person experiences at the interface between that functional limitation and their environment. The Convention puts it precisely when it describes persons with disabilities as those with long-term impairments “which in interaction with various barriers” may hinder their full and effective p participation in society on an equal basis with others (United Nations 2006, art. 1). Disability, in other words, lives in the interaction between the person and the world around them. It does not exist in the impairment considered in isolation, and it cannot be found by examining a person stripped of their environment and supports. This is not a fringe or activist reading; it is the settled understanding in contemporary disability theory and the definition the Convention itself adopts - an d, as a later Part will show, it is the understanding the current Bill quietly abandons. The Convention’s relevance to this paper concentrates in a single, frequently misunderstood right. Article 19 – the right to live independently and be included in the community – is a provision with no exact precedent in international human ights law; it was drafted specifically to combat the segregation and institutionalisation of disabled people and to drive deinstitutionalisation (Lewis & Richardson 2020). It does not state a vague aspiration. It obliges States to ensure that disabled people can choose where and with whom they live, and are not obliged to live in a particular arrangement; that they have access to the range of in- home, residential and other community supports, including the personal assistance necessary to live in and be included in the community and to prevent isolation or secregation; and that mainstream community services and facilities are available to them on an equal basis (United Nations 2006, art. 19). The first limb is about choice, the second about support, and the third about access – and all three must hold at once for the right to be real. That right is not satisfied by the mere fact that a person is no longer housed in an old-style institution. The Convention’s guarantee is not about the address on the

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The building; it is about the conditions of the life lived inside it.

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been explicit on this point: in its General Comment No. 5 (2017) on Article 19, it warned that deinstitutionalisation requires structural reform that goes beyond closing institutional settings, and that “family-” institution like institutions remain institutions regardless of their size or domestic appearance (UN CRPD Committee 2017). Its 2022 Guidelines on deinstitutionalization, including in emergencies, restate and sharpen the same standard (UN CRPD Committee 2022).

The error the Committee keeps having to correct is the assumption that community living is solely a matter of physical placement in the community (Lewis & Richardson 2020). A person can be physically located in the community and still be denied community living in any meaningful sense, if every decision that shapes their daily life is made by someone else.

This is why a distinction that recurs throughout this paper must be made carefully here at the outset. There is a difference between being kept somewhere, being cared for somewhere, being housed somewhere, and living a life of one’s own choosing in a place that is genuinely one’s home. The first three can all be delivered by a system optimising for cost, supervision, and administrative neatness. Only the fourth is consistent with the promise the Convention contains and the NDIS Act adopts. A group home with adequate staffing and clean records can satisfy the first three completely and still fail the fourth entirely. When later Parts of this paper describe the pressure toward shared support ratios, congregated living, and provider- institution controlled models, the objection is not that those settings are universally unacceptable for everyone. The objection is that defaulting people into them, on grounds of cost or convenience, collapses the fourth condition into the first three and calls the result inclusion.

The Convention’s broader vocabulary – dignity, autonomy, independence, full and effective participation, accessibility, equality and non-discrimination – is sometimes treated as aspirational language to be quoted in preambles. In the context of disability support, it is operational. These are the Convention’s general principles, set out in Article 3, and they are not severable from the funding decisions made under a scheme that exists to give them effect. Autonomy is not abstract when it determines whether a person chooses the worker who enters their

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A bedroom each morning. Participation is not abstract when it determines whether a person’s funding permits them to leave the house for anything other than a medical appointment. Article 12, which recognises disabled people’s equal right to make decisions about their own lives – with support where needed, rather than having decisions made for them – is not abstract either when a planning process treats a person as the object of an assessment rather than the author of their own plan. The rights are specific, and they are testable against the design of the scheme. A system that cannot demonstrate how its decisions preserve choice, autonomy and community participation for the people most exposed to losing them is not, in any honest sense, giving effect to the Convention – whatever its enabling legislation says. Australia ratified the Convention in 2008 and wrote it into the objects of the NDIS Act; the obligation is therefore not borrowed rhetoric but domestic law’s own chosen standard.

Chapter 6 What “a good and ordinary life” actually means

The phrase “an ordinary life” sits at the centre of the NDIS story, and it has been worn smooth by use. It is worth restoring its content, because a great deal turns on it. When a budget process asks whether a particular support is essential, it is implicitly asking what kind of life the scheme exists to make possible. If the answer is a narrow one – survival, hygiene, medication, meals, being kept safe and kept alive – then a wide range of supports will look like extras, and cutting them will look like prudence. If the answer is the one the blueprint and the Convention actually give – a life of participation, relationship, contribution, and self-direction – then those same supports are revealed as the infrastructure of an ordinary life, and cutting them is revealed as something else entirely.

A good and ordinary life is not a life reduced to its clinical minimum. It includes community, work, relationships, culture, creativity, contribution, leisure, identity, and the ability to direct one’s own affairs. These are not luxuries appended to a life once the serious business of care is done. For most people they are the life; care is what makes them reachable. I can speak to this directly – the supports I receive are not the boundary of my life but its enabling condition, and the full account of what that has made possible for me belongs to Part 4. For the purposes of the baseline,

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The conceptual point is what matters: the activities a budget process is most tempted to treat as discretionary are very often the ones through which a person is connected to the world.

The general point this licenses is the one the rest of the paper relies on. Support, properly understood, is not only care. It is the infrastructure of citizenship — the thing that allows a disabled person to be present, skilled, creative, relational, political, and contributing. When a system sees support only as care, it will measure it only against the cost of keeping a person alive and clean, and it will systematically undervalue everything that makes the person a participant rather than a patient.

The argument of this paper is not that the scheme should fund leisure for its own sake. It is that the scheme cannot decide what is “reasonable and necessary” without first being honest about the life it is trying to make possible—and that the honest answer, the one written into both the blueprint and the Convention, is an ordinary life, not a maintained existence.

Chapter 7 Disabled people are not merely cost centres

the reframing traced in Chapter 4 – from social investment to budgetary cost - does its quietest and most corrosive work at the level of how disabled people are imagined by the system. Once the scheme is understood primarily as expenditure, the people it supports are understood primarily as the expenditure’s recipients: line items, cost drivers, liabilities to be contained. This is not usually stated. It does not need to be. It is built into the questions the system asks and the metrics it keeps. It is also false. Disabled people are citizens, voters, taxpayers, workers, volunteers, leaders, creators, family members, friends, and members of their communities. Many pay tax and contribute economically in the ordinary sense. But the deeper error in the cost-centre framing is its impoverished idea of contribution itself. Contribution is not exhausted by paid employment. It includes governance and advocacy, mentoring and peer support, cultural and creative participation, the transmission of knowledge, and the considerable and usually invisible labour of holding families and communities together. A system that values people only by a narrow measure of economic productivity does not merely undervalue disabled people. It misunderstands what a community is made of.

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There is a sharper version of this point that the later Parts of the paper will need, and it belongs here in principle, with the lived demonstration reserved for Part 4. The assumption that high support need implies low contribution is not just unkind; it is empirically wrong, and it is wrong in a way that matters for policy. High and complex support needs do not reduce a person’s capacity to contribute; underfunding and institutionalisation reduce it, by removing the very conditions under which contribution is possible. The line that follows, and that the paper will return to, is simple: high support need is not low human value, and a scheme that quietly treats the two as the same has already lost sight of why it exists.

This is the baseline. A scheme founded on a sound blueprint, attached to binding human rights obligations, directed at an ordinary life rather than a maintained one, and serving people who are contributors rather than costs. The Parts that follow ask how far the scheme has drifted from that baseline, why, at whose expense — and what it would take to return.

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P A R T 0 3

The design failure ² safety reforms that became unsafe

This Part makes the central structural claim of the paper: that the reforms presented as safety, quality, and integrity measures have, for people with high and complex support needs, too often produced the opposite of safety. It does so not by asserting that bad faith was at work – though sometimes it may have been – but by showing how a reform can be legitimate in aim, defensible on its face, and still dangerous in operation, when it is designed without regard to how the people inside the system will actually be affected. Part 4 gives the lived account of that danger. This Part supplies the documented anatomy beneath it: what the relevant reforms actually did, how the regulatory mechanism works, and why the harm was foreseeable rather than freakish.

Chapter 8 Good intent is not good design

it is worth conceding the legitimate problem at the outset, because the argument that follows is stronger for it. No one should defend a system in which untrained workers are sent into the homes of people with complex, high-risk support needs. People have been harmed by poorly trained workers, by unsafe providers, and by inconsistent practice. The case for clear competency expectations, proper training, and accountability is real, and this paper does not dispute it. The author, who has spent two decades building and training his own support teams to a high standard, has every reason to want competence taken seriously.

The argument of this part is therefore not that standards should not exist. It is that a reform can have a legitimate aim and still be badly designed – and that good intent is not a defence against foreseeable harm. A safety standard is not self-justifying. It has to be judged by what it does in the real world, to real people.

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real markets where support is actually delivered. A standard that is sound in a metropolitan teaching hospital may be undeliverable in a regional town with three available workers and one visiting nurse. A standard written for the median case may strand the person at the edge of complexity. A standard that raises documented expectations without considering how the professionals it relies on will respond to their own liability may produce, as its practical effect, the withdrawal of the very people it needs.

The test this Part applies: not whether a reform sounds responsible, but whether it makes the person safer, freer, and more able to live an ordinary life.

Measured against that test — the test Part 4 states in its own terms, and the only test the Convention recognises — several reforms presented as safety measures fail.

The clearest case study is the one the author lived through directly: the changes to how high-intensity supports are governed.

Chapter 9 The high-intensity support changes as a case study

the supports at issue are the highest-risk supports delivered under the scheme. The NDIS Practice Standards group them, in a dedicated module — Supplementary Module 1: High Intensity Daily Personal Activities — and they include complex bowel care, enteral (tube) feeding, severe dysphagia support, ventilator support, tracheostomy management, urinary catheter management, subcutaneous injections, complex wound care, and seizure support (NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission 2023). These are tasks where an error, an omission, or a slow response can cause rapid deterioration, serious injury, or death. It is entirely legitimate for the scheme to care a great deal about how they are delivered.

to deliver these supports, a provider must be registered for the relevant class of support and assessed against Module 1 of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Provider Registration and Practice Standards) Rules 2018 (NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission 2023). Sitting alongside the Practice Standards are the High Intensity Support Skills Descriptors (HISSD), which set out the skills and knowledge a worker should have to deliver each of these supports. The descriptors

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were revised by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, released in December 2022, and came into effect on 1 February 2023 (Team DSC 2023; NDS 2023).

Here is the detail that matters most, and it is easily missed. The Skills Descriptors are explicitly competency-based, and they are written for the case where the support is delivered “by a competent worker who is not a qualified health or allied health practitioner” (NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission 2023). They contemplate, in other words, exactly the model that has kept people with complex needs living in the community for decades: a non-clinician support worker, carefully trained — including, where relevant, by an appropriately qualified health practitioner — to deliver a specific high-intensity support to a specific person. The framework, on its face, did not abolish the worker-delivered, clinician-trained model. It described the competencies that model should meet.

So if the instrument on its face preserved the model, how did the model nonetheless become harder to sustain—to the point that, as Part 4 records, a person who had safely directed his own complex supports for twenty years was displaced from his home? The answer is not found in the text of the Descriptors alone. It is found in how that text interacts with everything around it: with the heightened documented-competency and currency expectations now subject to audit; with the professional-liability framework that governs the clinicians the model depends on; with the thinness of the markets in which it must operate; and with the absence of anyone, at the design stage, asking how those forces would combine. A reform is not only its words. It is its words plus the system they land in.

The next chapter traces that interaction, because it is there that a safety reform became, for some people, a safety risk.

Chapter 10 The historical working model

to see what was disturbed, it helps to state plainly how complex community-based support has actually worked —not as theory, but as the practical mechanism that has kept people out of institutions. Part 4 gives this model from the inside; here it is only necessary to name its structure, because the structure is what the reforms put under strain.

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For decades, many people with complex support needs have lived in the community through a layered model: The person, who knows their own body and risks, directs the support; carefully selected workers are trained in that person’s specific needs; clinicians – nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and others – train, mentor, review, and remain available for escalation; and training is refreshed and updated as needs change. The clinician does not personally perform every task every day. The clinician makes the task safe to delegate, and stays involved enough to keep it safe. The worker delivers the daily support. The person retains authority over who enters their home and how the support is provided.

This was never a loophole or a gap in regulation. It was, and is, the practical mechanism that makes community living possible for people whose needs are too continuous to be met by visiting clinicians alone and too individual to be met by a generic roster. it depends on one thing above all: a clinician willing to train and stand behind a support worker. Remove that willingness, and the whole model loses its keystone. The next chapter explains why recent settings have made that willingness harder to secure – and why pushing the resulting gap back onto clinical delivery is not the safe substitute it appears to be.

Chapter 11 Medicalisation is not the same as safety

Clinicians are essential. Nothing in this paper suggests otherwise. The question isn’t whether nurses, doctors, and allied health professionals matter – they plainly do – but what role the system asks them to play, and whether that role is deliverable and safe at the scale of real life. There’s a difference between clinical oversight, which makes community living possible, and clinical captivity, which makes it impossible. Clinical oversight supports life. Clinical captivity restricts it.

The mechanism that has been pushing people from the first toward the second isn’t mysterious, is worth setting out precisely because it is the hinge of the whole design failure. When a registered nurse trains or delegates a high-intensity task to a support worker, the nurse does not hand over responsibility along with the task. Under the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia’s Decision-making framework for nursing and midwifery, accountability cannot be delegated: the delegating nurse remains personally and professionally accountable for the decision

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to delegate, for the appropriateness of that decision, for supervision, and for the

outcome (NMBA 2022). The worker to whom the task is delegated is, in the case of

an NDIS support worker, an unregulated worker Ȅ outside the national registration

scheme entirely (NMBA 2022). In some jurisdictions, the delegation of nursing care

to unregulated workers is restricted or prohibited outright (NMBA 2022). And the

broader nursing literature documents that delegation to unregulated workers is a

complex, risk-laden decision that the professional environment increasingly

scrutinises (Crevacore 2023; ANMJ 2024).

Now combine that liability structure with the rest of the system. The competency,

training, and currency expectations for the highest-risk supports were raised and

made subject to audit. The worker being trained is unregulated and, in a self-

directed or small-provider arrangement, often has no ongoing institutional

relationship to the clinician. The market is frequently thin, so there is no depth of

clinicians to absorb the risk. And no one, at the point of design, appears to have

asked how a clinician would weigh a request to train a support worker in ventilator

management or complex bowel care for a person they may see only occasionally,

knowing that their own registration and legal liability ride on the outcome. Put

those forces together and the result is not surprising. It is the predictable

equilibrium: many clinicians become cautious about what they will train or

authorise, some withdraw from training support workers altogether, and the

model's keystone quietly falls away. This is precisely the collapse Part 4 describes

from the inside Ȅ clinicians becoming unwilling to train workers in person-specific

 skills, and people being pushed toward registered-nurse delivery "not because that

 is the most rights-consistent or life-enabling model," but because the community-

based alternative was made unsustainable.

And here the failure compounds itself, because the substitute is not safer. Pushing

people toward clinically delivered or congregated models increases hospital

dependency, reduces continuity and responsiveness, strips autonomy, and Ȅ in

thin markets Ȅ is frequently undeliverable in any case, because the nurses required

simply are not there. A system that cannot staff the community-based model with

trained workers will not be able to staff the more demanding clinical-delivery

model either. The risk has not been managed. It has been displaced Ȅ onto

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hospitals, onto families, onto the person’s own body – which is the same pattern. Part 4 names in the hospital context: not risk management, but risk displacement.

There is a deep irony at the centre of this, and it is worth naming because it exposes how far the reform drifted from its own stated logic. The retreat into clinical captivity is usually justified as caution – as the safer course. But the professional framework that governs nursing delegation is itself a risk-management framework: The NMBA decision-making framework does not tell nurses to avoid all delegation; it tells them how to delegate safely, by assessing and managing risk (NMBA 2022).

Harm minimisation – the proportionate management of foreseeable risk while preserving the person’s life and autonomy – is the discipline nurses are actually trained and registered to practise. The risk-averse retreat into “only a nurse may do this” is not harm minimization. It is zero-risk avoidance, and zero-risk avoidance is a different and inferior thing: it minimizes the institution’s exposure, not the person’s harm. So the model the system has been drifting toward is not the most rights-consistent model, not the most life-enabling model, and not even the model most consistent with the harm-minimization framework the relevant profession is bound to.

The same point can be made about the professions on the other side of the ledger, and it sharpens the irony further. The expertise needed to do this well is not missing from the system; the system is failing to use the expertise it already funds. Occupational therapists and rehabilitation specialists are the domain experts in exactly the reasoning the scheme claims to lack – early intervention, prevention of secondary complications and functional decline, and the front-loading of support to reduce greater harm and cost later. This is not frontier knowledge. It has been foundational curriculum in those professions for decades. A system serious about safety and sustainability would mobilize that expertise to keep people well and at home. Instead it has too often sidelined the prevention experts while over-relying on direct clinical delivery – getting the role of clinicians wrong at both ends.

None of this was inevitable, and that is the point of calling it a design failure rather than a misfortune. The instruments could have been designed with the clinician–liability interaction in view, with thin-market deliverability in view, and with the people who actually live inside the model in the room. They were not.

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optimised for documented, auditable competence Ȅ a real value Ȅ without

designing for whether the competent worker could still be trained and supported in

the first place. That is what it means for a reform to be defensible on its face and

dangerous in operation. And it is why the chapters that follow turn to the

conditions the design ignored: the thinness of real markets, the limits of

standardisation, and the absence of the genuine co-design that might have caught

the failure before it reached people's homes.

Chapter 12 Thin markets and regional reality

A reform designed as though every participant lives in a deep metropolitan market

will fail the people who do not Ȅ and a great many do not. Regional, rural, and

remote Australia does not have the service depth of a capital city, and even a large

regional centre can lack the specialised clinicians, nurses, trained workers, and

providers that a complex support model requires. This is not a marginal concern

affecting a handful of unusual cases. It is a structural feature of a national scheme

operating across a continent, and it should be treated as a core design constraint

rather than an implementation footnote.

The systems-design principle is simple and unforgiving: a national system is only as

safe as its weakest real-world implementation environment. If a support model

works in inner Sydney but cannot be staffed in regional Queensland, it is not a

national model that happens to have gaps; it is a metropolitan model that has been

declared national. The reforms examined in this Part illustrate the point precisely.

The heightened training and competency expectations for high-intensity supports

are hard enough to satisfy where clinicians are plentiful; where they are scarce, and

where the few available clinicians must each weigh the personal liability of training

an unregulated worker, the model does not merely strain Ȅ it can fail outright. The

design failure and the thin market compound each other, and they compound worst

for the people with the most complex needs, who have the least capacity to absorb a

gap.

There is a particular cruelty in how the system talks about this. It speaks of “choice”

as though choice were always available Ȅ as though a participant dissatisfied with

one provider could simply select another. For people with high and complex needs

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in a thin market, that is often a fiction. There may be no other provider. There may be no provider at all who can safely deliver the support. As Part 4 records from direct experience, paper availability is not the same as a functioning market: a place ay have hospitals, allied health services, and registered providers listed on paper and still be unable to sustain a complex support model in practice, because what mattesrs is not whether services nominally exist but whether enough of the right services, with the right skills, at the right frequency, with enough resilience to survive a resignation or an illness, are actually there. Where they are not, the consequence is not inconvenience. It is displacement — the loss of home, community, and years of life that Part 4 documents, and that no amount of choice- and-control language can disguise.

A scheme serious about safety in thin markets would design for them deliberately: funding that reflects real local cost and availability, crisis pathways established before supports collapse rather than after, relocation support where a local market genuinely cannot meet a person’s needs, and the integration of accommodation, complex-support funding, and clinical oversight as a single problem rather than hree disconnected ones. The alternative — assuming the metropolitan model and treating its failure in the regions as the participant’s misfortune— is not a national disability scheme. It is a postcode lottery with better branding.

Chapter 13 Standardisation can protect some and abandon others

Standardisation is not inherently wrong. A clear, consistent training expectation isnotinherentlywrongcan protect people whose needs fit the categories it was built around, and consistency has real value where it prevents the worst providers from sending the worst workers. The danger lies in forgetting that standardisation distributes its benefits and harms unevenly: the same template that protects the median sameparticipant can abandon the person at the edge of complexity, whose needs were ever contemplated by the people who drew the category.

This is the systems-design point that the reforms repeatedly miss. People do not live inside policy categories. A standardised competency template assumes that the

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The support a person needs is the support the template imagined, delivered in the way the template assumed.

Where that holds, the person may be able to make the model work. Where it does not — where the required support is unusual, or must be delivered in a more individualised way, or arises from the interaction of several disabilities that no single category captures — the person can be left stranded, technically served by a system that has no place for them. A scheme can become safer for the average case and, in the very same reform, more dangerous for the outlier. A safety standard that protects the average and abandons the outlier is not, or the outlier, a safety standard at all.

The current trajectory deepens this risk rather than correcting it. The new planningramework moves toward standardised needs assessment as the gateway to funding, and reporting suggests that the assessors conducting it will not necessarily be allied health professionals, with recruitment said to favour generic “soft skills” over in clinical qualification (Health Services Daily 2026). For people with complex, interacting, fluctuating needs, replacing individualised clinical evidence with a standardised instrument administered by a non-clinician is not a neutral efficiency.

it is a decision about who the system is willing to see accurately—and it predictably sees the standard case and misses the complex one. Part 6 examines this framework in detail; for the purposes of this part, it is enough to note that standardisation, pursued without a deliberate safeguard for the people at the edges, is not a solution to the design failure traced through these chapters. It is the same failure, generalised.

the remedy is not the abolition of standards. It is designing standards with the people most likely to fall outside them — which is to say, it is co-design, done properly. That is the subject of the chapters that close this part, and it is also the point at which the failure stops being a technical matter and becomes a question of who the system is willing to listen to.

Chapter 14 False co-design and the capture of language

The 2011 blueprint, as Part 2 showed, did not treat engagement with disabled people as a courtesy. It treated it as a structural condition of the scheme working – the feedback loop through which the system would learn whether it was succeeding or

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 failing. The reforms traced through this Part are, in a sense, a single story about

what happens when that feedback loop is severed. And the severing has been

disguised, because the language of co-design has been retained even as the practice

has been hollowed out.

"Co-design" has become one of the most used and least honoured words in

disability policy. It appears in strategy documents, consultation frameworks, and

ministerial speeches. It is invoked to confer legitimacy on decisions that have, in

substance, already been made. This is the capture of language: the appropriation of

a term that means something demanding Ȅ shared authority over the design of a

system Ȅ to describe something far weaker, and sometimes its opposite. When a

government announces a reform and then conducts a “consultation” on its

implementation, that is not co-design. When a survey is run after the design is

settled, that is not co-design. When disabled people are invited to comment but not

to decide, that is not co-design. It is consultation theatre, and calling it co-design

corrodes the word for the times it is meant sincerely.

The distinction matters because the difference between genuine and false co-design

 is, very often, the difference between a reform that works and one that harms. Part

4 states this from the inside: where lived experience is not engaged with deeply and

authentically, systems design solutions for disabled people rather than by them, and

the result is a regulatory change that "says one thing on the lid and delivers

something very different inside.“ The high-intensity support changes examined

earlier in this Part are precisely such a reform. Had the people who actually live

inside the worker-delivered, clinician-trained model been genuinely co-designing

the new competency settings, the interaction between heightened audit

expectations and clinician liability Ȅ the interaction that quietly removed the

model's keystone Ȅ would have been obvious before it reached anyone's home. It

was not caught, because the people who could have caught it were not, in any

meaningful sense, in the room.

There is a documented pattern that makes this concrete, and it is the clearest single

illustration in the scheme's recent history. The compulsory independent

assessments proposed from 2020, discussed in Part 2, were presented as reform and

were abandoned in 2021 only because the disability community, the sector, and the

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scheme's own Independent Advisory Council refused to accept them. That episode

 is usually told as a story about a bad policy defeated. It is better understood as a

story about co-design working in the only way the system left available to it Ȅ after

the fact, through refusal, because it had not been allowed to work before the fact,

through design. The community had the knowledge to see the problem. The system

simply had not asked.

And when the system does not ask, it does not merely miss information. It loses the

capacity to understand its own results. This is the deepest cost of severing the

feedback loop, and it is worth stating plainly because it is so rarely admitted: a

system that stops listening to the people it serves will, in time, no longer

understand what it is doing to them.

Chapter 15 The eight tenets of co-design ² and the system

that stopped listening

 If false co-design is the disease, the remedy is not a slogan but a discipline Ȅ and

that discipline has an established structure, taught in co-design practice and

broadly recognised by practitioners as the faithful articulation of what co-design

actually requires. It is not a framework invented for this paper, and it is worth

stressing that point, because it changes what the scheme's conduct amounts to: the

gap examined below is not a gap between the scheme and one author’s ideal, but a

gap between the scheme and the recognised professional standard for the very

thing the scheme claims to be doing. Genuine co-design rests on eight tenets,

bound together by one governing principle. Each tenet marks a distinct point at

which a system can either share power or merely simulate sharing it, and the

manufacture of false co-design works precisely by honouring some while quietly

denying others.

Five of the tenets track the lifecycle of a reform, from first idea to ongoing

operation. Co-ideation is shared authorship of the ideas themselves Ȅ disabled

people involved not at the point of commenting on options but at the point of

generating them, before the solution space has been narrowed. Most "consultation"

 fails here first: by the time the community is asked, the ideas have already been

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The chosen trim is open for discussion. Co-design is shared authority over how the system is actually built — not advice the designers may take or leave, but a genuine share in the design decisions. Co-authorship goes further, to the artefacts: the community’s hand in the actual text of the instruments, policies, and rules that go govern their lives, rather than its perspective being summarised, filtered, and rowritten by others before it reaches the page. A system can run a vibrant ideation workshop and still author the resulting policy entirely behind closed doors; co- a authorship closes that gap. Co-implementation extends the same principle into delivery: the parties who shared authority over the design must carry that authority through to how the policy is actually rolled out, rather than handing a sound design to an implementation function that can quietly undo it. Even the best-laid ideas can come unstuck in poor implementation, and they often do so through the same op operationally expedient choices that this paper has traced throughout — which is p precisely why implementation cannot be treated as a separate, downstream, te technical matter beyond the community’s reach. And co-monitoring completes the c cycle, providing the continual-improvement function without which co-design is a one-off event rather than a living practice — which in practice requires that m monitoring and assessment data be publicly available and open to independent, n third-party scrutiny, so that the system’s own account of how it is performing can tbe tested rather than taken on trust.

Three further tenets are not stages but conditions—they must hold across the h whole lifecycle, or the others are hollow. Co-equal is the principle that every voice in the process carries equal weight, and that no single party holds the power to veto the process or to force through a decision that serves it alone. Where one party - almost always the funder or the administrator - retains a unilateral veto, what is oc occurring is not co-design but consultation conducted at that party’s discretion. Co- ownership is a genuine, continuing stake in the system and its outcomes, so that disabled people are not contributors to someone else’s scheme but owners of their own, with the standing that ownership confers – including the standing to hold tthe system to account when it fails. And co-consent is the recognition that those affected by a system have a continuing right to agree or refuse to how it operates on them, not merely a one-time opportunity to be consulted at its launch. A scheme

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The built on rights cannot treat the people it serves as having consented, once and forever, to whatever it later becomes. Consent to a system is ongoing, and a system that strips away the capacityto withhold it has stopped treating people as rightsholdersand startedtreating them as subjects.

The governing principle ties the eight together: co-design must be awhole-of- process and whole-of-system approach. It cannot be boltedon at the last minute to adjusta decisionthat has already been made and lockedin. Late-stage “co-design” of that kindis not a lesser form of thereal thing;it isa violation of it, becausebythe time the community is admitted, co-ideation, co-authorship, and co-consent havealreadybeen foreclosed. The ideas were generated withoutthem, the instrumentswere authoredwithout them, and their consenttothe fundamental shape ofthedecisionwas neversought. What remainsisthe appearance of participation laid over thesustance of its absence — which ist he most damagingform offalse co-design, preciselybecauseitis the hardest to see.

This is the standard— the practitioners’standard,notaprivate one— againstwhich the scheme’s recent practice mustbemeasured,andi tis also why“co-design” canbe claimedsofreelywhile so littleofi t occurs. A governmentcan inviteideas, conveneaworkshop,even shareadesign decisionortwo, andstill reservetoitself the authorshipoftheinstruments, theofthescheme, aunilateral vetoover everyoutcome, controlofthemontoringdata,andtherighttoalter termsof aperson’slifewithouttheircontinuingconsent—andt hen call theresultco- design. Genuine codesign isn ot anyoneofthese tenets;iti s all eight, held togetheracrossthewhole lifeofth esystem, underaprincipleofe qualstanding. Disability advocacy has long compressed wholeo fthisintoasingledemand— nothingaboutuswith out us— and th eeighttenetsaresimplywhatthatdemand requireswhenit istaken seriouslyasthedesig ndiscipline itis , ratherthanasa slogan. These are not abstractions. Theyarethe practical architecture ofthefeedback loop the 2011 blueprint required, and their absenceisVisibleinthe schemesownmost candidmoments. Considertwoadmissionsfrompeople running thes chememademwithinroughly the same period.

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The first concerns evidence. To obtain or change a plan, participants are required – not invited – to supply extensive clinical evidence: occupational therapy reports, functional capacity assessments, specialist assessments, and more. That evidence is extensive, and it is very often paid for out of the participant’s own plan, displacing the supports the plan exists to fund. In February 2025, the then Chief Executive of the National Disability Insurance Agency, Rebecca Falkingham, acknowledged at Senate Estimates that her staff cannot read the lengthy reports they receive – in the widely reported phrasing, that staff “can’t read the 280-page reports that they get” (Conway Consulting Group [2026]; Loving Life Care [2026]). Let that sit beside the requirement that produced it. The system compels people to spend their support funding generating evidence, and the head of the agency concedes the evidence is not read. That is not a minor inefficiency. It is a system extracting from the people it serves a cost it does not itself use – and it is only possible in a system that has stopped imagining the participant as a person on the other end of its requirements.

The second admission concerns outcomes, and it is, in its way, the emblem of this entire paper. The scheme’s actuarial function exists to monitor whether the scheme is working – whether, over time, participants are doing better. Yet after a decade of operation, the people responsible for reading the scheme’s data have expressed genuine bewilderment that participants appear, on the available measures, not to be improving and in some respects to be doing worse the longer they remain in the scheme. The actuarial profession’s own commentary concedes the puzzle directly: it is unclear whether the cause is that the initial assumptions were wrong or that improvements are necessary to the supports provided, in part because outcomes before and after early childhood early intervention have not been measured (Actuaries Institute [2025]). Independent analysis notes the same drift in employment: for participants aged 25 and over, paid employment rates are not rising as participants spend more time on the scheme (HRD 2026).

Here is the point the bewilderment exposes, and it is exactly a failure of co-monitoring as the previous section defined it. A decade of data showed people not improving, and the system reading that data did not understand why – when the answer was available the entire time, from the people living it. Monitoring without the monitored is how a system accumulates a decade of evidence and still cannot

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The disability community has been describing, for years, exactly the mechanisms this paper has traced: support models hollowed out by reforms designed without them, funding that goes backwards as need rises, capacity- building supports withdrawn, people pushed toward congregation and clinical captivity, lives displaced from home. None of this is a mystery to the people it happens to. It is a mystery only to a system that measured what was administratively visible — units of service, plans approved, budgets reduced— rather than asking the people whether their lives were getting better or worse. As Part 4 puts it, the system “measures what is administratively visible and misses what is humanly essential.”

This is what it means for a system to forget to listen. It is not merely impolite; it is epistemically disabling. A system cut off from the experience of the people it serves cannot see its own failures, cannot learn from them, and will—as the next Part documents in the proposed legislation—tend to respond to the evidence of harm by tightening the very mechanisms that caused it. The disability community is not only the party harmed by the severing of the feedback loop. It is also the party that holds the knowledge the system most needs and has most consistently declined to seek. The solutions to many of these problems are not beyond reach. They are simply held by people the system has not been willing to treat as designers of their own lives. That refusal—to listen, to share authority, to treat consent as ongoing—is the design failure beneath all the others. Every specific failure traced in this Part is, finally, a symptom of it.

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P A R T 0 4

The Lived Reality

Displacement, Loss of Home, and Loss of Ordinary Life

There is a danger, when talking about the NDIS, that everything becomes abstract.

People talk about scheme sustainability. They talk about reasonable and necessary supports. They talk about operational guidelines, support lists, ratios, assessments, participant pathways, thin markets, pricing arrangements, fraud control, and intergovernmental responsibilities. All of that language may have its place. Some of it is necessary. But none of it should be allowed to obscure the basic truth at the centre of this system.

The NDIS is not an abstract policy machine. It is the structure that many disabled people rely on to get out of bed, breathe safely, eat, shower, move, communicate, work, participate, and remain alive in the community. It is the difference between being able to live in one’s own home and being displaced into a hospital, a group setting, a congregated care environment, or some other institutionalised arrangement that may not be called an institution, but can still operate with institutional logic when choice, control, privacy, flexibility, and community connection are removed.

For people like me, support is not a lifestyle extra. It is not a discretionary add-on. It is not a convenience. It is the infrastructure of life.

I am an NDIS participant. Before the NDIS, I received state-based disability funding. For most of the last 20-plus years, across both systems, I have self-managed or self-directed my supports. That is not a theoretical preference. It is not something I prefer because I dislike providers or because I have an ideological attachment to one administrative model over another. It is the model that has allowed me to survive, function, contribute, and live with any meaningful degree of dignity.

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My disability profile is complex. I have C5/C6 incomplete spinal cord injury, r esulting in quadriplegia, although in strict medical language it is probably more accurately described as paraplegia with quadriparesis. I also have spina bifida myelomeningocele, hydrocephalus, Autism Level 2, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and a n umber of other diagnoses and functional impacts that interact with each other in rows ys that do not fit neatly into a simple bureaucratic category.

That complexity matters. It matters because systems tend to prefer simple cases. T hey prefer people who can be placed into a box, matched to a standard support c ategory, measured against a narrow functional tool, and funded through a p redictable template. My life does not work that way. Many disabled people’s lives d o not work that way.

For me, disability support has always had to be highly individualised. The right s upport worker matters. The right training matters. The right timing matters. The r ig environment matters. The right escalation pathway matters. The right clinical o versight matters. The right understanding of my routines, risks, equipment, body, communication, fatigue, sensory needs, and functional limits matters.

When those things are in place, I can live. Not perfectly. Not without risk. Not without support. But I can live in a way that is recognisably mine.

When those things are removed, standardised, delayed, shared, rationed, m edicalised, or handed to people who do not understand my needs, the consequences are not minor. They are immediate, practical, and sometimes d angerous.

Chapter 16 Twenty years of self-directed support

For most of the last 20-plus years, I have self-managed or self-directed my supports.

That history is important because it shows that participant-directed support is not a eckless experiment. It is not a loophole. It is not a failure of regulation. In my case, it has been the safer and more effective model.

Submission 1922

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Self-direction allowed me to build teams around my actual life, not around a provider’s roster template. It allowed me to select people who were suitable for my home, my body, my risks, my communication style, my working life, and my community participation. It allowed training to be person-specific rather than generic. It allowed support to be responsive to changes in my health, function, workload, environment, fatigue, and routines.

The support workers who were effective in my life were not interchangeable units of labour. They were people who learned how to support me safely and well. They developed knowledge over time. They understood the difference between a normal variation and something that required escalation. They knew what needed to be done immediately and what could wait. They understood how to support my body without causing injury. They understood how to work inside my home without treating it like a workplace that belonged more to the provider than to me.

That last point matters. My home is not a service site first. It is my home. The fact that support work occurs inside it does not make it less mine.

A good self-directed model allowed clinicians to be involved where their expertise was needed. Doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech therapists, and other clinicians could train, mentor, review, advise, and provide oversight. Support workers could be upskilled carefully and appropriately. Training was not a one-off formality. It was part of the structure of the support model. Regular upskilling was normal. Review was normal. Adjusting the model when my needs changed was normal.

That is how complex disability support has worked for many people for decades. Clinicians do not need to be physically present for every task every day in order for care to be safe. They need to be properly involved in training, clinical reasoning, oversight, review, and escalation. The day-to-day delivery can often be done safely by support workers who are carefully selected, properly trained, supervised where necessary, and supported by clear pathways when something changes.

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The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1922 47

That model recognises reality. It recognises that clinicians are essential, but finite. It recognises that disabled people live all day, every day, not only during scheduled clinical appointments. It recognises that community living depends on support being available where people live, not only where the health system can reach them.

It also recognises something more fundamental: I am not a passive object of care. I am the person whose life is being supported. I know my body. I know my risks. I know what has worked. I know what has failed. I know what happens when someone does not arrive. I know what happens when the wrong person arrives. I know what happens when a provider decides that its operational convenience matters more than my safety.

That is not sentiment. It is evidence.

the times i have been forced back into traditional provider relationships have, almost without exception, been some of the least safe and least functional periods of the last two decades of my life. I do not say that lightly, and I do not say it because I think every provider or every worker is bad. The problem is structural. I have dealt with poor service quality, unreliable attendance, late arrivals, last-minute cancellations, workers sent without adequate training, and providers unwilling or unable to build teams robust enough for the level of risk involved. For someone with my support needs, that is not merely poor customer service. It is a foreseeable safety failure.

it can be a direct and immediate safety risk. raditional provider systems often assume that if one worker cannot attend, another can be sent. On paper, that may look like continuity. In reality, it may be nothing of the sort. If the replacement worker is not trained in my needs, does not understand my equipment, cannot safely perform required tasks, cannot read early signs of deterioration, cannot assist with complex manual handling, or cannot provide support in a way that is safe for my body and my environment, then the provider has not filled the shift in any meaningful sense. It has placed a person in the room and called the roster complete.

Submission 1922

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That is not safety.

For people with low or predictable support needs, a generic replacement worker may be inconvenient but workable. For people with high and complex support needs, it may be unsafe. The system often fails to understand that distinction. It treats attendance as the measure of service delivery, when the real measure should be whether the person was safely and effectively supported.

The reason self-direction matters: it allows the support model to be designed around the actual person, not around the lowest administrative common denominator.

Chapter 17 When “sorry, we can’t make it” is a safety event

A great failure of the current system is its inability to understand the seriousness of ordinary service failure.

A provider saying “sorry, we can’t make it” may sound like a small problem to someone who has never depended on another person for essential support. It may sound like a scheduling issue. It may sound like the sort of thing that can be fixed with an apology, a complaint form, or a promise to do better next time.

For me, and for many people with high and complex support needs, that sentence lands very differently.

It can mean I cannot get out of bed safely. It can mean I cannot attend to personal care. It can mean I cannot eat, drink, reposition, manage equipment, access medication, leave the house, communicate effectively with services, prevent deterioration, or respond to a change in my body. It can mean that a preventable problem becomes a clinical problem. It can mean that a gap in the roster becomes a hospital admission.

The reality is often that hospitals are treated as fallback options: if disability supports fail, go to hospital; if workers cannot meet your needs, go to hospital; if funding is inadequate, go to hospital; if the provider cannot build a reliable team, go to hospital.

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hospital. If the administrative process has not caught up with the reality of your life, go to hospital.

The attitude is not safety planning. It is policy avoidance dressed up as an interface issue.

Hospitals are not a substitute for disability support. They are not a backup home. Hospitals are not a provider of last resort for ordinary daily disability needs. They are not designed to sustain the full baseline needs of people with lifelong, high-complexity disabilities over long periods. Hospitals can be necessary; they can save lives. I am not dismissing the health system or the people who work within it. But a hospital admission does not make disability support needs disappear.

When a person like me enters hospital, my baseline needs do not switch off because a different funding system has become administratively convenient. I still require support with things that keep my body safe: People who understand my routines, communication equipment and risks, manual handling needs, sensory profile, and signs something may be wrong. Support should not neatly limited to the narrow reason for admission.

When hospitals absorb unmet disability supports, risk isn’t removed—it’s transferred. Risk transfers to overworked nurses in wards unsuited for ongoing care. Families transfer this burden along with informal advocates onto disabled persons forced to bear consequences on their own bodies.

That is not risk management - it is displacement.

The same problem shows when safety frameworks/quality standards serve only as evidence supporting delivery of effective quality services – policies don’t ensure personal safety nor complaints processes provide security if shifts aren’t filled by capable personnel.

Submission 1922

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The system provides genuine fit for purpose: the right person, with the right training, at the right time, with the right backup, and with enough understanding of my body, my equipment, my risks, and my environment to respond when something changes. Most importantly, it exists only when my voice and my life are centred, rather than treated as secondary to the provider’s framework, roster or risk paperwork.

I do not say this because I think every provider or every worker is bad. Some providers can deliver good support, and some individual workers are excellent. The problem is structural. Where support is organised primarily as a business model, with service provision and the person’s life treated as secondary, there will always be pressure to create efficiencies. In ordinary business settings, efficiency may be desirable. In disability support, when badly designed, it can mean fewer trained workers, less flexibility, more standardisation, reduced continuity, and support models that look compliant on paper while failing the person in practice.

That is why oversight of large traditional registered service providers should focus less on whether abstract quality and assurance frameworks exist, and more on whether actual service delivery complies with and gives effect to the expectations of the UNCRPD. The question should not simply be whether the provider has policies, systems, and records. The question should be whether the person receiving support is safer, freer, more connected, more autonomous, and more able to live an ordinary life because of the way that service is delivered.

The standard that matters is:

Anything less is paperwork pretending to be safety.

Chapter 18 Community connection is a safety control

Policies matter. Frameworks matter. Oversight, standards, safeguards, and quality systems all matter. Essential paid supports also matter. Without the right support, many of us cannot safely eat, drink, bathe, go to the toilet, shower, dress or work.

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leave the house, or access our community. For some of us, those supports are quite literally life-sustaining.

But paid services are not, by themselves, what make disabled people safe. What makes people safe, in the deeper and more durable sense, is being known, valued, noticed, and embedded in the ordinary life of a community. It is the unpaid relationships. The neighbour who notices you have not been seen. The friend who knows when you do not sound right. The person at the community garden, the maker space, the book group, the club, the workshop, or the local café who notices absence, deterioration, distress, or withdrawal before a formal system ever would.

For myself, and for many of the vulnerable and marginalised people I know and work alongside, that kind of community embeddedness is one of the strongest risk mitigations we have. It is not soft, optional, or decorative. It is a practical safety control. My concern is that the current reform direction risks pushing more people with complex needs into congregated, institutionalised, provider-controlled, or highly standardised environments where access to those unpaid relationships is substantially reduced, and in some cases may be almost entirely removed. If I am experiencing that risk as someone who, despite the complexity of my disabilities, can communicate reasonably well and advocate strongly, then we need to stop and think very carefully about what this means for people for whom communication, decision-making, advocacy, or being believed are even greater challenges.

Chapter 19 Displacement from home

The direct impact on me over recent years has been devastating.

I have been displaced from my home. I have been forced through a range of congregate care and institutionalised care model environments over approximately the last three and a half years. That displacement did not happen because my life suddenly became impossible. It happened because the systems around my life stopped making safe community living possible.

Submission 1922

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There are many factors involved. My support needs have increased with age and functional decline. That is not surprising. Disabled bodies do not always age in the same way as non-disabled bodies. Where there are multiple disabilities, long-term impairment, chronic health issues, neurological complexity, physical disability, and the accumulated wear of decades of managing a high-support life, decline can happen earlier and more rapidly than in the general population.

A system designed around real life would understand that. It would expect change. It would plan for it. It would recognise that increased need is not a failure by the participant. It is part of the life course. It would ask what is needed to keep the person safely at home, connected to community, and able to continue contributing. Instead, the practical effect of current policy and funding settings is that increased need is too often treated as a cost problem, an administrative problem, or a reason to push people toward more restrictive models.

In my experience, the high-intensity support changes and related regulatory shifts made an already fragile situation far worse. The model that had historically allowed complex support to be delivered safely, through carefully selected and trained support workers with clinical training, oversight, mentoring, and escalation, became much harder to sustain. Clinicians became more cautious about what they could train or authorise. Professional-risk concerns increased. Support workers became harder to train in the specific skills I needed. Providers became more rigid. The practical effect was a system that became more medicalised, more standardised, and less responsive to the reality of individual lives.

to be clear, I do not say this because I oppose training standards. I do not. The changes were, at least on their face, intended to respond to a real problem: people with high and complex support needs being placed at risk by poorly trained workers, unsafe providers, and inconsistent practice. That problem is real. No one should be sent into a person’s home to deliver complex support without proper training, supervision, and accountability.

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The failure is that a reform can be well-intentioned and still be badly designed.

Where lived experience is not engaged with deeply and authentically, systems tend to design solutions for us rather than by us. The result can be a regulatory change that says one thing on the lid and delivers something very different inside. In this case, changes presented as making high-intensity support safer have, for many people with high and complex physical support needs, increased risk by narrowing the pathways through which person-specific workers can be trained and supported.

The same failure can be seen in the training pathways now treated as compliant for high-intensity or complex supports. If a person’s complex needs happen to match the supports imagined by the endorsed training program, and if those supports are needed in the particular way the program assumes, then the person may be able to make the model work. Even then, I have serious doubts about whether some of those programs are deep enough for the level of complexity involved. They are certainly not equivalent to the standard to which I, and many other people in the high-complexity cohort, have historically trained our own workers with clinician involvement.

The bigger problem arises when a person’s support needs do not fit the template. If the required support is not the one imagined by the compliant training program, or if it must be delivered in a more individualised way, the person can be left stranded. At the same time, many clinicians and nurses have become unwilling to train NDIS support workers in those person-specific clinical skills because of concerns about professional standards and regulatory risk. The practical result is that some people are pushed toward environments where supports are delivered by registered nurses, not because that is the most rights-consistent or life-enabling model, but because the system has made the community-based alternative harder to sustain.

That is the failure mode repeated throughout this reform trajectory. At each point where the system could have listened to people with lived experience, and could have designed around the realities of our lives, it instead too often assumes that we all look the same, function the same, need the same, and can be made safe through the same standardised pathway. We cannot. That assumption is one of the major

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Submission 1922

The failures were not only of these earlier regulatory changes but also of the current proposed legislative overhaul as well.

This was not experienced by me as an abstract regulatory update; rather, it felt like the collapse of the practical conditions allowing me to live safely in my own home.

Once this happens, the language used by the system becomes almost unbearable due to its distance from reality. They talk about pathways, reviews, evidence, support categories, reassessments, market constraints, funding decisions and interface issues. Meanwhile, I am not in my home. I’m not living the life I built. I’m not moving through my community in the way I once did. I cannot rely on supports which previously made ordinary life possible.

Displacement from home isn’t merely a change of address—it involves loss: privacy, routine, control over who enters your space, decision-making ability, being surrounded by one’s things (tools, books), projects, garden, community, rhythms – all contributing to that quiet sense of safety derived from belonging somewhere.

For someone with complex disability, ‘home’ is integral to their support architecture - familiar environment where equipment resides, routines are established, risks understood & model centered around them. The local community knows you, notices when something goes wrong.

The displacement disrupts more than just physical location — it destabilizes entire ecosystems for personal wellbeing.

That has been what happened to me.

A return would be straightforward; retrieving at least some semblance of former existence requires agency action.

Submission 1922

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inapprove appropriate Specialist Disability Accommodation funding and a substantial increase in support funding so that I could move from regional Queensland to Brisbane, where the support market is deep enough to meet needs of this complexity in a meaningful and sustainable way.

