National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill, 2026
Submission: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill, 2026
MedTechVic Contribution to Proposed Legislative Reform Priorities
Executive Summary
MedTechVic welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Inquiry into proposed reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Act. As a health technology and innovation hub based at Swinburne University of Technology, MedTechVic works across assistive technology, rehabilitation, disability services, digital health, research translation, advanced manufacturing, and emerging technologies. Our work is undertaken in partnership with people with disability, clinicians, researchers, industry, vocational education providers, and government to improve participation, independence, and quality of life through innovation and evidence-informed practice.
MedTechVic supports reforms that strengthen the sustainability and consistency of the NDIS. However, legislative reform must remain person-centred, future-focused, and capable of supporting participation, innovation, and evolving technologies throughout a person’s lifespan. We are concerned that proposed functional assessment approaches risk embedding deficit-based models of disability and failing to recognise the important role of assistive technology, rehabilitation, environmental accessibility, communication supports, and social participation in shaping outcomes.
We recommend that the Act embed foundational supports within legislation, strengthen supported decision-making and communication safeguards, and explicitly recognise assistive technology as a key enabler of participation, independence, education, employment, and community inclusion. The legislation should also establish pathways for emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, digital health, smart assistive technologies, and immersive environments, ensuring that people with disability are not excluded from technological advances.
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Importantly, legislative reform should support Australian sovereign capability in disability technology, research translation, and advanced manufacturing. Current procurement and commissioning arrangements often discourage local innovation and create dependence on imported technologies. The Act should encourage innovation, support Australian SMEs, strengthen research translation pathways, and foster the development and adoption of high-quality, disability- inclusive technologies.
The future sustainability of the NDIS depends not only on financial stewardship but on creating a system that enables participation, supports innovation, builds workforce capability, and places people with disability at the centre of technological and societal change. Australia has a unique opportunity to become a global leader in inclusive technology and disability innovation, and legislative reform should ensure that this opportunity is realised.
Introduction
MedTechVic welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Inquiry into proposed changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Act and broader disability reform processes. MedTechVic is a Melbourne-based health technology and innovation hub based at Swinburne University of Technology, working across assistive technology, rehabilitation, disability systems, research translation, digital health, inclusive design, and emerging technologies. We work closely with people with disability and lived experience, clinicians, researchers, engineers, industry, vocational education, and government to co-design and evaluate technologies, supports, and service models that improve participation, independence, and long-term outcomes.
This submission focuses specifically on legislative and structural reform issues arising from the proposed changes to the NDIS Act, particularly:
- Functional assessment frameworks
- Foundational supports
- Supported decision-making
- Assistive Technology (AT) pathways
- Emerging technologies
- Workforce capability
- Sovereign capability in disability technology and manufacturing.
MedTechVic strongly supports reforms that improve long-term sustainability, equity, and consistency. However, legislative reform must ensure that disability support systems remain human centred, evidence informed, future-focused, and capable of supporting innovation and participation across a person’s lifespan.
Functional Assessment Frameworks Must Reflect Capability, Context, and Participation
MedTechVic is concerned that proposed legislative approaches to functional assessment may unintentionally embed deficit-based models of disability within the Scheme. Functional capacity is not static and cannot be adequately understood through narrow or standardised assessment tools alone.
A person’s participation and independence are shaped by multiple factors, in particular their access to assistive technology, rehabilitation and therapy, environmental accessibility, communication supports, digital inclusion, social supports and opportunities for participation.
A one-size-fits-all assessment tool risks failing to capture individual characteristics of participants, that are common to NDIS participants such as fluctuating conditions, cognitive and communication diversity, psychosocial complexity, environmental barriers, cultural context and the enabling role of technology and support systems.
We recommend that legislation around a functional assessment tool should ensure that assessment processes:
- Are flexible and person-centred
- Recognise participation potential rather than simply impairment
- Consider environmental and technological supports
- Allow for evolving goals and changing needs over time
The Act should explicitly recognise that functional capacity exists within the interaction between individuals, environments, supports, and technologies, rather than treating disability as a fixed limitation. Further this should be assessed over time, ensuring that changes in goals and needs are considered.
Ongoing Review Mechanisms
e Safeguards for individuals with complex communication, cognitive, psychosocial, or intellectual disability.