Theat is not about wanting a more exciting postcode. It is not about convenience. It is about the difference between remaining trapped in environments that cannot support an ordinary life and relocating to a place where there is at least a realistic chance of rebuilding one.

Brbrisbane is not magic. It will not remove my disabilities. It will not make support simple. But it does have something my current regional environment does not have: a deeper and more specialised support market. More clinicians. More workers. More providers. More people with experience supporting bodies and lives as complex as mine. More chance of building a support model that is not constantly one resignation, one illness, one cancellation, or one provider failure away from collapse.

That is the reality of thin markets. A large regional centre may look serviceable from a distance. It may have hospitals, allied health services, registered providers, and disability workers on paper. But paper availability is not the same as a functioning support market. The real question is not whether services technically exist. The real question is whether there are enough of the right services, with the right skills, at the right frequency, with enough flexibility and resilience to sustain a person with complex needs safely in the community.

in my case, the answer has been no.

Theat failure has cost me years of my life. Not metaphorical years. Actual years: years away from home, away from community, away from ordinary routines, away from work and contribution, and away from the kind of life the NDIS was supposedly created to make possible.

Submission 1922

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Chapter 20 What would be required to rebuild life

The system often behaves as if people like me are asking for something excessive. We are not.

What I need is not a luxury. I need a home that works for my body and my support needs. I need enough funding to build and maintain a trained support team. I need the ability to choose who comes into my home. I need the ability to live with people I choose, not people selected for me because their support needs make a funding model easier. I need support that can respond to the real pattern of my life, including health changes, work demands, community participation, fatigue, crisis, recovery, and opportunity. That is what ordinary life requires for me.

The funding problem in my case is not simple, and it is not just one thing. It is what happens when real life collides with a bureaucratic model of how things ought to work on paper.

The first failure is that, in my case, the scheme did not operate according to any serious version of insurance logic. If the NDIS is genuinely an insurance-based scheme, then early investment should matter. The scheme should be looking at what supports, equipment, therapies, housing, community access, and capacity- building interventions are likely to reduce future need, prevent decline, maintain function, and avoid far more expensive crises later. In my case, that did not happen in any meaningful way. The supports that should have been front-loaded earlier were not provided at the level required, and the foreseeable result is that my needs are now significantly greater than they may otherwise have been.

The second failure is that, as I have aged and my function has declined, my funding has not increased in any real-world sense to match that decline. In practical terms, once inflation, wage increases, service-delivery costs, and NDIS pricing changes are taken into account, my funding has gone backwards while my needs have gone sharply in the other direction. My needs are now roughly four times what they were.

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15 years ago, yet the funding architecture around me has not responded as it should have. That is not a sustainable support model. It is a slow-motion support failure being treated as administrative continuity.

The third failure is the loss, over the last several years, of the regular community access and capacity-building supports that helped slow decline and keep me connected to life. These were never luxuries. They included things like going to the gym with support and an exercise physiologist to do targeted exercises aimed at slowing functional decline; hydrotherapy to stretch muscles in my legs and back that otherwise have very little opportunity to properly move and release; tilt-table work to assist with blood pressure regulation, bone density, and autonomic nervous system stability; and physiotherapy and dry needling, which, given the significant nerve damage in my shoulders, is one of the few interventions that can reduce the neurological pain enough to make me somewhat functional on some days.

those are not indulgences. They are the practical tools that help keep a complex body working for as long as possible. They are also part of what allows me to remain active, connected, and able to contribute. When those supports are removed, sreduced, delayed, or treated as optional, the impact is not merely that I miss out on activities I enjoy. The impact is physical deterioration, reduced function, increased pain, reduced resilience, increased dependence, higher risk of crisis, and greater long-term cost.

A redacted: s47F - personal privacy portion of what has happened to my body is nobody’s fault. Disability, ageing, and functional decline are real. I am not pretending otherwise. But a significant part of where I am now was foreseeable, and some of it was preventable. That is the point.

A system built on insurance principles should understand prevention. A system built on disability rights should understand community living. A system built to support disabled people should not wait until a person’s life has collapsed and then treat the collapse as evidence that they are too complex, too costly, or too difficult to support properly.

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It may be more expensive to fund my support properly than it is to fund some other people’s supports. That is true. But cost alone does not answer the question. The real question is what happens if that support is not provided.

If the support is not provided, I do not become cheaper in any meaningful sense. I become displaced. I become more likely to rely on hospitals. I become less able to work, contribute, advocate, participate, maintain health, prevent deterioration, and remain connected to community. The cost does not vanish. It is shifted elsewhere, often in ways that are more expensive, more harmful, and less visible in the NDIS line item.

This is where the insurance logic of the NDIS should matter.

A scheme that refuses to fund what keeps a person stable, then pays far more after their life collapses, is not fiscally responsible. It is short-sighted.

A scheme that removes the conditions of community living, then points to the cost of crisis, is not sustainable. It is manufacturing the very costs it claims to fear.

For me, rebuilding life requires more than a plan with numbers attached to it. It requires a support model that recognises the reality of my needs. It requires SDA that is fit for purpose. It requires sufficient support funding. It requires a move to a market that can actually deliver the supports. It requires clinical oversight without clinical captivity. It requires workers who can be trained in the person-specific tasks that keep me safe. It requires enough flexibility to allow life to happen.

That last point is crucial.

Lives do not unfold in neat plan categories. Some days are heavier than others. Some weeks require more support. Some activities require two workers. Some tasks require an RN or clinical involvement. Some periods are stable. Some are not. A system that cannot flex with the ebbs and flows of real life will fail people whose lives are complex.

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The flexibility also needs to follow people outside the home. Many people with high and complex support needs work, attend conferences, participate in community events, travel for advocacy, visit friends, attend festivals, go camping, go fishing, or simply need a few days away from their ordinary routine like anyone else. My disability and support needs do not take the weekend off because I am away from home. If I attend a two-day business conference, I still need to be supported at that conference. If I go camping or fishing for a long weekend, I still need the supports hat allow me to eat, drink, shower, dress, use the toilet, manage my body, move safely, and participate.

There are two related but distinct issues here. The first is ordinary participation in life. If I choose to attend a music festival, go camping, go fishing, or take a holiday, I should meet my own ordinary personal costs in the same way anyone else would.

But where my disability means I cannot safely participate unless I take a team of support workers with me, the additional disability-related costs are not ordinary holiday costs. They are support costs. They may include worker travel, worker accommodation, worker meals, additional event access, and roster arrangements that exist only because my disability support needs come with me. Those costs are directly attributable to disability, and they should not simply be shifted onto the disabled person as though they are personal lifestyle expenses.

The second issue is Short Term Accommodation, often described as respite. STA is not a holiday; it’s a disability support. Its purpose isn’t to give people with disabilities a free weekend away, but rather provide short term change in support environment, routine, and care arrangement when necessary due to their disability. it shouldn’t be treated like something which must come out from someoneǯs savings for holidays—because doing so collapses both into one bucket. For many disabled individuals genuine opportunities for vacation time already rare & difficult enough. A person who saves money specifically intended towards an actual holiday might have those funds spent on accommodations/respite services related toward managing any existing impairments or conditions - effectively preventing them ever experiencing what non-disabled folks routinely enjoy.

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The current narrowing of STA is concerning. Respite is often discussed as though it exists solely for informal family/friend-provided supports. Many disabled people lack this kind of structure; many rely on paid teams. A few days in a different setting can serve respite: providing breaks from routine, reducing isolation, supporting community participation, allowing team rest while smaller groups provide at-home care. For someone with needs like mine, a full team may involve 12 to 15 individuals. When three workers assist me away for several days, others gain valuable break time otherwise rarely available.

Treating all of this merely as holiday misunderstands complex disability realities—it applies an ableist lens assuming separation between life & need. The historical framework enabling communal living isn’t just about receiving familiar support within one’s own residence but also requires adaptability alongside rhythms, obligations, disruptions, opportunities, occasional chaos inherent in daily existence. Support systems should facilitate that reality rather than exacerbate challenges.

It’s insufficient simply pointing toward theoretically workable models or administratively complete plans. Supports must be deliverable within the person’s actual lived experience – their market environment and supported by appropriate workforce, housing, clinical oversight, flexibility.

If funding proves inadequate, then said support lacks authenticity. If suitable personnel are unavailable, so too does it fail its purpose. Untrained staff render such supports unrealized. Incorrect ratios compromise safety. Defective accommodation renders planning ineffective; lacking meaningful input regarding who enters my home/provides assistance undermines choice and control - these become mere words not practice.

Submission 1922

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In my case, the problem is not simply theoretical delivery failure. I am also massively underfunded for the level of support required. What I need is not a paper model of support, and not a plan that looks complete from a distance. I need the actual practical conditions that allow me to live safely, return home, and rebuild a life.

Chapter 21 The problem with shared ratios

One of the clearest signs of regression in the current system is the increasing push toward shared support ratios, particularly for people with high support needs.

For someone like me, support ratios such as 1:2, 1:3, or 1:4 are not merely inadequate. They can be grossly ineffective and unsafe. They do not reflect what is necessary to meet my needs. They do not reflect the level of responsiveness required. They do not reflect the reality of clinical risk, manual handling, functional decline, community participation, or the fact that support is often needed actively and individually.

There are periods where I require 1:1 active support. There are periods where I require two support workers. There are periods where I may require a support worker and an RN. These are not preferences. They are practical requirements linked to safety, clinical needs, manual handling, and the ability to function.

A shared ratio assumes that support can be divided. Sometimes it can. Often, for people with complex needs, it cannot.

If a person requires active assistance at a particular moment, the fact that a worker is also responsible for two or three other people is not a small adjustment. It changes the nature of the support. It creates delay. It creates divided attention. It creates competition between needs. It creates the possibility that the worker must choose whose risk matters most in that moment.

That is not a safe design for people whose needs are immediate, complex, and sometimes life-critical.

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It also misunderstands what support is for. Support is not only about preventing immediate harm. It is about enabling a person to live. Shared ratios may be designed around the narrowest idea of maintenance. They may keep a person washed, fed, medicated, and somewhere indoors. But that is not the same as an ordinary life.

An ordinary life requires the ability to leave the house. To work. To attend meetings. To participate in community. To pursue interests. To maintain relationships. To be spontaneous sometimes. To respond to opportunities. To be more than a body that has been kept alive at the lowest defensible cost.

The current approach too often appears to reduce the question to this: can the participant prove that a cheaper shared ratio will cause direct and immediate harm?

That is the wrong question.

The correct question is: what support model is necessary for this person to live safely, with dignity, with autonomy, and with real access to an ordinary life?

those are very different questions. The first question starts with cost and asks the participant to prove why they should not be forced into a cheaper model. The second starts with the person and asks what is required to meet the purpose of the scheme.

the first question is bureaucratic. The second is rights-based.

the first question narrows the person to risk. The second recognises the person as a citizen.

p There is also a deeper danger in the shared-ratio logic. It encourages the system to group people together because their support needs appear administratively similar. But people are not compatible housemates because they both require support. People are not community because their rosters can be merged. People should not lose control over who they live with because a spreadsheet says their needs can be funded more cheaply together.

Submission 1922

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The text below states: “That is not choice and control. It is containment with nicer language.”

It continues: “For some people, shared supports may be appropriate and chosen. That is not the issue. The issue is when shared support becomes the default assumption, and the person must fight their way back toward individualised support by proving that the cheaper model is unsafe enough to reject.”

A further statement reads: “That flips the entire scheme on its head.”

The document explains: “The NDIS was meant to support people to live ordinary lives. It was not meant to require people with the highest needs to prove, over and over again, that their lives are too dangerous to underfund.

Submission 1922

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Who comes into my home matters. Their skill matters. Their temperament matters.

Their reliability matters. Their ability to learn matters. Their respect for boundaries matters. Their ability to work in a person-directed way matters. Their ability to notice change matters. Their willingness to be trained matters. Their understanding that they are entering my home, not that I am living in their workplace, matters.

Choice also means choosing who I live with. That should be obvious, but apparently it still needs to be said.

People with high support needs should not be forced into living arrangements based on administrative convenience. We should not be grouped because our support profiles make a funding model easier. We should not be told that the price of support is the loss of control over our own home life.

The right to live in the community is not satisfied by placing people in a house in the community while stripping away meaningful control over who they live with, who supports them, and how their day is structured. Institutionalisation is not only a building type. It is a relationship of control.

A person can be institutionalised in a setting that looks domestic if the model denies choice, privacy, flexibility, autonomy, and control.

That is why the current direction is so dangerous. It does not always look like a return to the large institutions of the past. It may arrive as shared ratios, provider- controlled housing, limited worker choice, rigid funding categories, reduced fexibility, or a bureaucratic insistence that a person’s life can be made efficient by aligning it with the needs of others.

But the effect can be the same: people lose control over their lives.

For me, that loss is not theoretical. I have lived the difference between support that is built around my life and support that tries to fit my life into someone elseǯs model. I know which one is safer. I know which one allows contribution. I know which one creates dignity. I know which one produces harm.

Submission 1922

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The system should know that too, because disabled people have been saying it for decades.

Chapter 23 The regression toward robotic service delivery

Over the last few years, there has been a serious regression toward uniform, rigid, almost robotic service delivery.

The yes and no lists, the tightening of funding periods, the growing suspicion towards flexibility, and the increasing pressure toward standardised support models all point in the same direction. The system is becoming less willing to recognise that disabled people have real lives.

Real lives are not uniform. They do not run on perfect administrative cycles. They do not always align with plan dates, funding categories, support lists, or the assumptions of people who have never had to coordinate survival around a roster.

My life has ebbs and flows. My support needs change with health, fatigue, work, pain, sensory load, functional decline, recovery, opportunity, crisis, community commitments, and the ordinary unpredictability of being alive. A week of heavy governance work may require more support. A period of health instability may require more support. A community activity may require support at a time that does not fit the routine. A piece of equipment may fail. A worker may leave. A clinical issue may change the entire rhythm of the day.

That is not exceptional. That is life.

A flexible support model can respond to that. A rigid model cannot.

The current direction seems increasingly designed around what is easy to administer, easy to audit, easy to price, easy to standardise, and easy for large providers to deliver. That may create the appearance of consistency. But consistency is not the same as quality. Consistency is not the same as safety. Consistency is not the same as a good life.

WHEN THE SYSTEM FORGETS TO LISTEN

A prison is consistent. An institution is constant. A hospital ward is constant. A group home can be constant. Consistency alone tells us nothing about whether a person is free, safe, respected, connected or able to live a life of their own choosing.

Uniform service delivery may suit large providers. It may suit bureaucratic reporting. It may suit a system trying to reduce discretion. But for people whose lives depend on support, uniformity can become a form of erasure.

It erases the person-specific detail that makes support safe. It erases the ordinary variation of life. It erases the difference between keeping someone alive and enabling them to live. It erases the fact that some people need support to attend a board meeting, restore antique furniture, take part in a maker space, engage in astrophotography, participate in a community garden, cook with others or contribute to a policy process.

When the system reduces support to a narrow set of approved tasks, the rest of life is treated as optional.

The rest of life is the point.

The good things of life are not peripheral. They are not decorative. They are not a reward after basic care has been delivered. They are part of what it means to be human.

A system that funds survival while stripping away the conditions of life is not fulfilling the promise of the NDIS.

Chapter 24 Support as the infrastructure of contribution

One of the most offensive assumptions that appears to sit underneath parts of the current reform conversation is that people with high and complex support needs are mainly takers.

That assumption may not always be said openly. It does not need to be. It is present in the way cost is discussed. It is present in the way high support needs are treated.

Submission 1922

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as a burden to be minimised. It is present in the idea that some people are too expensive to support into ordinary life. It is present in the pressure toward shared ratios and congregated models. It is present in the narrow framing of safety as the avoidance of immediate harm, rather than the presence of dignity, autonomy, contribution, and community.

The assumption is wrong.

People with high support needs can contribute deeply to their communities when the right supports exist. We may contribute differently. We may require more infrastructure to do so. We may not fit narrow economic measures of productivity. But that does not make our contribution less real.

My own life is evidence of that.

I have worked across co-design and facilitation, policy design, policy research, governance, systems design, and rights advocacy. I have contributed to the governance of not-for-profit organisations and disability-led work. I have participated in spaces where systems are designed, critiqued, improved, and held accountable. I have brought lived experience, technical knowledge, governance understanding, and systems thinking into rooms where those perspectives are often missing.

I have also been an active participant in my community in ways that have nothing to do with formal policy work. I have been involved in rifle shooting, fine woodworking, antique restoration, stargazing, astrophysics, astrophotography, community garden projects, quadcopter flying, growing bromeliads and orchids, book and movie review groups, cooking, hospitality, and fine food service. I have been involved in maker spaces, both as a user of equipment and as someone engaged in the governance of those community and public services.

those things matter.

WHEN THE SYSTEM FORGETS TO LISTEN

The text on this page discusses how current disability service assessment methods fail to account for crucial aspects of quality life.

They are not hobbies in the trivial sense. They are ways of being connected to the world. They are ways of building skill, identity, relationships, contribution, and belonging. They are ways of being known by people for something other than disability. They are ways of participating in community as a whole person.

When support is adequate, skilled, flexible, and participant-directed, those parts of life become possible. When support collapses, they disappear.

That disappearance is not counted properly by the system. The system may count whether a personal care task occurred. It may count whether a plan was approved. It may count whether a provider was registered. It may count whether a budget line was reduced. It may count whether a person was physically housed somewhere.

But does it count the loss of community? Does it count the loss of contribution? Does it count the loss of being known? Does it count the loss of the workshop, the garden, the telescope, the meeting room, the kitchen, the board table, the maker space, the book group, the quiet sense of being part of something?

Usually, it does not.

The text continues explaining that this failure leads to harm while creating an illusion of responsible management because systems measure only what’s easily visible administratively rather than essential human needs.

A false dichotomy exists suggesting individuals with complex care requirements cannot contribute actively or give back; however, such divisions benefit specific agendas but risk harming people’s rights.

A stronger community isn’t built through exclusion—it becomes weaker instead.

Similarly, fairness doesn’t come from cheaper methods for keeping disabled citizens out of sight – it diminishes society.

Submission 1922

W H E N T H E S Y S T E M F O R G E T S T O L I S T E N 69

An insurance scheme is not sustainable because it has reduced one person’s funding while increasing their likelihood of hospitalisation, institutionalization, deterioration, and exclusion. It is only hiding the cost.

If the NDIS is to be taken seriously as an insurance-based scheme, it should be asking how to optimise for good outcomes over a person’s lifetime. It should ask what investment now prevents greater cost later. It should ask how to support people to remain housed, healthy, connected, skilled, and contributing. It should ask disabled people what actually works, rather than designing systems from a distance and then wondering why they fail.

The answer, in many cases, is not mysterious. Fund the supports that work. Preserve participant direction. Support clinical training and oversight without forcing people into clinical captivity. Recognise thin markets. Fund housing that fits. Allow flexibility. Measure outcomes that matter. Listen when people say the system is making them unsafe.

Most importantly, stop treating the lives of people with high and complex support needs as a problem to be contained.

We are not problems. We are people.

We are citizens. We are workers, advocates, thinkers, makers, friends, colleagues, neighbours, board members, gardeners, cooks, readers, restorers, stargazers, and members of communities that are poorer when we are forced out of them.

The supports I need are substantial. I will not pretend otherwise. But they are not excessive when measured against the purpose they serve. They are what allow me to live, contribute, and remain connected to the world.

That is what the current reform conversation keeps failing to understand.

The question is not simply how much support costs.

The question is what is destroyed when that support is removed.

Submission 1922

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A n d i n m y l i f e , t h e a n s w e r i s n o l o n g e r hypothetical . I ha v e alr ea dy lost my home . I h a ve alrea dy lo st ye ar s . I have already been pushed through environments that no o ne sh ou ld pre tend ar e equiva lent to a life of one’s own choosing. I hav e alread y se en wh at happe ns when th e system talks about sustainability while refusing to face the human cost of its choices.

I am still here to say it.

M any others are not .

T hat should matter.

When the system forgets to listen

PART_05

Chapter 25: Foreseeable harm —the people_the_system_was warned_about

The phrase “foreseeable_harm”is often used loosely,as though_it_described_a_future risk_yet_to_materialise.In_the_context_of_the_Australian_disability_support_system,it does_not.T he_harm_at_issue_has_been_foreseen_documented_formally_investigated_and publicly_reported_for_years—by_parliamentary_inquiry_by_Royal_Commission_by_coroners.by_the_scheme’s_own_regulator,and_by_investigative_journalism.The question_this_Part asks_is not whether_harm_to_disabled_people is likely_if supports are_withdrawn_or_congregated_settings_are_expanded;t h e_question_i s_wh at_A ustralia i_s_ch oosing_t_o_d o_ab out_a_body_of_evidence_that_already_establishes_both_th e_h arm and its_causes.F ore see ability,in this context,is_n ot a hypothesis.It is_a record. This_matters because t he_rhetorical_structure of “ sustainability_reform“depends_on framing_fut ure_harm_as_speculative—a something concerned_advocates_worry about, but that cannot_be_confirmed_until it_occurs.The_record assembled in the chapters below_removes_that_frame. The harm has already been confirmed,repeatedly_, by every formal mechanism Australia_possesses for confirming such things.Par liament.has _been told .The Royal Commission.has Been_told.C or on ers_have_b een_t old._Th er eg ulator_has_b en_told.J ournalists have_shown th e_country,_o n_prime-time television ,what_was being_told.I f_a reform_proceeds_nonetheless—on magnitudes tha ts_part 6_has shown,w ill_predictably_push thousands.of participants_into_the

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72 very settings where the documented harm concentrates —the question becomes not what was foreseen but what was chosen anyway Those are different moral categories they should not be allowed to blur. The chapters that follow set out the components of the record in turn None ofthem depends on testimony from any particular individual allofthemand drawnfrom sources alreadyin public domain paidforby Australian taxpayersand presentedto institutions now legislating disregard them.

Chapter 26: Royal Commission’s findings as centralrecordThe RoyalCommission into Violence Abuse Neglect Exploitation People withDisability established April sat four half years received submissions heard almost ten thousand throughpublic hearings private sessions produced fourteen issues papers over seven hundred responses delivered its Final Report pages across twelve volumes plus introductory volume Governor-General September . It is comprehensive examination violence against disabled Australians ever conducted country itproduced recommendations Commonwealth acknowledged receipt those and tabled progress reports;Bill before Parliament inconsistent substantial number operative provisions.

The Commission’scentral evidentiaryfindings restated simplest possible terms these people disability experience violence abuse neglect exploitation significantly higher rates frequencies than communitysettings concentrate decision-making concentrated providers staffwheredisabled lack genuine choice control institutional accommodation large group residences family-like homes replaced larger

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Institutions but have not, as the commission concluded in its own words, “eliminated institutional forms of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation experienced by people with disability, particularly those with serious intellectual disabilities.” (Disability Royal Commission [2023], vol. 7). Seventeen thousand people living in group homes were identified as being at significant risk. The annual societal cost of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of disabled Australians was estimated, according to the commission’s analysis, at approximately forty-six billion dollars per year.

The commission’s analysis went beyond documenting harms; tracing mechanisms through which harm is produced: power imbalances inherent within institutional arrangements; devaluing voices among persons who are disabled during incident reporting or investigation; treating abuses like a “workplace issue” rather than recognizing them as criminal systemic matters they usually represent; deriving under-recognition from restrictive practices as abusive acts instead; inadequacy regarding self-reporting systems that lead to provider-led investigations regimes; striking structural barriers preventing individuals having cognitive communication difficulties accessing justice processes ; cumulative effects resulting segregation producing conditions where all above can persist .the commission’s recommendations correspondingly structured :a proposed Australian Disability Rights Act , reform supported decision-making restrictive-practice regimes introduction national reporting framework regulatory workforce reforms directly relevant here phasing out segregated congregated settings favor inclusive community living several specific address regulatory architecture NDIS Quality SafeguardsCommission others access design ndis supports themselves. What matter argument this paper not which commonwealth ultimately accepts it Commission findings place happens produces 2019-2023. A reform proposing reduce participant numbers cap individualised support expand reliance ratio-based care reorient scheme away participant-centred principles the

Chapter 27: The longer record — The campaign, the Senate Inquiry

Commission identified as foundational to safety cannot be discussed honestly without acknowledging it’s doing each thing against those findings.

It stands because:

• Paid commission reported,
• Evident findings have never displaced later inquiries.

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

Submission 1922

When the System Forgets to Listen

75 parliamentary committee, and the long literature on deinstitutionalisation that informed all of them. The Royal Commission’s findings, in other words, do not represent just one moment but rather they confirm what disabled people had said over a generation through formal submissions made during inquiries into these matters.

The deinstitutionalization movement was specifically designed to close large institutions where many individuals with disabilities were housed from around mid-1980s onward internationally; this trend continued within Australia until similar reforms took place there too. These policy changes aimed towards moving those affected out onto community-based supports based upon accumulating research showing institutional models caused systemic harm—such as isolation—and denied rights while smaller communities provided better outcomes; such conclusions have remained strong since then without weakening or strengthening further according to evidence presented throughout Chapter 26 which restates its validity today. Institutions did indeed shut down yet harmful patterns persisted even after their replacement by new arrangements like group homes identified here as being at significant risk in recent years. These are contemporary reflections of an ongoing record stretching back half-a-century examined under clear-eyed inquiry form. This is precisely why current reform efforts must be introduced carefully: going so far as withdrawing individualized support funding (as documented) will likely result again in congregated settings unless it can account for the entire body-of-evidence that has shaped modern disability service systems up till now. The Royal Commission’s Final Report and government progress reports on implementing recommendations still prepared and tabled should not go unaccounted when considering how Bill drafters interpret these records, as no such interpretation appears thus-far offered publicly regarding what they mean about existing practices.

Chapter 28: The coronial trail

Where the Royal Commission and Senate inquiry gather evidence broadly, the coronial system records each individual case. each finding is granular named made on formal evidentiary standards taken individually they are record single tragedy taken cumulatively demonstrate harm larger inquiries described aggregate terms manifest specific identifiable preventable deaths Trail long chapters follow do not attempt reproduce full purpose here establish type available reference representative findings Victorian State Coroner multiple occasions made recommendations Commonwealth Victoria governments respect people with disabilities including Heddergott corer observed neither NDIS providers mental health professionals responsible care adequately trained respond reports family violence recommended prescription NDIA NDIS Quality Safeguards Commission under information-sharing scheme (Coroners Court Victoria) same coroner called formally establishment adult safeguarding agency citing absence effective mechanism assess investigate response allegations abuse neglect exploitation at-risk adults NSW State Coroner death Carney Schultz group home Illawarra April recommendation provided to NDIA consider identified shortcomings supported living services Ms Schultz adoption multidisciplinary team approach drafting implementation appropriate Epilepsy Management Plans supported living accommodation disability service providers (NSW Coroners Court). And Ann-Marie Smith an NDIS participant died in April 2020 what subsequent description characterised as appalling circumstances prompted independent Robertson Review regulation relevant provider, of which sit

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alongside other recent coronial and regulatory examinations of the same pattern (NDIS Commission 2020; Robertson 2020). Two structural features of the coronal record bear emphasis. The first is that, although the coronal system records preventable deaths in detail, it captures only the deaths formally reported to it. Multiple inquiries —including the Queensland Office of the Public Advocate and the NSW Ombudsman— have documented chronic under-reporting of disability-related deaths, with health and disability staff often unaware of or non-compliant with reporting obligations.The deaths visibleinthe corona!recordare,ontheadavilabevidence,a subsetofthedethsthat shouldbevisible.Theseccondisthatrecommendationsatachedtocoronalfindings directedatthelDIA,theNDSCommission.providers,and governmentsrepresent specific,formal.on-the-record requestsforsystemic change,madebytheinstitutionAustraliausesforexactlythispurpose.Thecomplianceofteripientswiththose recommendationsis,byallovedienceuneven.The findings do not vanish; they remain on therecordandtheyremainavailableasevidencethatthe harmwasforeseneandtha tinstitutionsireceiptofforthenoticedidnotact.A separatebutrelatedbodye evidence isthaacademicclinicalliterature drawingconcoronalfindingtoidentifypatterns.Researchled atthereUniversityoft TechnologySydneyintocorontialfindingsondeathspeople residentialcare fromchokingandaspirationpneumoniapublishedinth JournalLawMedicineexaminedfour inquest findi nded thatineverycase th e coroner had found death preventable (McCarthy et al. 2022). The study estimated as many two million Australians live dysphagia, the swallowing difficulty implicated such deaths including people intellectual disability cerebral palsy traumatic brain injury and other conditions overrepresentedindisabilityservices.Thepreventabiliy finding matters here.Patterndocumented;mechanismsthatcanbeaddressed documented;dethsnontheseccontinue.That is foreseeability operating level of pattern:not just individual case.

Chapter 29 Mortality data and investigative journalism as

parallel public records

Two further sources complete the record this Part has been building. The first is the regulator’s own mortality data. In a study undertaken bymythe NDIS Commissionandthemy Australian Instituteof Healthmyand Welfare, young 9,062 deaths among my 526,515 people accessing disability support services under theNationalDisability Agreement between ym2013 and m2018were analysed(AIHW /NDISCommission). The findings werem unambiguous: compared with them general population ,people usingdisabilitysupportservices had higher rates ofmortality;them leading causesofofdeath varied across themo cohort ;annd peopplewith disabiltyhadhigher ratesofpotentially avoidabledeaths than thengeneralpopulation . Thisis theregulator’son evidence — notthen disable community ’s claim,nott an advocacy report,but theme Commonwealth’sown analysis of its ow nadministrative datam— that disabled Australiansusingthesuppo rt system die at higherratesandanfromcausesthat are,in significant part,a voidable.TheCommissionsubsequent recommendations for improveddata collection,stratification,and reportingodisability-related de athsare themselves ana cknowledgmenttha t whatism currently capturedisan inadequate to thesize scale of problem.

The second parallel record is investigative journalism,the one program above all has carried it. The ABC’s Four Cornershas produced a seriesof investigations into violence, yabuseandexploitationindisableandsupportedaccommodation settings over the past decade.T he November 2014 investigationinto Yooralla—which promptedthe ym2015 Senate inquirywas awatershed.Th eSeptember m2023 episode,“Careless,” aired in them same week asthemy Royal Commission’s Final Report , exposedregistered NDIS providers and opportunists exploiting these scheme anda busing participants(ABCFourCornersyym2023).Amongthem practicesit broughtto national attention werethe abusive restraintpracticesa tit IrabinAutismservic es im melbournewhich drewformal statementsofof concern fromtheme Acting Disability Discrimination Commissionerannd then National Children’sCommissioner (Australian Human Rights Commissio nmy2024) .F ourCorn ershass continuedt o

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79 The investigative journalism has functioned as an alternative source documenting violence within NDIS provider settings since its inception. What does this cumulative weight signify? Two decades dedicated solely towards advocacy efforts against such issues; a Senate inquiry from 2015 highlighting widespread neglect, an extensive four-and-a-half-year Royal Commission with over seven thousand submissions and two hundred twenty-two recommendations; coronal investigations detailing preventable deaths linked back specifically toward responsible agencies; as well as a regulator’s own analysis revealing nine-thousand-six-hundred cases where elevated mortality rates were potentially avoidably high due to systemic failures. The decade-long pursuit through investigative journalism consistently followed these findings. every single piece is publicly accessible either funded or independently produced under Commonwealth auspices— demonstrating that even those drafting current legislation before Parliament have been aware.

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

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When the System Forgets To Listen

80 The structure of foreseeability matters for what comes next, because it changes how the Bill should be read. A reform proceeding in genuine ignorance of likely harm is the result of failure; a reform proceeding in the face of formally established and acknowledged harm is the result of choice.The choice may still be defended on groundsof priority -sustainability,fiscal discipline,broader social objectives- butit cannotbe defensedongroundsnot having known.T he chapters above remove thenot-having-known defenceasacoherentposition .T h e 20!5 Senate Committee said th ecountry hadonly seen thee tip o f t heir berg.Th eroyal Commission,eight years laterandacrosstousandso fpages,saidtherberg was real ,large,andstructural The coronial record showeditsurfacesin individual deathsthesystemwaswarnedabout Theregulator’s own data showspotenially-avoidable mortality elevatedabovegeneralpopulationTh ejournalismshowsaustraliawhattherecordsscribed.N one oft hisiscontestedina nyformal forum. Noneoft ithasbeenwithdrawn.Andnoneoft iappearsexcept asbackground colour,in public framing off reformat now before Parliament.This Part therefore closes with propositionthenextPart will take up directly.Wherepart6examinedwh atBill does, this part hasestablished whatwasknown when it wassritten. The two together compose a single argument: them harm i sforeseeablen otasa worry buta sarecord;the reformisp roceeding not in ignorance of the recordb utalongside ti ; and whata that requiresofthepeople draftingpassinglegislation isat minimuman account how they understand themselves to be respondingtoit.No suchaccounthas been provided.There formbeingdefended assustainability,a si ntegrity,ast ruturesecuring -never ast considered response toth epublic evidentiary record assembled by t heCommonwealthsown inquiries.T h eo missioncon spicuousanditis o mmissionthatthispaper ,ininits conclusion,w illname.

PART 06

The Bill — how current reforms risk legislating regression

This Part connects everything that has come before to the legislation now in front of the Parliament. It is not a legal analysis.The forensic work of statutory construction, of testing the Bill against the Convention andagainst administrative-law principle,is being done— thoroughlyand well—by disability anda human-rights lawyers,and this paper leavesthatworktothem.Ther secondisthatthisPartisjudged,lke everyother ,againtthequestionatthecentreof thpaper: what happens when asystem forgets thempeople it was builttoserve?TheBilreadhereas evidenceforthaargument notasa defendantinalegalcase.Whereaprovisionmatterswhat mattersaboutit isthatisdoesa person—and why thati designfailureParts through5 completing itselfinalaw .

Chapter 31 The stated purpose and the real question

Ther Bilhasanamealso an argument : ther Securing then NDIS for Future Generations Bill.ItwasintroducedtocommonwealthParliamenton|4May2026,twodaysafterafederalBudgetbookedinadvanceofolegislation,areductionapproximately thirty-sevenbilliondollarsprojectedNDIS expenditureoverfouryears —takingtheschemes projectedcostfromaround seventy billion dollars around fifty-six a half billion. Thatfigurerepresentsroughly onethird othescheme’s projectede xpenditure.Itsupported byaparticipant-side target of reducingthesescheme’population from approximately seven hundredandsixty thousand people to six hundreddousandby |2030andby

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

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When the System Forgets To Listen

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When The System Forgets To Listen

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around one hundred and forty thousand, and reducing the average plan by close to to five-tenths simultaneously, is not management growth. it removal supports — at scale speed population least able absorb loss.The provisions examined chapter below machinery through which removal administered. The legislation framed around set legitimate protecting clarify who eligible what funds addressing fraud modernising governance placing financially sustainable footing None illegitimate principle paper does pretend otherwise scheme defrauded grows without regard cost will survive help anyone Sustainability genuinely matters question kind sustainability – whose expense But name encodes assumption rest already called into question It presents interests “future generations” interest participants aligned though securing tomorrow simply requires disciplining serves today argument that for high complex support needs bill drives wedge between those two things proposes secures future part reduces guarantees people most dependent now And not bargain own terms Parts shown withdrawing from with complex costs displaced hospitals families crisis lives deteriorate ways more expensive withdrawn So real question government’s stated aims worthy is whether aims being pursued protects endangering exists if current generation highest made unsafe order secure it test this Part applies whole

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

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When the system forgets to listen

84 paper applies to the system: not what it says it is for, but what it does to the people it is for.

Chapter 32 - The change beneath all others — rewriting whose plan it is

Most of the public discussion of the Bill has focused on its visible mechanisms: The new powers to suspend plans, the changes in reassessment, and fraud enforcement provisions.Those matter,and this Part comes to them.But the most consequential changein the Billis also oneofthelastvisible,becauseitisanot anew power atall.Itisa deletion.The current Act contains,in section 31,a set of principlesthat govern howaparticipant’splanisperpared,reviewed,replaced ,anda ndfunded.T hoseprinciplesrequire that th eprocess should,s o far as reasonably practicable be individualised anda nd directedbythestarticipant;considertheroleoffamily,c arers andinformalandcommunitysupports;b een derpinned byt he participant’srighttoexercisecontrol overtheirownlife; advancestheparticulants inclusionan d participationint hecommunitywiththeadm ofachieving their aspirations ;maximise their choice an dindependence;a ndfacilitatetailored,flexible responses t heirindividualgoals ana ndneeds.W hatever gap betweenthese princi ples ant het scheme ’s daily practice—ands Partsant4have showngapwide-sectionhasstoodasstatutory statementtha nt he planbelongs,inp rinciple,t he part icipant. It is legislative expressiono fchoiceando nc ontrol. Th eBillrepeals it.Not amendsi t; repeal sthes entireDivisioninwhichitsits.In itsplace,the Billinsertsa newsetof principle sheaded, w ithunusualcandour,

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across participants as a whole. Some softer language about respecting families and carers is added elsewhere, but the operative reorientation is unmistakable.The principles a decision-maker must weigh when shaping a person’s plan shiftfromthe person tothescheme—“what does thisparticipant needto livethelife thatis theirs?”towhat issustainable,efficient,and equitable across th e participant population? The point isnotthat sustainability principleshaveno place.It isthathave been made toreplacethe participan t-centred prin ciples rather thantosit alongside them—andtha t arights-basedscheme cannotcoherently delete thereparticant fromthere principles governing ther part icip ant’s ownplanand still call itself rights- based.T he supports maystill, in practice,bederiveredwith careby individuals inside theseystemwho have not forgotten anything.Butther law ’s centre of gravity willhave moved ,andovertime,sy stemsdrift towardstherecentreofgravity theirgoverning principl esestablish. Thatispreciselythelesssonoft hefifteen-year trajectory tracedinPart:thestchemetends,underpressure,towardwhatever its settings reward .The Bill changes thesettings.

Chapter 33 Measuring the wrong thing — functional capacity,

the “naked person”, and what disability actually is

The Bill’s access and planning measures share a common method: they narrow the aperture through which a person, and a person’s needs, are allowed to be seen. Functional capacity is introduced as a central organising concept for access. Reassessment becomes harder to obtain. The link between a funded support and an access impairment is tightened, so that supports must arise “directly” from the impairment in respect of which the person qualified. Permanence is tightened, so that an impairment is not treated as permanent unless the person has undertaken all appropriate treatment for it. And eligibility can be narrowed where another service system is said to be more appropriate. Each of these can be defended in isolation, and each will be. But there is a deeper problem than narrowness, and it goes to the conceptual foundation on which the Bill’s access system is built. To see it, one has to look at how the Bill actually defines functional capacity ––and then to set that definition against what disability, on the modern and internationally accepted understanding, actually is. The Bill defines a person’s functional capacity, in relation to an activity, as their ability to undertake that activity

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87 the third is disability itself. First, thereisamedicaldiagnosis:aconditionarisingfromaccident,injury,illness,disease,acongenitalcondition,achromosomalvariationorsomeothercause.Second,thatdiagnosiscarrysafunctionalimpact—afunctionallimitationindoingcertainthings.Butneitherthediagnosticnortheselfunctionallimitationdisability.Disabilityisthethirdthing: hardship,restriction,andexclusionapersonexperiencesattheinterfacebetweentheirselfunctionallimitationandtheirenvironment.TheConventionsaysexactllythiswhenitdescribespersonswithdisabilitiesasthesewithlong-termimpairments“whichininteractionwithvariousbarriers”mayhindertfullandeffectivelparticipation. disabilitylivesthelinteraction.Itdoesnotexistinthearmipmentconsideredalone,anditisdoesnotinthenakedperson. ThisismaketheBill’sdefinitionnomerelynarbutincoherentonitsownfoundationalterms.Section9Bdoesnottomedisablediabilitymeasurestingly;itedeliberatelyexcludesthoneingredient—theinteractionswithecvironment,supports,andcircumstances—withoutwhichtbyaccepteddefinitionthereisonodisabilitytomeasure.Itsolatesthefunctionallimitation, whichthemoderndefinitionexpresslysaysisanot disability,andusesitasproxyfor disability.Toadessapsearsonsdysibilitybylecluding

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

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88 systematically understate what it takes to keep that person safe across all other days. The Bill’s definition does not merely risk catching the wrong snapshot; it instructs assessors to remove context giving any snapshot meaning.A personwhose life works because ofa carefullybuilt environmentand support modelwill, asessed naked , appear either far more orfar less capable than theyareintheonlycontextthat exists—the realone—and inneither case willassessmentdescribe their actual disability . The “directlyfrom impairment” test carries related danger, anda Part4anticipated inside.People with multipleinteracting disabilities do nosexperiencetheir needs as a setof separable streams each traceabletosinglequalifyingimpairment.Thesupportthekessuchapersonsafeoftenarises frominteraction impairmentsorway physicaldisability neurologicalcondition andpsychosocialdisablecompound oneanother Atest askswhich singleimpairmента support arises“ directly” may have honestanswerfor people whose lives are most complex—-predictableresult isunderrecognition need precisely where needis greatest.Same true tightened permanence test: requiringperson undertake “allappropriate treatment before an impairencounters permanent imports clinical improvement logic fits poorlywith disabilities stable lifelongnot awaiting cure risks turning access into moving target recedesfastas aperson approaches it.None this say assessment should be unstructured thataccessshouldbeunbounded.Itsayan accesssystem built around what cannotdo measured standardised categories assumptionneedstrace cleanlytosingle impairments will see somepeople accurately others not all-andothers disproportionately thepeoplenthis paper about Doorway fencebuilt material difference letthrough keptout concernBill buildsassessment systemitbuildsonecategories narrowest exactlywhere livesmostcomplex.

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89

Chapter 34 Reasonable and necessary, and the quiet inversion of the test

The phrase “reasonable and necessary” has always been the heart of the scheme — the test that decides what a participant actually receives. The Bill changes what that phrase means, annd it does soin an waythat completesan inversionsthis paper first namedina Part:the conversionof “reasonablandnecessary”froma testappliedto aperson’s actualneedsintoalever appliedt oana overallbudget.The changeoperates throughseveralprovisionsworking together.Thescheme’own objectsare rewordedsoth at provisiono f reasonableand neces sary supportsis qualified—to be delivered “sofar asisc onsistentwiththes financi al sustainabilityoft he sch eme.” Newdeterminationpowersallowmaximumamount sof funding,maximumintensityofs upport,and maximumworker-to-participant ratiostosetforsupportsor classes ofs u pports ,appl i edtoparticipantsgenerally ortoclassesop artic ipants. Thelegislation is explicit th at these caps may bes et without regard tow hether themapped amountactuallymeetscost oft hesuppor ts inquestion.Avalue-for-moneyrequirementdirectsthedecision-maker to considerwhetheralower-costcomparable supportisa vailable.Andthenew sustainabilit yprinciples,examinedInChapter32,instructthedecision-makerto weighefficiencyandequityacross theparticipantpopulation.Take nin dividually,none oftheseisindefensible. Taken together, theyshiftther centreof ther easonable-and-necessary decisionaway fromthe individualinfront

t ofthead ecisi on- maker and towardaggregatethe dec isi on -makeristryingto manage.The questionslowly changesfrom“whatdoesthispersonreasonablyan d necessarilyneed?“t o”whatisthestandard,efficientequitableallocationforsomeon ein thiscategory,giventh escheme’s costposition?“,Andthatchangeismostdangerousforexactlythere peoplewhose needsareleaststandard.T heBill leansheavilyont he languageo fe qu ity— equity acrossparticipants,similar sup portfor similarneeds.But equit yisnot sameness,andthis isth epointonth which 1. The whole chapterturns.There isnothing equitable aboutgivingtwopeoplethesame su pport ratio whentheirbodies,riskshomescommunitiesandsuppor t

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requirements are not the same. Formal equality of inputs, applied to unequal needs, promotes deeply unequal safety For those on complex edges “the same as everyone with broadly similar needs” can mean an unsafe support model specifically. The cost-shifting principle in Section l7B does concrete work worth connecting it Part4 The principle that participants should bear their day-today living costs sounds unobjectionable until reality meets a person high support needs where line between daily living disability is precisely what’s disputed part draws distinction exactly when attending conference traveling taking holiday they meet ordinary personal costs anyone would but additional costs exist because disability must travel with them Worker accommodation meals rostering aren’t lifestyle costs; They’re support attributable directly to disability A value-for-money lens day-to-day-living-costs principle without this will tend reclassify related cost into personal and shift onto participant This logic threatens short-term accommodation which isn’t a holiday according to Part if pushed onto resources many disabled people never get genuine holidays inversion reasonable necessary abstract drafting matter It’s mechanism by which disabilities’ costs quietly moved from scheme back onto individual one at time Chapter35 Caps ratios abandonment Individualised Support Small phrase tucked deep inside Bill new determination powers deserves careful reading New section 33(2EA) allows CEO determine maximum amounts funding intensity supports worker-participant ratio for or classes of these caps may be applied generally class

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Chapter 36 - Automated forfeiture & the wheelchair that never arrives

Some provisions are dangerous because they are written ambiguously. Others are dangerous because they are written with complete clarity.New Section 50Ais\nthe second kind.It provides that when participant’s plan reaches its end date,a renewed plan automatically comes into force,andthatthe renewedaidenticaltotheprevious onexecept“thenewplandoesnotincludeanyonofffundingforasupportthatwasincludedunderoldplan.”Subsection(4)(b)addsthatthereenrollment“doesnotinvolvethemakingofanyshowabledecision.“Taken together:atmidnightontherightdate,thesystemrolls overaperson’splanandsilentlyremoves any one off,capital or otherwise time-limited funding from it.No officer makes a decision.Nono notice is given.There isthing to review.The Explanatory Memorandum suggeststhedraftershadinmindunusedexpired, time limited items—temporary variations ,one-off allowances thateverwere spent. Thatisanreasonablethingtocleanupbetweenplans.Butthesection does not say “used”;it says “one-of-funding for as support was included under

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automatically strips approved funding from a plan without a reviewable decision will cause exactly this harm in exactly this case. It is design failure rendered Part single transaction: System so far person can take away their wheelchair while being delivered, nobody inside done it. The proper remedy one any built around its would have default: one-off funding should follow until formally cancelled regardless whether boundary intervenes That complicated proposition what had Participant view drafting written fact did write itself evidence malice It same forgetting runs every other failure part.

Chapter Suspension silence - power that punishes unreachable Some powers made dangerous breadth Others words leave out New section allows CEO suspend participant’s where “made reasonable attempts contact” about matter participant "is not contactable" Neither phrase defined anywhere minimum number no interval specified channel protected timeframe The leaves judgement counts reached before support switched off.The suspension reviewed feature defect includes But two things make limited real protection first queue Administrative NDIA decisions relevant tribunal has recent years sat backlogs measured weeks months eighteen longer many participants depending state of at

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Section heading or page label: ‘When the System Forgets To Listen’

Page number: 95

The time the application is lodged. A participant whose plan has been suspended will, on the current evidence, be without support for nearly time it takesthe tribunal to look at the suspension.The second is who the power used on.The participants most likely unreachable ordinary methods are not generally choosing engage.They with cognitive impairment,intellectual disability,mental ill-health,communication disability,those supported decision-making augmentative alternative communication, those informal supports thin, lost worker home lives precisely damage.Suspension power will most absent in exactly people from whom supports have just removed.Section compounding problem allowing revocation -not termination after a plan has been suspended ninety days reasonable attempts made and participant contactable.There no stated minimum period limb transitional provision allows contact before counts toward threshold suspension revocation commencement.A participant difficult reach law can be measured against that record does.architecture consistent rest Part risk created system’s complexity vulnerability thinness of supports breakdown often accompanies worsening situation-risk displaced onto participant.unreachable treated person declining engage rather than as person engagement disabled circumstances scheme exists.support procedural defect category error about other end system letters phone calls.Scheme imagines participants ordinarily contactable treats failure remove support stopped imagining.

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Chapter 38 Information powers and the auditing of a life

If the suspension power treats the difficult-to-reach participant as a problem to be solved by withdrawal, the information powers treat the contactable participant as a subject to be examined. New section 53 allows the CEO to require a person, by written notice, to give information, produce documents, or appear before an Agency officer to answer questions in connection with the Act. Section 54 sets out how the notice must be given,what itmust contain,andthe protectionsthat apply.Refusingor failingto complyattracts acivil penaltyof sixtypenalty units—atthecurrent Commonwealth penality unit value,just under twenty thousand dollars.The legal analysis of thesepowers belongs tolawyersand they are doingit well.Theapointthispaperis builttomake is narrower anda bout what th epowers reveal.Th e breadth o fwh at canbe demanded—information,d ocuments ,anin-person appearancet oa nsw erquestions—and t he financial weight oft refusalsay something abouthowtheschemeist being asked toi magine then pers oni tserves.A scheme that primarily imagines its participantsas people i needofs upport will designitsinf ormationpracticesaround whatisnecessary tomakesupports work. A schemethata primaril yimaginesitsparticipantsaspotential sourcesoffraud,l ea kage,o rcompliance riskwilldesignits inf ornati on practices aroundw hatisin necessary ti nto interrogate them .The Bill ist,onts face,the second kindodesign.It treatstheparticipantasa personwhose life may need to bea uditedon paino fa penal ty,in orderfortheseschemetobesafefromthemrather than as a perso nt h eschema xists tok ee psaf e. Thereisto be fair,astelf- incriminationprotection: apersonisan ot requiredtogive informationthat might tendtoincriminate themon exposethemona penalty.Thatisa ppropri ate,andthe criticismhere isnotthattherel ivil privilegehasbeen removed.Thecriticismis thescop eofwhatcanotherwiseb erequiredand whattha st sc op saysaboutthere lationshipthestBill isconstructing.Ap articipant canbe require dt o

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produce sensitive personal information — about their relationships, their household, their medical history ––in support of an Agency function.A participant can be required to appear before an officer and answer questions.The threat of nearly twenty thousand dollars in civil penalty sits behind the demand.That penalty is not extraordinary in regulatory terms; what is extraordinary is the suite of people on the receiving end. Chapter 39 Fraud, compliance, and the imagination of theparticipant as a riskThe Bill devotes considerable architecture to integrity.Civil penalty provisions are added throughout.The Regulatory Powers Act is triggered with its standard toolkitof monitoring and investigation powers.Records-retention obligations are spread across providers.participants.and others claiming amounts under the scheme—seven years for providers.with substantial penalties for non-compliance.three yearsfor participants.in respect.of their claims.Debts owing.to.theAgency.are extendedto cover failures to keep records.New offences address obtaining payments.by deception or false statements.Fraud in the NDIS.is.a real problem.No serious participant.or advocate.would deny it. The.scheme.has been exploited by bad actors.providers-and.others who have taken money meant.for disabled people.Pursuing those actors.is legitimate.The criticism here.is.not that the.sscheme.should.be.indifferent.to fraud.It.is that the.integrity.architecture.taken.as-a.whole..is built around.an.imagination-of-who-the-participant-is—and-that-imagination-has.steadily widened.from.

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A useful way to see this is to ask: Of any compliance provision—what mistake by an ordinary participant—not a bad actor or fraudster but one doing their best—would it punish? Records-retention obligations will catch participants who lose records several years after they were generated; information-demand penalties will catch ones unable/unwilling to provide requested data; suspension powers will reach unreachable Agency members through non-compliance; renewal-forfeiture provisions target equipment delays. None targets solely bad actors as each also catches ordinary difficulties. This bill widens integrity net inclusionally. The scheme should focus two layers—one real force against defrauders while another cares about struggling participants needing support rather than punishment. The bill does not draw these distinctions, landing harder on more numerous visible easier-to-reach second population due to disability making compliance hard in its eye of enforcement subjects instead serving people schemes exist.

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supports. The Minister gains an explicit power to determine, as legislative instrument,maximum amountsand methodsforthe acquisitionor provisionofNDIS supports—a structured ministerialpricingpowerthattheadvisesinto rather than sets. These changes havea coherent purpose.Plan managementis afinancial-administrationfunction,and there isa defensible argumentforkingitseparatefrom supportdeliveryto limit conflicts of interest.Ministerial price-setting , advisedbythAgency,gives Parliament a clearer line accountabilitythan aprice guide that floats.Butthesameprovisionsread through question this paper asks raiseconcernsthe explanatory case does not fully meet.Heavily separatedtightly conditioned registration regimes tend favours large generic providers oversmall specialised ones—including thosesmall, specialiseproviders who do careful person-specific work complexparticipants depend on.A market dominated handful largecompliant provider is administratively easier scheme and predictably worse participants whose needs are unusual or lives sit at edge standard provison.Minerial pricing centralises decision has until now been made more visiblemarket processes.Centralisedpricenot in itself wrong; what matters whether prices set reflect true cost delivering qualitysupport particularly thin markets structure thoseprices allows specialistprovider remain viable. Pricing regime systematically underprice high-skill low-volumecomplexsupports willover time remove the providers deliver them— by banningthem but makingwork uneconomic.This isthemarket consequence design choices traced elsewhere Part.Bill builds market easy administer likely safer average cases.risks building nowhere safe for participant whomaverage enough.Structuralquestion same one wholePart asking.Whois markert end? If itforparticipantwhose need fitstandardpricingandthe standardprovider,Bills marketdesignwill works for them.Ifit also—and crucially—for participanwhose require small,

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Chapter 41 Automation and the Disappearance of the Decision-Maker

New Section 59B authorises the CEO to arrange an administrative action under designated provisions via computer program operation. The Act specifies applicable sections, a Minister may add through legislative instruments further provisions; an operating procedure instrument governs automated decision-making steps. The CEO must ensure actions are validly taken. each safeguard in isolation makes sense, avid uses exist within any sizeable NDIS scheme’s scope. Concern lies regarding interaction between other parts’ provisions: specifically section renewal forfeiture can be carried automatically due its design being non-reviewable, it removes nothing from participants otherwise receiving human officer support. the suspension power hinges on reasonable attempts made, participant contact status, can these judgements be reduced into rules? human officers pick up files without a single one ever handling them.

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Chapter 42: The New Planning Framework And The Assessment That Misses The Person

Threaded throughout this bill are new planning architectures dependent on needs assessments driving funding. The public reporting committee evidence indicates assessors carrying out these assessments won’t necessarily include allied health professionals, favouring generic interpersonal skills over clinical qualifications; an instrument under consideration being an individualised functional-capacity tool rather than clinically grounded ones. The Minister has framed widespread under-funding participants as twenty per cent publicly described to improve NDIA’s current accuracy. Against its architecture framework completes design failure instead correcting it.The system replaces individualized clinical evidence produced by allied healthcare professionals with standard instruments administered non-clinicians applied conceptually incoherent “naked person” defined section 9B weighted sustainability principles of Section l7B run caps ratios may sit below cost automated process yields decisions participant will struggle review.Every step assessment pipeline narrows what can be seen until thin schematic emerges from other end that shaped plan they receive not them.

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Chapter 43 - The Cost the Government Is Not Counting — Fiscal,

Structural, And Moral The Minister’s twenty-per-cent framing is worth a moment because it inverts the right question. The under-funding described here isn’t primarily an accuracy problem at the Agency; rather than reducing costs as intended through structural changes made permanent within this bill: a definition excluding environmental factors,a planning principle prioritizing sustainability over choice and control,caps set below actual expenses,supports reclassified personal expenses,and assessment instruments unable to address complex needs.If more participants are under-funded according to these predictions,the new framework won’t reduce such figures.It will hide them—by routing funding issues through processes too standardized, automated, unreviewable from outside.The real issue lies not with sharper tools applied on poor definitions but defining disability accurately,designing plans around individuals’ lives before assessing their needs next. This chapter examines three additional costs overlooked:the economic impact of contraction,further pushing people into unsafe living arrangements already found so by law,repeating what we know doesn’t work effectively. The first cost is fiscal irony—the scheme being cut despite independent modeling showing its role among most economically productive public expenditures for Australia produced recently by Per Capita think-tank.

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a reform that will make it lower. Their is no honest reconciliation between those two positions. Now follow the money.Workforce participants who are removed from the labour market do not vanish from the federal Budget; you migrate to other lines on it.Disability Support Pension, Carer Payment,and related social-security expenditure will rise as direct consequence of workforce exits the contractions produces —a transfer one Commonwealth expenditure line others ,not reduction overall.Commonwealth expenditure order twenty-eight thousand dollars per recipient year ; Carer payment broadly comparable.Even modest fraction affected landing these payments substantial offsetting cost—likely billions dollars per year against headline saving before additional health-system costs withdrawn support foregone income-tax revenue departing workers long-tail age-pension decades foregone superannuation contributions family members forced leave paid work become full-time carers added.None ledger thirty-seven billion dollar saving calculated.They all appear side government claiming.It gross figure budget,offset increases simply uncounted.This fiscal indictment complete form.contraction regressive incidence overstated saving contradictory governments stated employment objective once workforce-exit transfers DSP CarerPaymenthealthforegone tax lost superannuation reckoned substantially smaller genuine net effect than number suggests.None say inefficiencies scheme there and should be addressed way contraction designed population reflected careful accounting real picture reflect choice about which Australians visible calculation which

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moral arithmetic by being labelled sustainability. Forcing people back into the systems we have just spent four years documenting as unsafe is not an unintended consequence of the reform.It is the predictable structural consequence of the reform’s design.

The third cost is moral, at it is simplest in three states.The disability community has spent fifty years building defending slowly enlarging conditions under which a disabled person can live ordinary life—in their own home with workers choose embedded communities supports make presence participation possible.History well known closure large institutions establishment independent living social model disabilities long advocacy produced Convention Rights Persons Disabilities campaign produced NDIS itself.None came easily.Almost none from government initiative almost all from disability community insisting against considerable resistance that disabled are patients managed citizens enabled Reform now proposed reverses much progress legislative form.Funding intensities ratios set below cost definition exclusion environment support planning system reoriented participant scheme enforcement architecture treats participants compliance subjects—these next step arc inclusion.They cumulative effect unmaking it.A small statistical detail makes cruelty exact.Approximately five percent ndis participants account around one-third total cost.These highest most complex needs Royal Commission findings exposed violence abuse neglect exploitation when fails insufficient.Reforms response concentration apply caps and ratios will fall hardest exactly those participants same five percent receive less need predictably more pushed congregated settings where Royal Commission told harm concentrates;and harmful forty-six billion dollar

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Chapter 44: The longer pattern — Bills are events; design failures are trajectories

It is tempting to treat the Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill as a discrete event ––a single piece of legislation to be debated, amended, passed or rejected. The system’s response to evidence that it is failing the people at the centre of its mission is to fail them more thoroughly, more cheaply, and with statutory authority. text continued below

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This Bill is the next move in that trajectory. It is not the worst version of itself that could have been written, and it is not the first move that has caused harm.But it is the move that converts much of what was previously administrative drift into legislative settlement.The reframing of “reasonable and necessary”as a function of sustainability,the deletionofthe participant-centred planning principles ,The abstractiondisability awayfromtheperson ’s environment The structural underfundingcomplex needs through capsand ratios reclassification disability costs personalcosts powers to suspend revoke withouta meaningful human moment integrity architecturetreat participants compliance subjects automation decisionmaker from view none theseisbyitself sharp breaktrajectory past fifteen years Each isolationcould be defended as continuation Taken together elevatedinto Act they maketrajectory law This question opens this Part rightone government’s stated aim securing scheme future generations legitimate means matter Ascheme legislates wayto sustainabilty removingparticipant centre own plan abstracting disabilit conditions constitute stripping support people lives most depend willnot fact secured anything worthsecuring preserved structure whose meaning hollowed out blueprint promised something specific lifetime certainty reasonablenecessary support choice control ordinary lifeBill should judged cheaper brings closer promises further them Conclusion entire paper building toward canbe plainly Bill present form movescheme further serves None proposed changes arbitrary cruelty offered governments framing sustainability magnitudes now Parliament reduction roughly one-third schemes projected cost by 2030 removal around hundred sixty thousand current

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participants alongside the prevented entry of an estimated further one hundred and forty thousand who would otherwise have joined, and a real per-plan reduction in the order of one-sixth —cannot be reconciled with the prevention of foreseeable harm to the people whose supports are being cut or denied. The two-cohort structure is itself revealing.The cuts to existing participants are the visible part of the contraction;the prevented entry of much larger group is structural one—the narrowing Australia willing recognise as having disability at all, avoiding diagnosis-based access conceptually coherent functional-capacity test examined Chapter33.That not matter reasonable people merely differ margin.It structurally choice scheme against,not with,person most affected. it tempting respond proposing list amendments—to restore participant-centred principles repair definition disability remove auto-forfeiture undefined suspension thresholds redirect integrity architecture Each individual defect could isolation drafted differently analysis this Part points harder conclusion paper does shrink it:Bill flaws collection separable drafting errors amendment correct one-by-one.They single underlying conception—that schemes problem cost that can assessed abstract away person’s life sustainability achieved contracting what provides needs properly beginning concerns. That case whole making: system worth only for people built protect system which forgets them however efficiently lost justification ever had.

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Part 7: The way back — a rights-based, safety-based, participant-led alternative

Chapter 45 Start with the outcome, not the line item

A system is told what to do by the question it asks first. The scheme as currently configured begins increasingly, with the question of what something costs—whether at the level of an individual plan,a class determination ,a price benchmark orthe aggregate budget.Ascheme oriented thisway will over time produce decisions optimisedforcost.The reformatthisPartproposes starts somewhere else.Itasksof every decisiontheschememakes,different openingquestion: What does this person need in orderto live safely,freely,and withdignityinthecommunity.with genuine choiceand controlover their own life? The objection that thisis naive about cost should be met directly,becauseit istheobjection on which then entire public debate has been organised.Ther current reformist being justifiedby propositionthat schemes unaffordable—and policy follows that propositionisa reductionroughly one-thirdinthescheme’s projected costb y.achievedpartlyremoving someone hundred and sixty thousand people from th escheme partly reducing average participants’planfrom around thirty-one thousands dollarsaround twenty-six thousand . A change magnitude isnot refinement at margin;itis structural contraction cannot reconciled prevention foreseeable harmpeople depend supports removed Objection participant-centred reformnaiveabout costs mistakes Question Cost real The kind analysis applied to whom are shifted.

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Insurance schemes, including the one designed by the Productivity Commission in 2011, to manage cost across participants’ lifetimes. Their early investments aim at preventing deteriorations, avoiding larger costs when preventive measures fail—hospital admissions, institutional placements; family carer breakdowns; cascading clinical complications following withdrawn support. By measure—the blueprint’s actual use—it argues against cost discipline: it advocates genuine cost control over front-loaded reductions displace rather than reduce total cost. a scheme stripping projected expenditure from its support side will not on evidence Parts through supply have reduced Australia’s disability cost It has moved out-of-scheme into hospital system families prison and child-protection systems lives people whose deterioration it was funded to prevent That is sustainability externalisation with label attached Reform this Part proposes accepts insurance discipline built rejects contraction imposed name of sustainability Cost constraints inside which outcome question answered Not itself treating as what produced failures described magnitudes now proposed first thing alternative refuse This reorientation practical content planning process around asks each participant needed live safely own home choose workers participate community contribute wishes treats prevention central residual Participant author their plan literal sense repealed section current Act required that would restore And assessment instrument whatever used servant those questions substitute asking them The

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Chapter 46 Safety through harm minimization, not zero-risk fantasy

The scheme’s regulatory trajectory in recent years has, as Part 3 showed, drifted toward something that resembles zero-risk avoidance more than genuine safety. The two are not the same. Zero-risk avoidance minimises an institution’s exposure; harm minimisation manages a person’s actual risk while preserving their life conditions.Their appearances may be similar from afar.They diverge sharply at where safeguarding someone requires tolerating ordinary risks inherent within life.Harm minimisation isn’t merely soft; instead, it represents discipline rigorously embedded into professions already relied upon.Nurses learn to manage proportionate risk under NMBA decision-making frameworks which contemplate delegation,supervision,and managed practice—not mere withdrawal towards zero-risks.Occupational therapists and rehabilitation specialists have been trained over half-century focusing on front-loading early intervention,the prevention of secondary complications functional decline.These aren’t aspirational philosophies but foundational curricula taught during first-second clinical training supported by decades evidence timely appropriate interventions reduce long-term harms costs.The expertise previously considered missing was always present with clinicians funded by this very system.Failing mobilizing it.A reformed safety architecture would do three things.Its principle should name harm minimisation rather than risk-avoidance for operating its regime standards audits centered around whether individuals become safer institutions remain insulated.

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Chapter 47 Rebuild co-design as the discipline it actually is

If the eight tenets set out in Part 3 describe what co-design is, this chapter is about what it would take to build the scheme around them. The point is not to add more “consultation” to existing processes.It is to redesign the processes so that the eight tenets, together with their whole-of-process governing principle which binds these principles together,become how decision-making occurs. Concretely,that requires several shifts that may seem administratively difficult but conceptually simple.Disabled people,including those who have high and complex needs,would participate actively throughout reform development—not just at presentation stages.Co-design should represent an integral part where communities are involved directly rather than being consulted post-decision making.Collaborative authorship ensures a shared voice within policy texts.

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The instruments — policies, rules, guidelines, assessment tools – rather than its perspective filtered through officials who then write the document. Co-implementation would carry that authority through into rollout so designs cannot be quietly undone at operational layer; co-monitoring commits scheme publicly available third-party-scrutable performance data including outcome measures Chapter will set out;so testing account taken on trust. Co-equal replaces unilateral veto funder retains reserving decision-making authority mixed bodies community not merely advisory. Co-ownership gives disabled people continuing stake their own scheme someone else’s. And co-consent treats participants’ agreement how operates ongoing deemed point access assumed forever. two further conditions deserve emphasis because they are most often omitted: one deliberate inclusion of high complex needs every co-design process—not separate “complex needs” working group consulted margin but full presence main rooms where decisions made reforms traced Part failed large part because those exposed consequences present when designed reformed treat such presence structural requirement option tick budget second is deliberately regional rural remote culturally and linguistically diverse First Nations low socioeconomic perspectives without which system metropolitan well-resourced lives notices rest Australia does fit model both inclusions cost something do properly much more omit True co-design built this way procedural overlay existing governance it a discipline itself right single change likely prevent kind failure paper described recurring actuary bewilderment Part decade data unable read it end happens to runs genuine monitoring Restore loop, the can see again.

Chapter 48 Preserve participant-directed support, and protect

the clinicians who make it work

The collapse traced in Part 3 — the worker-delivered, clinician-trained model rendered unsustainable by reforms that, on their face, preserved it – was not inevitable. It can be reversed, to describe even where implementation administratively detailed. The reform direction straightforward delivery models for participants choose them For people with high complex needs particularparticipant control because knows body risks history failure modes ways roster-driven provider cannot People must able home training specific where support person-specific; bureaucratic audit around self- mangement and self-direction designed enable safe individualised practice through risk-aversion theatre.The other half shown quiet failed protect enabling depends nurse occupational therapist physiotherapist or practitioner trains a support worker task supported clear, specific high-intensity match real clinical-governance pathways rely indemnification arrangements professional risk entire quality safeguards rules recognise accommodate rather regulatory residual None kind detailed regulatory scheme committed to participant directed has do current settings left undone.Regulation should target unsafe practice without destroying safe individualised models The two distinguishable discipline distinguishing is

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Chapter 49 Design for thin markets, not metropolitan averages

A national scheme is only as safe as its weakest real-world implementation environment. The reforms traced through this paper have repeatedly been built around an implicit assumption that the market —the depth of providers, the availability of clinicians,the supply of trained workers , alternatives when one option fails—is deeperthanitactuallyisacrossmostofAustralia.The reform direction isto abandonthatassumptionanddesignforthecountryasitis .Regional,rural,andremoteparticipantsneedmarketspecific safeguardsbuiltintothescheme’s design,notaddedbyexception.Funding component amounts must reflect actual local costs anda realities oftin-marketavailability ather thannational price benchmarks thatassumemetropolitansupplychains.Crisispathwaysmustbedesignedbefore supports collapse,sota participantwhose provider exits.whose worker resignsand whose clinician withdrawsisnotlefttonavigateavacuumduring imewhennavigationistleastpossible.Reloaction support—practical,funded and dignified-maybenecessarywherealocalmarketgenuinelycannotmeetaparticipant’sneeds，andsintegrationOfSpecialist Disability Accommodation.complexsupport funding ，an dclinical oversight should betreatedasa single problem rather than three disconnected ones. Theparticipantwhoselife depends on them combination Of thosethree streamsshould not be left to assemble it fromdisconnected programs The deepershift isoneofframing.Think markets are nota residual category od difficult cases.Theyareastructurefeatureof an Australia-wide scheme,andaffect asignificant minority of participants.Ascheme thattreatsthemasaridual

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Chapter 50 Keep disability supports in hospital where they are needed

The pattern Part 4 names in the hospital context —the automatic withdrawal of NDIS supports at admission—on the basis that the hospital will provide everything produces—in many real cases—the opposite of safety.Hospitals are configured to deliver clinical care;they are not configured—and most cases—are staffed—to deliver high-intensity,person-specific disability support—that some participants need around-the-clock-to remain safe-comfortable-and communicating.Removing that support—at the door-of-hospital—is-not-a-saving.It-is a displacement-risk onto-very service-system-least-equipped-absorb-it,-and resulting deterioration-pressure-injuries-respiratory-complications-communication-breakdowns-behavioural escalations-interpreted-as-clinical decline—is foreseeable-expensive-and avoidable. The reform here-operationally simple.A continuity-of-support test-would replace current-automatic-withdrawal.Where-disabilitysupports-necessary-for-safety, communication-daily livingcontinuity-or prevention-of deterioratior,andhospital-cannot-deliver-them-at required-standard,the-supports continue.Support workerswhere clinically and practically appropriateremain involved—not as visitors-but part-safe-care arrangement-around participant.The decision with drawa support-at hospital-admission-treated what it is—a safety-decision requiring risk assessment-rather than an administrative default.And scheme-relevant health systems jointly own responsibility ensuring no-participant-render unsafe-by transition-between them. Thecurrent settings invert this.Default withdrawal exception continuitiesparticipant carries risk gap.reform makes continuation-default-needed places burden justification on

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Redesign oversight around real outcomes

The actuary’s bewilderment in Part 3 — a decade of data, and a system that could could not read it—is finally,a failureof what was being measured.The scheme has been thoroughin measuring units of service delivered, pplans approved,budgets adjusted,and compliance events recorded.Ithasbeen far lessthoroughmeasuringwhat those administrative outputs actually amounttointhelifea participant.A reformedoversightregime would measurethe thingsthat matterandwould let themthings thadonotmatterfallbackintotheir proper place as inputs rather than ends. Theoutcome measures aparticipant-centred schemeshoulder track arenot mysterious ,an they follow directly from therights framing established InPartlandtheresult questionChapter45.They include: whether participantsaresafe;whethertheyareliving their own homeor have beendisplacedfromit; whetheryhavecontinuityofsupport continuityworkers whethey havemunetsuppor needif sofor what ;whehter retain control over workers who enter theirhomearrangements shape daily life; whether able to participate communitylife whehterable contribute wishtowhether experiencing foreseeable preventable harm—pressure injuries,hospital admissions mental health crises social isolation,deterioration on standard clinical indicators—that thesystem should haveprevented; an dwhetherthescheme is, itsownmeasureachievingpurposes setout inits objects.Two design features make outcome measurement honestratherthan ceremonial.The first isthec-monitoring principle Chapter 47 : data collected withcommunity interpretedwith public available for third-party scrutiny. A system owns only copy of performance data decides itself how read itaccurately The second that outcomes must capable seeingparticipants most easily misses—the regionally remote culturally and linguistically

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Conclusion — the warning

Parliament must hear

What this paper has established

This paper opened with a claim that has now been carried by seven parts of analysis dand lived testimony, and it can finally be stated as a finding rather than a proposition:the National Disability Insurance Schemeis becoming dangeroustoa substantial minorityofthepeoplewhodependonit,anditisbecomingdangerousinawaythatisanitheraccidentalnorunforeseenthe scheme thate designedina2011 to give effect choicecontrolanda participant directedordinarylifeisthunder legislationnowbefore Parliamentbeing reoriented aroundschemesustainabilityasthe controlling principlewith participants reducedfrom authors their plans subjects assessment excludes very environment whichtheir disability actually livesThe pathtoreorientationhasbeen traced.The blueprint was sound;funding architectureCommissiondesigned protect neverbuilt decade policy choices steadilydeparteddesign safety reforms supposedprotectparticipants toooften removed conditions safetyleived consequences for people high and complex support needs havebeendisplacement deterioration hospital admission slow withdrawal supports onwhich ordinary life being built harm follows weight public record unforeseen documented Bill wouldlock trajectory into law written apparent disregardrecord Each propositions work separate Partthispaper none offered loosely argument taken whole indictment institutions own evidence ̀ Productivity Commission’s original design the

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Convention to which the Act gives effect, the Royal Commission’s findings, the coronial trail, the regulator’s mortality data, the modelling produced by independent peak bodies, and the Bill’s own operative provisions. The paper has throughout conceded what should be conceded ––that inefficiencies exist; fraud occurs; cost matters, sustainability to matter—has shown none those concessions justifies reform actual magnitude design incidence fiscal saving overstated once workforce-exit transfers reckoned with macroeconomic intent regressive its incidence structural choice forces participants back into settings country spent four half years documenting unsafe conceptual foundation access regime contradicts definition disability scheme exists honour planning principles placed participant centre plan altogether These are separable critiques facets single failure named title this paper earned analysis assembled:system stopped listening people built serve

What Is at Stake It important say plainly stake because public framing reform trained country attention set numbers cost of scheme rate growth share federal Budget almost no attention different set numbers human costs will produce Numbers that follow measured billions dollars They in whose plans cut below threshold lives sustained safely community People who pushed against preference practice congregated arrangements harm formally documented concentrating. People lose renewal capital funding wheelchair piece equipment already approved ordered transit supports suspended system could reach them circumstances where reachability itself function suspensions Supports being Suspended People leave

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workforce because the supports their participation depended on have been withdrawn.

ppllewho willbe prevented from ever joiningthe schemecause them conceptually incoherent definitionof disabilitythetBillinstalls cannot seethem. family memberswhowill leavepaid worktobecome full-time carers,andwhose superannuation,incometaxandlong-termsecuritywill berodedinproportiontoto theyspend doing so. Whatis at stake, in other words,isnot anadministrative arrangementbuta generationsworthordinarylives.Home.Safety.Breathing-forparticipan tssupporsthekeepthemoutacute care.Participation.Dignity.Thecapacity chooseperson whoentersonebedroomeachmorning.Capacityleave onehousefor somethingotherthanmedicalappointment.Capa citywork, study,parentcontribute and bepresentcommunityas chooses to present.Thes are notabstractionsands theyare noluxuries.Theyconditions citizenship people schemeexists enablecitizenship. Theywillsurvivecontractionitspresentformpeople lose themwill not returnedany later inquiryor future reform.Losses once accepted durable. The false choice reformat asks country accept The reform is being defended through particular framing that should named refused.Australia asked repeatedlyaccept therechoice between sustainability rights-thatschemecannot both fiscally responsible faithful founding promise fiscal responsibility must therefore take priority presented as if were hard-headed adult acknowledgment constraint people object it presented refusing engage realities public finance framing should refuse analysis paper supplied grounds on which A schemedestroys lives funded enabled has become sustainable.Itbecomes somethings else given schemes name Sustainability properly understood capacity system continue delivering purpose intofuture.Scheme contraction predictably forces participants

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to congregated settings that increase the country’s largest single category of disability-related cost —the $46 billion annual societal cost of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of disabled Australians documented by the Royal Commission—is not a sustainable scheme; it is a scheme whose contraction will increase, not reduce, total public cost over time. A scheme that pushes its workforce onto the welfare ledger and its participants’ family members out of paid work has not saved money; it has moved cost from one Budget line to others.A scheme that abandons the participant-centred principlesthat madeits measurable workforce-participation gains possiblewillnot preserve thosegains ;it willasser them ,by removingthepsupportsthat madethempossible.The choice thereform asks thcountryto acceptis nota realchoice ;itisapresentationofoneasifitwere.Genuine sustainability andaithful rights-delivery are no opposedin thisscheme.Theyarethesamesetchoicesmadewell,andthesesame set choicesmade poorlyishwhatproducesboth fiscal wastea ndhuman harm.#### To borrow Santayana— what foreseeableharm now requires us tore memberPart5oftthispaper assembled thenpublic recordofforeseeablehar m:theroyalCommission,the longer parliamentaryrecord going back through ther 2015 Senate inquiry,t he coronial findings,there gulator’s mortality datathe decadeo finvestigative journalism.T h cumulative weight o ftha trecordisthe central evidentiary anchor oft ha rge ment,a n d it must be honoured inthen conclusion too .The institutional logic tha tp roducedt eh arms documentedinthose records did

not vanish when the institutions closed.Ithas resurfaced,repeatedly,inthesize smaller and apparently more humane settings thatsucceededthem, tand teh Billnow before theparliament will,on ana lysis of Part6,push further participantsback into these kinds arrangements where thatinstitutionallogicoperatesmost reliably. ToborrowandslightlyadaptSantayan a’srather starkwarning :whetherwearespeakingof people ,system s,intitutions,governmentsor countriesthelesson remains th e same.When there lessons off history are forgottenthestempestsof them past do not stayburied.They returnoften dressedinn ewer language,newer

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What Is Asked Of The Reader

A conclusion finally must address those who read directly: what does your reading require? This question applies most immediately to Parliamentarians. The case made here isn’t about malicious intent or foreseeable risks—it’s fundamentally irreparable flaws built on principles contrary to participant-centred purposes and fiscal terms false even under its own financial conditions, a flawed foundation cannot be repaired through amendments because they don’t reach these foundational issues; instead urge withdrawal followed by an inclusive redesign.

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Closing

This paper began with an observation that has, by its end, become a finding: ‘The National Disability Insurance Scheme works well —anditworks safely,sustainably, anfifidelitytoits founding promise—whenitislistens tol peoplewhose lives depend on it.’ It fails often spectacularly whendoesnot.The choicethe Parliamentis being askedtomake inth Securing th eNDISforFutureGenerationsBill 2026isinits operative effect,thechoice to legislate asystemthat listens less. The recommendationofthispaperistherefore singular,anditinfollowsnecessarily from everythingthestepaperhasassembled.It isthattheshouldbe amended.Thispapergoestodemonstratingatlengththa ttheBilisanot soundinstrumentin need of refinementbutafundamentallyflawedinone— flawedinfoundations,nottomerelydetai ls.Itmeasuresasthecentralconceptoft accessregime somethingthat is not disability and thatschemes ownfoundingConvention says isn’tdisability. Itreplacesparticipant-centredprinciplesstatutoryexpressionsofc hoicecontrolwith principlesorientedtoscheme’s cost.Invertsmeaningreasonablenecessary.Buildsplanning,caps ,suspen sions,forg esitures,enforcementonthose inverted foundations.A flaw that kind cannot beamendedout,becausenotin singleprovisionan amendmentcouldreach; locatedideasdrafting.Onecannot amendmeasureintosoundness when thing sets out measure, the principlest set apply purposeit serves eachrootwrongones.There no version this Bill however amendsafeversionhowever amendments fair.The only course consistent evidence paperis one papers argument about co-design compels.Bill must seen for what itand

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must be withdrawn. In its place, a genuine process of co-design must begin — code as this paper has defined it across all eight tenets under whole-of-process principle binds them: disabled people including those high complex needs present not at end comment settled plan but beginning sharing authority over ideas design instruments implementation monitoring; standing owners rather than consultees; with consent treated ongoing rather presumed That: must free consider options paths forward include those Present never contemplated rather handed predetermined destination asked assist route Part7 sketches substance such would likely recover outcome-first planning harm minimisation participant-directed support Design country actually continuity through hospital oversight measures matters But offered indication contains substitute code alone can legitimately produce path forward Paper or Bill government settle advance designed lives govern system choose even now to listen again cost choice small cost failing already documented exhaustively records commissioned paid What about become evidence next Parliament decide disabled Australians say decision in front done part rest question whether time anyone read written

When The System Forgets To Listen

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References

References follow the author-date (Harvard) convention. Where a source is a web-based commentary or media item published in 2026 immediately surrounding the Bill’s introduction, the full URL and date of access are marked for confirmation at final proofing; alld bibliographic details that could be verified have been included. author=“Australian Broadcasting Corporation” date=“[2014]” pubtype=[television investigation] citation_title=Yooralla collection_name=

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When the System Forgets To Listen - Page Number 131

response to the Four Corners report on Irabina Autism Services, AHRC, Sydney, viewed |June| 20 ext{ }2 ext{} ,https://humanrights.gov.au/. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare extbf{ extit{(AIHW)}} [2pt] 2020, Mortality patterns among people using disability support services in Australia: l July $^{\mathsf{l}}$ $oldsymbol{{}^{|}|}$to$oldsymbol{{} imes| imes|$ June ${}{^{\mathrm{t}}}$$^{\mathsf{i}}${}{$^{\mathrm{s}}}${}\xspace$, Cat.$^{\mathrm{n}}$. no.${{^{\mathrm{o}}}{\rm DIS}}{{\kern+4mu}}{{{76}},~A I H W,{C a n b e r r a }}$(study commissionedand led bytheNDIS QualityandsafeguardsCommissionwiththeneDIA), viewed |June| 20 ext{ } ext{2},$<$ https://${www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/mortality-patterns-of-people-using-disability-serv/$>$ . australian nursing midwifery journal 2024, ‘Delegationin aged care know your responsibilities’, ANMJ, cited on page 1 June2 ext{} ,https://anmj.org.au/delegation-in-aged-care-know-your-responsibilities/. Butler M extbf{ extit{(M)}} [3pt] 2$6$, Securing the NDIS for future generations address to National Press Club Canberra $^{\mathsf{l}}$ April $oldsymbol{{}^{|}|}$to$oldsymbol{{} imes| imes|$ June ${}{^{\mathrm{t}}}$$^{\mathsf{i}}${}{$^{\mathrm{s}}}${}\xspace$, https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-mark-butler-mp/media/minister-butter-speech-at-the-national-press-club-22-april-2026. Chinnappa A et al. (A) etc., 25 ext{ }2, The cost oftheNational Disability Insurance Scheme: Australia’s print-media discourse Australian Journal Social Issues [volume issue andpage numbers tbc]. Common Ground Disability 2026, Securing theNDSI for Future Generations Bill 2026 analysis viewed |June| 20 ext{} ext{2},$<$ https://${www.commongrounddisability.com.au/$>$ . a community public sector union 19 ext{} , Management shake-up can’t fix NDIA while staffing cap remains CPSU, cited on page extbf{ extit{(1)}} June 2 ext{},https://www.cpsu.org.au/. The conversation The [3pt] $^{|}|$to$oldsymbol{{} imes| imes|$ June ${}{^{\mathrm{t}}}$$^{\mathsf{i}}${}{$^{\mathrm{s}}}${}\xspace$, <https://theconversation.com/increasing-income-tax- hinspace the-right-choice-for-a-sustainable-ndis-$l_{3}r78$.>

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Page Number: [132]

Conversation, The (2026), The government wants to curb NDIS spending. Here’s how tit might succeed’, \4 April ,viewed |June**|2026**,https://theconversation.com/au .

Conway Consulting Group (2026),‘The NDIFCA problem nobody wants talk about’,Health Services Daily, viewd |JUne**|2026,https://www.conwaygroup.com.au/insights/the-ndifca-problem-nobody-wants-to-talk-about.* Coroners Court of Victoria*(2023),Finding into death William Heddergott and related recommendations concerning at-risk adults,Coroners CourtVictoria,Melbourne.* Crevacore*C Jacob E Coventry LL & Duffield C(2023),‘Integrative review: factors impacting effective delegation practices by registered nurses assistants in nursing’Journal Advanced Nursing vol.79 no. pp85–895 doi:10.|lll||jan|. 15430. Crimes Act l9l4 (Cth). Department Finance(2026)DisabilityCare Australia Fund,Australian Government Department finance Canberra, viewed | June |2026,, https://www.finance.gov.au/. Departm Health Disability Servs(2026,Fact sheet Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill Australian Govt Canberraviewed \June[2026],https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/hon-mark-butler-mp/media/securing-the-future-of-then-dis-for-future-generations. Grattan Institute (2026), The must make work better people who need it most, Grattan Inst Melbourne ,viewd JUne|2026,**https://grattan.edu.au/news/reform-must-make-ndis-work-better-for-peopelwho-needitmost.

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Green Left 2023,‘NDIS Review: is Labor adopting the Coalition’s cuts?’,

cited on June 2026, href=“https://www.greenleft.org.au/2023/l396/analysis/ndis-review-labor-adopting-coaliions-cuts”.

Guardian The Australia(2018), reporting abandonment of proposed Medicare levy increase to fully fund the NDIS,cited on June 2026,

href=“https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/26/labor-to-match-coalition-in-dumping-medicare-levy-rise-as-tax-battle-lines-redrawn.”

Guardian,The(Australia)(2021),reporting independent-assessments proposal and disability sector opposition ,cited onJune 2026,

href=“https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/08/ndis-independent-assesmentsshould-not-proceed-current-formcoalitions-own-advisory-council-says.”

Human Resources Director (HRD)Australia.2026a,“IstheNDISmakingitharderto hire?”, citedonJune 2026,

href=“<https://www.hcamag.com/au/specialisation/recruitment/is-the ndis-making-it-harder-tohire/57460>.”

HRDAustralia.(April).2026b.“Upto l40，000disabilityjobsat risk as NDIS overhaul begins to bite” citing McIntyre modelling,cited June 2026.

href=“https://www.hcamag.com.au/specialisation/recruitment/up-to-l4000-disability-jobs-at-risk-as-nidis-overhaul-begins-to-bitel5793 .

Inclusion Australia(2023),community response Four Corners Careless episode and Royal Commission Final Report,Inclusion Australia ,cited on June 2026,

href=“https://www.inclusionausstralia.org.au/shocking-abuse-highlightsurgentneed-for-government-action-implement-disabilityroyal-commission-recommendations/ “.

Lemma Hub 2026,‘NDS federal Budget analysis: $3.8 billion cuts scheme reset’,

cited Jun e2016, href=“ < https:// www.lemmahub.com/blog/nids-federal-budget-analysis-2026 > “.

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Lewis O & Richardson G 2020

title=‘The right to live independently and be included in’ journal=International Journal of Law and Psychiatry volume=vol. no. issue= doi=doi: [10] [ 10]499 do:doi:[10].1016/j.[ijlp].[2019].10|499` .

Loving Life Care 2026title= Securing the NDISforFutureGenerationsBill I read it, view_date=[June][2026], https://www.lovinglife.care/post/ndis-securing-the-ndis-for-future-generations-bill-2026`.

McCarthy S, Hemsley B Given F Williams H &Balandin S 2022. title=‘Death by choking or dysphagia: a review coronial findings (Australia Canada)’, journal=JournalofLawandMedicine vol. no.= 29 , issue =no.pp= pp.: [400–405].

MinterEllison 2026 Client briefing on Regulatory Powers Act triggers civil penalty regime under the SecuringtheNDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026, viewed=[June][2026],<https://www.minterellison.com/articles/ndis-legislative-amendments> .

National Disability Insurance Agency2024, MoreNIDSparticipants and families carers in work new data revealsNDIA,viewed=[June][2026]https://www.ndis.gov.au/news.`

##NationalDisabilityInsuranceAgency n.d., Participant Employment Strategy NDIA, view_date=1 June ] [2026] , https://www.ndis.gov.au/about-us/strategies/participant-employment-strategy`.

National Disablity Insurace Agency(2026)History of NDIS, NDIA .viewed= [JUne ][2026]. <https://www.ndis.gov.au/about-us/history-ndis> ..

National Disability Insurance SchemeAct (Cth). [2013]`.

National Disability InsuranceSchemeProviderRegistrationandPracticeStandards Rules `[2018(Cth)]SupplementaryModule 1: HighIntensityDailyPersonalActivities .

National Disability Services(2021–)2026 reporting campaign materials support False Economy economy-wide impactofNDIS cuts, NDS , viewed=JUNE 2026< https://www.nds.org.au/> .

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June 2026, href=

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Per Capita & National Disability Services 2021,

False economy: The economic benefits together with the consequences arising from government cost-cutting. Per Capita Melbourne; viewed on January June 2026 <https://percapita.org.au/our_work/false-economy-the-economic-benefits-of-the- national-disability-insurance-scheme-and-consequences-government-cost-cuts/>

• Productivity Commission Disability care and support Inquiry Report no.54, Productivity Commission Canberra.

ProviderScout April[2026](‘NDIS overhaul April Butler’s $bn savings plan explained’, published March 22, accessed Jan June 2026. https://providerscout.com.au/updates/ndis-overhaul-april-2026//

Queensland Coroners Court n.d., Guidance regarding reporting deaths of people living in Queensland under the Coroner Act 2003(Qld).Coroners Court Brisbane.

Queensland With Disability Network 2026 Briefing concerning information-gathering integrity provisions Securing NDIS Future Generations Bill QDN. Viewed Jan June (2026) https://qdn.org.au/securing-the-ndis-future-generation-bill/. /

Rishworth A 2022 Statement on disability employment reported Guardian Australia Labor to launch trial help NDIS participants who want work’ Nov 1 viewed Jan Jun 2026 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/02/labor-to-launch-trial-help-ndis-participants-want-work/.
Robertson A Independent review into NDIS Quality Safeguards Commission regulation provider supports services Ms Ann-Marie Smith NDIS Canberra. Royal Commision Violence Abuse Neglect Exploitation People with Disabilty[2023] Final report Commonwealth Australia,Canberra.

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RSM Australia 2026,

The NDIS reset: tough reforms to secure future sustainability’, RSM Australia,,viewed |June|2026, https://www.rsm.global/australia/insights/ndis-reset-reforms-secure-future-sustainability. SecuringtheNDSIforFutureGenerationsBill2026(Cth). Splose 2026, ‘The Press Club reset: what Butler’s NDIS overhaul means for allied* hhealth providers*’, viewed | June|2026 , https://splose.com/resources/the-handover/what-butlers-ndis-overhaul-means-for-allied-health-providers. Team DSC 23,’New high intensity support skill descriptors out now ’,Disability Services Consulting, viewd |JUne|2026,<https://teamdsc.com.au/resources/new-high-intensity-support-skilldescriptors/>. United Nations 2006,**Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities**,United Nations,* New York. UN CommitteeontherightsofPersonswithDisabilities``217,Generalcommentno.5(2017)onalivingindependentlyandbeingincludedinthecommunity,CRPD/C/GC/5,Unite dNations,Geneva.UNCommitteetherightsofPersonswithDisabilitieS22Guidelinesondeinstitutionalization,includinginemergencies CRPD/C/5.UnitedNations.GenevA.UNSWNewsroom*28,'Explainer:*howmuchdoestheNDIScost andwheredoesthismoneycomefrom?*,TheConversation.viewed JJune|2026, <https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2018/05/explainer--how-much-does-the-ndis-cost-and-wheredoes-this-money>. World Health Organization *2001,Internationalclassificationoffunctioning* disability and health (ICF),WHO Geneva.

Reflection

A reader emerging from When the System Forgets to Listen has been given a great deal at once: a life, method,a fifteen-year historyof administrative drift, an alternative,anda conclusion. it carriesitsown executive summaryand needsnosecond one.What this reflectiondoesinsteadis drawoutthe four threadstherest ofthecollectiondependson. The firstisa claimaboutdesign,nottomotive.TheworkdoesnotarguethatBilliscruelor thatanyonewhodrafteditwishedharm on adisabled person.It arguessomethingharderto answer:tha Billisthe predictableoutputofof systemhas stopped asking theright question.Aschemebegins every decisionwith whatasupport costsat level planaclassabenchmark or aggregate budgetwill under pressure produce decisions optimised for cost whatever intentions peopleinside it.Flynn’swordfor theresult is forgetting:not amoral lapsebut astructural ones in whichpersondisappearsfrom centre ofsystemstill, letterheadexists serve them.Read that way,the provisionsare not list separate problems but mechanism with many parts.Each provisionismachinery; reorientation away participant and towardbudget isthemachinery delivers. It rootwhichevery later theme grows shared support community participation rebuttal Government’s case.This discipline easily mistaken opposite so worth being plain.To say the Bill outputsystemasking wrongquestion

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We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

already paid for by the Commonwealth. A 2015 Senate committee called the abuse of disabled cpeople in institutional settings an epidemic.Eight years later, a Royal Commission confirmed across thousands of pages tthat congregatedand group-home settingshavenot eliminated institutional harm,and putits annual societalcostat about forty-six billion dollars.A coronial trail records named , preventable deaths.The regulator’s own analysisof more than nine thousanddeaths shows potentially-avoidable mortality well abovethe general population’s.And investigative journalism showedthecountry,in prime timewhattheadvisories described.TThe point is moral as muchas evidentiary . A reform that proceeds ingenuine ignorance olikelyharmis a failure; areform thate proceedsalongsidean established and acknowledged recordofofharmisa choice—and cannotlater be defended ontheroundgroundon not having known.That isthe hinge oft he next movement, anda reflection hands it forward deliberately. The third threadisthethe participant’s-eye readingoft heprovisions,a ndit i st het engineotf elater rebuttal.WH at t e work offers,t hat apurely legalanalysiscannot,i sana account ot what eachprovision does ata poinwherei tmee tsaperson.It reads therepealoft eparticipant-centred planning principles nottasa doctrinal changebutasthemoment theparticipant stopsbeingt ehauthoroi theirownplan.Itreadsthenewfunctional-capacity testnotta tightening of access but asthesmeasurementosomethingthat,on te Convention’s owndefinition,isnotdisabilityat all—the personstrippedoffthesupports,equipment,and environmentinwhichtheir disabilityactuallylives.itreadscapsandratiesset

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We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

safely, freely, and with dignity to live safely freely and dignifiedly within their communities. The rest follows from this reorientation: investment focused on prevention rather than front-loaded contraction; safety built through minimising harms instead of zero-risk withdrawal; co-design rebuilt as governance discipline; preservation of participant-directed support alongside protection of clinicians who sustain such services; design tailored towards thin markets not metropolitan averages; continuity ensured during hospital admissions while oversight measures safety housing inclusion over form processing.The collection carries that alternative forward to risk management and its reversal.Here lies merely a mark of existence,a rights-based cost structure inherent since scheme inception,and an answer to public debate’s unanswerable question: if we don’t do what? What remains is how our work leaves us next, following second thread.It has shown internally that harm ensuing upon withdrawn supports was foreseeable,naming record making it so.The collection now turns directly toward that record—to what most exhaustive inquiry into abuse against disabled people actually found about settings made by The Bill—path least resistance—and discomfort holding reform up against nation gathered evidence at own expense regarding where harm concentrates.Flyn read the bill against person’s perspective. Next movement reads it country already answered preparing act against happens disabled in settings designed cheapest send them to. Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 195

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before - NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Movement III: The Forgetting In Motion

The record before this Committee clearly indicates direction regarding abuse of disabled people found during our exhaustive inquiry into decision-making concentrated settings such as segregated or congregate arrangements lacking genuine choice for individuals. This conclusion was not contested but rather settled upon based on extensive country-wide research findings which have been gathered over time concerning these issues; however despite learning from those studies there has actually seen an increase towards similar environments where decisions are made now even prior to passage of legislation governing them (NDIA’s actions). The next work documents will explore considerations outlined within Considerations for Preparing A Plan Review Report, written specifically targeting practitioners preparing evidence for participants requiring complex needs like report writers families advocates and support teams; it serves more than just submitting information to us instead providing practical guidance amidst changing conditions, internalizing legislative logic necessary for usefulness, as evidenced in its field account detailing current NDIA practices already implemented without waiting until new laws come through. In essence it records a shift away focusing solely around establishing need i.e., participant’s disability complexity behavior functional impairment risks faced etc. Instead the Agency is increasingly asking whether continuous one-to-one care can be provided under shared arrangement models only if clear evidence-based reasons exist otherwise they tend approving less intensive forms unless their reports explain why shared model would fail meet specific circumstances safely.