The legislation should also recognise that goals and aspirations evolve over time in response to people gaining access to assistive technology, targeted rehabilitation, appropriate communication supports, appropriate education, employment opportunities and inclusive participation environments.
A person’s ability to navigate bureaucracy should not determine their access to support. Having the ability to navigate bureaucracy also relates to participants’ family, as they provide support particularly as participants age into adulthood, middle and older age. The Act should ensure that assessment and planning processes remain relational, adaptive, and capable of recognising evolving human potential rather than relying solely on static administrative assessment points.
Foundational Supports Must Be Embedded Within Legislation
MedTechVic strongly support the development of foundational supports. However, we are concerned that foundational supports are currently being discussed primarily as policy mechanisms rather than legislated components of Australia’s disability support architecture. If foundational supports are intended to become a major part of disability reform, they must be clearly embedded within legislation with defined objectives, minimum service availability, expectations and workforce requirements. There also need to be mechanisms for accountability and transparent implementation responsibilities.
Without legislative recognition, there is substantial risk of inconsistent access across jurisdictions, fragmented delivery, inequitable accessibility and outcomes and unclear accountability. Foundational supports represent the original ‘Tier 2’ of the proposed scheme, which accounts for participants who are not supported by the original ‘Tier 1’ — thus, they are part of the NDIS, just not funded by the scheme. Foundational supports should include rehabilitation pathways, access to assistive technology and appropriate supports to implement that technology. Other elements that should be included in foundational supports include support for communication, including alternative mechanisms such as Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices, person supports, Auslan and tactile interpreters. Further elements of foundational supports should include system navigation support and pathways for community participation. Finally, an essential part of foundational supports are an appropriately trained workforce capability.
Importantly, no participant should lose access to supports until equivalent foundational systems demonstrably exist and are accessible in practice. Policy intent alone is insufficient.
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The legislation should require governments to demonstrate that foundational supports are operational, adequately funded, equitable between systems, geographically accessible, workforce-ready and capable of meeting participant needs before transition occurs.
Foundational supports should not exist merely as policy intent; they should be recognised, protected, and accountable within legislation.
The NDIS Act Must Better Recognise the Role of Assistive Technology
Assistive technology is fundamental to participation, communication, mobility, education, employment, safety, and independence. However, current legislative and policy settings often treat assistive technology primarily as a procurement category or cost item rather than as an enabling mechanism central to long-term outcomes and participation as per the principles of the NDIS act.
The legislation should explicitly recognise:
-e The role of assistive technology in enabling participation and reducing downstream costs
-e The importance of timely access
-e The need for independent advice and evidence-informed pathways
-e The role of assistive technology within prevention, functional maintenance, and long-term sustainability.
The Act should support participant choice, access to innovative technologies, evidence-informed decision-making, lifecycle approaches to equipment and flexible pathways for emerging technologies and custom solutions.
MedTechVic’ s applied research has identified situations where participants were unable to access clinically appropriate and cost-comparable technologies because systems relied on narrow supplier pathways and limited acceptance of alternative or emerging products. Legislative reform should ensure that the Scheme supports innovation, flexibility, and individualised outcomes rather than standardised procurement pathways alone.
Emerging Technologies Must Be Included Within Disability Reform
The NDIS Act must recognise the growing importance of emerging technologies in disability support, participation, and inclusion. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (Al), robotics, smart assistive technologies, immersive environments, communication technologies, digital health systems and adaptive personalised technologies are rapidly evolving but often designed without disability or inclusion involved. These technologies have enormous potential to improve participation, communication, mobility, independence, and quality of life. However, people with disability risk being excluded from these advances unless disability inclusion is intentionally embedded into legislative and funding frameworks.
Legislative Reform Should Support Sovereign Capability and Local Innovation
Australia has substantial expertise in assistive technology, rehabilitation, disability services, engineering, digital health, artificial intelligence, design, research translation and advanced manufacturing. However, current system settings and commissioning arrangements often prioritise short-term procurement and cost containment over long-term capability development, innovation and market sustainability. MedTechVic is concerned that the transactional commissioning of assistive technology, coupled with fragmented procurement approaches, suppresses innovation, weakens Australia’s sovereign capability and creates increasing dependence on imported technologies. As a result, Australian-developed technologies frequently struggle to reach scale, local manufacturers and Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) face significant barriers to market entry, and promising innovations either fail to progress beyond the research stage or are transferred to international partners. This weakens local research translation pathways, discourages investment in manufacturing and innovation, and ultimately constrains participant choice by limiting the availability of diverse, high-quality, locally developed solutions.
It also increases Australia’s dependence on international suppliers, many of whom operate outside Australian regulatory, quality assurance and consumer protection frameworks. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the vulnerability of global supply chains and highlighted the risks associated with excessive reliance on imported products. Current geopolitical uncertainty, increasing demand for assistive technologies, and the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence and digital health technologies further reinforce the need for Australia to strengthen sovereign capability in this sector.
The legislation should therefore recognise the importance of market stewardship and create pathways that support Australian innovation, research translation, manufacturing capability and disability-inclusive technology development. This includes mechanisms that encourage the
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development, evaluation and adoption of emerging technologies, support local small and medium enterprises, and facilitate rapid but safe translation of evidence-based innovations into practice.
Attention should be given to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, digital health, advanced mobility systems, communication technologies and smart assistive devices. Without deliberate policy support, people with disability risk being excluded from technological advances that are increasingly shaping education, employment, healthcare and community participation.
Procurement and commissioning frameworks should reward quality, outcomes, innovation, safety and long-term participant benefit, rather than focusing solely on lowest-cost purchasing. Such an approach would not only improve participant outcomes and expand choice and control but would also strengthen Australia’s capacity to develop and supply high-quality assistive technologies, reduce dependence on overseas markets, and support a sustainable pipeline of disability innovation for future generations.
The NDIS is one of Australia’s largest social and economic investments. Legislative reform should not only support individual participants, but also foster a sustainable, innovative and resilient disability support ecosystem capable of meeting future needs.
We therefore recommend that legislative reform explicitly support sovereign capability, research translation, disability-inclusive innovation, and pathways for emerging technologies to be safely developed, evaluated and adopted within the Australian disability ecosystem.
- Dedicated Legislative Pathways for Innovation and Translation Are Required
MedTechVic strongly supports the establishment of dedicated legislative and funding pathways for disability innovation, translational research, emerging technologies and evidence-based implementation. Currently, many promising technologies and service models fail to progress beyond pilot phases because there are limited pathways for implementation and scale.
The NDIS legislative framework should support innovation and evidence funding mechanisms, implementation science, pilot-to-scale translation pathways and integration between research evidence and funding decisions. We propose that there is a need to establish dedicated innovation funding to support the development of assistive technologies, communication systems, ethical and inclusive Al, robotics, sovereign and advanced manufacturing and co-designed disability innovation.
Summary:
In summary, the future sustainability of the NDIS depends not only on financial management, but on whether legislative reform creates a system that supports participation, enables innovation and
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maintains person-centred approaches to disability support — both for those who qualify for the scheme and those who will access support through Foundational supports. This also depends on our ability as a nation to recognise, support and develop evolving technologies. We have the unique opportunity to lead the world in this space, and we would be remiss not to take this opportunity.
MedTechVic urges the Inquiry to ensure that reforms:
- Move beyond deficit-based assessment models
- Embed foundational supports within legislation
- Strengthen safeguards and supported decision-making
- Recognise assistive technology as central to participation
- Support inclusive emerging technologies
Invest in workforce capability
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Foster Australian research, translation, innovation, and manufacturing capability.
Australia is uniquely placed become a global leader in inclusive technology, assistive innovation, ethical Al, and disability-enabled design. Legislative reform should ensure that people with disability are not left behind by technological change, but are instead placed at the centre of innovation, participation, and future capability.
MedTecVic stands ready to work with the Australian Government together with members of the disability community to collaborate on ensuring the long term sustainability of the NDIS.
Yours Faithfully
Professor Rachael McDonald Director, MedTechVic, Swinburne University of Technology
Swinburne University of Technology PO Box 218, Hawthorn Victoria 3122 swinburne.edu.au John Street, Hawthorn VIC 3122 Australia T +61 3 9214 8000 CRICOS 00111D RTO 3059