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before - NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

phrase that appears in neither legislation nor published policy, but that recent decisions suggest is read to mean situations where a shared arrangement would foreseeably produce an extreme risk of harm. Decisions are framed comparatively: individual support against shared higher-cost versus lower cost with the latter understood in practice to mean shared support.

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

Submission 1922

Considerations for Preparing a Plan Review Report

Participants with Complex Needs

**Prepared by:*Peter Gregory Date: 22.05.2026

Purpose of Writing This Document

The purpose of writing this document is to provide guidance for practitioners, families, advocates, and support teams preparing reports for participants with complex needs within the evolving decision-making environment of the National Disability Insurance Agency. The document has been developed in response to emerging patterns in NDIA planning and Home and Living decisions, particularly those involving attempts to reduce 24/7 1:1 supports, increase reliance on shared support arrangements, and reduce funding for community participation and individualised supports. This document seeks to assist report writers to understand the practical and strategic realities shaping current NDIA decision-making.It recognises that recent reforms, proposed legislative amendments,,public statements made by Mark Butler suggest significant shift toward funding models increasingly influenced cost containment standardisation benchmarking assumptions shared or lower-cost should be treated default position unless proven otherwise.The therefore aims help move beyond traditional approaches diagnosis impairment broad descriptions need instead encourages development detailed functional operational safeguarding analysis explaining particular requires function practice why lowcost alternatives fail safely effectively meet participant’s needs.A central ensure not unintentionally disadvantaged by reportwriting approaches engage actual logic currently shaping NDIA decisions.Document acknowledges many now required demonstrate they have significant support but cannot safe consistently effective met within shared support model.document also seek away from deficit-based narratives positioning problem Instead it encourage focus design,safeguard obligations relational requirements environmental compatibility Considerations Plan Review Report Guide Participants Complex Needs (Ver.0_31.05.2026) Page

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

Submission 1922

Considerations for Preparing a Plan Review Report Guide for Participants with Complex Needs (Version: Ver 2.0 Date: 31.05.2026)

Page | 3 oindent operational realities of service delivery. In doing so, The document aims: to preserve dignity\autonomy;and citizenship; of participants while still addressing increasingly restrictive evidentiary environment emerging within \NDIS . Importantly, this document is also intended:\to protect against risk stability progress or successful community participation may be misinterpreted as evidence supports can reduced It emphasises many participants complex needs positive outcomes exist because intensive and carefully structured supports not those no longer required Finally ,document intends reinforce foundational principles upon which NDIs originally established people disability should supported live ordinary lives in communit exercise meaningful choice control maintain relationships participate avoid segregation institutionalisation unsafe service models guidance therefore seeks assist practitioners prepare reports that are clinically operationally robust grounded contemporary safeguarding practice human rights principles lived realities people support need This does provide information about how undertake S100 review plan you do agree redacted if want challenge decision made by NDIA through system

Introduction

Recent decision-making patterns within the National Disability Insurance Agency demonstrate that access to 24/7 1:1 support is no longer being assessed solely on the basis of the presence of disability, complex support needs, behavioral complexity, or functional impairment. Increasingly, declisions appear to be shaped by a narrower and more restrictive threshold question: That is, whether the participant’s support needs can be delivered within a shared support arrangement. Current decisions suggest that continuous 1:1 support is being treated as appropriate only in what the NDIA describes as “exceptional circumstances.” Although this term is not defined within legislation or publicly available policy, recent decisions indicate that the NDIA interprets exceptional situations where shared support arrangements are not viable because they would foreseeably result in an extreme level of risk of harm to the participant or others. This represents a significant shift in the type of evidence now required in reports prepared for Plan Reviews, particularly for participants seeking continuation or approval of intensive Home and Living supports. Historically, reports may have focused primarily on describing:- The Participant’s diagnosis- Presence Of disability \behavioural Complexity , psychosocial vulnerabilities Or general benefits OF increased Support. However current Decision making Patterns Demonstrate That This Is No Longer Sufficient On Its Own Instead Reports Now Need To Directly And Explicitly Address A Central Operational Question Why Can’t This Participant Share Their Support AND Accommodation With Another NDIS Participant? Considerations For Preparing A PLAN Review Report Guide FOR Participants WITH Complex Needs (Ver2031526) Page4

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill 2026

Submission 1922

Considerations for Preparing a Plan Review Report Guide for Participants with Complex Needs (Version Ver 2.0 - Date _31-05-2026)

Page | 5 The evidence presented must clearly explain why shared support arrangements are not viable in specific case. Reports should identify precise risks, failures limitations or safeguarding concerns when support arises and share those cannot adequately mitigated through staffing ratios environmental modifications behavioural strategies other interventions.

The level intensity continuity immediacy reports also articulate support required including continuous functionally necessary 1:1 is needed to demonstrate high needs but shared arrangement fundamentally incompatible nature these needs. This represents movement away broad clinical description highly detailed functional operational context-specific analysis increasingly participants appear be required merely that they have high support needs but shared arrangement is fundamental incompatible their nature needs emerging policy environment surrounding proposed NDIS amendments together public statements made Mark Butler further reinforces direction Government rhetoric centred sustainability consistency value money strongly suggests shared models will formally enshrined legislation preferred presumed default service unless such arrangements unsafe ineffective using secret criteria known NDIA although term exceptional circumstances does appearance within itself current decision-making patterns indicate it operating implied threshold requirement importantly parameters defining constitutes exception has been publicly disclosed For this reason avoiding issue of shared entirely unlikely benefit participants seeking continuation home living decisions now being organised.

The Hard Reality: The NDIA’s Emerging Decision Logic

Current evidence suggests that the NDIA is no longer primarily asking whether a participant requires 24/7 support. Instead, the key question appears to be whether that support can be delivered within a shared support model.

Only where the answer is clear and evidenced-based “no” does it seem like continuous one-to-one (1:**) will be approved.

This distinction matters critically because:

• significant disability,
• complex behavioural needs,** support emotional dysregulation,** communication difficulties**, trauma-related vulnerabilities*,**or substantial risks. However if those reports don’t explain why shared support fails safely effectively meet these needs then may conclude shared remains sufficient. Need alone isn’t being treated as justification individualised delivery of support anymore.

Why Avoiding Shared Support Question Likely Fail

NDIA approaches Home Living decisions through comparative framework rather than assessing in isolation decision-makers appear compare: -individual against shared supports, higher-cost alternatives lower cost,,and individual models congregate or shared service arrangements.. If this comparison not directly addressed report likely undertake independently without shaping how practitioner frames.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

This submission discusses Section 34(1)(c) of the NDIS Act which requires consideration if there’s an alternative lower-cost option to achieve similar outcomes. In practice, support options like ‘shared’ funding have become common post-plan review meetings where participants receive reduced Home and Living funds over six months on step-down models such as shared arrangements at ratios up-to one-third compared previous levels. The new requirement means reports must not just establish need but also demonstrate why these alternatives are unsafe, ineffective in achieving comparable results specifically tailored per participant circumstances.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

These supports are not divisible between multiple participants without fundamentally compromising their effectiveness. In this framing, the issue is not the participant’s deficits but the operational nature of the support required.

Reframing Shared Support as a Service Model Mismatch Reports should also explain that shared support arrangements may be fundamentally incompatible with the participant’s support environment.Shared support models often introduce:• competing staff demands,• delayed response times,• increased sensory input,• environmental unpredictability,• relational inconsistency,and reduced capacity for continuous attunement and regulation.Where these conditions create escalation, dysregulation, distress, or increased risk, the issue is notthat the participant has “failed”shared support.Rather,the service model itselfis incapable ofsafely meetingtheparticipant’ssupport requirements.

Reframing the Issue as Safeguarding Incompatibility Oneofthestrongestapproachesis to framecontinuous1:1suppor tasasafeguardsrequirement.Reportsshouldexplainthatsharedsupportarrangementscreeateforeseeablesafeguardingrisksincluding:•escalation•emotionaldysregulation•traumaresponses

ConsiderationsforPreparingaPlanReviewReportGuideForParticipantswithComplexNeeds(Ver 2.0_31.05.2026) Page8

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

Submission 1922

• behavioural deterioration,
• exposure to harm,
• increased use of restrictive practices,
• withdrawal from community participation,
• breakdowns in functional stability. Importantly, the report should demonstrate that the support itself functions as the safeguard. The argument does not attempt to enter into a philosophical debate about the efficacy of shared support. Rather, the evidence demonstrates that, in this particular case, shared arrangements are\nincompatible with safe and effective support delivery.

The Impact of the 2026 NDIS Amendments and Reform Narrative

The proposed 2026 NDIS amendments and recent government statements suggest an increasing emphasis on cost containment, standardisation, benchmarking, and reducing what government representatives describe as “over-support.” This creates a significant risk that: - stability will be interpreted as evidence that support can be reduced, - intensive supports will be characterised as excessive, - independence will be incorrectly equated with reduced funded support. Reports must actively challenge these assumptions.Where participants are stable, regulated, safe, connected to community, or avoiding crisis, reportsshould clearly explain that these outcomes exist because of the support structure, not in theabsence of it.The reduction of visible crisis does not mean the participant no longer requires support. Often, ithas demonstrated that the support is functioning effectively.Considerations for Preparing a Plan Review Report Guide for Participants with Complex Needs (Ver 2.0_31.05.2026) Page:9

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922

Similarly, reports should clarify that independence isn’t measured solely through absence. support; many complex needs require intensive, individualized arrangements to achieve it. The existence extensive doesn’t diminish autonomy; it’s mechanism enabling participation communication self-determination possible.

Moving Beyond Diagnostic Description

current reform directions suggest diagnostic labels alone may carry diminishing weight in future decision-making processes. For this reason, detailed operational analysis describing: x what tasks are needed, how frequently they occur, how rapidly staff must respond, what occurs if delayed delay is interrupted cannot be divided between multiple participants continuous one-to-one delivery functionally necessary. The strongest reports clearly demonstrate: x intensity frequency immediacy continuity indivisibility. This focuses on real support delivery rather than abstract descriptions.

Community Participation: Addressing Proposed Reductions to Social and Community Access Supports

Recent public statements by Mark Butler, together with emerging reform discussions surrounding the proposed 2026 NDIS amendments, indicate increasing scrutiny of supports associated with community participation, social access, and activities that decision-makers may characterise as “non-essential,” “lifestyle-based,” or insufficiently connected to functional outcomes. There appears to be a growing policy narrative suggesting that some forms of community participation support are being viewed as excessive, insufficiently therapeutic, or not aligned with what government representatives describe as the original intentof the NDIS. This creates a substantial risk that supports enabling social connection, community engagement, emotional regulation, relationship development, recreational participation, and ordinary citizenship may increasingly be reframed as discretionary rather than essential. For participants with complex needs, this distinction is deeply problematic because community participation is often not separate from functional capacity, behavioural stability, safeguarding, electronic communication development*, or mental health maintenance.* In many cases,participation in community life itself isa core support mechanismthat prevents deterioration isolation,institutionalisation,trauma escalationbehavioural crisis*and loss **functionalcapacity. Considerations for Preparing a Plan Review Report Guide for Participants with Complex Needs (Ver 2.0_31.05.2026) Page 11

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

Considerations for Preparing a Plan Review Report Guide for Participants with Complex Needs (Version: Ver 2.0 - Date: 31/05/2026)

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission: Submission-Number

Where relevant, reports should explain that reduced community participation may reasonably be expected to result in:

• increased dysregulation,
• escalation in behaviours of distress or protest,
• deterioration in communication,
• increased social withdrawal,
• loss of confidence and routine,
• increased mental health vulnerability,
• reduced resilience,
• increased dependence on restrictive or crisis-based interventions,
• breakdown in community relationships, and overall decline in functional stability. Importantly, reports should also challenge any suggestion that community participation can simply occur without funded support. For many participants with complex needs, meaningful access to community life is only possible because trained support workers provide:
• behavioural support,
• emotional co-regulation,
• environmental monitoring,
• communication assistance,
• sensory regulation, transport assistance,, risk management,,, an continuous relational support., Without these supports, participation may become unsafe, inaccessible, overwhelming, or impossible.. Reports should further emphasise that community participation is not an optional extra within the philosophy of the NDIS The Scheme was originally established to support people with disability live ordinary lives within the community rather than being segregated isolated confined to Considerations for Preparing a Plan Review Report Guide for Participants with Complex Needs (Ver 2_031526) Page:Page-Number

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

Submission 1922

service systems.

Participation in community life is therefore directly connected to the foundational principles of social inclusion, citizenship, autonomy, dignity, and self-determination underpinning both the NDIS and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, particularly Article 19. The strongest reports will therefore position community participation not as a discretionary lifestyle enhancement, but as an essential safeguarding, functional, relational, and citizenship support that is fundamental to maintaining the participant’s overall stability, wellbeing, and inclusion within society.

The Most Effective Strategic Position

The most strategically effective formulation may therefore be: This is not a question of whether the participant prefers individual support over shared support. It does not demonstrate that it cannot.

Concluding Statement

Despite the increasing complexity, restrictions, and uncertainty currently emerging within the NDIS, the importance of thoughtful, evidence-based, person-centred review reports has never been greater. While many practitioners, families, advocates, and disabled people themselves may feel discouragedby shifting funding frameworks,tighter interpretationof supports,and growing administrativabarriers,itis importantto rememberthat thesereports continue toplay acritical role in protecting therights,safety,wellbeing ,and autonomyo fpeoplewith disability.Every carefully documented description o faperson’s lived experience,every explanation why individualised support matters,a nd every efforttopreserve dignity,inclusion anda nself-direction contributes to maintainingth eoriginal human rights foundations upon which thenNDIS was built. Importantly,ev enwithin restrictive systems,strong advocacya nd high-qualityevidencecontinue tomatter.Clear,c ompassionateanda well-reasoned reportsc an help decision-makers better understandthereworld consequences offunding reductionsstandardised assumptions a nd inappropriate suppor t models.They can ensure that voices,n eeds, aspirationsands vulnerabilitiesod isabled peopl es are not lost beneathadministrative language or budgetary pressures. Theycan also createanimportant historicalaprofessional recorddemonstratingtha nt man ypractitioners,familiesandan ddisabledpeop le them selves continuedadvocatefor ethical, in dividualisedcommunity-basedsupp ort even during periods of significantsystemic change.The current environment may require greater persistence creativitycollaboration and strategic thinking than ever before particularly for people with complexsupport needs.However,the core principles th at gave rise ton the NDIS remain deeply importantaworth defending.Dignity autonomyinclus ion self-determination,and therightof disabled peoples tolive ordinary lives as equalcitizens within their communities The challengesmay bes ignificantbut so tooisthe collective knowledgecommitmentand humanityo fthose continuingto advocate fora more just anda nclusive system.Inthat sense,everywell-prepared reviewreportismorethanana dministrativ edocument.Itisa actofsafeguardingsolidaritya nthopeIt isa politicalac tofdi defiance opposing thoseforces seekingtocorruptthescheme disableddpeoplebuilt. Another world isn ot only possible,sheisonherway.On a quiet day,I can hear her breathing. Arundhat i Roy

Reflection

The guide just read is, on its face, a modest document — practical advice for report writers in difficult environment. But read against the Bill, it carries an argument the rest of this collection needs: The most important provisions in the Bill are not creating new decision logic; they’re giving statutory force to existing operating logics with no transparent criteria, which changes assessment methods; a reform proposing genuinely novel ways could be debated before implementation but cannot under current terms because Committee can see these principles already applied and assesses based documented evidence rather than promises about future behavior when discretion would entrench.

The guide makes four things visible each connecting directly into specific provisions that will be locked-in within proposed legislation. Firstly there’s inversion from ‘what does this person need?’ to asking whether their support can actually be shared, an operational shift identified as deepest change by Flynn’s account: reorientation away participant-centered planning towards scheme sustainability. When governing plan-making principles switch focus toward cost-sustainability across entire population participants must rationally ask if cheaper arrangements fit better—guidelines show decision-makers doing so now while law requires such questioning replacing previous participant-centric approach (Schedule I Part VI s 17B). Second comparative framework individual vs shared higher-cost lower costs interpreted as shared support is value-for-money lens traced by Flynn analysis applied intimate life decisions where living arrangement & who supports them matter. Current Act directs attention on achieving similar outcomes via a lower-cost option, practice shows this being read broadly for shared support comparison conducted Agency without participant shaping how it framed unless explicitly addressed in report (Schedule IA Part VIs 33). What was once administrative interpretation becomes statutory instruction with Bill hardening the test itself, third step-down funding held at old level six months then reduced to share ratio practical shape of determination powers when system forgets.

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

to Listen examined –the power to set maximum amounts, maximum support intensity, and multiplication-to-participant ratios for class participants expressly without regard. The step-down participant experiences after plan review looks like receiving end: a budget falls because system decides what will fund as standard category.The bill provides authority exactly this(Schedule Part s33(2EA), ss).The guide shows being exercised before formally granted. Fourth evidentiary burden most quietly consequential.Guide’s central counsel report must now do more than establish need;it demonstrate why lower-cost arrangement incapable of safely meeting specific circumstances.Read plainly reversal onus.System no longer carries showing safe particular person; person proves it not.Flynn’s analysis named directly wrong question whether can prove cheaper shared model cause direct immediate harm:right question necessary live safely dignity autonomy real access ordinary life.guide evidence that has become operative one.Burden hardest where least carried—on whose needs are relational psychosocial behavioural or sensory rather physically obvious and communication cognition makes proving exception hard.Bill does correct reversal.Builds architecture within which becomes routine exceptional:access eligibility provisions (Schedule Parts ;ss);new needs-assessment method (Schedule ,ss );reassessment variation power (Schedule Part ) repeal replacement planning principles (Schedule Part ).Because the burden shifted,guideline driven how a report hope to discharge three strategies offer measure ground moved.first show support non-substitutable quantity help worker among people could supply but continuity cannot reproduce same who reads early signs seizure,same regulation together consistency itself is.support.second service-model mismatch: support incompatible group setting would dilute defeat third safeguarding incompatibility:model foreseeably produce very harms co-tenant conflict Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 214

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

the loss of the trusted relationship, the escalation –that intensive individual support exists to prevent. Each is sound advice.But that any of it is now necessary is itself the proof of the inversion:a report writer must argue,in advanceand againsta presumption, a particular human beingcannot safelybe averaged into agroup—a propositionthescheme was builtto takeasits starting point,nottodemandasa burdenofproof. Theis accountability cost here too,andit istherewhere thpractice collides withth ordinary expectationsadministrative justice.The thresholdAgency applies—the “exceptional circumstances” in which one-to-one supportsurvives—appearsin neither legislation norany published policy.It governs life-shaping decisions,yet cannot beread,citedor testedby peopleitgoverns,becauseithasn ever been written down where they can find.it.A participantcannotsatisfy a standard thats notpublished; an advocatecan nothold Agency toarule ithasnotstated;a tribunal cannoreadyly review adecisionagainst abenchmark thatexists only internal practice.This quiet erosionBill would complete:not merely thatsupport becomes harder obtain,but basis onwhichitis granted or refused migrates out public,reviewable law andinto discretion exercised behind undisclosed criteria.By entrenchingdiscretion while leaving its content instrumentsinternal guidance,Bill hardens migration—and discretions whose criteriathepublic cant see hardest kind power hold to account. One furtherpoint guide makes almost passing deserves drawingout, because collection returns it twice more.In emerging environment, participant’s stability risk being read as evidence support reduced—thatbecause person regulated,safeand connected,thesupports producingthat stable mustno longer be required.Flynncount made same observation about scheme actuarial assumptions,and is most dangerous misreadings whole reform,inverts meaning success. person with complex needs absence visible crisisis not evidencethat supports unnecessary; it evidenced that support working Reform treats achievement of stable signal withdraw the supports produced built mechanism punishes own successes—all but guarantees return crises claims prevented This design failure Bill restated level single plan review:system cannot tell difference between problem solvedproblem re-created So should not read proposal judged drafting alone.It should formalisation practice Committee can already observe—the withdrawal individualised support peoplewhoseneeds have changed,justified comparison system conducts terms enforced by an onus participant cannot discharge triggered perversely,bystability intensive support possible.The Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 215

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

question the next movement takes up follows directly: if individualised support is being drawn out through quiet withdrawal on an extensive basis – to which end are individuals sent once this support falters? The guidance addresses these concerns peripherally within discussions regarding crises or decline. When communal ties held together via such support disintegrate, lives do not merely persist but instead shift: to hospital environments unprepared for them; inward toward strained family units; or in certain cases towards group living arrangements previously deemed unsuitable. This relocation process along with its associated costs overlooked during reforms’ calculations forms a central theme here.

Movement IV — Shared Support and Reinstitutionalisation

The collection has now followed the person out of the planning meeting and watched where the system sends them when individual support is withdrawn – toward the hospital ward, the family stretched past breaking,the crisis service,and at the endof that road , congregate setting.The pull towards congregationisnot incidentalto thereform; it isthegravitational fieldthereformcreates. Whenindividualisedsupportbecomes hardert o obtainandcheaper todeny,t he patho f least resistanceleadsasit alwayshasbacktopeoplebeinggrouped togetherforconvenienceoft h esystems thatsupportthem.T henextdocumentexaminesplacepullleadsto most directly—the home in whichsupp ort iss ha red—and asksthet questionthewhole reformha s been arranged t avoid:on what evidenceiss hare d sup port being made default for people who need round-the-clock care? Commissioning “SIL” anda ndtheriskReinstitution alisa tion takesits subjectfromthere g overnm ent’s ownre formtimetable.Amongannounced changesismove tocommission Supported Independent Living—funding mechanismfordaily supp or tin aperson’shome forthose whone ed high levels assistance, supervisionovernightcareorround-theclock Support. Consultation on a commissioning approach forem e and living supportsistobegin in themiddle of 206the commissioningsuppor coordination isfollowon1July 28, amandatory registration fors SIL providersbrought from July 26.Commission ing , languagessocial policy means central planning market: government decideswhichproviders mayoperate,bu illed approved provider panels sets standardised conditions,and steers shape delivered.The paper askswhat that would mean peopl must live inside arrangements it produces. Itscentral claimmust be stated withca rebecauseit isthe hinge reinstitutionalisation argument turns.Shared supportisbeing madepresumeddefaultforpeoplewheneed continuoussupportandthestrongest publicly available rationaleforthedefaultnot evidencethat sharedarrangements are safer more appropriate the placed inthem.Itisp rovider viability workforce economics.Government’sown framing makesconnection unusually explicitconsultation home living suppo tsdescribedin reform materialsintended both ensure participants receive bestsupp ortaddress “providerviability challenges” – twoplaced side byside as though what good for provider balance sheetgood disabled person’s life were same thing.Paper traces why they not.SIL modelfrom inceptionaccommodated requirements inherited block-funded systems Scheme meant replaceefficient use staff acrossshared

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

rosters, predictable revenue from long-term placements, stable occupancy, simple rostering, economies of scale from pooled overnight and active support, vertically integrated control of housing and support together, and reduced operational risk through centralised supervision. Each is a reason a provider prefers shared arrangements. None is a reason a participant is safer in one. The reform now under way intensifies exactly these provider-centred dynamics, under a modern vocabulary of sustainability and market stewardship, and it does so at the precise moment the country has finished documenting where congregate logic leads. This is the second clause of the collection’s couplet – we have been here before appearing not as history but as live policy.The institutions were defended in their day as efficient, manageable,and scalable;the group homes that succeeded them were justified in the same terms;

and the paper shows the commissioning of SIL being justified in those terms again,now The buildingshave changed anda languagehas softenedbutthestructural move—concentrate disabled peopletogetherbecauseit suitstheadministrativeoperationalfinancial needsofthesystemsthatsupportthem—isthetoneabledisabilitymovementspentfiftyyearstryingtorendThepaperdoesnotarguethatnooneshouldevershareahomeortha sharedsuppor supportimposedasa fundingassumptiontheparticipantmustfightescape—andthatthereformisthebuildingthesecondwhilespeakingtherlanguageoft hefirstThedocumentthatfollowssetsoutfromevidencewhythatdistinctionmatterswhat istakestakeingetting itwrongFlynn&Gregory — joint submission Page 218

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

Submission 1922

Commissioning “SIL” and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation

A Critical Analysis of Supported Independent Living Reform, Shared Support Models, and the Future of Individualised Disability Support Under the NDIS Prepared by: Peter Gregory Date: authentic_date_text_is_misread_as_25th_May,_2026

Submission 1922

Abstract:

This document critically examines the proposed commissioning of Supported Independent Living

;^/>Ϳ ǁŝƚŚŝŶ ƚŚĞ ĐŽŶƚĞdžƚ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ EĂƚŝŽŶĂů ŝƐĂďŝůŝƚLJ /ŶƐƵƌĂŶĐĞ ^ĐŚĞŵĞ ŵĞŶĚŵĞŶƚ ;^ĞĐƵƌŝŶŐ ƚŚĞ E /^

ĨŽƌ &ƵƚƵƌĞ ’ĞŶĞƌĂƚŝŽŶƐͿ ŝůů ϮϬϮϲ ĂŶĚ ƚŚĞ ďƌŽĂĚĞƌ ƌĞĨŽƌŵ ĂŐĞŶĚĂ ĐƵƌƌĞŶƚůLJ ƌĞƐŚĂƉŝŶŐ ƚŚĞ EĂƚŝŽŶĂů

Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

The analysis argues that the proposed commissioning framework represents far more than a

technical funding or market reform. Rather, it signals a potentially profound structural and

philosophical shift away from the original principles of individualisation, participant autonomy, self-

direction, and choice and control that underpinned the creation of the NDIS. The document

explores how the emerging emphasis on provider viability,͟ market stewardship,͟

sustainability,͟ standardised support models, and shared support assumptions may increasingly

reposition disability support around the operational needs of governments, providers, and

workforce systems rather than around the rights and aspirations of disabled people themselves.

The document traces the historical development of Supported Independent Living and

demonstrates how SIL inherited many structural assumptions from earlier block-funded

accommodation systems, including reliance on shared staffing, occupancy efficiency, economies of

scale, centralised supervision, and provider-controlled service models. It argues that many

contemporary reform proposals risk intensifying these historical dynamics through the expansion of

commissioning structures, preferred provider arrangements, mandatory registration systems, and

default shared support assumptions such as the proposed 1:3 staffing ratio framework.

A central focus of the analysis is the tension between economic efficiency and human rights. The

document critically examines the evidentiary basis underpinning the proposed 1:3 shared support

funding assumptions and argues that there is little publicly available evidence demonstrating that

such arrangements are universally safe, clinically appropriate, safeguarding-oriented, or compatible

with Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Instead, the strongest

rationale emerging from current policy discussions appears to relate to workforce efficiency,

provider sustainability, and long-term cost containment.

   Commissioning SIL and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation͟  (Ver 1.0_25.05.2026)                              Page   2͞

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: Securing the NDIsF for Future Generations Bill 2026 Submission No.

The document also draws extensively upon findings presented before the Royal Commission on Disabilities. The evidence heard included violence, abuse, neglect, restrictive practices, loss of independence, social isolation, co-tenant conflicts, institutional control linked with group living environments such as shared accommodation settings which were structurally connected more so from inherent system issues compared isolated service failures alone.

Submission 1922

Introduction:

The future direction of Supported Independent Living (SIL) within the National Disability Insurance

Scheme (NDIS) has emerged as one of the most significant and contested disability policy debates

in Australia since the creation of the Scheme itself.

At the centre of this debate is the Federal Government͛ s proposed move toward commissioning

^ƵƉƉŽƌƚĞĚ /ŶĚĞƉĞŶĚĞŶƚ >ŝǀŝŶŐ ƐĞƌǀŝĐĞƐ ĂƐ ƉĂƌƚ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ďƌŽĂĚĞƌ EĂƚŝŽŶĂů ŝƐĂďŝůŝƚLJ /ŶƐƵƌĂŶĐĞ ^ĐŚĞŵĞ

ŵĞŶĚŵĞŶƚ ;^ĞĐƵƌŝŶŐ ƚŚĞ E /^ ĨŽƌ &ƵƚƵƌĞ ’ĞŶĞƌĂƚŝŽŶƐͿ ŝůů ϮϬϮϲ ĂŶĚ ĂƐƐŽĐŝĂƚĞĚ ƌĞĨŽƌŵ ĂŐĞŶĚĂ͘

Although much of the detailed operational framework has not yet been publicly released, existing

government announcements, reform timelines, legislative amendments, and policy language

strongly suggest a major structural shift in the way home and living supports may be organised,

funded, and controlled under the NDIS.

The language surrounding these reforms repeatedly emphasises concepts such as provider

viability,͟ market stewardship,͟ sustainability,͟ quality,͟ and best supports.͟ However, for

many disabled people, advocates, families, and researchers, these developments raise profound

concerns about whether the Scheme is gradually shifting away from its original commitment to

individualisation, self-direction, participant autonomy, and community inclusion toward more

centralised, standardised, and provider-managed models of support.

This concern does not emerge in a historical vacuum. Disability accommodation systems in

Australia have long been shaped by tensions between the needs and rights of disabled people on

one hand, and the operational, financial, workforce, and administrative requirements of

governments and service providers on the other. Historically, large institutions, group homes, and

congregate care arrangements were repeatedly justified as efficient, manageable, scalable, and

economically sustainable systems of support. Yet the lived experiences of many disabled people

revealed environments characterised by segregation, loss of autonomy, behavioural control,

violence, abuse, restrictive practices, and institutional dependency.

The Disability Royal Commission fundamentally intensified these concerns. Across hearings,

submissions, research reports, and the Final Report, disabled people repeatedly described

congregate accommodation environments as places where organisational priorities often overrode

   Commissioning SIL and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation͟  (Ver 1.0_25.05.2026)                              Page   4͞

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission: Submission No.

human needs where shared living created heightened safeguarding risk home frequently felt more like workplace for staff than place autonomy belonging personal identity Importantly The Commission heard evidence suggesting many these harms were isolated failures providers but structurally connected underlying logic congregate system themselves This critically examines emerging commissioning proposals Supported Independent Living broader historical structural human rights context explores how developed under NDIS extent which inherited assumptions earlier provider centred accommodation systems current reform may reproduce patterns congregated care new policy language sustainability efficiency Particular attention given proposed expansion shared support including framework recommended through NDIS Review document critically examines evidentiary basis assumes questions they are truly grounded wellbeing safeguarding autonomy human rights reflect economic modelling workforce management concerns provider sustainability objectives Document also examines philosophical conflict now within NDIS original funding intended follow individual person supports designed around unique needs goals relationships communication styles preferred way By contrast Emerging commissioning increasingly asks individuals fitted predefined structures standardization staffing market management Ultimately this argues debate surrounding SIL not merely technical administrative discussion housing models or arrangements rather profound about future character disability in Australia itself It asks whether will continue evolving toward genuinely individualized participant governed community based supported systems Article 19 Convention Rights Persons with Disabilities scheme risks returning modern form centrally

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

Submission 1922

designed systems that prioritise organisational efficiency over the autonomy, dignity, safety, and self-determination of disabled people.

Commissioning SIL and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation“(Ver 1.0 _25.05 .2026) Page: 6

Discussion:

“There is no way out. It is so confined and foolishly conceived and conscientiously carried out as a duty of care…”

Michael Russell, The Glass Cage

Proposals for Commissioning SIL

At present, the proposed commissioning of Supported Independent Living (SIL) does not appear to sit within one single standalone section of the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. Instead, the commissioning proposal appears to emerge from a combination of new planning powers, market stewardship provisions, support funding controls, and expanded Ministerial rule-making powers.

The Government has publicly confirmed that SIL is one of the support types intended to move toward a commissioning model.(Department of Health)

The relevant parts of the Bill appear to relate primarily to several interconnected areas.

Schedule 1 — Planning and Funding Powers The commissioning of SIL is most closely connected to the Bill’s amendments relating to participant planning, funding allocation, and support determination powers.`

Public summaries of the Bill state that Schedule clarifiesand strengthens[the]requirementforsupportneedstobedirectlyrelatedtoeligibleimpairments`and expandspowersrelatingtoreassessmentandfundingdecisions. This matters because SILcommissioningwouldrequiretheNDIAtohavebroadercapacitytoshapewhatkindsofhomelandingsupportsareconsideredfundable,difineacceptable supportsmodels,andpotentiallydeterminewhensharedorcommissionedarrangements arepreferred.“CommissioningSILandriskofReinstitutionalisation”(Ver_1.0__25. _0 .3.2026)Page7

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

Submission 1922 The commissioning model appears linked to new planning framework, support categorization power. broader control over support funding structures.

The New Funding Limitation Powers

One significant change in this bill allows reducing or limiting funds even if a service still satisfies ‘reasonable necessity’ principles. ABC reporting summarized it as: “a minister can cut across-the-board funding amounts.” This is highly relevant because commissioning models typically depend on governments controlling central funding structure determination preferred services configurations steering participant toward particular support arrangement without broader limitation powers NDIA would find difficult moving away choice from core NDIS operationalizing preferred SIL standardised support systems commissioned provider system.

Ministerial Rule-Making Powers

A major feature reform increasing reliance subordinate legislation,NDI Aoperational rules,andMinisterial rule-makingpowers.is especially important Government has not yet publicly released detailed legislative wording describing how SIL will operate what rights remain whether participants may refuse arrangements providers selected instead current documents suggest much of detail implemented through future rulescommission frameworksregulatory instruments policy settings developed after passageBill Commissioning and Risk Reinstitutionalisation(Ver.8)

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922

This means the Bill appears designed to create enabling powers rather than fully detailed SIL commissioning legislation itself.

Market Stewardship and Provider Regulation Reforms

The commissioning proposal is also closely tied to mandatory registration reforms, SIL Practice Standards, and expanded NDIS Commission regulatory powers.The Government has already announced mandatory registration for SIL providers from July 2026 new SIL Practice Standards stronger provider oversight arrangements.These reforms are significant because commissioning systems generally require governments to control which providers may operate establish approved provider panels impose standardised conditions centrally monitor service delivery.THe Bll’s broader regulatory reforms therefore appear to create infrastructure necessary commissioned SIL markets preferred provider arrangements centralised market management.

The “Commissioning” Section Itself

The clearest public statement specifically naming SIL commissioning appears in official government explanation reform states:We transitioning smaller numbers provide deliver some supports.Same document explicitly lists Plan Management Support Coordination Supported Independent Living (SIL as intended move toward commissioning arrangementssil risk reinstitutionalisation Ver 1_0-25 May 2026 Page 9

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 Submission 1922

Importantly however; The public materials do not yet identify A single explicit section number in this bill titled “Commissioning Of Sil.” Instead: The Commissioning Proposal appears To rely upon interconnected planning funding regulatory And rule-making amendments throughout Legislation.

Likely Legislative Architecture Based on available information :The sil Commissioning Model Appears Dependent On five interacting legislative mechanisms:

The Planning Framework Amendments Would allow ndia Shape support models Funding Structures .Funding Limitation Powers would enable central control over sil funding levels.Ministerial Rules are likely where commissioning details will eventually sit.Registration Reforms limit who May deliver sil while market stewardship powersWould Enable Provider Panels & Commissioning structures.

Why This Is SignificantThis structure is important because it means major practical impactsOf sil Commissioning may occur through rules operational guidelines provider contracts pricingstructures and NDIA policy implementation rather than Through highly visible primary legislation.This has become a Major concern For many advocates Because significant structural changesTo participant choice self-direction co-tenancy expectationsAnd provider selection might potentially Occur without detailed parliamentary scrutiny ofthe Operational model itself. Commissioning SIL AND THE RISK OF REINSTITUTIONALISATION (Ver 1_0 _25,05 ,2026) Page 10

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922

Section Title: Central Concern Emerging

Many disability advocates are therefore arguing that the Bill creates the legal architecture necessary for centralised management of home and living supports without yet fully disclosing how participant rights and autonomy will be protected within that system. That concern is amplified because the Government has explicitly linked SIL commissioning to “provider viability challenges”and ensuring participants receive the best supports.“ Critics argue this language may signal a shift away from participant-directed individualised funding toward centrally designed support systems shaped around workforce efficiency, publisher sustainability,and standardised support models.At present,relatively little detailed operational information has been publicly released about the proposed “commissioning approach”for Supported Independent Living(SIL).However,based on government announcements,timelines consultation documents ,public statementsbythe AlbaneseGovernment,NDIS Minister Mark Butler several core features likely policy directions can alreadybe identified.The clearest public reference appears inthefederalgovernment’s“SecuringthenDISFor Future Generations reform timeline which statesthatconsultationwill beginon: DesignofacommissioningapproachforyhomeandalivingsupportsforallSILparticipantswhoneed24/7supporttoensureparticipantsreceivethebestsupporstaddress providerviabilitychallenges.This single sentenceis highly significantbecauseit signals amajor potential structuralshiftinhow SIl suppo tsmayb organised,funded anda nd controlled under then DIS. Supports that wil lbedecided by politicians bureaucratsanda handpicked group of corporate service delivery managers.

What “Commissioning” Means in Social Policy Contexts

Historically, the NDIS was designed around an individualized market model. Under the original NDIS philosophy, participants received individual budgets eexercised “choice control,”and theoretically chose their own providers and support arrangements. A commissioning model is fundamentally different. In social policy systems internationally，“commissioning” generally refers to governments or central agencies designing service systems,determining preferred service models selectingor contracting providers shaping market behaviour,and purchasing service outcomes at a system level.Commissioning approachesare commonly associated with block funding regional service contractspreferred provider panels demand aggregation standardisedmodelsofsupport ,and coordinatedpurchasingarrangements.This matters because commissioningfundamentally shifts power away from participants individually directingsupports toward governmentsandagenciesdesigning and purchasing support structures.

Whythe Government Appears To Be Pursuing A SIl Commissioning ModelPublic statements strongly suggestthegovernment views current SIL arranments as financially unsustainableoperationaly unstable.Government messaging repeatedlyrefers toprovider viabilitymarket stewardship sustainability qualityandsafeguarding reducing long-termNDIS cost growth.The commissioning proposal specifically targetsSILparticipants who need24/7supporThisis importantbecause 24 /1:individualised suppoNDSIsthe most expensive forms of funded within even though no publicly available modellingcost/benefit highly

#Commissioning Sil And The Risk Of Reinstitutionalisation (Ver.0_25,05-26)Page

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922 The government appears concerned about escalating SIL costs, workforce shortages, provider instability, vacant shifts, thin regional markets, and the expense of highly dividualized support arrangements. The “provider viability” language strongly suggests the reforms are partly intended to stabilize providers financially by increasing occupancy certainty, encouraging shared staffing structures, reducing unused staffing time, and making support arrangements more predictable and scalable.

Likely Features of the Proposed Commissioning Model

Although the final design has not yet been released, existing reform language strongly suggests several likely features. a### Greater Central Planning of SIL Arrangements The NDIA may increasingly shape what kinds of SIL models are considered acceptable, determine preferred staffing ratios, influence housing configurations, and steer participants toward standardised support structures. This could reduce the flexibility currently available in highly individualized arrangements.b#### Expansion of Shared SupportsA major concern raised throughout disability advocacy discussions is that commissioningcould formalise shared staffing, co-tenancy expectations, and efficient rosterstructures.This concern is reinforced by earlier NDIS Review recommendations encouraging greateruse of shared supports and a:3 staffing models in some contexts, even though thisrecommendation was made without any supporting evidence.The commissioning language about provider viability challengesstrongly implies theGovernment sees economies of scale as central to the solution.Commissioning SIL and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation (Ver 1.0_25.05.2026) Page 13

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

c. Preferred or Commissed Provider Networks

A commisioning system may involve preferred provider panels regional contracting arrangements NDIA directed sevice ecosystems. Rather than participants freely assembling individulised teams ndia increasingly purchase services from approved providers contract providers for regions channel participants towards designated serice models This would represent substantial philosphical shift away from origianl ndis market based approch. d. Increased Registration Regulatory Control The comissioning proposal is occurring simultaneously with mandatory registration reforms for sil providers beginning form July 2026 These reforims include manditory regstration stronger Sil practice standards increased audits worker screening governance requirements tighter oversight mechanisms Combined together reform suggest movement toward more regulated centrally managed standardised siL sytem.

The Tension at Centre Proposal

The proposed commissioning approach appears to sit centre major philosophical conflict about future direction NDIS a. Original NDIS Logic The original scheme was built around individualisation participant-directed funding personalises supports and choice control Under this logic, funding followed indvidual rather service sysyem Commissioning SIL Risk of Reinstitutionalisation (Ver 1_0-5.25.2026) Page 14

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922

b. The Emerging Commissioning Logic

The proposed reforms suggest increasing emphasis on system efficiency, provider sustainability, standardised support models, and centralised market management. Under this logic, participants may increasingly be expected to fit within predefined service structures. This is why many disabled people and their advocates are deeply concerned about the commissioning language.

Why Disabled People And Advocates Are Concerned Many concerns arise because disability accommodation history in Australia has repeatedly shown that when governments prioritise efficiency, staffing consolidation, and provider viability, the result often becomes congregated models, reduced autonomy, shared supports,

an institutional dynamics.Critics fear the commissioning approach could reduce genuine choice and control; pressure participants into shared arrangements; dermine self-direction ; weaken Service for One groups ,and make individualized supports harder to secure.There also concerns that participants may be required justify they cannot sharesupports .that individual risk safeguard factors may discounted economic considerations override human rights principles.These concerns amplified findings from Royal Commission regarding harms congregate living environments. What Is Still Unknown Despite growing concern critical details remain unknown.Commissioning SIL Risk Reinstitutionalisation (Ver Page 15

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

Submission 1922

There is currently no publicly released detailed model explaining how commissioning would operate, whether participants could refuse commissioned arrangements, how individualized self-directed models would be protected, whether participants would retain provider choice, how SIL pricing structures would change, or how safeguards for autonomy and Article 19 rights would be maintained.

There is also no detailed explanation yet of whether commissioning applies only to new entrants, whether existing SIL participants may be transitioned, or whether 1:1 models will remain realistically fundable.

The Broader Significance

The proposed commissioning approach may represent one of the most consequential structural shifts in the history of the NDIS. At its core, the debate is not simply about housing or staffing models. It is about whether the future of disability support in Australia will continue moving toward individually governed, self-directed, community-based support arrangements, or whether the system will increasingly return to centrally designed, economically rationalised, p>provider-managed models of accommodation and support.

That is why the apparently technical language of “commissioning approach”and“providerviability”has generated such profound concern within sections of the disabilitycommunity. CommissioningSIL andreinstitutonalisation(Ver

The Development of SIL Under the NDIS

When the NDIS began, accommodation support was funded through Assistance with Daily Living funding. Supported Independent Living (SIL) emerged as the NDIS funding mechanism for daily support assistance provided in a person’s home, particularly for people requiring high levels of support, regular supervision, overnight assistance, or 24/7 care.The Supported Independent Living (SIL) funding model was not designed solely around the needs and rights of disabled participants. From its inception, SIL also accommodated a range of structural operational financialand workforce requirementsof disability serviceproviders.Understanding thisis criticalbecause manyoftensionsandsurroundingsilarisefromthefactthatthemodelhasalwaysattemptedtobalance two competing priorities Individualised participant-directedsupportandan ditionalisedparticipantdirectedsupporttheoperational/incomegenerationprioritieslarge-scaledisabilityservice systems.Asaresult,SILEvolvedasa hybrid system thatwaspartlyrights-basedindividualisedbutalsoheavilyshapedbyproviderrequirementsinherited fromearlierblock-fundedaccommodationsystems.Severalmajor providerrequirementswereeffectivelybuiltintothesileframework. 1.Workforce Efficiency Shared StaffingOneofof themostsignificantproviderrequirementscocommodatedthrough SIlwastheneedefficientlyutilisesstaffingresources.Disabilitysuppor tworkoperate scontinuouslyacross mornings eveningsovernight periods weekendspublic holidaysoftenhoursperday.For providers staffingisolated individualparticipantsonfullyseparateros istexpensive becauseitcreatesidestaffingt ime duplicated shifts travel inefficiencies higher labour costs.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

The SIL model therefore strongly accommodated shared staffing arrangements, overlapping support rosters, and multiple participants supported by the same workers. This allowed providers to spread staffing costs across several participants, improve staff utilisation rates, disable downtime, reduce financial profitability. This is one reason SIL became associated group homes co-tenancy roster-sharing arrangements.

Predictable Revenue Streams Service providers historically depended on relatively stable funding structures Before NDIS provider often received block funding recurrent grants or long-term government contracts.The disrupted this introducing participant-controlled purchasing market competition potentially unstable service demand.SIL partially accommodated concerns creating large ongoing support packages predictable staffing structures

term participant placements.For providers SIL functioned as revenue anchors especially where several participants shared house with pooled staffing supports.This predictability assisted payroll management workforce planning property leasing organisational sustainability did however encourage traditional providers explore more individualised personalise models The perpetuated status quo it not foster innovation creativity.

Occupancy Stability Providers operating accommodation services face reduction in income when houses are fully occupied.Commissioning SIL Risk Reinstitutionalisation (Ver Page 18

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: [NDIS Amendement Bill] 1922

Vacancies can create unfunded staffing costs unused housing capacity financial instability.

The SILL framework accommodates provider needs structurally encouraging co-tenancy shared living full occupancy models Many SILL systems assumed a certain number per house with staffing distributed across residents helped maintain stability cost efficiency predictable operational models reduced exposure when individual exited services While these features met agendas also resulted in increasingly depersonalized forced co tenancies significantly reducing support flexibility 4 Rostering Simplicity Operational Management Group home requires administratively manageable Highly individualised supports can significant complexity through custom schedules highly specialised unique routines specific governance structures variable arrangements often accommodated standard rostering fixed staff central coordination repeatable service This made it easier for providers to recruit train supervise administer at scale In many cases participants were effectively integrated into existing organisational rather than being built uniquely around participant Commissioning SIL and Risk of Reinstitutionalisation Ver 1.0 Page 19

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922

Economies of Scale

The SIL structure strongly reflected the provider need for economies of scale. Congregate living arrangements reduce per-person support costs by allowing providers to share overnight staff, pool active support, combine transport, centralize supervision, and reduce staffing duplication.The SIL pricing framework frequently rewarded efficiency through aggregation rather than maximum individualization.This is one reason why 1:1 individualised support arrangements have often faced greater scrutiny from the NDIA.Such arrangements reduce traditional group home providers’ ability to distribute costs, optimise staffing, and maximise operational efficiency.

Provider-Controlled Service EcosystemsMany SIL providers historically combined housing, staffing, care coordination, behavioural support implementation, and daily living assistance.The SIL system often accommodated provider preferences for vertically integrated service models.This created organisational advantages through simplified coordination, internal communication, workforce continuity, and stronger organizational control.However, critics argue this weakened participant autonomy, separation of powers, and independent safeguarding.Where providers controlled both housing and supports, participants could become highly dependent on single organisations.Commissioning SIL and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation (Ver 1.0_25.05.2026) Page 20

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922

Section: Risk Management and Liability Reduction

Providers also required systems that reduced legal risk, workforce risk, behavioural risk, and operatinal unpredictability. Shared accommodation models often allowed providers to centralize supervision, monitor participants more easily, implement behavioral controls consistently, and manage incidents within structured environments.from a provider perspective, silified sil environmets often appeared safer easier supervise administratively defensible however disabled people argue institutional convenience was frequently mistaken for genuine safeguarding.The disability royal commision repeatedly demonstrated congregate settings can themselves create substantial risks violence abuse neglect restrictive practices loss autonomy generated from very system used created profits administrative efficiencies.

Market Sustainability Organisational Survival As ndis market matured providers increasingly argued highly fragmented fully individualised supports could undermine organisational viability.Provider concerns included workforce shortages inability fill shifts thin markets travel inefficiencies rising labour costs unstable participant demand.SIL structure accommodated these concerns allowing providers consolidate support delivery standardise staffing models maintain larger operational footprints.This tension now re emerging explicitly through current government discussions aboutprovider viabilty market stewardship commissioning approaches to SILCommissioning Sil Ris of Reinstitutionalisation Ver 1.0_25.05.26 Page 21

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill 2026

Submission 1922

Rather than rise to the challenge of exploring, in collaboration with the disability community, alternative approaches to these traditional institutionalised models, this current Government, bureaucrats and services providers are creating a push back to the approaches to support that were to be eradicated with the implementation of the NDIS.

Why This Matters Historically

The key historical issue is that SIL inherited many assumptions from pre-NDIS accommodation systems. Although the NDIS introduced individualised funding, choice and control, and rights-based language, the underlying SIL operational structure still largely reflected provider-centred service economics. This created an ongoing structural contradiction. Participants were promised individualisation while providers still depended on shared supports, roster efficiency, occupancy stability, and economies of scale.

The Central Critique Emerging Today

Much contemporary criticism of SIL reform arises because many disabled people and advocates argue that provider requirements have increasingly begun to dominate decision-making again. Critics argue that shared support expectations co-tenancy pressure commissioning proposals sustainability rhetoric risk prioritising provider economics over individual autonomy human rights. Thisis why debates about SILare often so intense.``Commissioning ``SILandthe RiskofReinstitutionalisation(Ver.0_25.05. 2026)Page .22

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

Submission 1922 At their core, they are debates about whether disability accommodation systems exist primarily to support disabled people to direct their own lives, or to create administratively manageable and financially sustainable and increasingly institutiona lised service systems. Commissioning SIL and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation“(Ver 1.0 _25 .05.2026) Page 23

A Critique of Congregate Care Models from the Disability Royal Commission

In principle, SIL was meant to support independent living, community participation, individual choice, and personalised support arrangements.

The original NDIS philosophy suggested that people should have greater control over where they lived, who supported them, who they lived with, and how supports were organised. This represented a major departure from earlier block-funded systems. For some participants, SIL enabled highly individualised arrangements, self-directed teams, Service for One models, and participant-governed support structures. These arrangements often emerged because some individuals had experienced harm in group settings, shared support environments were unsafe, or highly personalisable supports were necessary for safeguarding and quality of life. The stories heard throughout the Disability Royal Commission revealed a sustained and systemic critique of congregate care models, particularly group homes and shared disability accommodation arrangements. These criticisms were not presented merely as isolated service failures. Rather, the Commission repeatedly heard evidence suggesting that many harms arose from the underlying structure and logic of congregate care itself. Across hearings, submissions, research reports, and the Final Report, several major criticisms consistently emerged.

1. Congregate Care Increased Exposure to Violence, Abuse and Neglect

One of the strongest findings emerging from the Royal Commission was that people living in congregate settings were often exposed to significantly higher risks of violence, abuse, neglect, exploitation, and restrictive practices.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: [NDIS for Future Generations] Bill 2026 - Submission No.: 9874 The Commission heard extensive evidence from residents who experienced assaults from co-tenants, sexual violence, intimidation, verbal abuse, neglect of medical needs, overmedication, failures in basic care. The Royal Commission explicitly investigated whether “living in a group home creates greater risk” of violence or abuse. Many stories suggested harm wasn’t accidental but structurally enabled through shared living arrangements with unequal power relationships; poor oversight; dependence on providers.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission: Submission 1922 This led many contributors to argue that group homes represented “institutions dispersed into the community.”\n\nThe Commission heard evidence that the problem was not simply building size, but the concentration of disabled people into service-controlled environments.

Restrictive Practices Were Embedded Within Congregate Models The Royal Commission heard extensive evidence linking congregate settings to the use of chemical restraint, physical restraint, seclusion, environmental restrictions, and coercive behavioural management Research commissioned by the Royal Commission identified congregate environments as important drivers of restrictive practices because staff were managing multiple residents simultaneously; collective routines required behavioral conformity ;and environmental pressures increased conflict stress .

Evidence suggested that restrictive practices often used operationally.

Co-Tenant Violence Was Systemic Many stories described serious violence between residents within group homes Evidence presented included assaults intimidation ongoing fear trauma sexual violence perpetrated co-tenants Some residents described becoming normal living environment Critically ,many reported being unable escape these environments providers controlled placements housing options limited funding structures favored arrangements ηCommissioning SIL Risk Reinstitutionalisation Ver 1.0_25.05.2026θPage (Ver 1.0 _ Page 26)

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: Securing NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 Submission No.:

Segregation Itself Was Viewed as Harmful

The Royal Commission repeatedly heard that segregation contributes to abuse. The Final Report and associated commentary highlighted concerns that segregated disability-specific environments reduce community visibility, social accountability, informal safeguarding, and genuine inclusion.Several commissioners ultimately recommended phasing out group homes entirely over time because they were viewed as structurally segregating environments.This reflected a broader human rights argument grounded in Article 19 UN Convention on Rights Persons with Disabilities which recognises right choose where whom lives.

Organisational Priorities Often Overrode Human NeedsMany stories revealed systems staffing efficiency provider economics roster convenience operational management appeared take priority relationships safety identity autonomy emotional wellbeing.Residents described high staff turnover unfamiliar workers lack continuity environment shaped around organisational system rather than connection.Royal Commission repeated economic shared supports frequently displaced individualised support.

Reporting Abuse Was Extremely Difficult Many residents congregate settings describe enormous barriers reporting abuse.Commissioning SIL Risk Reinstitutionalisation (Ver 1_0-5/27/2026) Page 27

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: Securing NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2023

These barriers included dependence on providers; fear of retaliation communication barriers lack advocacy staff controlling information absence independent safeguards. Some residents effectively lived within closed systems where those responsible support complaint management daily living behavioral responses all part same organizational structure This concentration power created profound safeguard concerns.

Home Often Did Not Feel Like Home Many described group homes workplaces rather than home resident Residents spoke about privacy constant presence roster-driven routines institutional atmospheres feeling guests own homes challenged dominant policy language describing congregate arrangements “home”and living supports.“ Royal Commission repeatedly heard physical location alone does not create belonging autonomy home.

The Royal Commission Ultimately Linked Inclusion With Safety One most important themes emerging from Royal Commission idea genuine inclusion itself functions as a safeguard Evidence suggested people safer strong relationships community connection, autonomy self-direction visibility meaningful control over their lives Conversely risks increased segregated dependent socially isolated subject provider-controlled system Commissioning SIL and Risk Reinstitutionalisation (Ver1_0-25/05/2026) Page 28

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

Submission 1922

This is why the Royal Commission’s findings have become central to contemporary debates together with shared supports, SIL commissioning; cotenancy expectations;and congregatedisability accommodation more broadly.

Section: Central Criticism Emerging From Stories

Taken together,the stories presented to the Disability Royal Commission amounted to a profound challengetothe historical assumptions underpinningcongregat e care.The criticism was not simplythat“somegrouphomes are poorly run.”Rather,evidence increasingly suggested that many harms were connectedtotothestructural characteristicsof congregate systems themselvesincluding concentration ofpowershared controleconomic efficiency modelssegregation,and reduced autonomy.This isthe reasonwhy theregionalCommission generated such strong debate about individualised livingself-direction,ands the future group homes in Australia.Commissioning SIL and Risk of ReinstitutionalisationVer 1.0_25-05-2026 Page ⎤➋

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

Section Title: 1:3 Shared Support Ratios

There currently exists no publicly available evidence demonstrating that universal default shared-support-funding allocation at an inherent ratio grounded in strong independent scientific or clinical psychosocial safeguarding human rights evidence. Instead it emerges from economic modeling assumptions about work force efficiencies concerns for provider sustainability system-level objectives rather than being inherently safer better more appropriate all participants requiring full-time care. The strongest public reference comes NDIS Review which stated:

Participants who need round-the-clock living supports would generally be funded on basis one worker three people. It acknowledges there will exceptions but provides no justification why this should become generalised assumption yet has become standard practice.

The Practical Logic Behind This Ratio Appears Primarily Linked To Staff Sharing Economics

The practical logic behind using ratios appears closely connected to roster efficiency workforce utilisation,provider viability, such as reducing costs because labour cost is distributed across several participants overnight staffing can pooled idle time reduced and providers achieve economies of scale consistent with broader Government language around provider viability market stewardship ,and sustainability . in effect such framework functions funding-efficiency benchmark.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: Securing NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 - Submission No.: 1922

There Is No Clear Evidence That A Staff Ratio Of Three Participants With Differently Abled Individuals Is Universally Clinically Appropriate

No publicly released evidence has demonstrated that three participants with differing disabilities can generally share support safely without compromising their autonomy or quality-of-life. This is important as individualized needs are highly variable; some may require constant prompting while others might need active safeguard measures even if not requiring physical assistance constantly due to complex relational dynamics such as psychosocial vulnerability which cannot be captured solely through numerical staffing ratios alone, including co-tenant compatibility issues related directly towards shared living environments.

The Disability Royal Commission Raises Serious Questions About Shared Support Assumptions

The Disability Royal Commission heard extensive evidence about harms occurring in congregate care settings like group homes where residents face risks from violence and abuse among tenants themselves alongwith restrictive practices limiting choices & control over daily routines driven primarily by providers rather than individuals’ preferences leading several commissioners recommending phasing out these models entirely because they believe it will never realize people’s rights within a disability context. This creates major tensions regarding the commissioning of SIL (Shared Independent Living) services against potential re-institutionalization concerns.

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

Submission 1922

The same policy environment that acknowledges systemic harms in congregate settings now simultaneously proposing broader shared support assumptions through the 1:3 funding model.

Section A - Reverses Original Logic Of Individualised Funding

Originally, the NDIS was designed around individualised assessment, personalised support,

and participant-specific funding. Under that philosophy, funding should arise from the individual’s actual support needs rather than standardised staffing assumptions.Critics argue this reverses logic effectively beginning with question: How can supports be shared efficiently?rather than:` What does each person require to live safely autonomously?This is why many advocates argue proposal risks becoming a budget mechanism disguised as an assessment framework.

The NDIS Review Admits Model Requires Exceptions

NDIS review admits some participants cannot share or appropriately share supports.Having said so critics argue it creates dangerous inversion of burden.Instead building on people rather requiring them prove they don’t want to share.This especially concerning if their needs are relational psychosocial trauma-related behavioural sensory safeguarding-based not purely physical. Commissioning SIL and Risk Reinstitutionalisation (Ver 1_0-5/8/2026) Page `

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922

These needs are often less visible, harder to quantify, and more easily discounted within standardised funding models.

There is Little Public Transparency About the Modelling Behind 1:3

A major criticism is the absence of publicly available psychometric validation, risk modelling, safeguarding analysis, outcome studies, or human rights impact assessments supporting the universal application of 1:3 assumptions. No publicly available evidence has clearly demonstrated why '1:3' is the "correct" ratio." The Royal Commission Evidence Suggests Shared Supports Can Increase Risk Many stories presented to the Disability Royal Commission directly challenge the assumption that shared supports are inherently beneficial.Evidence included severe co-tenant violence, incompatible placements, trauma, restrictive practices, staff neglect, and institutional dynamics becoming normalised.‘Some residents described group homes as environments where abuse became routine; staff convenience drove decision-making,’ people lacked meaningful control over their lives.This raises an important question:If congregate environments are associated with elevated safeguarding risks', what evidentiary basis exists for making shared support the default assumption?8.The Strongest Existing Basis Is Financial and Workforce Sustainability Based on the publicly available material,the clearest rationale for `‘1:3 appears to be financial sustainability’,’ workforce management,‘, provider viability,’,and scalability.##

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922 This does not automatically mean shared supports are inappropriate in every circumstance. Some people choose shared living, enjoy co-tenancy, and see personal benefits in shared support arrangements.The critical issue is whether shared support becomes an available option chosen\nyoung the participant, or a default funding assumption imposed by the system.That distinction sits at \ncentreofthe current debate.

Summation_of_the Analysis

The point isthis,the NDIS Review recommendeda :sharedsupportfundingassumption but it didnot publicly demonstrate why 1:is correct,safe,rights-compatible,evidence-based ratio TheReview says thatpeople needinglivingsupportswould generallyor typicallybe funded on basis of shared supports with average ration one worker to three participants.It also saysthere would exceptions where have higher individual needs or complex circumstancesThe problemisthat thereview appears move from cost consistency concerndefault funding rule without showing evidentiary bridge between two Itdoesnt appear provide public evidence showingwhether 1: safe for peoplewithcomplex behavioural trauma psychosocial communication medical sensory safeguardingneeds Nor doseit explainwhy preferablenotableto ratios fullyindividualised support strategies There no detailed explanation of how compatibility relational safety environmental triggersbehavioural escalationcommunication supportrauma histories be assessed Commissioning SILand Risk Reinstitutionalisation (Ver.0_25.05 .26) Page34

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922

Similarly, the Review does not publicly demonstrate whether shared support improves outcomes, autonomy, community inclusion, or quality of life. Nor does it adequately explain whether the model complies with Article 19 of the UNCRPD, especially the right not to be forced into particular living arrangements.The Review also does not clearly demonstrate how the Disability Royal Commission evidence about abuse, neglect, violence, restrictive practices, and loss of autonomy in group homes was reconciled with the recommendation.As a consequence, the recommendation looks less like a conclusion drawn from participant-centred evidence and more-like-a-budget-setting assumption. The Review’s own language supports this concern.Action8.1 isabout changingthe housingandliving budget-setting process so budgets are “consistentandsustainable.”Overall,the evidentiary problem isthatthereviewtreatssharingasthedefaultthenplaces bureaudonparticipants toprove why they need an exception.That reverses then original NDIS logic.Insteadof asking:

Whatsupportdoesthispersonrequiretolivesafelyfreely,andwell? theNDISframeworkasks:> Canthispersontobemadefitwithinanaveragesharedsupportratio?Thereforeitcanbeclearlyaassertedthattheadvantagesound.administratively financiallyconvenientbutnottransparentlyjustifiedasclinicallyethicallyorhuman-rights

Drawing the Threads Together

This document presents a powerful historical and structural critique of group homes and congregate disability accommodation in Australia.

Taken as a whole, the material argues that group homes emerged and persisted not primarily because they reflected what disabled people wanted, but because they conveniently accommodated the operational, financial, workforce, and administrative requirements of governments, funders, providers, and disability service systems.

At the same time, the document demonstrates that disabled people themselves have repeatedly described these arrangements as unsafe, restrictive, institutional, and incompatible with genuine autonomy and inclusion.

Historically, the document argues that congregate accommodation models evolved out of earlier institutional systems.

Although large institutions were progressively closed through deinstitutionalization, many underlying assumptions remained intact.

Instead of ending institutional logic, governments and providers frequently reproduced it in smaller community-based settings such as group homes.

These environments continued to concentrate disabled people together within provider-controlled systems organized around staffing efficiency, supervision, behavioral management, and operational convenience.

This document repeatedly demonstrates that Supported Independent Living (SIL), while framed under the NDIS as an individualized support mechanism, inherited many assumptions from those earlier service systems.

The SIL funding structure accommodated a range of provider needs including workforce efficiency through shared staffing, occupancy stability predictable revenue streams rostering simplicity,economies of scale centralised supervisio organizational risk managemen

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: Securing NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 - Submission No.: 1922 Group homes and shared support arrangements allowed providers to spread staffing costs across multiple residents, reduce labour inefficiencies, centralise overnight support, and create scalable service models. These arrangements suited financial operational requirements because they reduced staff duplication improved worker utilisation supported organisational sustainability simplified administration similarly governments funders benefited because congregate systems easier budget regulate standardised monitor scale large populations emerging commission proposals continue this pattern proposed shift towards centrally commissioned SIL models linked provider viability market stewardship workforce efficiency sustainability standardised structures document argues priorities risk reproducing same structural dynamics historically shaped care including shared co-tenancy pressure central control reducing autonomy importantly however contrasts system with actual experiences testimonies disabled people themselves strongest evidence presented comes from disability royal commission outlines stories heard amounted sustained systemic critique group homes described as environments associated violence abuse neglect restrictive practices trauma lack privacy social isolation behavioural control loss of autonomy evidenced Royal Commission suggested harms not simply isolated failures individual services many contributors argued that these were

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922

structurally connected to the congregate model itself through concentration of power, shared living imposed for economic reasons, provider-controlled routines, and organisational priorities overriding individual needs. Residents described environments where staff convenience dictated daily life; people had little control over who they lived with abuse from co-tenants became normalised home often felt more like workplace than genuine home residents The document also highlights how many disabled experienced congregate settings continuations institutional under different name Despite smaller houses community locations Residents ongoing experiences surveillance dependency segregation behavioural management collective control Royal evidence further challenged assumption that shared supports inherently promote wellbeing or safety Instead commission repeatedly heard evidence group could increase tenant violence safeguard risks restrictive practices emotional distress vulnerability abuse Document argues these testimonies fundamentally undermine contemporary policy proposals promoting default assumptions such as funding ratios It notes no publicly available demonstrates safe appropriate rights-compatible complex needs strongest rationale emerging relates efficiency sustainability workforce cost containment Taken together this presents clear historical argument Group homes support arrangements consistently function systems efficiently accommodated governments funders providers structures Commissioning SIL Risk Reinstitutionalisation Ver 1_0 copyright (c) Commonwealth Government Australia Page

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

Submission 1922

However,

the lived experiences of many disabled people, particularly those with complex support eeds, trauma histories, psychosocial disability, behavioral support needs, or safeguarding\nvulnerabilities, reveal that these models frequently failed to meet their actual needs for autonomy,safety, stability, self-direction, belonging, and genuine home. The abundance of testimony presented through the Disability Royal Commission thereforerepresents not merely criticism of poorly operated services, but a much deeper challenge to the underlying assumptions of congregate disability care itself.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

Commissioning SIL and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation

The proposed commissioning of Supported Independent Living (SIL) represents far more than an administrative or funding reform. Historically, disability accommodation systems in Australia have repeatedly demonstrated that when governments prioritise provider viability, workforce efficiency, staffing consolidation, economies of scale, and administrative standardisation, the result has consistently been the expansion of congregate models of care and support.The proposed commissioning framework risks reproducing precisely these historical dynamics under a new policy language of “sustainability,”“market stewardship,” and best supports.”At the centre of concern is fact that commissioning fundamentally shifts focus from individual to service system itself.Under original philosophy NDIS intended follow person’s funds were meant around goals relationships identity communication style trauma history safeguard needs preferred way living.Commissioning reverses this logic.Instead designing support围绕individual系统 increasingly begins questions such as:

• What staffing models are financially viable? What arrangements maximise workforce efficiency? What configurations reduce provider instability?”AndHow can support hours be shared across multiple participants?

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 Submission 1922

This creates a profound structural danger.

Disabled people may increasingly be expected to fit within predefined service models designed around provider and system requirements rather than supports being built around the person themselves.

Historically, this is precisely how institutional and congregated systems developed.

Large institutions and later group homes were not primarily created because disabled people demanded to live together in shared, provider-controlled environments.

They emerged because such models efficiently accommodated the operational needs of governments and service systems.

####### Congregate arrangements allowed staffing costs to be shared, supervision to be centralised, worker utilisation to be maximized, organisational administration to be simplified, and service delivery to become scalable and financially predictable. The SIL system inherited many of these same assumptions.Even under the NDIS, group homes and shared staffing arrangements continued to function as economically efficient mechanisms for providers and funders.The proposed commissioning reforms risk intensifying these dynamics by embedding them more deeply into the structure of the Scheme itself.This is particularly concerning given the overwhelming body of testimony presented to the Disability Royal Commission.Disabled people repeatedly described group homes and congregate environments as places associated with violence, abuse, neglect, restrictive practices, lack of autonomy, co-tenant conflict, social isolation, and institutional control.Importantly, the Royal Commission evidence did not simply describe isolated service failures.## “Commissioning SIL and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation” (Ver 1.0_25.05.2026) Page:41

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

Rather, many testimonies suggested that these harms were structurally connected to congregate together through concentration of power, shared control over daily life, organisational convenience overriding personal autonomy, and economic efficiency prioritising human relationships. The proposed commissioning approach risks reproducing similar structural conditions.The increasing emphasis on shared support ratios, power panels occupancy efficiency standardised models creates strong incentives expansion normalisation living arrangements regardless whether they’re suitable individuals.This is especially dangerous complex trauma histories psychosocial disability behavioural support autism sensory sensitivities communication differences abuse within settings.For such individuals safety wellbeing not determined simply physical presence workers but trusted relationship environmental predictability autonomy social interactions ability regulate exposure others.Shared support can fundamentally undermine safeguards The proposal further intensifies this concern available evidence suggests ratios primarily driven provider viability workforce utilisation sustainability rather than demonstrated safer effective rights-compatible people with needs.Consequently disabled may increasingly justify why cannot safely share supports system demonstrating appropriate first place effectively reverses original intent individual funding Commissioning SIL and Risk Reinstitutionalisation (Ver 1.0_25.05.2026) Page

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

Submission 1922

The historical irony is profound.

For decades, disability service systems maintained and expanded group home models because they were operationally and financially advantageous to providers and governments. Disabled people repeatedly reported that these systems often failed to provide genuine autonomy, meaningful inclusion, safety, privacy, self-determination, or a true sense of home. Now, at the very moment when the Disability Royal Commission has exposed the harms associated with congregate care, the proposed commissioning reforms risk rewarding the very systems that preserved these models for their own organisational benefit. Rather than moving further toward individually governed supports, self-direction, personalised safeguarding, and Article 19 rights, the reforms risk consolidating provider-controlled service systems through central commissioning, preferred provider arrangements, shared staffing assumptions, and standardised accommodation models. In this sense, commissioning SIL risks functioning as a modern form of reinstitutionalisation. The buildings may be smaller. The language may be softer. The policy rhetoric may emphasise sustainabilitỳand(provider viability. But structurally, the risk remains the same. Disabled people being grouped together within systems designed primarily around the needs of organisations rather than the rights, autonomy,and individualityofthepeoplewhomustlivewithinthem. Commissioning SIL and the Risk of Reininstitutionalisation (Ver `1.0_25.05.2026) Page43

An Alternative to Commissioning

An alternative to commissioning would be the development of a genuinely individualized, participant-governed, and rights-based model of home and living support that strengthens self- direction, safeguarding, community inclusion, and personalized support design rather than centralizing control within provider-managed systems.

Rather than beginning with questions about workforce efficiency, provider viability, occupancy management, or shared staffing structures, such an alternative would begin with the individual person themselves, their identity, relationships, communication style, trauma history, aspirations, safeguarding needs, sensory profile, cultural context, and preferred way of living.

Under this approach, the role of the NDIS would not be to commission standardized accommodation systems or steer people into predefined support models. Instead, the Scheme would function as an enabling framework that assists people to build highly individualised and flexible supports around their own lives.

Several key principles would distinguish such an alternative from a commissioning model. First, funding would remain genuinely individualized rather than based on default staffing assumptions or standardised ratios. Supports would arise from the actual needs, vulnerabilities, goals, and safeguarding requirements of the individual person rather than from assumptions about what can be efficiently shared across multiple participants. Second, the system would strengthen self-direction and participant governance. This would include explicit protection for participant-led and “Service for One” models, recognition of self-managed and participant-directed teams, and implementation of a dedicated Self-Direction Registration Category to ensure that participants requiring complex supports are not forced into provider-controlled arrangements simply because of regulatory changes. Third, safeguarding would be reconceptualized away from institutional supervision and toward relational and community-based safeguards. The Disability Royal Commission repeatedly demonstrated that people are often safest where they have strong relationships, text-align: center; color:redacted“);}

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: Securing NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 - Submission No.: 1922

supporters, continuity, autonomy, visibility within community life, genuine control over who enters home daily. Under this approach, safeguard focus stability relationships; participant authority; independent advocacy separation powers continuous workers inclusion rather than congregate oversight system. Fourth housing support structurally separated wherever possible major risks identified throughout disability history concentration power occurs when same organisation controls: housing staffing behavioural implementation living arrangements alternative model would intentionally reduce concentrating power strengthening participants tenancy staff coordination. fifth flexible micro-service ecosystems large-scale commissioned provider panels small participant-led organisations independent teams cooperative structures circles host arrangements based micro-enterprises could all play important roles in supporting genuinely individualized lives emerging organically people’s actuals forcing fit industrial service structure sixth co-tenancy shared supports remain option default assumption some may choose because align preferences relationship culture social goals rights-based under shared occur freely chosen demonstrably compatible safety autonomous wellbeing burden placed individuals prove cannot share importantly such an alternative not simply about rejecting forms of coordination planning governments retain legitimate responsibilities quality safeguarding workforce development accountability stewardship public resources critical distinction functions exercised ways preserve participant autonomy self-direction gradually reconstruct centralised systems organized primarily around providers bureaucratic needs Commissioning SIL Risk Reinstitutionalisation (Ver. Page:45

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

Submission 1922

At Its Core: The Alternative To Commissioning Is Not Administrative Chaos Or Absence Of Structure.

It’s A Deliberate Design Where The Structure Exists To Serve The Person Instead, Rather Than Requiring Them Adapt Themselves to The System.

Conclusion

The proposed commissioning of Supported Independent Living (SIL) represents one of the most consequential structural shifts in the history of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Although framed through policy language centred on “sustainability,”“provider viability,”market stewardship,

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

freely chose them. They emerged because they efficiently accommodated the operational needs of service systems. The Disability Royal Commission exposed the consequences of these historical arrangements in devastating detail.The testimonies heard by the Commission revealed that many congregate environments exposed disabled people to violence, abuse,neglect,restrictive practices trauma,social isolation,behavioural control,and profound loss of autonomy.Importantly,the evidence suggestedthattheseharmswereoften structurally embedded withincongregatesystems through concentrationofpower ,provider-controlled routines shared staffing assumptions ， an organisational priorities overriding humanneeds .Against this backdrop，the proposed expansion o f commissioning modelsand defaultsharedsupportassumptions such as l:3 funding ratios creates aprofound contradiction．The same policy environmentthathelpfullyacknowledges th e harms associated with congregatc care now appearsto be constructing financial regulatory andoperational frameworks that risk reproducingmany oft he samestructural dynamics under modernisedpolicy language.This document has also arguedtha t there remains little publicly available evidenc edemonstrating tha tfdefault shared support assumpt ions are clinically,ethically safeguard ing-wise orhuman-rights sound forpeoplewith complexsuppor tneeds.Insteadthestrongest rationale emerging from current reform discussionsappears tob eeconomic efficiency workforce utilisation provider viability anda long-term cost containment.As consequence ther is growing concernt hat then burden may increasingly shift ontodisabled peopl eto justify why they cannot safely share supports rather than thesystem being requiredtodemonstrate wh y shared arrangementsare appropriate in first place.Howeverthisdocumenthas alsodemonstratedtahtalternatives exist.A genuinely rights-based alternative tocommissioning would preserve individualisedfunding strengthen self-direction protect participant-governed an d Servicefor One models separate housingfrom sup port provision ,an dbuildsafeguarding around trusted relationships continuity community connection ， an dpaticipant authorityratherthancongregate oversight systems.Such approachwould recognisetahatdisabilitysupport systemsshouldexisttoservethe person,ratherthana nquiringthe personadapt themselves ton eedsofsystem. Commissioning SILandtheriskofReinstitutionalisation (Ver 1.0_25 .O5．26) Page48

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

Submission 1922

Ultimately,

the debate surrounding SIL commissioning is not simply about staffing ratios, provider panels, or accommodation models. it is about the kind of society Australia wishes to become.It is about whether disabled people will continue moving towards lives characterized determined,or whether disability support systems will once again drift toward forms of institutional logic organized primarly around efficiency,predictability,and administrativve control. The buidlings may loo dfferent frmo th institutons ot he pas.The lanuage ma soond moe modern.TThe systms my be framed through concepts such as “market stewardship”and“sustainability.”But tne central question remains unchanged:

Who ihe system ultimatel designed te serve?

Commissioning SIl and the Risk of Reinstitutionalisation“(Ver 1.o_25.05.2026) Page49

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

Submission 1922

Reflection

The SIL paper makes one demand of the reader above all others, and the whole of its argument hangs on it: ask for the evidence. A default shared-support ratio of one worker to three participants is, on the public record, the figure toward which people who need round-the-clock living support are to be funded. The paper goes looking for the basis of that figure and finds, as the most important fact in the entire debate, an absence.There is no publicly available evidence ➡that➵universal➫one-to-three➮defaultisgroundedinclinicalpsychosocial,safeguardingorhuman-rightssresearchThereisanopublishedvalidationriskmodellingonoroutcomestudyexplainingwhythreeistherightnumberratherthantwoorfourorafigurebuiltaroundtheindividualTherenopublicdemonstrationthathreeparticipantswithdifferentdisabilitiescommunicationstylestraumahistoriesandsafeguardsingleiskscangenerallysharesupportsafelywhilepreservingautonomyandqualityoflife.Thestrongestrationalethepapercansfindisinfinancialrosterefficiencythespreadingofoneworkerscostacrossseveralparticipants,thepoolingofovernightstaff theeconomiesofscaleshatcongregationhasalwaysproducedTheratiothepapercallconclosesadministrativelyandfinanciellyconvenientandontransparentlyjustifiedasclinicallyorethissoundItfunctionsasa funding-efficiencymbenchmarkdressasadassessmentframework Iltomattersbeexactabouthowthisargumentismadebecausetemptationistooverclaim,andtheadvancementwouldbewrong. ThecollectiondoesnotsaytheBillcontainsclausemandatinganonetothreearatio.Itdoesnotin, and the figure is a matter of policy rule rather than primary legislation. What collection says sharper The power to make shared support funded standard sits squarely in Bill ➡in determinationpowerthatallowsamaximumsupporintensityanda maximum worker-to-participant ratio be set for whole classes participants, andasetonthelawsituationsternregardlessofwhetherresultingfundingsmeet cost suppoersonactuallyneeds(Schedule Part6,s33(2EA),withths33 (2EB)note).Thetone-totreefigureispolicycontentGovernmentproposespourinto thatpowerSo argument not clause missing; it supplies legal vessel default whose evidentiary basis itselfmissing Parliament being asked authorise class-wide ratios belowcost while specific ration Government intends rest public record workforce economicsratherthananypublishedevidenceof safety.The same point reaches Agency manages where Bill caps max amounts payable supports managed by participant SchedulePart s45Coperatesinside new framework planning builds needs-assessment-and-budget method machinery through whichclass-wideratiosbecomesparticularpersonallocation Schedule ss32K±-32Lmechanism lawful authority fundbelowneedlevelFlynn&Gregory joint submission Page 268

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

of a category; the one-to-three ratio is what that authority is being readied to deliver; and the bridge between them –the evidence that three is safe–is the thing no one has produced. What makes the absence not merely a gap but a contradiction is the body of evidence that does exist, and that points the other way. The Royal Commission heard sustained evidence linking congregate and shared accommodation to violence, abuse, neglect, restrictive practices, co-tenant conflict, loss of autonomy, and social isolation, and it found that those harms were not simply the failures of individual services but were structurally connected to the logic of congregate provision itself. It found that the closure of large institutions and their replacement with group homes had not eliminated institutional violence and abuse, identified many thousands of group-home residents as being at significant risk, concluded that no person should be compelled into an exclusively disabled setting designed solely for people in need who have just spent four-and-a-half years establishing this grouping together for service systems concentrates harm—now proposing grouped ration-based arrangement funded default highest needs strength number whose safety never published evidence support Flynn’s analysis same point participant side: class-level ratio description standard Scheme willing fund formal equality inputs applied unequal produces deeply unequal safety documentary critique lived Royal Commission finding reach conclusion from directions against shared-by-default policy moving regardless There rights dimension lesson history said country written down Article 19 Convention requires physically present community genuine choice where live obliged particular arrangement condition receiving support funding default making shared living standard places burden proving cannot share tension right conditions accepting arrangement chosen system justify imposition Point is imposed shared living –defaulted by funding unsupported published safety evidence reform own architecture commissioning preferred-provider panels occupancy efficiency consolidation housing provider hands builds norm paper word result earned reinstitutionalisation return old buildings re-emergence institutional modern dispersed softly named

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

settings – power concentrated within organisations, daily life organised around staffing efficiency, and the disabled person once again fit into service rather than being supported. specificity of each recommendation that recommends shared support to provider has corresponding cost to resident inside arrangement; each fact seen opposite ends ledger.Workforce efficiency one worker’s time spread across several residents is moment no free when help needed.Predictable occupancy-based revenue pressure keep beds filled regardless whether people in them well matched, an inertia makes leaving poor placement hard.Vertically integrated control where organisation owns housing supplies supports is concentration over resident who cannot change their without putting risk.Economies scale simply larger groupings high needs fewer staff.None this requires bad actors; it system rewards arrangements cheapest run then lets do work.No genuine alternative exists thin markets regional remote areas and most complex needs choice promised contracts whatever viable provider willing deliver which say(shared).Default justified viability imposed real alternatives not participant making destination market arranges.The paper closes on question all comes collection adopts alteration:when shared made funded standard by economics impose where no alternative serves ultimately designed disabled whose life organises or structures find cheaper groups?Move next movement built examine Reform does abolish individual entitlement announce return congregate care nothing visible converts question original logic Scheme asked particular need live safely build funding answer commissioning asks instead how can be efficiently shared what models are viable,how a person fitted within average ratio treats individual’s as variable managed against those questions conversion from around the category engine beneath whole reform SIL shows operating home living next movement traces itself mechanism through which assessed for becomes capped steered at Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 270

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before - NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

level of a group. And once the engine is understood, the final document shows turned-on-the-part-of-a-disabled-person’s-life- The-Scheme-was-most-distinctively-created-to-protect: their-participation-in-the-ordinary-life-of-the-community. Flynn & Gregory — Joint submission Page\x3a 271

Movement V - Community Participation and the Pathway

to Block Funding

The collection has now named the engine. An individual entitlement — funding assessed for a particular person, attributed to them, directed through them ––is being converted measure-by-measure—into managed categories: budgets capped standardised reduced at level groups without reassessment or participant feedback regarding decisions affecting their support. Standardisation benchmark assumptions category-level powers are gears driving conversion removal participatory planning principles allowing these mechanisms operate freely previous movements showed building operating home living final document shows turning point whole scheme letting disabled leave house keep relationships take part civic life present world citizen rather than client. Social Economic and Community Participation Changes examines what Government announced this funding placed last deliberate reason describes earliest concrete cut new framework eligibility tests foundational supports still come (announced beyond guaranteed) participation budget reset downward October average plan area moving around thirty thousand dollars twenty-six thousand first participant-facing reduction timetable position sequence itself argument Collection called “cuts move first” pattern provable not merely policy calendar but face statute determination power allows capping intensities ratios commence law same season as resetting participation budgets Schedule Part determinations; Plan suspension). Supports Review necessary precondition scheduled precede change cuts lead it history nation’s habit withdraw replace later if all timetables write that into law describe leading edge paper’s argues is reset isolated adjustment but step structural pathway back block-funded group services model Scheme created dismantle Two moves made once open that path the first individualized funding currently lets participants purchase own one-to-one community social ordinary involvement in

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

community life; once that funding is cut, individualised participation becomes financially unviable for many people, which is the first precondition for a drift toward group-based provision. The second is the legal power the Bill creates to reduce funding categories across whole groups of participants without reassessing any individual plan ––a power that, in the paper’s words, transforms participation from an individual entitlement into a controllable budget category, allowing the Government to suppress its growth centrally and progressively reduce the viability of participant-directed support.Set those two moves beside alternative funding systems the Government is building at the same moment—foundational supports,and proposed Inclusive Communities Fundthat would direct moneyto organisations torun participation programs rather than toparticipants todirect their own—andthe concern comesinto focus.Reduce themoneythataftersthesperson,builupthemoneythaftogoessto the providerandyouhave reconstructed,piece by piece,the architectureof blockfunding: governments fund servicesorganisations designprogramsanddisabledpeople attend whatis on offer.The document that follows traces that pathwayin full ,an it isthelast oft he four works ther eaderistakedinwhole.\nFlynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 273

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

Submission 1922

Social, Economic and Community Participation Changes “From Citizenship to Containment”

Shut Out Again: Dismembering Inclusion through Community Participation Cuts

**Prepared by:**Peter Gregory **Date:**31^stMay, 2026

Institutions are not defined by their size, but by the extent to which
people lose control over their own lives.
_{-John O’Brian-}

Abstract:

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill proposes significant reductions to participant-controlled funding for community participation while expanding mechanisms under centralised control over shared support categories. The proposed SECP amendments aim at reducing discretionary lifestyle expenditure but argue it’s foundational; maintaining emotional regulation among others crucially affected individuals with complex needs face isolation, deterioration institutionalisation crisis escalation beyond recreation social activity. Drawing on historical experiences documented in Shut Out Report findings Royal Commission philosophical foundations this argues risks recreating prior dynamics individualized funding reduced participants become reliant upon group programs externally commissioned initiatives administrative efficiency rather than personal choice inclusion. Reducing SECP funds increasing reliance SIL models creates conditions modern forms reinstitutionalization where service providers concentrate power controlling living spending time supports extent participate ordinary life disabled people risk becoming increasingly separated broader society absorbed closed disability ecosystems governed primarily operational financial considerations. This document contends reforms represent not simply budgetary adjustment fundamental ideological shift away original transformation vision NDIS central issue whether Australia will continue supporting disabled lives self-directed equal citizens communities economic pressures structural re-establish provider-centred congregate care.

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

Submission 1922

Finally,

the document outlines an alternative approach grounded in human rights, Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, safeguarding through community inclusion, and the preservation of participant-controlled funding. it argues that genuine sustainability should not be measured solely through expenditure reduction, but through the extent to which the NDIS continues to uphold autonomy,dignity,citizenship,and meaningfull participationinordinarycommunitylifefordisabledpeople,includingshosewiththehighestand mostcomplexsupportneeds.

Introduction:

The proposed changes to Social, Economic and Community Participation within the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) represent far more than a simple adjustment to funding categories or an attempt to improve administrative efficiency. They raise fundamental questions about the future direction of disability policy in Australia, the meaning of inclusion and citizenship for disabled people, and whether the original vision of the NDIS is now being fundamentally reshaped.

At the centre of the current debate is a profound tension between two competing approaches to disability support. One approach understands disability support as a human rights issue grounded in autonomy, individualisation, community inclusion, and self-determination. The other increasingly frames disability support through the language of sustainability, efficiency, standardisation, shared supports, and budget containment. While governments have presented the proposed reforms as necessary measures to secure the NDIS for future generations,

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

Submission 1922

This document examines the proposed changes to Social, Economic and Community Participation within the broader context of the NDIS reforms currently being advanced by the Australian Government. It analyses how these reforms may interact to reshape disability support structures, explores the risks of reinstitutionalisation and modern forms of congregate care, and considers the potential consequences for people with complex support needs. Drawing on the historical lessons documented in reports such as Shut Out, the findings of the Disability Royal Commission,andthe original philosophical foundations* of the NDIS,thisdocument arguments that currentreforms represent not mereyabudgetary adjusment**,butcriticalturning pointin the future direction of disabilty rights,i nclusion,and citizenship i n Australia.

Submission 1922

What is proposed:

The proposed changes to Social, Economic and Community Participation within the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) represent one of the most significant shifts in the Scheme since its creation. The changes form part of the Federal Government͛ s broader package of reforms contained within the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026͟ and associated policy announcements by Mark Butler. The Government is justifying the reforms as necessary to slow the growth of the NDIS and improve what it describes as the Scheme͛ s long-term sustainability.͟

At the centre of these changes is a major reduction in funding for supports categorised as Social, Economic and Community Participation͟ (SECP). These are the supports that currently fund assistance for disabled people to participate in community life, develop relationships, attend social activities, engage in recreation, participate in cultural activities, build independence, and avoid isolation. They are commonly used to fund support workers who assist participants in leaving their homes, maintaining social connections, participating in ordinary community activities, and developing practical life skills.

Under the proposed reforms, the Government intends to reset͟ these budgets to align more closely with what it claims were 2023 levels.͟ The reforms propose reducing Social, Economic and Community Participation funding allocations by an average of 50 per cent from 1 October 2026. In addition, Capacity Building ʹ Daily Activities͟ budgets are proposed to be reduced by 10 per cent.

The Government argues that spending on social and community participation has grown substantially and is no longer financially sustainable. Minister Butler has publicly stated that these supports are projected to cost more than $12 billion annually and could increase further without intervention. The reforms are therefore being presented as a mechanism to reduce expenditure growth across the Scheme.

Importantly, the proposed legislation would also give the Minister broad powers to reduce funding categories across groups of participants without needing to individually reassess each participant͛ s plan. This means reductions to Social, Economic and Community Participation supports could occur systemically through funding rules rather than through individualised planning processes.

The reforms also appear connected to a broader philosophical shift in how disability support is being conceptualised within the NDIS. The Government has indicated that Social, Economic and Community Participation supports should become more consistent with other systems,͟ implying that some activities currently funded by the NDIS may instead be expected to be provided through mainstream community organisations, unpaid family support, volunteer systems, or future Foundational Supports͟ arrangements.

     Social, Economic and Community Participation Changes͟  (Ver 2.0_31.05.2026)                              Page   6͞

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission: [NDIS Submission] - Securing NDIS Future Generations Bill 2026

The proposed changes are also occurring alongside broader reforms including:

• tighter eligibility criteria for accessing the NDIS,
• new standardized assessment tools,
• expanded provider registration requirements,
• restrictions on reassessment requests,
• increased emphasis on “sustainability” & “value-for-money” in funding decisions. and greater Ministerial powers over pricing categories. as result of these proposals being viewed as part of larger restructuring philosophy operation NDIS itself.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

The amendments give the government power for systemic budget cuts across groups without individual reassessment.

Proposed legislation enables Ministerial powers that historically were meant individually assessed participant circumstances with case-by-case support determination under original NDIS model:

• Funding was intended as an individualized entitlement,
• Participant circumstances are evaluated separately in this new system allowing systematic reductions within categories-wide budget caps centralizing control over allocations which transforms SECP from a direct entitlement into controllable category budgets suppressing growth progressively reducing viability of participant-directed supports throughout scheme simultaneously creating alternative external funding systems such Foundational Supports Inclusive Communities Fund externally commissioned community initiatives shifting funds directly towards organizations commissioning programs supporting hubs subsidising disability providers or contracting to deliver activities effectively architecture of block-funding where Governments allocate grants design programs while participants access services provided.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: Securing NDIS Future Generations Bill 2026 - Submission No.: 1922 This document fundamentally differs from original NDIS principles where:

• Participants controlled their own funds.
• They chose supports themselves, and these were built around individual needs rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Ministerial statements already frame shift ideologically

One of Mark Butler’s most revealing claims about current NDIS approaches causing older community participation to ‘wither away’ reframes problems significantly because it suggests organizations should again be at center stage for engagement over direct participant control as originally intended in philosophy that assumed individuals would manage resources directly but now frames support through externally organized opportunities or commissioned models instead.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

Historically,

this is precisely how disability day programs operated before the NDIS:

• governments funded organisations directly.
• organisations developed activities.
• disabled people attended pre-designed programs. The critical distinction is that the money no longer belongs to the participant.

Reform encourages economies of scale & shared support

The reforms encourage economies of scale and shared supports alongside increased emphasis on efficiency; reduced spending; such as individually tailored one-to-one participation being more expensive than group transportation or collective staffing. Once SECP budgets reduce providers may offer group outings structured programs disability hubs sharing staff models centre-based activities. Participants with insufficient individual budgets have little practical alternative creating economic coercion into congregate participation modes.

Reasonable changes strengthen trajectory

Amendments change reasonable necessary interpretations assessing consistency across participants sustainability standardized planning approaches. Social,Economic&CommunityParticipationChanges(Version: Ver\r/Ver 2,0_31 May \r/2026)Page Page \r/Page

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

Submission 1922

This creates the potential for the NDIA to argue:

• one-to-one participation is not cost effective,
• generic programs are “available elsewhere,”
• group participation is “reasonable,” or externally funded programs satisfy participation needs. Historically, this logic has repeatedly been used to justify:• segregated day services, • congregate support models, an institutional forms of participation.

The likely long-term pathway When these reforms are viewed together, a plausible long-term policy pathway emerges:\Stage[1]Reduce individual SECP budgets.Stage (2) Cap growth in participant-controlled participation funding.Stage [3] Create externally funded community participation systems outside participant plans.Stage4 Commission organisations to deliver inclusive participation programmes.“Stage \([\])\Participants increasingly rely on provider-run group programs because individualbudgets no longer sustain personalised supports.Stage sixOver time, individualisedcommunityparticipationbecomesexceptional rather thanstandard.Social,EconomicandCommunityParticipatiionChanges”Ver_2.0_31.5.2026“)Page _{1}1“

Why this is a return to pre-NDIS disability service models

Before the NDIS, disability participation was commonly delivered through:

• block-funded day programs, centre-based services, sheltered workshops,and provider-controlled activities. The NDIS deliberately attempted to dismantle this system by:transferring control of funding to disabled people,supporting individualized lifestylesand funding ordinary community inclusion.The current amendments risk reversing this shift by rebuilding:provider-centred participation systems,economies-of-scale service models,and externally controlled participation pathways.This is why many disability advocates describe the reforms not simply as budget cuts but asa structural reconfiguration of disability support away from individualized citizenship back toward commissioned service systems.

The Creation of Segregated Disability Ghettos

The combination of proposed reductions in individualised social economic and communityparticipation funding with an increasing movement towards provider-controlled supportedindependent living SILmodels creates conditions for profound restructuring within Australia’sdisability sector.When viewed together these reforms risk recreating a system where individualswith high complex needs become concentrated under provider-control governing their livesactivities supports companionship opportunities and overall engagement in everyday life.Under original vision NDIs person’s funds were intended follow individually rather thanservices. Purpose model dismantled historical power imbalance when governments fundedorganisations directly expected fit whatever programmes placements available Individualisedfunding designed personalise lives over service based placement recognised citizens firstnot clients only disability service system.Current reform trajectory risks reverting that philosophy.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

If Social, Economic and Community Participation funding is significantly reduced or eventually replaced by externally commissioned “community programs,” many people with complex support needs may lose the practical ability to organise individualised participation in the community. Simultaneously, if Home and Living reforms increasingly favour shared SIL arrangements based on staffing efficiencies and shared support ratios, participants may find themselves pressured into congregate living environments because alternative models become financially or administratively inaccessible. The critical issue is what happens when the same provider controls both the person’s home and their daytime activities. In that situation, the provider no longer simply delivers support. The provider effectively controls the person’s entire social world. The organisation may determine where the person lives, who they live with, who supports them, what activities they participate in, where they go during the day, how they spend their time, and which relationships are maintained or lost. What emerges is not genuine community inclusion but a closed disability service ecosystem in which the person’s life becomes organised around operational needs of the provider.Historically this precisely institutional congregat systems operated.Large institutions once controlled every aspect disabled persons existence Modern group homes days were later presented more humane alternatives underlying structure often remained remarkably similar People lived together operationally efficient They attended segregated day providers could deliver collectively travelled undertook activities spent most lives surrounded primarily paid staff other within specific The Disability Royal Commission documented extensive evidence about consequences these systems Many described characterised loneliness lack autonomy segregation rigid routines surveillance neglect abuse boredom profound disconnection ordinary community life Commission heard repeated testimony prioritising organisational efficiency risk management over human relations self-determination personal identity.The danger current reforms outcomes recreated explicitly policy statements advocating institutionalisation economic structural incentives make congregate models default option people high support needs.If individual funding insufficient to sustain one-to-one support communities if simultaneously encouraged operate shared staffing arrangements across housingcommunity participation programs system naturally gravitates toward consolidation Participants increasingly be grouped provider-controlled homes then transported into providercontrolled day activities Over distinction between supported accommodationday begins collapse continuous managed environment. Social Economic Community Participation Changes (Ver 2_031526) Page

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

This creates what could be readily described as “reinstitutionalisation.” Reinstitutionalisation does not necessarily involve a return to large old-style institutions. Instead, it refers to the re-emergence of institutional logic within modern service systems.

• The physical buildings may be smaller but more dispersed,
• But underlying dynamics remain unchanged: centralization of power leads organizations towards efficiency over individuality for those with complex support needs.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

The original promise of the NDIS was not merely care or supervision. It was a commitment that disabled individuals could live ordinary, self-directed lifestyles as equal citizens within their communities.“Shut Out”: Not Included“The risks posed by current reforms in areas such as Social,Economic,andCommunityParticipationfundingandprovidercontrolleddisabilityservicemodelscannotbeunderstoodinisolationfromAustralia’srecentdisableddhistory.LongbeforethecreationofthenationalDisabilityInsuranceScheme(NDIS),disabledpeople,families,&advocatesrepeatedlydescribedlivesshapedbysegregation,socialexclusion,institutionalisation&profounddisconnectfromordinarycommunitylife.Theseeperiencesweredocumentedpowerfullyintheproductivitycommissionreport’ShutOut:TheExperienceOfPeopleWithDisabilitiesAndTheirFamiliesIn Australia’,commissionedinbyAustralianGovernment.The ‘Shut Out’ report exposed an isolation system from society,deniedmeaningfulparticipation,narrowingchoices.&aspirations.Participants described experiences loneliness institutional thinking social invisibility dependency exclusion citizenship The report helped lay foundation for Productivity Commission inquiry ultimately leading to establishment NDISThe reform movement recognised people should fit inflexible providerdriven programs &congregatecare systems designed around administrative convenience cost efficiency Instead,theNDSI intended support individualised selfdirected lives grounded inclusion autonomy dignity genuine participation community lifeIt is this historical context that the proposed reforms must be understood. Combining reducing individualized funding with increasing reliance on SIL models risks recreating structural conditions identified in Shutout as deeply harmful For complex needs individuals erosion of individually controlled supports may progressively confine them within servicecontrolled environments where housing activities relationships are increasingly organized operational disabilityservice rather than rights choices individuality person themselvesThe reductions Social,Economic and Community Participationfunding combined increased move towardsprovider-controlledSILmodels have potential fundamentally reshape livescomplexsupportneeds Consequences extend beyond loss recreational outings reducedsocialactivities Manypeoplewithcomplexdisabilitiessocialparticipation not separate health functional capacity emotional regulation safeguarding communication identity or

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

Submission 1922

Citizenship itself.

Community participation frequently serves as “the primary mechanism through which participants maintain emotional and behavioural regulation; develop communication skills; prevent social isolation, sustain psychological wellbeing,” as well as experience inclusion within ordinary life communities.“}

The danger inherent in proposed reforms lies not just from framing these changes as discretionary but also excessive or merely lifestyle-based rather than recognizing it as an essential support structure that prevents further institutionalization for people with complex needs because their engagement is often inseparable behavioral stability mental health communications safety Removing significantly reducing such supports risks destabilizing foundations allowing many individuals remain connected everyday lives.

If reductions occur simultaneously favoring shared SIL arrangements provider-controlled systems consequences become even more serious A person may find themselves living a disability accommodation setting operated by providers controlling daytime activities transport staffing arrangement behavior supports & social opportunities Under this structure individual no longer exercises meaningful authority over how they live Instead daily existence risk becoming organized operational requirements financial efficiencies service system itself This creates conditions modern forms congregate care While buildings may resemble large historical institutions structural dynamics begin replicate them People may together due to economic efficiency group programs inadequate funding travel undertake activities spend most of time specific environments same provider Over time home relationships routines community access integrated closed provider controlled ecosystem The attached material highlights meaningfully participating trained workers provide “behavioural support, electronic co-regulation,” assistance sensory monitoring environmental transport continuous relational support Without these supports community access unsafe overwhelming inaccessible impossible consequence simply reduced activity Consequence confinement As lose enabling safely engage broader environment restricted control service providers Isolation can trigger cascade negative outcomes Reductions in participation reasonably expected result increased dysregulation escalation distress or protest deterioration communication increased withdrawal resilience vulnerability restrictive practices overall decline functional stability Social Economic and Community Participation Changes (Ver 2.0_31.05.2026) Page 16

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 Submission 1922

These consequences are particularly severe for people whose disabilities already place them at heightened risk of segregation and control. Isolation and lack of meaningful engagement often intensify distress, frustration trauma responses —and behavioural escalation” In turn these reactions can then used justify further restrictions increased surveillance greater use restrictive practices or even more congregate forms Care A self reinforcing cycle can emerge in which deterioration caused social exclusion cited evidence individual requires intensive management supervision safeguarding implications equally profound community participation frequently inseparable from itself ordinary creates visibility connection informal monitoring relationship development opportunities exist beyond service systems individuals instead concentrated within provider controlled homes day programs independent oversight diminishes Opportunities abuse neglect coercion overuse restrictive increase because person’s entire life may occur same organisational environment Historically precisely disability rights advocates fought against institutional congregates models care central problem never simply size building problem concentration power organisations where live spend time who supports access community disabled become vulnerable to prioritise efficiency compliance risk autonomy identity citizenship deeper consequence therefore not merely redesign it gradual erosion original philosophical foundations NDIS itself scheme created move Australia away segregated service towards individualised community based support recognised citizens right direct lives Participation directly connected inclusion citizenship,autonomy,dignity,self determination under both the NDIS Article UN Convention Rights Persons with Disabilities If individualised participations dismantled while housing group expansion risks people highest most complex needs again separated ordinary absorbed modernised congregate care language different past buildings smaller rhetoric emphasises efficiency sustainability shared Supports lived reality many disabled could increasingly resemble segregation and institutional control that disability movement spent decades attempting dismantle Social Economic Community Changes (Ver 2.0_31.05.2026) Page: ❌⮉

An Alternative

An alternative approach to the proposed changes to Social, Economic and Community Participation funding would begin from an entirely different philosophical assumption about disability, citizenship, and the purpose of the NDIS itself. Rather than treating community participation as a discretionary expense that must be contained through efficiency measures, shared supports, or externally commissioned programs, an alternative model would recognise participation in community life as a foundational safeguard against isolation, institutionalisation, trauma,deterioration, and exclusion. Under this alternative approach, Social, Economic and Community Participation would not be viewed as a peripheral “lifestyle” support sitting outside a participant’s functional needs.Instead,itwouldbeunderstoodasacoremechanismthroughwhichpeoplewithcomplexdisabilitiesmaintainemotionalregulation,pyschologicalwellbeingcommunicationskillsrelationshipsidentityautonomyandconnectiontoordinarycommunitylife.Participationitselldouldberecognisedastfunctionallytherapeuticrelationallyprotectiveandeessentialtomaintainingstabilityandsafety.Ratherthanreducingindividualisefundingandreplacingittowithprovidercontrolledgroupprograms,theNDISwoulsstrengthenparticipantdirectedcommuniparticipationsupports.Fundingwouldremainattachedtotheindividuallerathertransferredbackintoblockfundedservice systems. Participants woul continue to determine how they engage with their communities who suppor them what relationships they pursue,andwhatactivitiesgive meaning andalstructuretototheir lives.Thisalternativemodelwouldreject the assumptionthat peoplewit complexsupportneeds should automaticallybegrouped together for reasons of efficiency Instead it would acknowledge that many peoplerquire highly individualised andreponsive suportarrangementspreciseley because their needscannot safely or ethically bemet through shared models. Community participation would therefore bedesignedaroundtheadividualperson rather than around providerconvenienceorstaffingeconomiesofscale.Withinthisframework, theroleofs upports workers would also be reconceptualised.Supporthworkerswouldnotsimplysupervisetendanceat programsortransporgroupspeoplebetween service environments.Their role wouldbe facilitategenuine citizenship relationshipdevelopmentcommunicationautonomyemotionalco-regulationandmeaningfulparticipation withinordinarycommunitysettings.Suppoitwouldbecome relational and enablingratherthan custodialorpogramdriven.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 - Submission No.: 1922

An alternative approach would also recognize safeguarding is strongest when disabled individuals enjoy broad, diverse, freely chosen connections outside disability service systems. Instead of concentrating within provider-controlled homes/day activities: The system promotes independent community ties, informal networks, local participation, self-directed routines; as well as separation between housing/support coordination/daily life/community engagement. This model actively discourages excessive consolidation in favor decentralized person-governed structures maximizing autonomy/accountability. Importantly this does not ignore sustainability concerns but redefines it through long-term human/economic costs rather than short-term budget containment. It acknowledges genuine inclusion prevents costly interventions later.

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

Submission 1922

Ultimately\nthe diffrence betwen thse tw approches \is profoun. Onr approuch risks\ncrcating modrn frms f conggrate crt thrugh redud indvidul fundng, shrd supprts, an prvdcr-cntrolled ptctpn sysmns Th erher seck t prsrv nd strgnthn teh
orignl trsnsfrmtionnl pmssonf teh NDIS Tnddld pplc nclndg tnwhw hte mst\ cmpx spttr neds hv rht lve ordrry sdrtcd lvz ssqll ctns wthin hnmmty rnhr than bmg mnaged wnsh sgrgtd svcs syms.

Conclusion

The proposed changes to Social, Economic and Community Participation funding within the National Disability Insurance Scheme represent a defining moment in the future direction of disability policy in Australia. While presented publicly as necessary reforms to improve the “sustainability”of the Scheme, the combined effect of these amendments has the potential to fundamentally reshape the philosophical foundations upon which the NDISwas originally built. Atthe heart oft his debateis acriticalquestion aboutwhatdisabledpeopleare entitledto expect from society itself.The original vision o fth eN D I S w asn ot simply th ep rovisionocf care,supervision or basic service delivery.Itw asth er ecognitionthat disabled people are citizens with therighttodirect their own lives,participate fullywithintheir communities,dvelop meaningful relationships ,exercise autonomy,and live freefrom segregationand institutional control .Individualised fund ing was deliberately designedtomove power away fro m governmentsandservice providersandle place it into then handsod fnabled peop le themselves.T heproposedreforms risk reversing that transformation.When reductions toi ndividualised community participationfund ng ar eb oundedwith increasing reliance on provider-controlled Supported Independent Living modelsshared supportsexternally commissionedparticipation programsanda broader Ministerial powers over fu nding categories,the systembegins torecreate manyoft hestructural dynamicstha t existed beforethen ND IS. People wit hhighest and most complex support needs may increasingly find them selves drawninto providercontrolled ecosystems where housing, daily activitiestransportrelationships anda nncommunity access a reorganised around administrative efficiency rather than individual aspirationor human rights principles.This is whyt hel concerns raised by disabledpeopl ea dvocates,families, andr esear chers extend far beyond questions of budget reduction alone. The deeper fearis the gradual r ee-mergenceof institutonal logic within modern disability services.Reinstitutionalisation does not require there turno f large historical institutions.It can emerge through smaller dispersed systemsthat nevertheless centralisecontrol withino rganisationsrestrictindividualautonomyseparate disabledd people from ordinary communit y life ,a nd normal isecongregate forms o fsupport asthe default solutionforpeoplew ithcomplexneeds.Thehistorical warnings are already well documented .Reports suchas Shut Outthefindings oft he Productivity Commissionand th eextensive testimony presented to then Disability RoyalCommission all described thr profund harms caused whendisabled peop lebecome isolatedwithin provider-controlledsystemsthat prioritiseefficiency,risk management,and organisational convenience over identity,a utonomya dign ityanda bel onging.T h enDIS was created precisely because Australia recognised that these systemshad failed. Thecentral issue thereforei snot whether governments should pursue sustainabilitywithinth N DIS.Sustainability i sn important.Th et question isth at kindoft sys temAustraliaistemptingto sustain.Social,Economic and Community Participation Changes (Ver 2_031,5) Page 21

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922 A disability support system built around individual rights, self-direction, and community inclusion may require investment, flexibility, and trust in disabled people themselves. However, a system that gradually replaces participation programs, congregate living arrangements, and centrally managed funding categories risks producing far greater long-term human,social,and economic costs through segregation,crisis escalation,restrictive practices ,loss of autonomy, and institutional dependence . Ultimately,the proposed reforms force Australia to confront a profound moral political choice.The nation can continue moving toward the original transformational promise of NDIS:asocietyinwhichdisabledpeopleincludingthosewiththehighestmost complexsupportneedsare supportedto live ordinaryself directed lives asequalcitizenswithintheircommunities.Or itcan move back towards modernised forms congregate care shaped increasinglybyeconomic efficiencyprovider controladministrative containment The language surrounding reformse may emphasiseefficiencyconsistencyandsustainabilityButthetrue measureofthen DIS will not be found budget papers or expenditure forecasts.Itwillbefoundinthelived realitiesdisabledpeoplet hemselveswhether they remain free direct their ownlives maintain meaningful relationships participateordinarycommunity life exist full equal citizens rather than becoming absorbed once again into segregated systems designed primarilyaround needs institutionsratherthan humanity of peopl within them. Social,Economic Community Participation Changes (Ver 20315) Page

Reflection

The SECP paper’s deepest contribution is to make visible a move that is almost invisible by design. It does not abolish individualised community participation or announce an return to day centres; instead, it creates power at category level across groups without reassessing single plans.

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

funded participation systems outside participants’ plans, commission organizations to run “inclusive participation” programs, and watch as participants’, their own budgets no longer sufficient, are drawn into provider-run group programs which once again offer nothing more than what they were before. The critical difference from world created with scheme matters most: money now belongs neither here nor there but somewhere else entirely! Paper records ideological frame already being placed around shift – Minister’s observation that individualized approach caused older community programs to “wither away,” framing quietly reinstalls organisations commissioned programs rather disabled person at center stage! The history this collection opened up exactly on point: country’s settled habit across century has been changing sign door preserving model behind it Block funding rebuilt under language inclusive communities foundational supports performed once more. Papers does not leave pathway assertion; sets out steps journey would be travelled laying them in sequence shows how little of depends single visible decision It begins reduction Individualised Participation Funding cut announced first October 2026 makes participant-directed Community Support financially marginal many people Proceeds legal power reduce participation category whole groups suppressing growth without reassessing any individual plan Alongside suppression Government stands up funding Systems sit Outside Participants’ Plans Foundational Supports proposed Inclusive Communities Fund direct Money Organisations Rather Individuals Organizations then Commissioned Run Group

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

reforms this collection has examined. Reduce individualised participation funding, a person loses the means to take part inordinarycommunitylife on their own terms; defaultthe sameperson’s homeinto ashared , provider-managed arrangement,andthesameorganisationthat runstheir accommodationcomes torun their daysas well— housing,support workerstransportbehavioursupportactivitiesand accesstothecommunityall insideoneprovider’s control.The paperis precise about whythis istangerousandanit reasoningisthe Royal Commission’s: harmof institutionwas never principallyaboutthesize building ;itisabouconcentration power occurs when a single organisation controls wherea persollives how they spend time who supports themhowthey reach world.When concentration recurs—and reformsby reducingindividualcontrol rewarding shared consolidated provision create strong incentivesfor it to recur—the ordinary safeguards of an open life recede: independent eyes freely chosen relationships outside service system visibility that comes from being present in community simple ability leave Thepaper s phrase forth is existential segregation:a perso may live, papery

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

the participation was preventing, and it reappears, larger, on a ledger the sustainability case doesn’t consult. The four works are now before the Committee, and it is worth saying what together;theyhave done.Fromfourvantagepoints theydescribeasinglemovement.Flynn’sanalysisreadtheBillfromtheparticipant’schairandshowedprovisionby provisionwhateachmeasuredoestoaperson.ThePlanReviewpapershowstheAgencyalreadyreasoningintheBillsdirection,beforelawhaschangedthroughanundisclosedshared-supportthreshold.ThesILpaper showed shared support becoming funded default in home livingonthestrengthofprovider economicsratherthanpublishedevidenceofsafety.Andthispapershown individualisedfundingforcommunitylife givingwaytocontrolexercisedatlevel ofacategoryopeningtheroadbacktoblock-fundedgroupservices.Differentauthors,differentsubjectsonefinding:Schemebuilttoplacenperson atcentrertheir ownsupportis beingre-engineeredtoplacebudgetthereinstead. TheGovernmentdoesnotinthemain dispute that thesearemechanismsof itsBill.Itdefends them— allofthem—withasmall recurringsetofjustifications,repeated acrossitspressconferencesitss second-readingspeeches,anditis explanatorymaterials.Those justificationsarethelastthingstanding between theevidencethiscollection has assembledandevidencecompels, an dtheyaretwhenthet next movementtakesupThe four works have madethecase for what the Bill doesThecollectionnowturnsto test oneclaimatatime,the case th e Government makesforeallengodtodo it. Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 299

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Movement VI – The Government’s Case Dismantled

§6.o - The method, and the test

There are seven such justifications, and they recur in the same form wherever the Government makes its case: that the scheme must be made sustainable; integrity must be restored; The bill brings consistency and fairness; it merely clarifies what is reasonable and necessary; it returns the scheme to its original intent; it secures the scheme for future generations; it strengthens safeguarding and quality. This movement takes them one at a time and tests each of them.

The test is the same for every claim, as set out here once so not restated. We state government’s proposition fairly strongly put up. Concede genuine intuition that gives force because these claims contain one. Set legislation actually does: mechanism slogan against documented record Productivity Commission designed this scheme Royal Commission examined happens when support fails longer history submission has already traced measure it present decision logic four works shown moving direction bill And we measure it lived account contains adding closed asking reveals about claim Then ask only question matters survive being tested way Each sub-section ends with finding Committee could adopt those findings written recommendations later answer by number discipline runs through all We test first on own terms taking government stated purpose face value asking whether Bill serves it where bites hardest testing term government’s Review do need reject argument take word sharpest critics give review conducted government’s own terms sustainability objects asks whether Bill does said done in way Review said must be even Government’s own review would sanction cannot defended faithful delivery cross-cutting weapon anchored Appendix F What follows complete account provision per-Part sweep guarantees completeness comes later This movement applied justifications which government public case rests broadly order made beginning widest claim can continue as it Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 300

§6.1 — Sustainability

The first and broadest claim is that the scheme’s growth is unsustainable, and that the Bill is responsible answer. On this account, a scheme whose costs rise without restraint will not survive to help anyone; slowing long-term growth to around five to six per cent, two per cent each year until end decade; down from roughly seven hundred sixty thousand today to about six hundred thousand by 2030, is discipline needed secure future needs tomorrow. The intuition sound should be said so plainly: sustainability matters genuinely: scheme defrauded or grows with no regard costing endanger itself everyone depends on it.No serious participant advocate argues public funds limitless stewardship illegitimate.The question as Flynn analysis puts it matter kind sustainability expense legislation does pursue aim withdrawal population scale mechanism set powers cap amount intensity worker-to-participant ratio supports classes participants capable fixed below support actually costs (Sch Pt s note); applies regardless funding meets actual cost support, Sch Pt power reduce category across whole group of participants reassess individual plan (Sch pt ,s ); community participation budgets reset downward average area moving thirty-one thousand dollars twenty-six thousand October Government announced timetable reduction effected through new budget method sch pt ; narrowing access decides who keeps place all Headline figure net given government people lose their place how silence significant Reduction approximately one-hundred-and-sixty-thousand places expressed only movement in total conceals every decision must made reach out fails re-establish eligibility narrower test simply falls away when rolls over less before Target level population transparent account falling real people is a to reduce scheme without owning consequences those reduced out The documented record shows why this externalises rather than removing it Royal Commission estimated annual societal violence abuse neglect exploitation disabled Australians around forty-six billion dollars larger single year entire annual cut found congregated settings

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

concentrate that harm. The supports now being withdrawn are, for many participants, precisely what keeps them out of those settings. as Flynn’s analysis sets out,the costof complexdisability doesnot disappear when supportiscut; it migrates— into hospitals,into familiestointocrisis,andontootherlinesofthe Commonwealth’sown budget throughthedisability Support Pensionand Carer Paymentwhenparticipantsandantheircarersare forcedoutofpaid work. Presents practice already confirmsthedirection.The four works showthat funding components belowthererealcostofsupportarenottafutureriskbutacurrentreality; theBill’ss contribution is to give thatpracticestatutory authority.And thelived accountwhichwedot not extend here recordswhat withdrawal at this scale produces: onFlynn’s readingoft heonly published independentmodelling,thescheme returns inthead order oft wo dollars and twenty-five cents totaleconomyforeverydollar spent ,andeverybilliondollarscutremovesaroundten thousand jobs across theeconomy—a contraction estimatedatroughlytwo hundred thousand positionsintotal.aroundahundred anda forty thousandsome directlyin the disability workforce. The samelogic reversesthesescheme’s employment dividend,lowering ratherthanraisinga disabilitylabour-force participation rate thatsats nearfifty-three per centagainsteighty-threedfor otherAustralians forclosetotwodecades . The claim therefore failson its own terms.A savingtha t reappears as a larger cost elsewhere isnotasaving; itisa transfer— from disabled peoplefromalow-paid andre gionalworkforce, andonotherBudgetlines,tototheone line declaredunsustainableAnditfailsont h eGovernment’sownterms too.Eventhereview tied sustainabilityto insurance disciplineand tobuildingthesize surrounding supportsfirst,incarefulsequence ;ittidonoct antemplate withdrawingsupports aheadof theseystemmeant toreplace them.Thegrowth cap,moreover. wassetbyNational Cabinetinapril20 3 monthsbeforethereview reported—the financial answerwasfixed beforethequestion wasfullyasked.On thetimetable asscheduled,thereduc tionsprecedethe support s Even on there view’son terms ,thesustainabilityclaim is not made out.

Recommended finding (61):The Committee should find thatt heBill externaliserather than reducess disability-related publiccost andthatpopulation-scale withdrawal ofsupportsaheado f thefoundationalsupp ortsmeansto replacethem isnotsustainability inanysense then scheme’s ow n Review wouldrecognise butthedispacement ofcostandriskonto participants,families,the workforce,and other partsogovernment .

Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 302

§6.2 — Integrity

The second claim is that the scheme has been exploited and that the Bill restores its integrity. Civil penalty provisions, the standard monitoring and investigation toolkit of the Regulatory Powers Act, records-retention obligations, expanded debt recovery, and new offences for obtaining payments by deception are presented as the means of protecting participants and the public purse from those who have stolen money meant for disabled people. Here too the intuition is real and should be granted without qualification. Fraud in the scheme is a genuine problem; the scheme has been exploited by bad actors, and pursuing them is legitimate. As Flynn’s account states without hedging, no serious participant or advocate would deny it. A scheme indifferent to fraud would not survive, and would not deserve to. What the legislation does, however, is build an integrity architecture that lands on the ordinary participant as heavily as on the wrongdoer. Records-retention duties now reach participants with respect to their own claims (Sch Pt); information demands carry penalties (Pt ); a plan can be suspended where the Agency simply cannot reach the participant ();and a plan can roll over silently shedding approved one-off funding with no decision anyone could review ().Flynn’s worked example makes this mechanism vivid: allocation like wheelchair once approved fails at renewal ––not refused nor reviewed merely absent so loss arrives without any person pointing contest.Flynn analysis offers right diagnostic ask each provision what mistake by normal participant ——fraudster but doing best complicated life—it will punish.Every answers question.And moment decision-making remade central safeguard against wrong decision left doubt Government confirmed participants retain full access independent merits review ()The documented design of the scheme shows actual targeting.Productivity Commission built agency assessor funder self-directed funds direct engagement workers core features choice control.Powers constrain self-management employment are anti-fraud measures constraints autonomy distinction matters because tracks misconduct actually sits.Serious fraud schemes kind overwhelmingly work organised actors providers operating scale false invoicing phantom services billing for supports never delivered rather than self-managing arranging care.Architecture whose heaviest obligations fall participants therefore aimed away conduct names multiplies points honest fail

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

paperwork test, while the deliberate fraudster, who keeps meticulous records precisely can keep them untouchable as long as they are planned in advance. This trajectory already treats participants more as risks than individuals, suggesting audits over serving those affected; it consolidates this perspective further through legislation. The lived account makes these costs concrete: twenty years’ worth of self-directed support versus an ordinary participant misplacing documents or being unreachable during health crises caught under integrity provisions. These claims fail because they conflate rare bad actors with everyday users. a scheme accurately imagining its participants would build two layers: focused force against genuine defrauders but real care towards others doing well supported via compliance rather than punishment. However, The Bill draws no such distinction and lands hardest on larger populations due to timing concerns. independent merits review matters most when rules change and decisions remade at scale—precisely where it leaves rights unconfirmed. denying access to challenge wrong decisions is least dispensable; withdrawing safeguards needed most urgently. Even Review framed integrity tied closely independent review safeguarding participants’ appeal rights uncertain not what had been intended by the Review itself. **Recommended finding (6.2):**The Committee should find that genuine fraud warrants focused enforcement directed toward wrongdoers and recommend confined bill’s integrity provisions be limited only to bad actors to protect self-management direct employment of support workers explicitly ensure full access-independent merits review guaranteed in primary legislation.

Consistency fairness

Third claim like cases treated alike, bill delivers consistency fair supports similar needs ending postcode lottery variation looks arbitrary outside government propositions attractive virtue scheme has inconsistent intuition deserves hearing Two people materially same needs shouldn’t receive wildly different supports reasons have nothing do their needs; arbitrary variations themselves kind unfairness standard categories sound cure for this.

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

What the legislation does is recast consistency as standardisation. Caps on amount, intensity, caps on ratio are set at the level of class participants rather individual (Sch Pt s EA)); access through functional-capacity instrument public reporting indicates will administered assessors chosen generic interpersonal skills clinical qualification ( Sch L needs-assessment instrument who may undertake ss B±K); participant’s budget first compared against category restored toward actual need exception they must themselves identify drive document. Flynn’s point about defaults decisive here: systems governed their exceptions person whose communication cognition makes hard default experience theoretical. The documented record explains why this not fairness Productivity Commission blueprint was individualisation supports based each assessed need delivered individualised block funding Standardisation flattens exactly scheme exists to recognise and it compounds problem As reading shows assessment measures abstract stripped environment live cannot see barriers make two people same diagnosis lead very different lives; produces figure looks objective describing no one real circumstances A score generated by an instrument blind context then becomes gateway allocation appearance rest measurement already discarded what makes each particular Put plainly gateway measures thing Scheme founding Convention says disability impairment abstracted from world in which lived gives that measure name That high threshold rigorously applied wrong object measured precisely When System Forgets Listen puts nothing equitable giving support when bodies risks homes communities requirements safety Present practice shows logic work four works record planning culture has begun start cost rather than asking effect cheaper shared model can shown cause harm, rather requires safe The account we do add traces difference between built around life forces someone else’ s model records of the is claim fails because confuses sameness with equity.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill 2026

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Consistency-as-standardisation produces unequal safety, and it falls hardest on the people whose needs are least standard –the very people the scheme was designed to protect. There is a further irony in the consistency framing.The promise is to end the postcode lottery,yet a standard allocation does not produce a standard outcome where the market is thin:in regionaland remote areas,and in the specialised corners of metropolitan markets,a uniform price securesa real serviceonlywhereaprovideractuallyoperates at thatprice ,anda cap pitchedat anotional average can leavethepersoninan underserved area withanumberon paper anda nothingtospenditon .Standardisingtheadallocationdoesnotstandardiseaccess;itcan widentherverygapithclaimstoclose.Eventhereviewpointedtowardplanningcentredonth person’sneedsandoals:not towardastandardisedallocation ;measuredagainstits own direction,theconsistencyclaimdescribes aflattening thereviewdidnote ndorse. **Recommended finding (6.3): The Committee should findthat fairnessina disabilityschemeis deliveredthrough individualisation,nostandardisation ，and thatchass-level capsands tandardised allocationsappliedtounequalneedsare inconsistentwiththescheme’so nequity objective andre ithewithindividualiseddesignthest Productivity Commissionestablished **

Reasonable and necessary, family contribution，and other-schemedisplacement

A related clusterof changesispresentednotinascutsbutas clarification.Onthisaccountthe Bill simply tidies areasonable-and-necessary testtha hasbeencriticised as unclearconfirms thatfamiliesbeartheirownordinarycosts,andensurstheNDIS fundsdisabilitysupports ratherthan theservicesother systemsshouldbeproviding Each of thesehasagenuine premise.The reasonable -anda nes sarytesth adrawnreal criticismfor vagueness.Familiesdo meet ordinaryliving costs ,asseverehouseholddoes .And ther eviews owns diagnosiswasthatschemes hadbecomeonly supportavailable becausethesesystemsaroundithadwithered,sot he aspirationtorebuildthose surrounding systemsislegitimate Whatthereligation does though,is narrowentitlementin substancewhile describing changeasaclarification.Thescheme’sobjectsa rewordedd sothatreasonableandan es sary supportsaretobep rovided onlysofarast isconsistent withthesize mene financia lsustainability(objects ，Sch 1 Pt6ss3( l)(d)ands4；an dthenew scheme sustainability principles ，S7B ) ; anew principledeclaresparticipantresponsible for theirday-to-day living cost ( SchlPt6new S.17 A planningprinciplesandtherea son able andnecessary criteria，S．34);avalue-for-moneyrequirementdirectsthede cision-maker toward a cheaper comparablesupport(SchI P t,SS34value-f or-moneycriterionwithinreasonab le Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page:0306

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necessary); funded supports must arise directly from the impairment that gave access (Sch 1 Pt 3, s 34(1)(aa)); and eligibility can be narrowed where another service system is said to be more appropriate (Sch lPt 9,s 25B). Taken together,asFlynn’s analysis shows , these convert reasonableand necessaryfrom atest appliedto aperson’s actualneeds into aleverappliedtoa budget. The documented record identifies themanoeuvrefor what itis: cost-shiftingonto familiesandothersystemswhichistheverythingtheschemewasinbuiltt end.The Productivity Commission’s diagnosis ofthe oldarrangements wasthat theyleftdisabledpeoplewithlittle choiceandonocertaintypreciselybecause supportdependedonwhat somes otherprogram wouldorwouldnotprovide.

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

The Committee should find that reasonable-and-necessary amendments effect substantive narrowing rather than clarification.

Return to original intent:

The fourth claim invoked most readily suggests returning the scheme’s original intention; it never meant everything funded everyone but drifted from disciplined targeting designed by the Productivity Commission with the bill restoring focus on sustainability principles over participants’ needs, since 2011 design shifted authority away systems towards individuals using funds as means instead purposes; defining feature insulation: legislation entrenched and protected against ordinary contest budgets financial sustainability statutory obligation rationing rule reversed repealed participant-centred planning replaced principle headed sustainable new ss 17A-17B substitute reword promise support function sustainability objects qualified financial sustainability Sch Pt d 4 cf s actuary reports fiscal envelope law rewritten so no longer centre own plan documented record turns claim itself cross-cutting weapon bites hardest Productivity Commission crux funding not tied annual budget cycle warned terms described this Bill undermining if its funding reflected ‘vagaries of’ Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 308

[governments’]\budget cycles,’ or if spending were held to a fixed path despite growing needs.

The original intent was insulation from exactly the logic the Bill installs. And the second document the Government leans on -its own Review- points the same way.Even read at its word, the Review’s direction was needs-based,individualised ,community-based support ;it made improved foundational supports “a necessary precondition” of participant-pathway reform; Itrequired Its recommendationsto moveas single package over five-year transition sequenced protect existing participantsand built through genuine co-design.TheBilldepartsfrom eachof these.OntheGovernment’sowndocumentsread against one another,“ returnt ooriginalintent is self-refuting: Thevery authorities invokedtosupportIt- The Productivity Commission that definedth eintentiond theReview th eGover nment commissioned both describe scheme moving in oppositedirection thisone .Present practice and lived account complete picture.Schemec decisionlogic already subordinates need budget;Bil l asFlynn’ saccount observes converts administrative drift into legislative settlement.And historical record submission has traced shows deeper truth it blueprint attached two preconditions sustained codesign protected certain fundingboth among first things stripped away leaving schemerun 201 design without conditions.Pattern not newthissubmission named before Agency last attempted impose standardised assessment independent assessments proposal advancedwithout genuinedesigned refused by community precisely because placedadministrative instrument ahead person.same instinct settlefunding questionfirstdesignperson role around answer runsthrough Bill what once resisted aproposal now being enacted structure claim failsbecause Bil doesnotreturn original intent completes departure from it.Worthbeing precise about failureclaimdoes merely lack support documents cites contradicted them.ProductivityCommissionthatdefined intention Review Government itselfcommissioneddescribe insulation individualisation careful sequencing-and B ill delivers reverseeach.A claim refuted its ownauthorities weakly supportedself-defeating.Restoring schemes name whileinverting founding logic fidelity to thatlogi c.

Recommended finding (6.4): The Committee should findBill departs rather than returns scheme’soriginalintent defined Productivity Commission to needs-based choice-driven entitlement insulatedfrom thebudget cycle reaffirmed substanceGovernment’sownReview andshould treat “ returnt ooriginalintention“ unsupported indeedcontradicteddocuments on whichit relies .Flynn & Gregory - joint submissio n Page309

§6.5 – Future generations

The fifth claim encoded into the Bill’s name: measures securing NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) ensuring availability across time. Stewardship over generational care implies responsibility rather than contraction but proposes methods mirroring past failures: support economics prioritizing provider viability, cost-benefit ratios below market value, housing configurations driven towards economic efficiency at expense of individualized community life control.

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

Submission 1922

Present practice confirms the drift. The SIL paper documents shared support becoming the default in home and living, driven by provider sustainability and workforce management rather than any published safety evidence; it shows proposed one-to-three staffing ratios rest little public evidence it’s safe or clinically appropriate with Convention’s guarantee right community life. The lived account we reference states consequence directly: institutionalisation isn’t just a building type—it’s control relationship—person can domestic setting default imposed containment nicer language.The claim fails because scheme entrenches segregation congregate logic cannot secure purpose later ordinary life Community makes harder country run experiment before long hard-won movement out institutions driven recognition that congregate care produces harm no amount of inside cure rebuild congregation now fiscal pressure walk back reform nation spent decades achieving A quiet re-creates settings deinstitutionalisation meant end not claim securing anything generations will inherit even Review direction reduce reliance segregated congregate settings protect existing participants Even on own terms contraction pushes people condemned does security scheme endanger people is for. Recommended finding: The Committee should find measures increase rely congregate supported settings “secure” schemes’ future purposes recommend no shared-support ratio adopted as without published safety base housing kept separable from support Royal Commission findings segmentation treated binding constraint design home supports.

Safeguarding quality

Last claim Bill strengthens safeguarding, quality Mandatory registration new practice standards expanded powers commission separation plan management delivery presented protections make safer After Royal Commission record abuse this defensible face overdue Stronger oversight reads protection; Quality regulation reads safety everyone wants disabled be safe premise granted full Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 311

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

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We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

What the legislation does, however, sits in tension with the safety it promises. Provider-facing measures place plan management under a dedicated, tightly conditioned registration regime and give the Minister structured power to set prices ( sch 2 pt 6; The Minister’s pricing power,sch 3 Pt l s45C), alongside mandatory registration\nof supported-living providersand new practice standards already announcedforthe middleof 2026.But asFlynn’s analysis of themarket shows.heavilyconditionedregistrationtends to favour large.genericproviders overthesmall.specialisedones that complex participants depend on,and apricingregimethatunderpriceshigh-skill.low-volumesupport will.over time.removetheproviderswhodeliverit—notbybanningthem.butmakingthework uneconomic.More fundamentally.this safeguarding model is coupledto shared support default(defaultsharedsupport:schlPt6s33(2EA);pricing.ssch3PtlS.45C;framework.Sch).It strengthens oversight of therelsettingstheroyal Commission identifiedasthemost dangerousin these system.The documented record exposes contradiction TheCommission’’scentral finding was thatchgregationconcentrates harm;safeguardingsteerspeopleinto congregate settingsis therefore self-defeating.AndTheCommissions own prescriptionwas structural,not merely regulatory:That no one be compelled into disability-only settingsthat group homesbe phased out—a course four the six commissioners recommended within fifteen years—andtha Convention betranslatedintoa enforceable Disability Rights Act.Regulatory uplift not a substitute for those recommendations.itbeing offered in their place while they are deferred. The substitutionisthe heart of objection.Theroyal Commissiondidn’t recommend better paperwork aroundthe existing service modeletrecommendeda changeinthethe legal standingof disabled people—rights madeenforceable.segrationwoundbackas amatterofof entitlement rather than discretion.To answer that call with an expanded registration scheme istoproceswherethecommissionaskedforprotectionandtopresentthesmaller.administrableremor as though it discharged larger.structuralone.Present practice shows safeguarding already leaning on congregateoversight,andthest SIL paper records them same logic dressedinalanguagequality and stewardship. Thelived accountwhich we only reference describes what safety actually dependson:support involves intimacy.trust.and presenceinthemost private parts oflife;And.as When The System Forgets to Listen putsit,a systemthattreats workersast interchangeables fails tounderstand

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission: We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

The safeguarding model carries market consequences that run directly against safety. By privileging scale and standardisation, it erodes conditions in which continuity of relationship can survive: small specialist providers who keep same workers alongside people cannot absorb registration overhead underpricing most likely exit. Safety built on trusted enduring relationships cannot be regulated into existence while economics quietly dismantle those providers. Even Review’s emphasis concern protect existing participants where system default steers toward shared congregate settings. The Committee should find safeguards advanced measures increase congregate living recommend quality reform small specialists pricing reflects true cost complex support preserve choice worker Royal Commission structural recommendations together substitute them.

Fairness transparency review The seventh claim is scheme fairer transparent preserves participant ability to have decision reviewed Standardised applied everyone than uneven discretionary judgements past clear produces decisions consistent defensible arbitrary ordinary protections administrative law remain place person disagrees outcome examined fairness transparency argument runs precisely what old lacked supplies them Intuition not real important granted strength Opacity itself unfairness scheme whose decisions understood reasons explained treats inside subjects citizens aspiration consistent explicable reviewable decision-making disability community pressed years defending would defend arbitrariness question whether transparency matters they matter almost anything else the touches but this delivers or removes legislation actually reduces points once participant capacity know test correct their own life Access planning routed through a standard functional-capacity instrument content has seen Sch 4 s assessment method new framework s

Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page:313

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methodology that converts an assessment into a budget –the calculation on which the entire entitlement turns—is to be set by delegated instrument and is not disclosed(the budget method is fixed by delegated rules—Sch 4,s 32K , esp.s 32K(3B)—-(3E)); grounds and occasions for reassessment and variation are narrowed(Sch Pt 2-narrowed unscheduled reassessment, s s 48and the reassemment limits); muchof operative substanceis moved out of Actinto rulesthe Parliamentpublic will seeonly after fact(operative matters leftto rulesinstruments-s,52K,,L,,,A,,,,;transitional power Sch item ). Above allat very moment apparatusassessment planning being remadeGovernment hasnot confirmed participants retain full access independent merits review decisions under new system(amending text neither names nor preserves Tribunal; cumulative effectset atMovement VII ss -ss . The single thread running through these changes withdrawal means person could find why contest it. The documented record shows this most serious failure because procedural fairness one value among many butvalue protects every other. Productivity Commission built scheme promise certainty individual entitlemnet-a was know what they were entitled with why able relyit Royal Commissions account how harm occurs turned disabled people heard able challenge done them opacity precondition unaccountableharm inquiry said across thousands pages Government own Review taken word pursued integrity in interests expressly insisting that participants retain to independent review called transparency automated methodological decision schemes makes Onrecord government itself relies uponmeans knowingcontest a decision treated fundamental which exactly Bill leaves doubt Present practice confirms architecture narrows can seen step result hard examine Flynn analysis framework sets out clinical evidence produced professionals who actually participant replaced standardised instrument administered assessors recruited generic interpersonal skills rather than qualification applied abstracted environment sustainability run caps may sit below cost.Flynn draws consequence precision: does not correct under-funding conceal routing shortfall processes too standardized,too automated and too unreviewable visible asunder funding outside Thatthis underfunding real dispute even by managers Minister has publicly acknowledged substantial share of put

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

around twenty per cent are funded below what they need. A process that hides a known shortfall behind a method no one can inspect is the opposite of transparency. The lived account, which we only reference makes abstraction concrete.The four works describe participant who cannot discover why their budget figure it is ,who has no statement reason point decision take anywhere,and opacity not inconvenience wall.They describe participants exception-driven evidence-hungry unexplained impassable those communicate differently rely supported decision-making cognitive or psychosocial disability precisely navigates opaque system impossible without help reliably provides.For these participants,a decision understood resisted .The claim therefore fails,fails twice over.Its own terms because calls fairness transparent operation removal disclosure narrowing review relocation rules instruments affected community seen-and-because reasoning concealed fair consistent outputs.Failing procedural fairness multiplier every substantive harm elsewhere in bill-every cost cap category reduction reclassified family becomes unchallengeable moment participant loses means know basis test right to know contest merely add single harm remove correction mechanism others.A right left confirmed remade exactly when most needed.Even Government’s own terms,claim made out Review relies required transparency automated and methodological decisions preservation independent review,Bill delivers neither.Review even on its own terms,the fairness collapses.## Recommended finding (6.7): The Committee should find Bill reduces rather than enhances fairness transparency loss disclosurereviews operates as multipliers other harms.Bill recommend full access independent merits review guaranteed primary legislation assessment instrument published methodology be received statement reasons affecting funding;substantive elements scheme set Act parliamentary scrutiny undisclosed delegated rules. Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 315

§6.8 — Efficiency and automation

The eighth claim is that the Bill makes the scheme more efficient, in part by allowing routine administrative actions to be carried out automatically. Automation, on this view, reduces delay, removes inconsistency, frees staff from mechanical tasks, and lets scarce resources go to supports rather than to process. A scheme of this scale, he argument concludes, cannot be run by hand, and modern administration properly uses computers to do at speed what people would otherwise do slowly and unevenly. The there is real force in this, and it should be conceded plainly Delayintheschemeistitselfaharm: poplewaitmonthsfordecisionsthatgoverntheirdaily lives,andfasterprocessingwouldbegenuinekindness.Inconsistencyborn of human variability istherealunfairness , andreducingitisalegitimateaim.Automations has properusesinanlarge administrative system, anareflexivehostilitytoittowouldbenetherseriousnor fair.The objectionthefollowsnot toefficiency, nottotautomationassuch,butowhatthisBillautomatesandoewhatitre movesintheprocess.Whatthestatutesdoesisteakeasetof decisionstha bear directlyonaparticipant’s entitlement make them capable being executed operation computer program with list decision amenable automation expandable by instrument (Sch 3 Pt2,s59B²includingaction involving discretion evaluative judgement or state mind s 59B(4),with designated provisionsexpandabledyinstrument).It doesagainst background several those decisions have carefully drafted so as not reviewable: plan can renew automatically shed approved one off funding no reviewabledecisionattached(Sch1PtS,ss0A;therenewalsstatednotinvolv ereviewable decision note to SIO3A);aplancanbesuspended on grounds a participant cannot be reached that reduce neatly rule machine apply Sch7 ss0A and information demands lend themselves automated generation dispatch (schpt3information gathering powers notices). The combination point: automation laid overdecisionsthathavebeenremovedfromreview. The documented record counsels particular caution here because country has run version experiment knows how it ends Royal Commission into Robodebt Scheme examined what happens when administrative decisions affecting vulnerable people are producedbyanautomatedprocessoperating at scale without adequate humanjudgementor accessible avenues of challenge found result was decisions made unlawfully serious harm done the peoplen receiving end The lessonwasnotthatelectronicsdangerousbuttha automating flawed unaccountable decisiondoes notasoundit makes fast multiplies failure ThatCommissiondidmorethandiagnose Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 316

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We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

recommended that any future automation of government decisions be built with a clear pathway to review, with transparency about how and why a decision is made, and – in its words – human agency at its centre; and Government accepted those recommendations. This Bill was drafted shortly after this recommendation but moves authorising automated evaluative judgements leaving their reviewability deeming provision s59B rather than guaranteeing earlier failure showed indispensable review ability The design premise scheme Productivity Commission framed it consequential enough require accountable transparent judgement Review sought precisely over schemes’ automated methodological decisions Both point same way: automation acceptable where visible contestable dangerous does not Present practice shows danger specific form Taken one time each looks like housekeeping together describe system participant’s plan renewed funding stripped suspended information demanded status put question without single human officer ever picking up file Flynn’s account names result exactly: Decision-maker disappears announcement cumulative effect provisions individually resemble efficiency And draws consequence matters claim wheelchair refused no officer decided when plan suspended nobody weighed circumstances thing happens person other end Automating already-drafted out-of-reviewability removes nothing otherwise would give participant simply ensures loss arrives with no author remedy Lived account which we do extend supplies the human shape described participant whose custom equipment mid-delivery when plan ticks rule vanishes anyone’s decision another describes participant who cannot reached during health crisis support suspended process mistakes disability for non-engagement In case harm done by such as least able absorb them can’t point to contest Claim therefore fails because efficiency that removes ability to contest is efficient quiet transfer cost error from systems participants Black-boxed outcome meaningfully appealed a person challenge reasoning never disclosed seek review action defined not reviewable Measured honestly, must count administrative costs making decisions Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 317

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but the human cost of the wrong decisions that can no longer be corrected; a process optimised only for the first while suppressing the second is not efficient but merely cheap to run and expensive to be subject to. This is the same failure that condemns the fairness claim, in a sharper form: automation here is the engine that drives the opacity of † to scale.Even on the Government’s own terms -—- The Review’s insistence on transparency over automateddecisions ––- at regime that couples automation to unreviewable , undisclosed outcomes isn’tnot anefficient administration the Review envisaged.

Recommended finding (6.8):The Committee should find automating decisionsthat affect participant’s funding or status, when those have been drafted as beingunreviewable with their reasoning not disclosed,is incompatible lawful fairadministrationand repeats failurethe country has already paidfor.It recommendthat no decision affecting participants’funding planorstatus made solelybyautomatedmeans without responsiblehumandecisionmaker statement reasons full rightof review.

§6 .9 Flexibility through rules

The ninth claim leaving much detail in rule legislative instruments gives scheme flexibility it needs.Primary legislation slow change;a complexscheme must adjust evidence correct problems respond circumstanceswithout returning Parliament every adjustment.Delegated rulemaking this account ordinary sensible ultimately interests because lets scheme adapt around them.The premise partly sound concession should be made grudgingly.No size can place operational details Act;some matters genuinely belong subordinateinstruments capacity quickly serve well Delegated legislation normal feature modern government objection beyondAct resulting powers operate conditions under which they are exercised.What does is relocate operative substance ofthe matter determine what aparticipant actually receives into rules, instrument ministerial and Commissioner discretion.Caps intensities worker-to-participant ratios governsize supports set for classes determination(Sch 1 Pt s33(2EA)(a)±c maximum amount intensityworker-toclassparticipants);can reduced across whole cohort individual

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

reassessment (Sch | Pt4 s|s 34A);the assessment methodandthebudget methodologysitin instrumentsratherthaninthelAct(thetheassessmentsmethodsandbudgetmethodsaresetby delegated rules— Sch 4 ss;ss 32KandsL );pricingissetbyministerialinstrument(SchPt l,sC5 C—the Minister’s pricing power);anda wide fieldof further mattersislefttorules tobemade later(operative matterstoltrulesandinstruments-s-SS K ,S S L,S A,A,,S ;transitional poweRsch item I). These powersoperate noton individualsthrough individualised decisions but on cohortsatastroke,andwithoutthesafeguardsthatattachtoa decisionaboutaparticular person—andtheyaretocommenceona fixed date,whiletherulesthatafill themouthavenotbeenreleased. Thedocumented recordturnsthis claimagainstitself anditis herewith §.7 that th e cross-cutting weapon bites hardest.The Productivity Commission’s defining structural choice was to entrench the scheme’s core entitlement in legislation precisely so it couldnotbe eroded by executive discretion or bypressures of budget cycle governingentitlement through broad amendable rule is very arrangement original design built prevent And Government own Review taken word made genuine co-design with people disability condition reform—not a courtesybut requirement modern expression principle nothing about disabled should be decided without them Ascrosswalk Appendix F records Bill instead leaves operative substance delegated rulesand ministerial Commissioner discretion key unreleased timetable compressedfixed commencement;co -design displacedbyexecutivediscretion exercised against deadline community asked consent rules has seen measure proceeds way cannot faithful delivery review whose explicit conditionwassubstance designedpeople affects Present practice shows what cohort-level discretion produces when exercisewithout genuine co-design four works documentoperative choices shared support default ratios caps may sit below cost reductions applied at level category already being administratively ahead law rules under these powers would harden into entitlement shaping instruments cohort by cohort history submission traced supplies precedent directly Agency last sought impose standardised assessment proposal advancedwithoutgenuine coidesign refusedcommunity because placed administrative instrument person same instinct settle centrally present as fixed runsthroughrulemaking structure thisBill Lived account which we only reference record like governed rule one had part making andcannot see participantwhosesupport reshaped determinationapplied class they happen fall within learns the ruleonly Flynn & Gregory jointsubmission Page 319

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its effect on their plan, and who has no individual decision to engage because the change was made at the level of the cohort. The works describe this as control exercised at a distance – decisions about a life taken by people who will never meet the person living it. The claim therefore fails, because “flexibility” here names the breadth of executive discretion, not a benefit to the participant. Flexibility for the administrator is uncertainty for the person: The more freely the rules can move, the less a participant can rely on anything. Discretion eexercised over whole cohorts, against a fixed deadline, over rules the affected community has not seen and did not shape, is not adaptiveness but power without the safeguards that make power legitimate—and it is most dangerous for those whose needs are least standard,becausea cohort rule is built for the middle of a categoryandthe personat its edgeis governedby ameasurethatwasneverdesignedwiththem in mind.And evenonthegovernment’s own terms thclaim collapses: thereview madegenuino co-design aprecondition,andastructuretha relocatesthesubstanceinto unseenrulesandoct-leveldiscrectionistheprecise oppositeofwhatthereview required.Evenonthereview’sownterms,the flexibilityclaim isnottomadeout.

Recommended finding (6.9): ThCommitteeshouldfindthatthest“flexibility”theBill provides isthewidthofofdelegatedand discretionarypowerratherthanabenefitto participants ,an dthatgoverningthesescheme’ssubs tance throughunseenrulesovercohortsisinconsistent withbothentrenched entitlementtherProductivityCommission designedandan d genuineco-designt heGovernment’s ow nReviewrequired.Itshouldrecommendsthatthese substancielements—assessmentmethod, budget methodology,capsandrations ， an de ligibilit y — besetinprimaryActsubjecttoparliamentaryscrutiny;thatallrulesmade under thesepowersberelased and genuinelycodesignedbeforecommencement ; anda nd that no cohort-leve l reduction takeeffectwithoutindividualisedsafeguard s .

§ 6．10 – Plan certainty a nd fixed durations The tenth claim isth atfixedplan durat ions giveparticipantscertainty.A plan thattrunsfora setperiod, onapredictablecycle,l etsa personknowwhata theyhaveando howlong； itremoves the anxietyofplanschanging withoutwarningandal lowspeople toorganise their livesaroundast ablebudget.Certainty，onthisaccount,isagift toparticipantswho havelivedwithtoo much unpredictability.

The intuitionis genu ine,andtheharmitrespondstoisthereal.The scheme’s unpredictablity hasbeenaserioussource ofdistress: plans alteredunexpectedly,reassessmentstha tarrive without warning,budgets thatshift forreasonsanpersoncannotanticipate.Peopledo needto beab letoplann ,and stability inas upport budgetisa realgood. Th e concession istherforefullFlynn & Gregory—joint submission Page320

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— And the question is whether the Bill delivers certainty of the thing that matters or merely fixes in place a number that may not meet the need. What the legislation does is establish fixed plan durations and a renewal cycle where at end date renewed plans come into force identical last except drop any one-off funding without attached reviewable decisions Sch Pt s A automatic plan-renewal cycle stated as involving note S . Two consequences follow from design The budget set standardised methodology then fixed period regardless meets cost supports because caps feed below cost Sch pt , s ) effective even result below support cf K CEB note). Approved one-off capital funding roll over if has been spent time reset Sch pt , s A renewed plan carries old terms shedding approved one-off, capital funding Result stability provision but cliff on timetable with whatever shortfall locked duration Documented record exposes equivocation word “certainty.” Certainty Productivity Commission designed scheme was having assessed reliable because it tracked needs insulated Budget Cycle Certainty amount fixed regard to meeting costs different entirely opposite: certainty shortfall guaranteed life Plan. Scheme can make person certain under-funded; security promised calling reverse substance Present practice Flynn’s analysis sets out shows cliff clearest single case Analysis examines automated-provision through example participant approved new wheelchair chair measured quoted ordered built custom equipment typically manufactured overseas takes weeks months arrive during interval reaches end resets One-off Funding removed due removal Chair arrives invoice presented And funding exists decision anyone Review Renewal defined not involve reviewable Decision Participant most exposed least able absorb high and complex needs dependent Custom Equipment slowest supply chains largest invoices capacity carry debt tens thousands dollars just become personally theirs Fixed Duration plus no carry-over does produce Cliff falls hardest people the scheme protects Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 321

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

The lived account, which we only reference, gives this its human form: the wheelchair that never arrives in time, the approved support that evaporates at midnight on a date, the participant who did nothing wrong and whose circumstances did not change, presented with a bill the scheme had already agreed to meet. The works describe the particular cruelty of a loss that no one chose ––a harm with a date but no author.

The claim therefore fails, because certainty of an inadequate amount is not security but locked-in underfunding, and predictability of the wrong number does not help a person; it entrenches their shortfall and resets it without recourse. Certainty that cannot be revisited when need changes within the period, and that strips approved one-off funding on a fixed schedule, is rigidity dressed as stability—the system made predictable for itself at the cost of the participant’s actual provision. And even on the Government’s own terms the claim is weakened: the Review required that existing participants transition without losing the supports they rely on, and a renewal mechanism that removes approved funding by operation of a rule does precisely what the Review said must not happen. Even on the Review’s own terms, fixed durations of this kind do not deliver the security claimed.

Recommended finding (6.10): The Committee should find that fixed plan durations combined with automated forfeiture deliver rigidity and locked-in underfunding rather than genuine certainty, and that they expose the highest-need participants to scheduled funding cliffs. It should recommend that approved one-off and capital funding carry over until it is acquitted; that any reduction occurring on renewal be a reviewable decision made on notice and with reasons; an[d]that plans remain variable where a participant’s needs change within the plan period.

Administrative streamlining

The eleventh claim is that the Bill streamlines the scheme’s administration: it cuts duplication, simplifies he participant’s journey, consolidates fragmented processes, and makes a notoriously difficult system easier to deal with.Less red tape, in this account,is good foreveryone ––forparticipants worn downbypaperwork,foproviders,and forthescheme itself.The premise deservesa fair hearing,becausethelburdenitnamesisreal andreavy.Heavysystemishardtornavigate;participanstspendenormousandexhaustingeffortmanagingplans,evidenceclaims ,andreviews,a[ny honest simplification wouldbearealkindness.Reducingduplicationissensible,[anda system thademandedless of peopleinsideiwouldabeersystem.The objection isnottosimplificationbuttowhatistbeing simplified,forewhom,andat whatcost—becausestreamliningsmeasuredfromthesesystem’s sidecanbetheoppositeofreliefontheresident’sside.\nFlynn & Gregory — joint submission Page322

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

What the legislation does is consolidate and standardise in ways that concentrate the market and channel people toward standard supply. Pplan management is placed under a dedicated, tightly conditioned registration regime,and assessment and planning are routed through panels anda standardized pipeline(planmanagement,Sch 2 Pt 6 ;claims ,Sch 2Pt5 ;theassessment instrument andplanning framework,sch4 ss 32Lands 32K);pricingis setcentrallybyinstrumentwith stewardshipof themarketexercisedfromthecentre(plannagementregistration sch 2 pt 6;providerregstration Sch 2pt l;theminister’s pricingpowersch 3 PTl s 45C ); anhome-and-livingprovisionisorganizedaroundconfigurationsthat assumesharedsupportb ydefault(shared-support economics -SCh IPTs SSS(EEA); pricing, SCH 3 PTI S 45c newframework.SCH.4 thereisanoseparate ‘HomeAndLiving’ schedule).Each of these reduces varietyanda dministrative friction fromthescheme’spoint oview.Thecumulative effectif fewer,larger,mores tandardised providersandanpathwaysthat runmostsmoothlytowardthecheapeststandardoption .The documentedrecordexplainswhythisissimplificationo f thesystemattheparticipant’sexpense. TheProductivityCommission’sroute tosimplicitywasempowerment-give th epersonasingle,certain, individualise dentitlementandtheaduthoritytodirectit,and complexity thatcamefragmented ,rationedprogram-by-program provisionwouldfall away.Streamlininginsteadremoves individual tailoringachieves neatnessfor the administratorby narrowing optionsof person.Andtheroyal Commission’sfindings makethe directionof thisparticularstreamlin ingdangerous:thestandardsharedcongregate models towardwhichacost-drivenpipeline naturallyrunsaretheysettingsinquiry identified aswhereviolenceabuse,neglect andexploitation concentrate.A pathleast resistancethatleadsthre isnotanadministrativ econveniencebutasa fe risk.Presentpractice.asFlynn’sanalysis the marketsetsout,showsthec oncentrationalready in motion.A heavily conditionedregistration regimefavourslarge genericprovidersoverthese small,specializedonestha tc omplexparticipantsdependon;anda pricingregime thats underpriceshigh-skilllow-volume complexsupportremovestheproviderswho deliver it-not bybanningthem butmakingtheworke uneconomic.As thenewplannig framework routesassessment throughnon-clini cianpanelsandas tandardisedinstrument,thechoice remainstoaparticipantnarrowsfromtheinside. Andtheburdenthereformclaimsto lift does notvanish ;itisdisplacedontothep articipantwho mustnowidentifitheexception, assemble theevidence,andpursuetereview thatstandardisationmakesnecessary.The paperworkisnottomoved; itismov edontothenpersonleastequippedtocarryit.T heeffectissharpestwherethemarket isthallythin.In regionalandremoteareas ,andinthespecialise dcornersofmetropolitanprovision consolidationdoesnotin tidyacrowdedfield-itremoves thefew providerswillingtodifficult low-volumeworkatallandanstreamlinedpathway

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

through a market that has lost its specialists leads only to whatever standard supply remains. For the participant in such a place, “simpler” means fewer doors, and the door left open is the shared, standard one. The lived account, which we only reference, names the destination of the funnel. The four works describe the participant steered toward shared and congregate supply because the specialist provider has exited the market or the individual alternative is too hard to drive –and they describe what that supply is when imposed by default: as When the System Forgets to Listen puts it, containment with nicer language.Streamlining,on thisaccount,is experienced notas alighter journey butasa narrowerone ,withthe cheapeststandard model waiting atthead endof it.The claim therefore fails,becausestreamliningsmeasured fromthesystem’s sideisfromtheparticipant’sside,a heavier burden anda smaller set off real choices.A pathway engineered torun smoothly tow ardthesteapeststandar dmodel isn otaconveniencebuta fun nel;reducingthesescheme’sadministrative frictionbyconcentrating themarketands tandardisingsupply transfers effortandriskto th e personwhile narrowing then very choiceando ncontrol these ch eme exists top rovide.Andbecausethese stand ardm odel towardswhichitfunnelspeopleisthe congregatet onewhichtheroyal Commission condemned,the streamliningclaimdoesnotmerely failon convenience ;i trunsagainst safety.Whatispresentedascutting red tapeisin substance,constructionof a path of least resistance towardsettings countryhas already foundtotobethemost dangerous. Recommended finding (6.11): The Committee should findthatthesizeam lining measures reduce administrativefriction forsystem while increasingburden and nar rowingchoicefor participants,and thatthey tend to concentrate the marketand channelparticipantstoward shared congregate supply.Itshould recommend thatsimplification be measured fromparticipant s experience rather than administrator’s; thatpricing besetso astosustain smallspecialists providersin thincomplex markets; an dt hatno “streamlined” defaultpathwaychannelparticipan ts towardshared or congregatesupplywithoutagenuine,funded, in dividual alternative.§

6 . ‹▨The rebuttal ,gather ed

Th egovernment’s casef oretheBillis in end,a single argumentwearing many coats.Acrossth e claims this Movement has tested –tha tthescheme must bemadesustainable; tha tt its integritymust berestored; th atthis Bill bringsconsistency anda nd fairness; that it merely clarifies what is reasonableanda necessary; tahtitreturns these ch eme tot he original intent ;ta htits securesthesech emefor future generations; thatitis strengtheningsafeguard ingando qualty; thatFlynn & Gregory — joint submissionPage 324

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

it improves fairness, transparency and review; that it brings efficiency through automation; that it provides flexibility through rules; that it delivers plan certainty;and that it streamlines administration –the same proposition recurs. itisdifficultbutnecessary trade-offs: hard balances struck responsibly between generosityandsustainability, between easeandinTEGRITY,betweennindividualtailoringandconsistency, between human judgementandeFFICIENCY ,between rigidityandflexibility, between unpredictabilityancertainty.Ontheframing,toopposetheBillistodenytrade-offsandto wishthescheme’scostsaway .Wehavenotdeniedtheadvances.Wehave testedeachclaimbyasingle,fairmethod,applicationsthe samewayeverytime: statingthesteGovernment’spropositionats itsstrongestconcedingtherealintuitionwithinitsettingoutwhatthelegislationactuallydoes,metering thatagainst therecordofProductivityCommissiondesignedtheseschemewith Royal Commissionexaminedhowitfails against thesecheme’spresentdecisionlogic,against thelimedaccountcontainedintheworksandfinallyagaint the Government’son Review.Testedinthisway,theclaimsdonotsurvive.Andtheresontheydo notsurvivewhetheretradeoffsaresnotonesTheGovermentdescribesexaminedone by one,eachsupposedbalanceturnsto be a transfer.The sustainability is nota saving buta displacement ² of costonto hospitalsfamilies andotherpartsOfthe Commonwealth’sownbudget,andoriskontotheparticipantswhose supportskeepthem out crisis. The integrity isnottargetedenforcement aginst wrong doersbutanetcastwide enough tocatchordinaryparticipantin ordinarydifficulty. The consistency istofofnecessitybuthatflatteningunequal needsinto equalinputswhichproduces unequal safety.the clarificationisa substantive narrowing .Thereturntooriginalintent isa departurefrom it, contradictedbyverydocumentsinvokedtosupportit.Thesequesteringfuturegenerations rebuildsthe congregate settingsaroyalcommissionfound unsafe.Thesafeguarding regulates themostdangeroussettingsratherthan dismantlingthemand fairnessand transparencyremovethemeanstonowknowcontest decision.efficiency removes abilitytocorrectwrongoneflexibilityistherebreadof unchecked discretion.certainlyaislocked-in shortfall.andthestreamliningisan funneltowardcheapest standardmodel.Innocaseisthetrade-offthenamed;ineverycasethecostfallson the participant,andsbenefitsaccruestobudget. Thatconvergence itselftheselffinding.theclaimsfailnot atrandombuttogether,because beneathalloftliesasingle conception:thatthesescheme’problem is its costdisability canbeassessed intheabstractaway from aperson’sactuallife,and thattheresponsible courseistocontractwhatthesecheme providestoplpeoplenmostneed.itTwo of these failuresmoreoverare notmerelyitems onlistbutthemechanismlocksinrest: lossoffairness andtransparency ,automationdecisionsdrafted to be Flynn&Gregory ² joint submission Page325

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

unreviewable together remove the participant’s means to know a decision and correct it – so every other harm once done cannot be tested or undone Procedural fairness multiplier; removing it makes scheme’s substantive reductions heavier but irreversible Justifications are public expression of conception which fails when tested because concept wrong root - structure built throughout on flawed foundation irreparable claim-by-claim as thing fault. it bears emphasis none rejected Government Review took word sharpest critics gave found already condemns central moves package pulled apart instead sequenced pathway advanced ahead foundational supports made precondition existing participants exposed loss said must spared substance relocated into rules rather than genuinely co-designed transparency independent review left doubt preserved measure even government own would not sanction faithful delivery case does hold .The Government justifications taken together do establish hard necessary set choices they that described nor in form proposed what presented difficult responsible stewardship evidence displacement cost risk onto people exists serve conclusion Committee can reach without resolving single contested question value follows from documents country inquiries plain operation bill words.Having tested Governments stated case finding its central justifications survive contact with bills text history inquiry record current practice governments own we complete rebuttal answered arguments chosen make pass answers different more exacting all five Schedules anything collection has unexamined discipline here deliberately narrow We reargue four works foregoing rebuttal already established For each provision yet addressed right state plainly matters participant where this collection argument carried proceed Schedule by so committee check coverage against clause map Appendix B satisfy itself no Part passed over Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 326

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

One preliminary observation is worth making, because it bears on how the Bill should be read. Several of its Part headings describe their own purpose with unusual candour. A Part is titled, in the Bill itself,

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Act still requires the CEO to be satisfied as reasonable and necessary: “is less than the total cost of the support,” whether for a single support or all participants’ supports together. A support can thus both legally need funding but deliberately underfund due fiscal reasons in category/instrument. The argument appears rebuttals @sections{6}{7} and Peter Gregor’s analysis community-participation funding provision recorded here as statutory engine commencing October 1st, title=Part {number}- permanence treatment This Part narrows access tightening what means impairment permanent: note=new subsection subsection provides that an impairment is not unless person has undertaken appropriate treatment, no other likely improve/reverse persist lifetime difficulty lies definition appropriate treatment section 25A evidence-based reliably expected materially impair regularly Australia critically subsection(2) appropriateness regardless individual circumstances restrict accessing includes financial geographical location consequence plain found without permanent so refused scheme because principle exists even where cannot afford it available reach live Whether obtaining treatment by express terms beside point this Part four works recorded abstraction rather real situation piece design failure When System Forgets Listen describes throughout its Part It begins January title=Part eligibility based on services This Part conditions access continued participation set alternative requirements note-section A meets those only if among things one their impairments excluded motor vehicle accident compensation benefits work-related injury workers’ law excludes also declared Minister may make service system through which offered satisfied inappropriate fund the scheme new paragraph applies test at of;new (c) Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

eexisting participants whose status may be revoked if the CEO satisfies them not meeting alternative support requirements Two features warrant Committee’s attention First declared alternative power open-ended it mechanism which moves categories from scheme responsibility another system or none other does in fact provide second displacement provision Displacement taken up rebuttal where people thereby made need crisis systems evidence shows least able hold safely Part commences January Schedule Fraud measures This contains integrity measures general character rebuttal addresses concerns fraud should go unaddressed but occurs serious Powers framed against wrongdoing burden ordinary participant provider completeness record sets out Parts at level Part registration of providers This part expands architecture amending definition and provisions sections B C A Participant-facing concern examined rebuttals is that expanded requirement bears on small local self-directed rather than large providers actualy implicates Part civil penalties regulatory powers Largest this significant for structure substantially Commissioner compliance enforcement toolkit civil penalties enforceable undertakings, notices inserts two new parts into Act respectively alongside amendments across to ZP Sections information-publication The breadth point issue: reach examines proportionality depends entirely how they are exercised leaves administration Part gathering powers This part expands powers compel (sections ,54,,). Concern procedural-fairness

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill 2026

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

argument at 6.7, is the asymmetry it deepens between an Agency that may compel and a participant who may not see how decisions about them are reached. Part 4 – retention of records This Part imposes record-retention obligations sections 45A, 46, 92, 182). It is unremarkable because recorded to ensure completeness cumulatively registration information obligation compose administrative burden examined part 6.11. Part 5 reducing claim times This Part one change its size easy miss single amended paragraph Paragraph (a) omitted “years” substituted with days window within which payment made reduced from two years ninety days provider still more self-managing must navigate claiming process themselves missed九十-day window forfeited for support already delivered forfeiture logic When System Forgets Listen identifies plan resets itself transposed claims process examines December commences december . Part registered plan management providers creates regime Plan-management Providers definition section ; sections , E F ZK related party concept drawn Corporations Act commencement left proclamation significance noted part reshapes market plan management practical supports makes self-direction workable participants complex affairs Schedule Governance arrangements The substantive Parts this addressed collection decision-making pricing introduces power in set maximum amounts payable funding managed by participant associated indexation mechanism section raises concerns Peter Gregory’s SIL analysis rebuttal at . Part automation action inserts new Division sections B D CEO arrange computer programs take administrative designated provisions including subsection involves discretion evaluative judgement state mind governed standard operating procedure instrument subject of the rebuttal and where consequences meaningful review are set out minor amendments consequential machinery changes nothing alters above Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill 2026

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Schedule 4 – New framework planning

This Schedule is examined in full in When the System Forgets to Listen (Part 6), in Peter Gregory’s community-participation analysis, and in the rebuttal at sections 6.1, 6.3 and 6.4. The completeness record pins its core.

• The new budget method provided under section 32K allows rules specifying levels of need with corresponding funding amounts attached (sectional clause (B)). The specified funds may be more than or equal to but not less than actual costs as per sub-clause (C). Rules must also set maximum funding limits for each level according to subsections (D)and(E). Rules are subject to financial sustainability considerations when made. Section 32L, which governs needs assessment, must consider information prescribed within clauses (b) & (c) while determining who can undertake such assessments. Legal provisions commence on day seven after Royal Assent; operational rollout announced April 1st , year two thousand twenty-seven.

Schedule 5 - Transitional rules

Item one empowers Minister by legislative instrument making transitional rule amendments related to Act’s changes; such rules modify scheme act operation until twelve months post commencement. Powers delegated via instruments modifying primary legislation during defined periods is significant delegation alongside other matters left open to ministerial determination. This matter examined further along in rebuttals at Section six point nine (6:9)

What the sweep reveals

A thorough examination discloses a pattern across three distinct mechanisms: a. New framework budget method allowing support cost underfunding, see section subsection(3C)(a). b. Funding components determined regardless of whether they meet group supports’ total costs (sectional clause (EB)). c. A reduction power that allows reasonable and necessary support below its actual cost as per sub-clause (sub-secion 4A). Flynn & Gregory – joint submission Page 331

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Across individual plan-making, across shared and group supports, and across category-wide ministerial reductions, the same rule recurs. That recurrence is not an accident of drafting. It is the design. This is why the case made in this collection is structural rather than a matter of correcting a clause. A flaw that appears once can be amended out. A principle that has been written into the budget method, the group-support mechanism, and the reduction power alike has been built into the foundations, and it expresses a settled choice about the relationship between a participant’s need and the scheme’s budget: that where the two conflict, the budget prevails, annddtheparticipant absorbs the difference. two things followtand they carry us ttothet next MovementThe first isthattherisks thcollectionhas identified arenot therisksof one bad provision butofoanarchitecture,andanan architectureproducestheffectswhoeveradministersitahndhowever carefully whichistheth subject towhich we now turn The secondisa matherethe Committee should hold clearlyin view as ith deliberates.The Government’s announced timetable assumesthatthisBill will pass both Houses by themiddle o f2026 ,a ndmuch oft hattimetable — thenewbudgetmethod,the funding-reductionpower,t he eligibility narrowing,then ew assessment framework cannot lawfully proceed without thereprovisions examined above.T h e decision before theeCommittee ise therefore not adecision onprincipleinaabstract.Iti sthauthorisationor therefusaloft herollout entire Whatremainswhen every justification theGovernment ha sbeen testedandsset aside an devery prov isionisonsthetable,i sa risk profile: foresee able,documented,a n ds erious. It isto those riskstha ntwe no wturn.

Movement VII — The Risks, and the Way Back

Part I – The risks remain

The preceding movement did two things: taking every justification offered by Government regarding this Bill—such as sustainability, integrity, consistency, fairness, safeguarding—a return to original intent—the securing scheme’s future generations—and testing it against both text itself, historical inquiry records current practice government review. It then walked provisions one at time found beneath thematic argument pattern architecture itself remains when case measure has survived contact with its provisions those nonetheless on table question takes up It stated purposes admirable reform sustainably integral all these people inside scheme over span time. Flynn’s account frames distinction governs everything movement bill event but failure trajectory vote taken single day enacted years millions decisions parliamentary moment passed public attention moved on risks set out therefore predictions intentions minister official collection does read private motives need do foreseeable behaviour system built way effects an architecture produces whoever administers carefully reveals assumptions through choices keeps making choices written into this Bill point unusual direction. one finding completeness pass must carried follows because changes character each risk named here proposition funding support meet cost that not confined amendment might cure recurs three times different mechanisms new framework budget method rule for group-support components across-board reduction power (32K(3C), note 33EB) s4A5). Completeness above sets how operates matters recurrence flaw appears once incidental. Rule written foundations places individual planning shared supports category-wide alike design below are the of that design – misapplication.

Re-institutionalisation by administrative means

The first risk, and the gravest, is that the Bill rebuilds the settings this country spent the second half of the twentieth century dismantling —and does so without rebuilding a single institution. There will be no new asylum, no colony, no training centre with a name and a gate.Theinstitution returns ifitreturns asthe cumulative resultof fundingsettings,andthatispreciselywhatmakesits hardto see harderstop. The mechanism iseconomic beforeitis anythingelse TheBill permits amaximumfunding amount,a maximumsupportintensity , anda maxmum worker-to-participant ratio tobe set for classes of participants,anda maximumworker-toparticipantratio tobese tbelow whatthesupportactuallycostss ( s(2EA); ss note).Itpermittsthefundingsforawholecategoryofsupporttobereducedacross agroupwithoutanyindividualplanbeing reassessed(sA ).And itgivestheministera structuredpower over prices thescheme wil pay (SAC) .Read together theseprovisions do not compelcongregatecare in terms.Theydo somethingquieter moreeffective: they makesharedgroupedratio-based support then onlyconfigurationaprovidercandeliver within themundedamount;they make individualised one-totone participant-directedsuppuneconomictosupply Peoplearethen groupednotbytheirchoice wherewith whom to livebut by the economics supply Peter Gregory’s analysis Supported IndependentLiving commissioning shows that default shared-support assumptions on which thisrests including ato-three ration are grounded provider viability and workforceeconomicsandnotin any published evidence such arrangements safe clinically appropriate or compatible with right choose home housemates The historical spine has already established whythis matters lesson bears restating context becauseit is hinge whole risk features made institutions last century harmful were cruelty staff age buildings structural concentration numbers relatively powerless people settings shaped others authority out sight wider community Thosefeatures generate harm wherever reproduced regardless intention regardless modern setting looks Grouphomecommissionaround staffing ratio smaller building than asylum but can reproduce same structuraleffectiveness loss control ordinary texture life reduction visibility under warm administrative language efficiency care Flynn’sanalysis makes safety point exactlycommunity connection acontrol Isolation merely diminution someone quality oflife it removal thing most likely surface abuse neglect occur Scheme funds into smaller isolatedmoreprovider-shapedsettingsisn’t making safer consolidating their care Itremoving conditionsunderwhichthysafe

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

This is reinstitutionalisation by administrative means: not a policy anyone announces, but a destination a funding architecture arrives at, one budget at a time. It is the clearest instance in the whole Bill of a design failure that is a trajectory rather than an event –because no single decision will look like the reopening of an institution, tandthe patternwillbevisibleonlyin aggregate , only over years and onl yto those who already know what they are lookingat .

Rights erosion,andthedisplacementofdemocraticvoice The second risk operates at the level of principle, anda nd it has two faces—one turned toward th eparticipant,the other tow ard t he Parliament.Turnedtowardthestarticipant,t h eBill erodes rights ata theirstatutorysource.It repeals there participan-centred planning principles—the existing statement,inthead Act,a f choicea n d control—andreplaces themwithprinciplesoriented tothescheme’s sustainability(Sch lPt

sitem item 66,repealingths31princip les;newss sAandsB,newss withthedecision-maker now requiredtorhaveregardtoschemesustainability).Itdefinesategatewaytothe scheme through testoffunctionalcapacitythatisassessedinabst ractionfromtheperson’senvir oment andasupports(s9 B)—atesttha tm easuressomethingthatisanot,i nt helivedsense,d iabilityatat all,becausedisabilit ispreciselyinteractionbetweenani mpairm entanda world a personmustnavigate. Andit rewordstheseschem escentralpromise, osothata twhatistreasonable andnecessarybecomesafuncti onofofwhatis sustainable.Thes arenotadjustmentstothemachineryofthescheme.Theyarechanges towhat the schem ei stfor.The righttoliveinthe community,whichAustraliaaffirmedwhenitrati fi edtheConventionontherights of Persons wit Disabilities,isno thonouredbyasystem that funds peoplebelowt hecostoliving anywherebut inagroup. Turned toward Parliament ,a ndBill displaces democratic voiceintwo directions at once.A striking volume what will actually govern participants lives ist left not tothead Actthestartimentisbeingaskedtop ass,but torules,ministerial determinations,and instruments made afterward:thes budgetmethodanditslevelsofn eeds (ss 32K),there ductionpower(ssA ), thestandardoperatingprocedures for automated action( s5B) ，an dm ostbroadly—a transitional powertomak erulesthatmodifyoperationstheprimarylegislation itself(Sch item1).Decisionsrealconsequence migrate away from participant who losess choice anda ncontrol therepealedprinciplesexpressed,a na wayfromParliament which is askedauthorise frameworkwhosecontentwillbefilledlater byexecutive. Andthirdrecipientthatmigrated authorityi sn ot aperson ata ll.Itistha lgorithm—towhicht we now turn,becausemeansbyparticipantmightoncehavecontestedanyofthis i tselfamongthingsth Bill reshapes . Flynn&Gregory—joint submission Page\Page \335

Procedural unfairness as a multiplier of every other harm

The third risk is the one the collection regards as decisive, because it is not a harm alongside the others but the thing that removes the mechanism by which the others might be caught and corrected. Every risk named in this movement —a wrong assessment,a below-cost ratio , a forfeited package, an wrongful suspension— depends for its remedy upon participant’s practical ability to understand how decisions were made,to test those decisions,and then change them.Degrade their understanding abilities,you do multiply rather than add more harms.The Bill degrades these risks cumulatively,rather than with single strokes.It eliminates categories from what can be reviewed;it arranges changes affecting participants’ funding happen automatically on end dates without reviews:renewals shed approved funds; funding reductions across groups are done through instruments (s50A,s103A);and where there remains some review,the Act hollows out the process further.Because budgets must follow rules-specified methods(s2K(IA),applying needs-assessment reports under s4L)successes don’t yield different figures.They obtain fresh assessments fed back into same method producing similar budget results. When The System Forgets To Listen describes this plainly as closed loop: testing remits matter reassessed ; retesting runs instrument returning near-identical result .The right of seeking review exists,not changing outcomes does not.To automate it,Bill permits decision substance including discretion or evaluative judgement by computer programs operating standard procedures(s9B(4)),deeming output administrative action taken chief executive.(s 9B(5)).

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

deeming the output to be the chief executive’s supplies the label of a decision without supplying the human reasoning that review exists to examine. What makes this more than a technical worry is the recent history. The Robodebt Royal Commission examined, at length and at cost, what automated government decision-making does when it goes wrong at scale; it noted that the availability of review of automated decisions was uncertain, and it recommended legislative reform to guarantee a clear pathway for review, transparency about how and why automated decisions are made, and systems “designed with human agency at its centre.” The Government accepted those recommendations. That was in 2023. This Bill, two years later, moves in the opposite direction: It authorises the automation of evaluative decisions and leaves their reviewability to a deeming provision of exactly the kind the Robodebt experience put in doubt. This is the couplet of this collection in its most literal form. When nations forget, history repeats² but here the nation is not even forgetting slowly.It accepted the lesson within recent memory, and is now legislating against it.Procedural fairness is the safeguard that makes every other safeguard work.A Bill that thins it does not lose one protection among many. It removes the floor beneath all of them. The harm is not evenly distributed The fourth risk is that the contraction falls hardest on the people least able to absorb it.On theGovernment’s own announcement,the number of people the scheme supportsis projectedto fall from around 760,000 todaytoround 600,000 bythendoftheadecade—on theMinister’s framingaround 600，000 “insteadoftogrowing towell over900 ，”with some€,€; with somewith no account yet givenof who they will be or wheretheywill go.The provisionsthat wilt sortthem arenot neutralintheir incidenceA functional-capacity gateway assessedina abstractionfrom environment(s 9B),and a narrowing eligibilitywhere another service system issaidtomore appropriate (s 25B) bearmost heavilyoneoplewhose support needsare realbut do nmap neatly ontoa single legible impairment:peoplepsychosocial disability ,peopel episodicor fluctuating conditions,p e o p l e whose need arisesthe interaction several impairments,and childrenwhose developmentalneedsaretoberedirectedtotother programs.Flynn’s point about standardisation isth exact here:astandardisedgateway andastandardised budget methodbuy consistency at aprice the price is paidby peopl ewhoose nees areatypical enough thatthestandard does not see them. The harm of this Billis therefore concentrated twiceover² first on those most likely to losesupport, anda gainonth same peoplewho ar also least equipped navigaten the degraded reviewsystem described above in orderto contestth loss. Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 337

Foreseeable harm, named plainly

Only now, with the pathways established, is it possible to name what lies at the end of them — and to do so without melodrama, because it is already a matter of public record rather than prediction.

• The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability found that segregated and congregate settings concentrate violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation; to find this finding not contested in this collection destination toward which reinstitutionalisation pathway runs There alongside coronial record preventable deaths And there Flynn’s analysis regulator own data covering more nine thousand deaths finds rate potentially avoidable death several times general population These are speculative costs hypothetical reform They documented consequences conditions Bill architecture would rebuild decision logic moreover waiting begin plan review paper documents continuous one-to-one support being treated current administrative practice available undefined exceptional circumstances” The does introduce these dangers nothing It gives statutory force trajectory participants part living Risks set out Part single risk seen angles: an architecture built subordinate participant budget will produce predictably over time harms subordination always produced they systemic incidental product design rather administrator failing why cannot managed away good intentions careful implementation Why architecture produces edges stakes abstract Government announced timetable assumes bill pass middle 206 much timet new method reduction power eligibility narrowing assessment framework lawfully begins provisions examined here Decision before Committee therefore principle abstract authorisation refusal rollout entire To say direction wrong invite fair question return if not then what? Submission opposed without answering deserve suspicion merely defending status quo This answer final movements turn

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

Submission 1922

(s 32K, s 32K(1A), s 32K(3C), s 32L); Sch 5 item 1; commencement table at s 2. Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, Final Report, 2023 (segregatedand congregate settings concentrate violence, abuse,, neglect departmentation). Royal Commission into Robodebt Scheme Final Report , time period November 2023: The uncertainty review automated decisions; suggested legislative reform clear pathway transparency systems designed human agency centre.“ Pintarich v Deputy Commissioner Taxation [2018] FCAFC79 scholarship identifying consequent gap Anna Huggins QUT Yee-Fui Ng Maria O’Sullivan Monash cited concern those scholars inquiry not collection’s own legal conclusion Reform timetable participant number projection announced Hon Mark Butler MP National Press Club April figures drawn analysis in Flynn’s When System Forgets Listen Daniel Flynn framing that a Bill event but design failure trajectory community connection safety control. “SIL” Risk Reinstitutionalisation Considerations for Preparing Plan Review Report Peter Gregory default shared-support ratio assumptions treatment continuous one-to-one support exceptional current practice Convention Rights Persons Disabilities Article Cross-references historical spine Movement I rebuttal VI particular treatment review pass (Movement VI) Appendix B clause map).

Part The way back Rejecting this direction is defence status quo Before alternative set out thing must said plainly because credibility everything follows depends it To oppose this Bill defend scheme currently operates.

The scheme drifted long promised; cost genuine consideration honest analysis wave away fraud occurs serious Collection throughout says again here argument never been nothing should change It wrong change magnitude, its design and incidence reform exists secure the scheme finances without legislating regression Alternative full account rights-based, safety-based program The way back What points shape theme by since Flynn’s analysis itself reproduced earlier need restated here.

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Start with the outcome, not the line item

The first move of the alternative is to invert the order of reasoning the Bill installs. This Bill begins with a budget envelope and a standardized instrument, and works forward to a number; The participant’s life is what remains once this method has run.A reform centered on individuals starts at another end—with the lifestyle they are trying to live,the outcomes important to them,and supports an ordinary community life actually requires—and works back from its cost.This approach does not represent doing things more softly; it represents differentiating between schemes asking about needs versus those prepared to fund.The phrase “When the System Forgets to Listen” correctly reflects that system character follows which question precedes.

Safety through harm minimisation, not zero-risk fantasy

Safety must be honestly addressed because the Bill’s safeguarding case rests upon confusing safety with control.Real safety for disabled people isn’t produced via supervised group settings as Part I outlined. Such arrangements do not reduce risk but concentrate danger by removing essential connections within communities.Safety arises instead in minimizing harms built around autonomy, continuity,& trusted relationships—by having well-known people notice when something goes wrong.& embedding lives deeply into their localities where occurrences can visibly unfold.Therefore, we advocate guardrails over towers: oversight protecting chosen lifestyles rather than surveillance controlling people into convenient environments.Any model making people less visible under guise of keeping safe misunderstands real dangers.

Co-design as the discipline it truly embodies

The third move hinges directly onto our recommendation and answers objections raised throughout this text—that is, going beyond mere consultation—the Government consults disability groups continuously.Flynn’s analysis defines genuine co-design not merely sentimentally but professionally recognized structure: eight tenets among them co-ideation (shared authorship before narrowing solutions);co-design genuinely sharing how systems are constructed;co-authorship involving community hands on governing instruments texts; cointermination & cimonitoring—all bound to principle that movement won named “nothing about us without us.” Measured against such standards,the creation termed “consultation” honors some principles while quietly denying others:A vibrant workshop whose resulting policy then authored behind closed doors does not

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code_span_co-design, however it is described. Flynn’s account of this ––the capture of the language of co-design—is what allows the collection to say, describe_without_overclaiming_that_engagement_conducted_after_the_ideas_have_been_chosen_and_budget_set_is_not_the_genuine_article. And_this_is_where_the_alternative_meets_the_recommendation.Genuine_co_design,by_its_nature,must_be_free_to_consider_every_path_forward,rather_than_ratifying_an_outcome_that_has_already begun_draft.A_Bill_forecloses_that_freedom—it_is_precisely_a_predetermined_outcome.One_cannot_co_design_one_s_way_to_a_conclusion_that_has_already_been_written_into_A_bill_before_parliament.That_is_why_the_way_back_can_not_begin_by_amending_this_Bill,and_why_withdrawal_is_not_a_separate_or_more_drastic_demand_sitting_behind_call_for_co_design.It_is_precondition_for_the_co_design_to_be_real. preserve_participant_directed_support_and_protect_people_make_it_work.The_fourth_move_is_to_protection_arrangements_makes_life_workable which_the_Bills_integrity_architecture_risks_treating_as_suspect.Self_management_self_direction the_direct_employment_of_support_workers, and clinicians who train supervise those workers are not loopholes closed; they means by which many participants exercise choice control scheme was built to provide Reform that secures integrity aiming registration penalty information gathering record retention powers at genuine bad actors—rather than ordinary participant the participant directed arrangement protects without dismantling very supports make it work.Design_thin_markets_regional_reality.Fifth_move_is_to_design_country_actually_scheme_calibrated_median_participants_capital_city_priced_metropolitan_benchmarks_fails_everyone_whose_conditions_are_different—in thin markets regional remote areas wherever supply support scarce Flynn’s treatment of thin markets regional reality warning standardisation can protect some while abandoning others point reform builds variation legislating away pricing reflects real local costs framework enough flexibility people does fit neatly leaves behind.Keep_clinical_supports_where_needed_without_regression_Sixth_move_follows_from_rebuttal_central_findings_about_sustainability_case.Contraction_displaces_cost_disability_into_hospitals_aged_care_families_income_has_not_removed_that_cost—it has moved onto systems less equipped carry. Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 341

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it, and onto households where much of it will simply go unmet A reform genuinely concerned with sustainability keeps disability supports where they are needed including clinical settings, such as when this person requires such care-and pursues scheme’s finances through means doing so without transferring costs back upon disabled people. Flynn’s fiscal counter-analysis shows how this can be done: The scheme’s sustainability does not conflict with its participants’ rights; indeed, a scheme destroying lives funded for them cannot become sustainable—it has taken on another identity, clothing itself in ‘sustainability’.

What The Way Back Requires

What every element here shares is none being reachable from within this bill: measures other than disabilities; going beyond cost considerations in planning principles; reversing reasonable-necessary tests; budgets not needing match support funds; reviews looping into instruments producing results—these are not starting points for a participant-led reforms based around rights but rather their opposites written law.The way forward isn’t more amendments to this bill. It starts by setting aside the current one and opening genuine co-design—one free considering all paths forward—including those foreclosed by existing rules.What that asks Committee, plain terms, recommendations follow below.

Sources (Part 2): When System Forgets To Listen Daniel Flynn — the way back as right-based safety-based participatory alternative particularly: outcomes-first planning instead of line-item focus;safety via harm minimization over group control community connection as safeguard;co design recognized professional discipline eight tenets governing principle nothing about us without us capture language of co design preservation participation-directed support thin markets regional reality warning standardisation can protect some while abandoning others fiscal counter-analysis showing sustainability achievable regression Commissioning SIL Risk Reinstitutionalisation Considerations Preparing Plan Review Report Peter Gregory protection participants directed self-managed arrangements clinicians supporting them Convention Rights Persons Disabilities Article 19 Right live Community Guardrails guard towers collection’s own framing Cross-references rebuttal Sustainability Case Movement VI Recommendations Follow Movement VIII set out illustratively prescription areas genuine co design will need address.

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Part I Recommendations

This collection set out to carry a single thesis through great deal evidencethat when systems forget people they were built forthose are harmedand nation history repeats across eleven Movements four complete worksthesis carried public recorddesign Productivity Commission setout conditions attachedConvention scheme exists honourfindings RoyalCommission coronial trail regulator’s own mortality data decade practice actually conducted planning rooms shared-support arrangements commissioning services independent modelling contraction cost throughout text itself read what each provision does person rather than how might construed. What has established can be stated plainlyBill subordinates participant budget reversing order in which designed workneed first then funding It recreates modern language ordinary administrative machinery structural conditions institutional harm spent decades dismantling Harm that follow not worry but record foreseeable because documented and important respects already occurring justifications offered reform nonetheless legitimate necessary better path rights-based participan-led sustainable without regression Movement VI tested Government defence claim found claims fail together beneath all of them lies conceptionscheme problem its cost disability assessed away from actual life responsible course contract provides most need it. VII then set Bills claims aside asked remained risk profile against shape genuine alternative That asks Committee put operative terms task final Movement there recommendations fall two tiers relationship between argument First tier is single recommendation collected evidence compels Committee do Second tier list further recommendations schedule amendments indication replacement form will take shown Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 343

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Committee both the direction of travel and the reason the first recommendation cannot be softened into a set of fixes.

Recommendation 1 – That the Bill be withdrawn, and a genuine co-design begun in its place

The Committee should recommend that the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 be withdrawn, and that the Government begin in its place a true, deep, end-to-end co-design of NDIS reform with the disability community -a process free to consider every path forward, rather than a predetermined one. This is the conclusion the collected evidence compels, and it is offered as that and not as a position taken in advance of it. The case for the Bill, examined across this collection, is not made out. Its asserted savings are a displacement of cost onto hospitals, families, and other parts of the Commonwealth’s own budget rather than a removal of cost;its integrity architecture is a net cast wide enough to catch the ordinary participant in ordinary difficulty rather than enforcement aimed at wrongdoing; its claim to consistency flattens unequal needs into equal inputs and so produces unequal safety; its claim to return the scheme to its original intent is contradicted by the very documents that defined that intent;and its claim to secure the scheme for future generations would,on the Royal Commission’sown findings,rebuildthe congregate settingsin which disabled peopleare most often harmed.The defects thecollection has identified arenotdefectsof detail.Theyaresfoundational,and they sitat four levels ata once.Theysitinthedeasbehindthedrafting –aconceptiondisability,sustainability,andoftheparticipant’splaceinschemethatswrongratheroot.Thesitina gatewaythatmeasuresfunctionalcapacitystrippedoffperson’senvironmentandsupportsandso measures something thathemoderninternationally accepteddefinitionedisabledisablesaysnot disabilityallTheysitinplanningprinciples reorientedfrom persontothescheme’scostremoving fromlawthestatutory expressionchoicecontrolAndtheysinreasonable-and-necessarytestquietly inverted, sorthetudgetbecomesfixedpointandpersonevaluatedneedvariableadjustedfit it.Aflaw of kindcannot be reachedby amendment,becauseitis notlocatedany singleprovisionanamendmentcouldrewrite;its located in premises provisionsdrawn. The second reason amendment cannot reach these defectsmore fundamental than their breadth. Amendment operates on text.Itcanalterwordings provision,narrowpowersoftenthresholdrestoredeleted principle.But defectedidentified across this collection do no originate wording Bill; theyoriginateideas Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 344

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that produced the wording –the conception of disability as a cost to be contained,of capacityas something measurable apart from the life in which it is exercised,and of sustainabilityasthe contraction of what the scheme provides to the people who most dependonit.Those ideass arenot locatedin any clause.They sit behind everyclauseand eachprovision drawnfrom themcarriesthedefect forwardregardless how ithisdrafted.Rewrite thewording ,an dconception simply re-expresses itself int he new words. Thisis why then volume o f amendmentrequired i s n ot heart problembut symptomo fit.A measure couldbe amended hundred places and remain unsafe,becauseeachamendedclauses would still expression same premises.To reach defect onewould have begin different drafting but withdifferent set ideas—and ameasure built differentset idea not thisBill amend.Ita differe ntBil l.The conclusion follows matter analysis rather than preference: only operation capable producing safe effectivescheme isthis Bil asidebegin again premisesthat place participantrather budget centre. That more drastic available options.On evidence collection assembled,i tonly coherentone.There second end decisive reason must withdrawn ratherthan amendedfollows directly breadth change make safelist areas below longreaches almost operative part Bill—access gateway planning principlesbudget method reduction ratio powers forfeiture suspension mechanisms integrity informationpowers pricing settings review architecture treatment self-directed support.When changes requiredmake measure safe extend far across it, breadthiself proof residual sound instrument waiting refine beneath parts that go.Bill is good design bad provisions; provision throughout wrong foundation structure through flawed cannot repaired piece because thing fault.This withdrawal co-design separate demandswithdrawal notmoredrastic twooptions.Genuineco-design nature free consider every path forward including paths never contemplated ratifying outcome already written A bill before Parliament precisely predeterminedoutcome Onecannot codesign way toconclusion hasalready been drafted engagement conducted afterideas chosen instruments authored fiscal envelope settisnotcodesign consultation settled plan Withdrawal therefore precondition for codeign real It additional ask sitting beside Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page345

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the call for co-design; it is the thing that call requires. The recommendation is singular for\nthat reason: withdraw the Bill, and let a genuine process begin –and let that process, not thissubmission and not this Bill, settle what the reform should contain. Two objections to withdrawal should be met before the areas are set out, because they are theobjections on which a decision to amend rather than withdraw would rest.The first isthatwithdrawal leaves the status quo in place,and thatthestatus quois itself unsatisfactory.Thecollection agrees thatthestatusquaisunsatisfactory; it has criticised thepresent schemeatlength—the funding base left exposed,the safety reforms that became unsafe ,thesupportmodels hollowedout, heaductary’s decade of data thatsystem couldnot read.Butwithdrawalis nota voteforthestatusquo.Itis preconditio n fora reformat genuinenoughto improveonitislandalternative t hisBillisth e presentscheme preservedbut paththa realco -designwould produce .The second objectionisto withdrawals causesdelay anda nd delayhas its own costs.S oitm ay ; butcosts oft h i sB illare front-loaded,a ndt hat changeswhatdelaymeans.OnGovernment’sownannouncedtimetable,t hecommunity-participationreductionsbeginfromlate20 6a nt hedudget-reductionanda ndplan-suspensionpowerscommenceinlawonthefirstofOctober2016—aheadthenewframework the new eligibility rules and then foundational supports meanttocatch people changes displace.To pausethatsequence is not withhold benefit from participants; itisprefent harm Bill schedules to arrive beforeits ownsafeguards do.Delay reform begins by reducing supportsis, for thepeople whosesupports would be reducedprotection rather than cost. A word owed on why this submission doesnotin manner submissions kind oftendoattach schedule proposed amendments. It oversightand isto refusal workposition authors obliged take same professional judgementproduced everything above.Todraft amendmentstothis Bill represent implication thatthe B il can made safe effectivebyamendment—andis precisely proposition collection has found evidencefalse.Neither author in good conscience lend their standing remedy they believe exists.The surgicalwork statutory legal critique being done welllegal human-rightspractioners properly belongssubmission leaves them.Whatauthors offer instead finding disciplines equipthem makeBill flawed at its foundations no ammendmentcan reachfoundational flaw responsible course therefore withdrawal genuine beginning again.Flynn & Gregory joint submissio nPage346

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The shape of the replacement –the areas a co-designed reform will need to address What follows is offered in a particular spirit, and the spirit matters as much as the substance. These are not further recommendations, and they are emphatically not amendments to the Bill. They are an indication of the ways a co-designed reform would differ from this Bill, of the areas such a reform will need to focus on—including but not limited to—following: The submission sets these out because genuine co-design owns answers; calling upon community authority over design contradicts arriving with already written designs.The collection points directionally toward key issues without pre-empting work.Demonstrative: Each area below addresses provision defect and meets government claims.List serves double duty forward sketches replacements against shows why amendment cannot cure what’s wrong.Areas drawn primarily Part Flynn’s analysis “way back” Movement VI.None phrased instruction altering clause none can be reached alteration each describes likely recover once set aside.Bill restoring participant centre their own plan The repeal participant-centred planning principles statutory expression choice control replaces sustainability CEO required regard (Schedule item repealing Planning-principles Division including section new sections object recast subordinate at section value-for-money evidence-hierarchy family-contribution tests at section 34(1A)±(1K)).Co-designed reform begins where scheme was designed begin participant author their own plan literal sense repealed principles required planning asks every decision person needs live safely freely dignity in Community genuine choice control. Planning process built around that question has concrete content.Its for each participant needed home workers choose they take part contribute wish it is central rather than residual assessment instrument whatever used servant questions substitute asking them.Instrument job help system understand person does not define the person helping to understand.This gives Government claim Bill returns original intent Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page

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Submission: We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026 (Movement VI claim 6.4) It’s foundational because every other part depends if planning principles ask about cost first. The principle isn’t adjustable but whose scheme it represents:

Measuring disability as actually exists - impairment interaction with environment

The Bill’s gateway uses “functional capacity” test excluding person’s environs and supports(Schedule I PArt l Item 4 Section B). it measures abstractly from conditions their actual lives live under, doing so measuring something Convention says not disability.A co-designed reform would restore conception of disability as interplay between impairments and environments.so instrument used understands serves understanding rather than substituting for it.In operative terms means an access process asking what they can do settings they really inhabit.without supports around them,rather scoring against fixed scale—the convention adopts when locating disabilities within barriers people meet.Therefore even Government stated aim consistency concedes that like cases should be treated alike, two same diagnosis different environments are unlike cases—so a blind to environmental test doesn’t deliver promised fairness.It defeats this is the answer to government’s claim new test brings consistency fairnes (Movement VI Claim).A calibrated wrong thing does produce failure see those schemes exist serve amendment cannot reach defect in what tests for not wording.

Ending automatic forfeiture defining thresholds suspension revocation.Two mechanisms strip protections participants by operation law decision anyone makes.First automatically renews plan end date without carrying forward approved one-off capital funding attaches no reviewable decision loss Schedule Part item section A particularly absence one off funding under section(2)(b) any statement or reviewable decision under section;result Flynn image wheelchair has been ordered transit disappears at renewal.Second permits suspensions eventually revocations participant’s on undefined contact attempts(Schedule I PArt Item 83 Section 40A revocation power at item79section 1A)a power falls hardest precisely system finds hard-to-reach circumstances where reachability itself

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function of the supports being suspended. A co-designed reform would end automatic forfeiture of approved support, and define clear fair reviewable thresholds any suspension or revocation In operative terms means participant does lose funding already committed merely because plan reaches its end date; do no access suspend revoke without genuine documented attempts make contact going very supports person relies reachable decision made can be held accountable for that decision reviewed before consequences fall What Flynn’s account calls suspension silence loss standing follows from failure answer system may itself have removed which they could reach opposite safeguards This answers Government claims on certainty Movement VI claim 6.10) strengthened safeguarding (claim 6.6: resets to disadvantage is not certainty; a safeguard punishes unreachable does not them These mechanisms cannot amended fairness their unfairness structural designed operate without test one Constraining systemic reductions and shared-support-by-default The builds several powers move scheme away individualised toward standardised, shared reduced provision A component class funds cut group participants across nominated plans instrument Schedule Part item section especially maxima apply regardless whether meets cost Supports new budget method set below needs person (Schedule part item within section Note 1) cut for determination sets maximum amount intensity worker-to-participant ratio behind policy figure (part in particular section 33(2EA)(c)) these maxima may apply regardless the funding meets costs supports co-designed reform would constrain non-individualised reductions refuse default continuous support exceptional impose published safety evidence base demonstrating it safe people applies funding housing separated so where someone lives with whom dictated cheapest delivered this answers Government sustainability Movement VI quality claim flexibility through rules claim abandonment of individualised support pushes participants congregate settings Royal Commission identified locus worst harm Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 349

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• the same settings whose societal cost
  • Commission estimated in order — forty-six billion dollars per year, which all commissioners agreed no person should be compelled. to enter.Thereis,moreover,a sustainability argument the right way round here,and acodedesigned reform would makeit.Theinsurance modeltheproductivityCommissiondesignedmanagescostacrosslifetim eofaparticipant”invests early,prefents deteriorationand avoids themuchlargercoststhataccumulatewhenpreventionfails: hospitaladmissions,institutionalplacements,carerbreak down ,an d th e cascadingclinicalcomplications that follow withdrawn support.A funding maximum set below theneeds of aperson’sneed does not reducethat lifetime cost; it externalises it, moving outofthescheme and intothenhospital,the family anda nd other systemsabsorb adeterioratinglife .A power to fundbelow there need cannotbe amendedinto safety ; thesepower itself is problem , annd missing element isthe published evidence base has never been requiredto have.### Directing integrity powers at bad actors,n otatther ordinary participantTheBill’sintegrityarchitecture broadens who counts as providercreates wide monitoring investigationanda nd penaltypowersextends information-gatheringrecord-keeping obligations (Schedule 2 Part item3section section 73ZSA± ZSM includinginspector s investigator sat section SK civilpenaltyitem53(3)information recordpow ers in Schedule Parts). The difficultyisnot integritymatters —itdoesfraud occursbut the architecture treatsparticipant compliance subject rather than person scheme exists serve A co-designed reform would direct integrity powers precisely genuine wrongdoing distinguishingbad actor fromordinary participant andfromthe participants directed arrangement sothatschemes integrity secured without auditing entire population disabled people risk managed This answer Government Integrity claim Movement VI claim6:2 badactorproblemparticipan tproblem same problem system designs its standards audits worst case drive careful personspecific arrangements keep safe breadth of powerscannot beamended away rebuilding conception beneath them.

Preserving full independent merits review, and requiring transparency over automated outcomesNo single provision Bill abolishesindependentmeritsreview degradation cumulative” death thousand cuts collection described exactly that not overstated decisions removed setincluding reassessment-decision category struck table; time Agency act on request extended easing internal pathway toward ninety days largest changes automatic renewalFlynn & Gregory joint submission Page

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under section 50A, and group reductions under section 34A –-are made to operate by force of law, so there’s no reviewable decision at all (the note for Section 59B confirms this; specifically: Section 50A(4)(b) states renewal isn’t reviewable; suspension remains so under Section 99(item) as does collection. The substance survives but methodically hollows out because budgets must be worked according to rules applied on needs-assessment reports ( cf Schedule sections). a reviewer can direct re-running methods not substitute figures.) Above it permits plans/budgets including evaluative judgements normally requiring decisions generated via computer program deemed an administrative action of CEO nominally reviewable (Schedule Part item). A co-designed reform would preserve full independent merits reviews affecting participants’ funding require transparency wherever outcomes are automated means participant knows how why reached test outcome answers Government’s claims fairness transparently reviewed efficiency through automation claim VI claim .8 The Robodebt Royal Commission warned judicial review uncertain recommended clear pathway systems designed with human agency centre accepted those recommendations. This moves opposite way barely two years later Legal concern scholars’ the Commission’s submission rule direction travel couplet literalised lesson accepted legislated against area carries weight others do loss fair transparancy and automating unreviewable decisions mechanism locks rest Procedural multiplier remove know correct every other reduction Bill makes heavier irreversible amendment deeming provision label decision reasoning exists scrutinise Pricing for country as actually is local thin-market realities Empowers Minister set maximum payable amounts Agency prohibited paying providers charging above them (cf Sched Part item section read with ). Where maxima national benchmarks assume metropolitan supply chains fail thinner markets average regional rural remote Australia where scarce Supply clinicians trained workers Reform requires pricing reflects actual costs realities thin market availability treating structural feature

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of an Australia-wide scheme rather than as a residual category of difficult cases. In operative terms, those means price settings able recognising higher real cost delivering support in regional rural remote areas any market where workers clinicians scarce so participant funding actually purchase describes rather exists paper The point reaches right secure: The Convention’s guarantee life community choosing empty for whose community no provider willing work national prices quietly confines those participants wherever happens thick this answers government consistency fairness Movement VI clai sustainability claim: national does exist neither consistent nor fair to participant while reverse true Price-setting power exercised wrong assumption not corrected amending it is correcting designing country serves

Protecting self-management —‘self-direction-of-support Although provision abolishes self management or direction registration separation penalty information record-keeping around plan management provisions Schedule Part items sections and section read integrity architecture above For many participants people with high complex needs particular participant safer roster-driven cannot co-designed reform would preserve selfmanagement, selfdirection direct employment worker legitimate properly funded supported delivery models protect the who train supervise these protections are ordinary regulatory work committed participant has left undone documented competency expectations match practice clinical-governance pathways practitioner can rely indemnification arrangements do load entire professional risk onto individual clinician quality-and-safeguards rules recognise accommodate model treating regulatory residual Where specific training should be person-specific too must choose home This Government safeguarding quality Movement VI claim 6.6 flexibility through rules (claim regulation target unsafe without destroying safe individualised conflating two produces exactly displacement that Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page

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hollowed the worker-delivered clinician-trained model out. Amendment can’t reach because constraint’s cumulative effect from integrity design imagining participant at risk.

Building safety with harm minimisation early intervention continuity through hospital oversight measuring outcomes Three further areas Part7 in Flynn’s analysis belong replacement shape because they go whether:

safety: Co-designed reforms name harm minimisation zero-risk avoidance operating principle schemes’ regime invest front-loading early intervention allied health professions practised half century designing standards audits around person safer institution insulated Second, hospital continuity Continuity-of-support test replace automatic withdrawal disability supports admission so where those necessary for support communication daily living prevention deterioration cannot deliver them continue burden justification falling on continuation When System Forgets Listen explains why matters concretely person whose disability supports stripped upon admission loses workers know how communicate eat signal pain keeps safe moment most vulnerable least able advocate themselves and hospital built acute clinical care rarely equipped supply that knowledge place Continuity of support during an admission therefore not funding convenience but a measure, some cases survival depends Third oversights reformed regimes would measure things matter to participants life people are safe housed supported continuously free unmet need control who enters home participate contribute foresee preventable harm under co-monitoring discipline data collected interpreted community made available independent scrutiny These answer Government claims safeguard quality Movement VI claim 6.6 securing scheme future generations (claim 6.5) system measures only administratively visible accumulates decade evidence still can’t read it while protects institutions by controlling into congregated settings has misunderstood danger lies None this amendment work is asking the scheme measuring keep safe lives rather ledger Genuine Co-design as Discipline Whole Reform Turns On Last area governing hinge entire recommendation Flynn’s analysis sets out genuine Co-design sentiment

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recognised professional discipline with an established structure: eight tenets, bound by one governing principle. Five track the lifecycle of a reform – co-ideation, the shared authorship, of the ideas themselves before the solution space is narrowed; co-design, a genuine share in how the system is built; co-authorship, the community’s hand in the actual text of the instruments, rules, and assessment tools; co-implementation, carrying that authority through into delivery so a sound design cannot be quietly undone at the operational layer; and co-monitoring, the publicly scrutable performance data without which code-sign is a one-off event rather than a living practice. Three are conditions that must hold across the whole lifecycle: – co-equal, replacing the funder’s unilateral veto with genuine shared decision-making;— code-ownership, continuing stake as scheme own; & co-consent recognition consent to operate ongoing not deemed once point access. Together they disability movement demand nothing about us without us requires when taken seriously as design discipline rather slogan.Areform this way include people high complex needs main rooms where decisions made separate working group consulted margin,and regional rural remote culturally linguistically diverse First Nations low-socioeconomic perspectives outset.It proceed depth code-design require budget cycle it build foundational supports sequence change participant-facing reductions — after them.The collection presses Committee strongest possible ground Government’s own.Community reservations Independent Review NDIS documented well founded growth cap set National Cabinet before reported prominence largest providers, design called for but honoured largely absence submission does assert Review captured impug anyone served aside takes word.Review itself required genuine code- development recommendations implemented “as package over five-year transition period,” and availability of foundational supports stated precondition reform national peak body records confirmed start date those supports guarantee in place other changes take effect.If even government’s own Review insisted on genuine code-and-on-supports-reductions Bill proceeds first reverses second cannot be defended faithful delivery Review—it can’t be made by amendment because thing missing process which begin until predetermined outcome withdrawn. That hinge restated plainly true code-must consider every path forward; code-forecloses that freedom; withdrawal therefore the pre-condition co-code, not ask.Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 354

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topics:

• areas above are what such a process would be likely to recover. indicating substance never substitute itself. case more forcefully than recommendation alone each keyed different operative part bill: access gateway planning principle budget method reduction ratio powers forfeiture suspension mechanisms integrity information power pricing settings review architecture self-directed support safety regime relationship with hospital system describes change cannot reached rewriting provision premise expresses demonstration list built make measure whose every load-bearing foundation refined amendment replaced design territories genuine reform will cover direction it travel instrument co-design first recommendation asks Committee possible step producing withdraw now foreclosing it. part conclusion warning Parliament must hear

What this collection has established

This collection made argument end better described record assembled case constructed began couplet claim systems which forget people they serve cause harm nations history repeat and carried both through scheme testimony those live inside findings institutions Commonwealth convened provisions before parliament four complete works centre reproduced whole unedited authority lies read authors wrote account from inside happens when stops listening three close studies decision logic shared-support economics community-participation changes regression actually being delivered eleven Movements set present in long history gives meaning tested Government’s defence of its claims by named risks remain even though every is set aside that record establishes single complaint but convergence. The measures central concept access regime something disability Convention says not disability removes law principles placed participant at their own plan installs place instead.

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We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026 oriented to the scheme’s cost.

It inverts the test of what is reasonable and necessary, so that the budget governs the need rather than the need governing the budget.And it builds its planning, it’s caps and ratios, it’s forfeitures, it’s suspensions,and its enforcement.on those altered foundations.These are.not separable defects.to be weighed one against another;they are facets.of.one failure.and.the.collection.has shown.from the institutions’own evidence—that the.failure.is foreseeable.in its harm.false-in its sustainability arithmetic.,and contrary-to-the direction-of.The.Government’s-own Review The.scheme-that was built.-to give people lifetime certainty,genuine choice-and control,,and a realistic chance -of an ordinary life-.in_the community.would,-under this.Bill,be reoriented.around its own.budget-as .the controlling principle.with.participants.reduced-from the.authors_of their.plans_to the.subjects.of.an assessment.that cannot see.their lives.they actually lead.Stated.at the.level.of the.whole collection.five.findings.carry.the argument..The.Bill.places the_budget.before the person.where,the.sscheme_was_built-to place.the.person.first.It.recreates,.in contemporary_and.administrative.form,the.conditions.of.the institutional.past.the.country.spent.decades.dismantling. It will cause.harm that is not.speculative but.foreseeable.documented,_and_in_part.already visible in.the.record Its.public.justifications.do_not survive being.tested.against.the scheme’s design.against.itss.history.against.the.evidence.against.current.practice,and against.the Government’s_own.Review And.none of.this.is_an.argumentagainst reform:a.rights-based participant-led.reform_that_is sustainable_without regression.remains both possible and.necessary.Everything.across-the eleven.Movements.and_the four.works.is,in_the.end.in.service-of those five findings-and they.converge.every one -of them.on the.same conclusion.about what should.now be done

What-is at stake It.is worth saying plainly.what.is_at_stake.because .the public framing_of.the_reform.has trained. The country’s attention_on.one set_of.numbers—the cost_of.the.scheme,its rate_of_growth.,itsshare_of.The_Budget—and almost none on.another.which.is the.set_of human consequences,the.reform.will produce..The numbers.that.matter_forwhat.followsis.not measured-in billions.of dollars.They are.measured-people People.whose.plans.will.fall_below-.level.at which their.lives.can_be.sustained_safely.-in-community_people.pushed,-againsttheir.preference_and_against_country’s own settled.view_of.best practice.into congregated.arrangments.where.harm has_been.formally documented_to_concentrate people who will lose,at_the renewal_of.a plan,.funding for.equipment.already approved_and-on its way_People whose.supports_are suspended because.the.system.could_not reach_them.People.prevented_from ever.entering-the scheme-because_a gateway.calibrated.to_the wrong thing_cannot see.them.Family memberswho_will leave_paid_work-to provide.full-time care,and_whose.security-will erode_in_proportion to the.years they spend_doing it.On_the Government’s_own announced.timetable,thefirst of

Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 356

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these consequences arrives ahead of the rest: the community-participation budgets begin to reset downward from late 2026, and the Bill’s budget-reduction and plan-suspension powers commence in law on the first of October 2026 – before the new framework, before the new eligibility rules, and before the foundational supports that were meant to catch the people the changes displace. The cuts move first. The scale on which this will operate is not hidden; it sits in the Government’s own projections and in the modelling done around them. The reform is designed to reduce the number of people the scheme supports from around 760,000 today to around 600,000 by the end of the decade -on the order of 160,000 fewer people- with no public account of who loses their place or how that is to be decided. The average community-participation plan is set to fall from about $31,000 to about $26,000. Independent modelling commissioned by the sector puts the effect on the disability workforce in the order of 200,000 jobs. These are the figures the public conversation has mostly passed over ;and behind each of them is the human figure the collection has kept in view throughout —the participant whose support is the thing that stands between them and the harm the rest of this submission has documented. What is at stake ,in other words,is not an administrative arrangement but a generation’s worth of ordinary lives – home,safety,participation,dignity,and for some participants the continuity of support on which breathing itself depends.Thesearenot luxuries；theyaretheconditions citizenshipforthepopletheschemeexists tobring into citizenship.They will not survive the contraction int its present form，an d th epeople wh o lose t hem w ill n ot b eturnedtothembyanylater inquiryor future reform.The losses ，once accepted ،a re durable² anda nd they ar emade more durable stillb yt he same Bill’s treatmento f review.When tlhe largest reductionsar arrangedtotakeeffectbyeoperationolaw, w ithnod ecisiontoc hallenge, an dw hen tdh ed cisionsthat remain areproducedby amethodaresviewercanonly ask to be \re-run,theordinary means bywhich awrongis foundanda putrighti s i tsel fnarrowed.Procedural fairness,as ther ebuttalput it,i sthemultiplier:removethemeansto knowand\contestadecision,a devery reduction beneath itbecomesno only heavierbut harder toreverse. That is whythe timing matters as much asthesubstance , andwhyaharm scheduled to arrive aheadofits own safeguardsisan harm that canbesafely allowedton begin.

The false choice the reform asks the country to acceptThe reform ist defended through a particular framing,andtha tf raming shouldbenamed an dr efused.T hel ountry ise being asked,repeatedly,toacceptth at there isachoice tobemade between sustainabilityandrigh t s – th atthescheme cannotbebothfiscallyresponsiblean dfaithful

t o its founding promise，a n dt hatresponsibilitymustthereforecomefirst.Thisispresenteda sa hard-headed acknowledgment of constraint ，ando nthosewho objectarecastasa

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unwilling to face the realities of public finance. The collection refuses the framing, and it has suppli edthe grounds on which to refuseit.A scheme whose contraction predictably forces participants into the settings th e Royal Commission identifiedas most harmful doesnot become sustainable;itis increasesthecountry’slargest single categoryof disability-relatedcost. A schemethatmovesitsworkforceonto income supportand itsparticipants’carersouto f paid workhasno tsavedmoney;i tshasshiftedcostfromoneBudgetlineto others .Aschemethatabandonstheparticipant-centredprinciplestha tmad esmeasurablegainsin workforce participationpossiblewill not preserve those gains ; i twill reverse them.Sustainability , properly understood,is capacity o fa systemtokeepdeliveringon its purposeover time,and aschemethatdestroysthelivesitwasfundedt enableh a s no tbecome可持续的。It ha sbecomesome thingelse,wearing sustainability’s name.Genuine sustainabilit y anda faithful delivery oft rightsarenotinopposed in thisscheme；theyaresame setchoicesmadewell， an dthesam choices madepoorly arewhatproduceboth fiscal wastea ndhuman harm。 Thereis,inany case,a more disciplined accountofsustainabiltyavailable ，an dcountr ya lreadyowns it. The schema wasdesignedbythe ProductivityCommissionasa insurance modelwhose fundingwasedeliberatelyinsulated from the annual budget cycle,precisely so that supportswouldtrack assessed needrather thanthefiscal weatherofagiven year ² and th e Commissionwarnedthat tyingtheseschema to short-termbudget pressureor holdingits spendingtoa predetermined pathwhile needs grew wouldundermine then verythingitis built todo.A reform thatsubordinatesneedtoastarget isnot amoresustainable version of that design;iti sa departurefromi tanditreintroducestherisktheriginal architecturewa sc onstructe dto remove .Sustainabilityo f ther kindthesthesem epromised ish achieved by investing early ,preventing deterioration,and keeping peoplein them community where supportisc heapesttosustainover alife— notbycapping what thesecheme provides a n db absorbingthen larger cost elsewhere. The assumption beneaththedecades Ther ea questiontheselectionhas circledfro m its first Movementtoit s last， an ditmustbe put directlybeforethead end.Whydoesthispatternrecur?Whyacrossverydifferent governments anda ndecad esanda ndlabels,d oesdisabilitypolicykeeparrivingatthesameplace — more control b y systems ，more suspicionoft h epeoplethe systemsserve,m ore standardisation, morecongregation,a nda steady willingnesstotreat the autonomyod disabledpeop leas conditional？The answer thiscollection hasreachedisno ta ny particular governmenth asacted inbad faith, andthesubmissionha sb een careful throughout no to claimthat it ha. Theansweristhat be neathchanging language sit a recurring institutionalassumption ²an assumptio nabout th ecostofdisabledlives,the limits of

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disabled people’s contribution, and the conditional nature of their freedom –andthatthe assumption survives every changeof label because it ist never named,and so isn ever refused. Thisisanewobservation , an dthefirstMovemento fthiscollectionsetout thelongversion o fit :t heasylumsandinstitutionsthecountrybuiltan dan then,afterdecadesanda greatdealoff documenteddamage,resolvedtoclose ;thesegregatedsettingsa RoyalCommissionhasonly recentlyexaminedagain;therecurringdiscovery–mad e,forgottenandan made again—thatdisabledpeoplearenotrenderedsafebybeingmanaged outordinarylife .Thepatternisthecouplet’sfirstclausewrittenacrossacentury:ananationforgettingatintervalsalessonith adalreadypaidinfullof learn.Whatmakesthepresentmomentdifferent isonl y this— thatlessonishownheldinthecountryst owncommissionedrecords,set downinevidencetheadministrativeCommonwealthitselfgatheredandsosoavailabletoberememberedbeforeharmrather thanafteri t. Flynn’saccountoft hiscollectionputsthatrecognitionbetterthanthecollection’so n voice can ， anda ndidson invoiceofsomeonewritingfrominsideconsequences.The submissionlet st stand,unedited，astherefl ectiveclimax ofeverythingthat hascomebefore。

Oneofthemost sobering things about thissubmissionistha tinmanyrespects , itahas assembled itself.

Thatisanotbecausetheargumentha sen easytowrite.It ha sn ot.I ti s because the evidence hass requiredvery little reaching.Againandag ain,the same pattern appears :systemsd esignedinn ournamebut notwithus ;reformspresenteda ssafety,sustainabilityor modernisation,bu texperiencedasa restrictionstandardisa tionexclusion andrisk;language thatspeak sofrightsanda choice while policysettingsmovepeopleback towarddependency,congregation,andinstitutionall ogic .

Thatshouldtellusthe mething.

Itshould tell us th atproblem isnotonlyonebaddecision one flawed Bill onepoorly designedrule oroneministerialmisstep.Thedeeper problemistheset o fassumptions that keeps reappearingbeneaththesurface: assumptionsabouttheco斯塔disabledlives,t helimits ofourn contribution ,thenconditionalnatureoff ounfreedom ， an dthemeantothewhichour rights canbe compromisedforconvenienceofs ystems,markets，budgetsandgovernments. > I donott needto pretend Icanreadtheadvate thoughts ofindividualministers parliamentarianspartiesorp ow erbrokers.Id cannot.But systemsrevealth eir assumpti ons throughthechoicestheykeepmaking.Acrosssuccessive governmentsoppositions crossbenchvoicesan dpoliticalmovementsofverydifferentideologicalflavours,the patternisdifficulttomiss.Whenpressurebuilds theproposedanswerisanalmostalwaysreturn to olderpowerstructures：morecontrolbygovernment morecontro byproviders,moresuspiciontowardparticipantsm orerestrictionchoice morer standardisationmor segregationstealth andmorewillingnesstotreat disabledpeople’sautonomyas conditional . That isthegroupthinkthat matters.Nottherivatebel iefofanyone Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page359

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politician but the recurring institutional assumption that disabled people with complex needs are safest cheapest most manageable when our lives organised others That assumption sat underneath disability policy decades It has changed language many times labels schemes ministers departments slogans underlying logic remains painfully familiar Different parties may dress argument differently Some call sustainability some safety fraud control market stewardship returning basics But practical result restore same power structures disabled have spent fighting escape label matters direction travel You can’t read contents another person’s mind learn great deal from company they keep positions repeatedly defend structure choose preserve rights of disabled on line Cruelty systems forget Society eventually rediscover should never forgotten There inquiry commission report apology national moment shame For those forced live consequences including me reckoning come too late The couplet closed and what is asked Committee Where whole argument leading where closes When system forgets it was built harmed not risk record already written Nation lessons own history relearns falls will see Collection exists lesson need be hard way second Commonwealth holds records commissioned paid evidence Institutional this leads does confirm Remember only sense counts act possible budgets reset suspensions begin submission about moved quietly scale out scheme build made Memory arrives harm memory Apology collection first Movement showed country had make form or before once more Therefore ends began single request addressed directly hands legislation sits Case across collection product ill will Bill flawed foundations measure cannot repaired amendment flaw provision could reach We ask the Committee recommend National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing NDIS Future Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 360

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Generations) Bill 2026 be withdrawn, and that the Government begin in its place a genuine, end-to-end co-design of NDIS reform with the disability community – conducted across the eight tenets this collection has set out, free to consider every path forward, and built on the understanding that withdrawal is the precondition for that process to be real. The community system has done its part: it has gathered the record, and laid it before Parliament What remains is oldest question democratic life what country chooses do have The people most exposed to that choice already told Parliament they need Only left whether time will heard while still matters.

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• funding insulated from the budget cycle) and co-design, funding preconditions attached.

• Royal Commission into Violence Abuse Neglect Exploitation People With disability Final Report unanimous finding concentration harm congregated group-home settings; estimated annual societal cost that harm order $46 billion); mortality avoidable-death analysis.

• Robodebt Scheme 2023 report Australian Government Response November 2023 uncertainty judicial review automated decisions recommended clear pathway transparency recommendation such systems built human agency centre together government acceptance recommendations doctrinal gap identified scholars A Huggins Y-F Ng M O’Sullivan reference Pintarich v Deputy Commissioner Taxation [2018] FCAFC; reported experts’ commission’s concern not this submission own legal ruling.

• Independent Review of NDIs Working Together to Deliver (7 December) requirement its recommendations implemented single package five-year transition foundational-supports precondition call for co-design read with Agreement Foundational Supports and peak body note no start date confirmed. See Appendix F, crosswalk a fortiori.)

• Australian Government announcement Hon Mark Butler MP National Press Club April fact sheet automation described processing claims payments announced timetable projected reduction around participants decade average community-participation plan about workforce effect in jobs).

• NDIS Amendment Securing the Future Generations Bill Act proposed amended clause references pinned Appendices B CLAUSE_KEY.md particularly ss d), , 9B, A, B,, (1A) and (3B)-(3E), L, EA and EB,), F), (K)), 45C,,, E-(2A)-( AE), EA EB C ZSA-ZSM item ; commencement table at s .

Convention on Rights Persons Disabilities Article right live independently included Community Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page

References

Harvard (author±date) referencing. Sources are consolidated from all wrapper components. Legislation, cases, to international instruments follow standard Harvard treatment for legal materials.The four works reproduced as Attachments A-Dare listed firstas primary materialsof thissubmission.

Submission attachments(primarymaterials)

• Flynn, D., Whenthe System Forgetsto Listen, AttachmentAtonthissubmisson.*
• Gregory, P., Considerationsfor Preparinga Plan Review Report,AttachmentBtotothissubmission.*
• GregoryP*.Commissioning “SIL”andtherisk ofReinstitutionalisation(SIL Commissioning Analysis), AttachmentCtotthonssubmission
• Gregory, P., Social,Economicanda ndCommunity Participation Changes,Attachmen tDtotonthis subm ission .*

Legislation anda ndBills

National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (C th). NationalDisabilityInsuranceSchemeAmendment( SecuringthenDISI Sf orFuture Gener ations)Bill 2026(Ct h). Disabilit yServicesAct 1986 Ct h.) Commonwealth Sheltered Employment(A ssistance )Ac t 1967 C th.). Cases NojinvCommonwealth[ [2] FCAFC.192.] Pintarich v Deputy Commissioner o f Taxation[ ]F CA FC .79.Internationalinstruments Convention on the Rightsof Persons with Disabilities, opened for signature March 2007 , UNTS redactedentered into force May 2008)(CRPD’), adopted by UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/ /106, December 2006; Australia ratified July 2008.See in particular Article living independently and being included community);Australia’s interpretative declarations to Articlesand18.(2008).* Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page:Page*363

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Government, inquiry, and parliamentary sources

• Australian Government Response to Royal Commissions:
  • Robodebt Scheme November
  • Violence against people w/disability Commonwealth Australia
• CRPD materials from Human Rights Comm.
• ALRC report Equality Capacity in Commonwealth Laws: Report No.[ALRC Rep][1]
• Mark Butler’s address at National Press Club[MarkButlerAddress][2] (April)[date_2026_april]
• Department Health, Disability Ageing Securing Future Generations Fact Sheet[NDISFactSheet][3]: - Commonwalth of Australia
• Federal Financial Relations Agreement on Foundational Supports[FFRAgreement][4], commenced February(Commenced date)’
• Burdekin Report by HREOC[BurdekinReport][5]
• Independent Review Final Report on the NDINS[IndependentReviewFinalReport][6]. B. Bonyhady & L Paul Co-Chairs
• NDIS Quality Safeguards Commission Own Motion Inquiry into supported accommodation and consultations separating Supported Independent Living Specialist Disability Accommodation[NdisQualitySafeguardCommissionInquiry][7] — Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page 364

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New South Wales Parliamentary Library and Legislative Council records on the history of mental health inquiries in New South Wales:

• Tarban Creek: 1846;
• Commission Inquiry Report No.: 1855;
• Royal Commissions Nos.: 1923; 1961;
• Richmond Report: 1983, Barclay Report: 1988, Burdekin Report: 1993. Productivity Commission report “Disability Care and Support”, Inquiry Report No., Commonwealth of Australia [date not specified]. The Richmond Report into Health Services for Psychiatrically Ill Developmental Disabilities, D.T.Richmond (author), NSW Government publication date unknown.[Note] Royal Commission Into Robodebt Scheme, Final Report, Commonwealth Of Australia, established year unspecified, final report issued September 27th [[year]], volumes totalled to twelve with recommendations totaling two hundred twenty-two.[[Reference]][[Source]]. Books articles scholarly works Bigby C et al. 2024 ‘A flawed model or weak implementation? A critical review of approach group homes taken by Disability Royal Commission’. Charlton J.I. 1998 Nothing About Us Without Us : Disability Oppression Empowerment University California Press. Grattan Institute Better safer more sustainable How reform NDIS housing support. Lamb H R Deinstitutionalisation homeless mentally ill. Monk L Henderson D et al Failed Ambitions Kew cottages changing ideas intellectual disabilities; the kew cottages history project La Trobe Victoria Universities oral collection years between zero five eight. Oliver M The Politics Disablement Macmillan. Union Physically Impaired Against Segregation UPIAS Fundamental Principles disability [date not specified]. Sector peak body and reference sources Ability First Australia materials provider alliance Alliance20 market stewardship agenda collective large providers including Life without Barriers Endeavour Foundation Cerebral Palsy Alliance Aruma Flynn Gregory joint submission Page:365

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill 2026

Submission: We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026 Australian Disability Enterprises peak body ‘A brief history Australian Disability Enterprises’. Australian Federation for Disability Organisations materials on Australia’s ratification CRPD. Community Visitor Scheme materials Disablity Support Guide Department Social Services / Health Community Visitors Review New South Wales Official data. eMelbourne Intellectual Disability.’ Find Connect Inquiry into Health Psychiatrically Ill Developmental Disabled’ Inclusion ADE Snapshot. Inner Sydney Voice unfunded community-replacement failure. National Disability Services market stewardship material. one Door Mental Deinstitutionalisation in Australia’ People with Disability latest changes 19 April; Wage Justice Campaign materials Starting Julius supported-employment wages University Technology Remembering disability institutions Peat Island Stockton Tomaree Lodge Victoria Research Repository Imprisoned State Care Life inside Kew Cottages 1925–2008.

News and commentary The Conversation Government response to Royal Commission Guardian coverage of Government’s NDIS reform announcement, 22 April MyCareSpace Coverage of Disability Royal Commission SBS News Coverage of the Disability Royal Commission Response. Flynn & Gregory joint submission Page

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Team DSC, ‘Timeline of NDIS changes’ and related coverage of the Disability Royal Commission response and Community Visitor schemes. Clause-level provisions of the Bill and the NDIS Act are pinned in full at Appendix B (clause map) and Appendix F (the Bill measured against the NDIS Review). The doctrinal concern regarding the reviewability of automated decisions is identified by A.Huggins\u201d and Y-F.Ng M.O’Sullivan
by reference to Pintarich v Deputy Commissioner of Taxation [2018] FCACF (79), annd bythheRoyalCommissiion into theroRobodebtScheme; it is reportedin thissubmission as those experts’ annd that Commission’sconcern, notas then submission’s own legal conclusion. Flynn & Gregory - joint submssioon Page367

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Submission: We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

Appendix B – Clause map of the Bill

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

Submission to the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs - Daniel Flynn and Peter Gregory This map indexes the Bill provision-by-provision and shows where each is addressed in the submission. The four works and rebuttal prosecute substantive measures; this confirms that every Part, Schedule accounted for, marks provisions picked up by Movements I-VI’s completeness passes. References are amended from NDIA Act unless Schedules amend ’Getting Back On Track No1’Act 2024. Commencement: The bill commences staggeredly with participant-facing measures starting first at October 1st; eligibility-tightening starts January next year.The full table follows below:

Schedule 1 Access & planning measures

|Part | Key Provisions | What it does(plain language)| Commences | Addressed In | Status| |- |- |- |- |- | Pt. Defining Functional Capacity | new s9B:sss 24-25 | Defines functional capacity as a person’s ability without assistance and excluding environmental/personal circumstances methods left rules.|7th day after RA |Flynn analysis Pt:6 Movement VI rec|Movement VIII rec covered pass| pT Limit Unscheduled Plan Reassessments | ss32B-C-K(3A)-L-34 | Restricts when participants may obtain unscheduled reassessment of plans.|7th day after RA |Plan Review paper(Mov III); IX compl-pass|completeness-pass| Pt Strengthen Impairment-Support Link |ssK-L(6), -34 | Tightens required connection between impairment/funded support.|7th day after RA |Movement VI completeness pass|pass complet- class=

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Expands information-gathering powers.| The day after RA | Movements Vl 6:2/6:6; IX completeness pass | Passes completion- passes Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass| Pt 1 - Decision-making on pricing | s (33(2F) + Pricing provisions | Alters how prices and pricing arrangements are decided| Day the law is passed | SIL paper Movement IV; Movement VI 6.11; Movement VIII rec | Covered | Pt 4 - Retention of records | ss5A, etc.| Imposes record-retention obligations. Expands information-gathering powers.| The day after RA | Movements Vl completeness pass | Passes completion- passes Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass| Pt 7 - Reducing claim times | s (45A(5)) etc. | Shortens window in which claims for payment may be made| December the first year of law passed | Flynn’s analysis Pt6; Movement VI; IX completeness passes | Passes completions-pass | Pt8 - Registered plan management providers | ss9(def); etc. etc.; insert Division: 59B-59D | Creates a registration regime forsplan-management-providers.| By Proclamation (“› months) | SIL/price framing Movement Vl 6,11;IX completeness pass | Passes completion- passes Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass Passes completions-pass| Pt A - Automation of administrative action | inserts Divisions 5: sss (59B±59D)| Authorises computer programs to take administrative actions, including discretionary and evaluative decisions under procedure| The day after RA | Flynn’s analysis Pt.7; Movement VI 6.7/6.8; VIII rec | Covered |

Schedule III Governance arrangements

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Schedule 4 – New framework planning

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Plain-language descriptions use original wording and are deliberately short (copyright discipline). The clause-by-clause argument is carried by the four works and Movement VI; this map is the index, not the analysis. Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page:Page~372

Appendix F - The Bill measured against the NDIS Review

Submission: Submission to the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs – Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Daniel Flynn and Peter Gregory

Purpose of this appendix

This appendix exists to make one argument unavoidable, and it makes it on the Government’s own terms. Much of the disability community does not accept the Independent Review of the NDIS as its own document. It points to the eight per cent growth cap that National Cabinet imposed in April 2023 — months before the Review reported — to the prominence of the largest providers and their peak bodies in the process, and to the co-design the Review called for but which has since been honoured largely in its absence. Those concerns are set out in section 7 of the submission and they are well founded. The tables below show that it does not. The Bill departs from the Review’s guardrails on sequencing, foundational-supports precondition, protection of existing participants; and runs counter to needs-based individualised support toward a community-based approach with conditions that would be prohibited under those review criteria.

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F.1 – How reform must be done: the Review’s process guardrails,

and the Bill

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Submission 1922

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F. What reform must protect:

The Review’s substantive direction,

And what does this mean for our scheme?

The NDIS Review’s design was continuous with its original structure from the year 2011. It focused on planning based around an individual participant’s needs.

• Introduces a method that calculates each participant budget using functional assessment approach; A shift away from individually determined reasonable-and-necessary support to standardised allocation where assessed need becomes dependent variable while funding shifts become more independent ones. Cross-reference: €€0RYHPHQW, €€6.3,€€6.4(substance of s.31) displaced; environment and LPSDLUPHQWLQJH model). Rebuild supports within shared settings, SIL/SDAs arrangements and reduce reliance upon segregated congregate provision as they make it easier path towards least resistance. Against both the ecosystem aim and Royal Commission segregation finding, which warns about default assumptions without published safety evidence base or housing separated from support.) Strengthen integrity in participants’ interests by targeting genuine wrongdoing but preserving access full merits review under new system. Integrity powers are not directed only at bad actors rather than all participants and providers burdened thereby, and Government has confirmed participants retain full access to independent merit reviews despite changes made through Sch 2 Pt registration & civil penalties/commissioner power (ss 73ZDA±73ZP, 80±114).

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| Element | What the Bill does | The order that Review required | The departure | |-|-|-| | Parts 3B/3C); Pt 3 info-gathering; Sch 3 Pt 2 automation of administrative action incl. evaluative judgements(ss59B±59D,s(4)) - review preservedonly in form(s ((11)).] | Employment) Sustainability pursued through insurance discipline, foundational supportsand shared Commonwealth-State accountability, sequenced over five years.| A growth capwas setbyNational Cabinetin April tightened to a targetof roughlyper centgrowth withthe scheme projectedto fallfrom aroundparticipantsbylend ofthedecade.Thefinancialanswer wasfixed first.| Established and workingfirst, as explicit preconditionfor participant-pathway reform.National Agreement on Foundational Supportscommenced February 2026supports stillbeing designed onlypartly funded dependenton State Territory agreements met warilyno confirmed start date or guarantee they will be inplace before other changes take effect.] Protected,and reformed-onlyas part-of sequenced.supports-first package.Reset downward from late 2026 average plans-in this area-to-fall about $31 ,$26 ahead new framework,the-new eligibility rules the-foundational-supports.After foundational supports.as-part-the-package.with-disruption minimised.Operationally delayed-1April because-on Government’s own account.the-system-was not ready more design work needed-an admission precisely Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page 377

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

| Element | The order the Review required | The order as actually scheduled | |-|-| ||the unreadiness the Review’s\sequencing rule existed to prevent. (The enabling provisions, Sch 4, nonetheless commence 7 days after
Royal Assent: the legal architecture is\ switched on at once, the rollout \staged.)| |Eligibility (access)|Stable for existing participants; any change sequenced behind the supports.|Diagnosis-based access replaced by standardised functional-capacity assessments(Sch l Pt I,s 9B), with permanence and other-services tightening(Sch IPts 8±9) commencing [January] [2028]-determining who keeps or gains a place in the scheme.| |The result|Supports precede and cushion thechange.|The reductionsprecedethesupports:\budget methodand plan-suspension regimecommencelOctober 2026,the contraction oftheschemeis setin train,andtheprecondition isneither built nor guaranteedto arrivebefore thechanges takeeffect.|

TheReviewbuilt thesequencingrulefor areasonthat thehistoryinthissubmissionmakes plain:i precisely“withdraw first,replacelater”pattern²embraced closures,u nfunded replacement² thatproducedtheworst failuresofthe deinstitutionalisation era † it isthe patterntha leavestheadividual tofall through th egap tha opensint between.The timetableabove reproducesthat patter nin thenex tgrammar thereviewtriedt forbid.

Conclusion

This crosswalkestablishstha fortiorion whichmucho fthese submissionturn s. Ifthere Billdepartedonly from whatthed isabilitycommunitywanted,ther eGovernmentcould answerthat reformrequires hardchoices.But therBilldepartsfrom them conditions they Government’s own review placed on itsown recommendationson sequencing,on\foundational-supportsp recondition ,ontoprotectinge xistingparticipants,a ndono co-design [and]f rom [that ]review’ssubstantivedirection toward needs-based,i ndividualised, community-basesupport.Itdoes so,m oreoveragainst thee unanimousfinding o fa Royal Commissionthatthesetting sthes Bill makes easierarethesesettingsinwhichdisabledpeople ar mostoftenharmed . Flynn & Gregory - jointsubmission Page 378

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

Submission 1922

We’ve Been Here Before — NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

A measure that even the Government’s own review, on its own terms, would not sanction cannot be characterised as the faithful delivery of that review. Nor can it be characterised as a return to the scheme’s original intent: that intent was defined in 2011 by the Productivity Commission as an insured, needs-based, choice-driven entitlement, deliberately insulated from the budget cycle (§), and this Bill moves in the opposite direction. On the Government’s own documents, read against one another, the Bill fails the test the Government itself set. And because much of this timetable cannot lawfully proceed unless the Bill is passed, the correspondence set out above is not academic; it describes what the Committee would be authorising.

This appendix is anchored on the published text of the NDIS Review (Working Together to Deliver the NDIS, 7 December 23*) and on the public reform timetable *(National Agreement on Foundational Supports, ‘2’–‘3’; The New Framework Planning commencement). The clause-by-clause substantiation of the Bill-side entries is provided in Appendix B (clause-map) and Movement VI (rebuttal of the Government’s justifications) with which this appendix should be read together.`

Flynn & Gregory — joint submission Page | 389