Submission 249
Submission to the Australian Government
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the
NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submitted by: Auscare Support Coordination - Registered NDIS Provider
Introduction
Auscare Support welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback regarding the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
As a registered NDIS provider since 2017, supporting more than 1,000 participants across Australia, including through a large-scale Support Coordination workforce of 45 coordinators, we see firsthand both the extraordinary value of the NDIS and the increasing strain currently being experienced across the sector.
We acknowledge the need for reform. We acknowledge the need for improved safeguards, better governance, stronger compliance and long-term sustainability planning.
However, we are deeply concerned that aspects of the proposed reforms appear increasingly focused on restricting access, reducing supports and centralising control rather than addressing the underlying structural failures that have contributed to the Scheme’s current challenges.
The NDIS is not failing because people with disability require support.
The NDIS is under pressure because the Scheme expanded rapidly without adequate safeguards, workforce planning, infrastructure, consistency or operational readiness.
Participants should not bear responsibility for those failures.
The Reality of a Growing Disability Population
Auscare Support is bewildered by increasing public and policy discussion suggesting that sustainability can somehow be achieved by removing people from the Scheme or significantly reducing access to support.
This approach fails to recognise a basic demographic and societal reality:
Australia’s population is growing.
Humans are living longer.
Modern medicine is enabling people with significant injury, illness, disability and complex health conditions to survive and live longer than ever before.
a PO Box 880 Ballina NSW 2478 p 1800 940 515 w auscaresupport.com.au e info@auscaresupport.com.au
Submission 249
As a society, this should be celebrated.
However, it also means that naturally and inevitably, the number of Australians living with disability and requiring support will increase over time.
This is not a policy failure. It is a predictable social reality.
Medical advances mean:
- premature babies survive at higher rates,
- people survive catastrophic accidents and trauma,
- people live longer with degenerative diseases,
- and individuals with profound disabilities are living longer, fuller lives within community settings.
At the same time, Australia has an ageing population and increasing rates of chronic illness, neurological conditions, psychosocial disability and complex support needs.
Against this backdrop, it is unrealistic to suggest that disability support demand should somehow remain static or decrease.
The question should not be: “How do we reduce the number of people requiring support?”
The question should be: “How do we responsibly, sustainably and humanely support a growing population of Australians living with disability?”
That is the real challenge facing Government. General Position on the Bill
Auscare Support supports genuine reform that strengthens the integrity and long-term sustainability of the NDIS.
We support:
- stronger safeguarding mechanisms,
- better fraud prevention,
- improved provider accountability,
- participant protections,
- and measures that ensure funding is used effectively and ethically. However, we are concerned that aspects of the Bill risk shifting the Scheme away from its foundational principles of participant choice, control and inclusion.
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Submission 249
There appears to be increasing emphasis on cost containment, restriction and centralised decision making without sufficient acknowledgement of the real-world complexity of disability support environments.
Disability support cannot be effectively managed through purely financial or administrative lenses.
Behind every funding package, every service agreement and every plan review is a human being navigating life with disability, often alongside families and carers already experiencing significant emotional, financial and physical strain.
Policy decisions made in Canberra directly impact vulnerable people in homes, hospitals, schools and communities every day.
The consequences of poorly designed reform are not theoretical. They are deeply personal and often life-altering.
Fraud, Integrity and Safeguarding
Auscare Support strongly supports efforts to remove fraudulent, exploitative and unethical operators from the NDIS sector.
Participants deserve a safe and accountable Scheme.
However, it is critical that responsibility for the vulnerabilities within the NDIS is properly acknowledged.
The Australian Government established and expanded a Scheme that was widely known to contain significant safeguarding and regulatory weaknesses from its earliest stages.
The rapid rollout of the NDIS occurred without:
- adequate workforce readiness,
- consistent pricing frameworks,
- mature compliance systems,
- effective quality oversight,
- or sufficient market stewardship. This created an environment where exploitation became possible.
Participants and legitimate providers should not now be punished for systemic failures in Scheme design and implementation.
The answer is not indiscriminate cuts, overregulation of ethical providers or reduction of participant supports.
The answer is intelligent regulation.
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Submission 249
The answer is:
- targeted compliance,
- improved auditing,
- data-driven safeguarding,
- better workforce standards,
- faster regulatory intervention,
- and meaningful consultation with experienced frontline providers. Government must be careful not to create reforms that inadvertently make it harder for compliant providers to survive while unethical operators continue to adapt and exploit gaps within the system.
Participant Rights and Choice
The principle of participant choice and control is the cornerstone of the NDIS.
Any reform that weakens participant autonomy fundamentally risks undermining the original intent of the Scheme.
Participants are not passive recipients of services.
They are individuals with:
- preferences,
- goals,
- cultural considerations,
- communication needs,
- trauma histories,
- and the right to determine who supports them. The movement toward increasingly centralised models of service allocation, commissioning and decision-making raises serious concerns regarding the future preservation of participant choice.
Participants must retain genuine authority over:
- who provides their supports,
- how those supports are delivered,
- and what outcomes are important to them personally. A sustainable NDIS cannot come at the cost of participant dignity and self-determination.
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Submission 249
Workforce Sustainability
The disability sector workforce is under enormous pressure.
Frontline workers across Australia are managing:
- increasing participant complexity,
- workforce shortages,
- emotional burnout,
- administrative overload,
- policy instability,
- pricing uncertainty,
- and ongoing reform fatigue. Despite this, disability workers continue showing up every day to support vulnerable Australians in highly demanding environments.
The sustainability of the NDIS is directly linked to the sustainability of its workforce.
Any reform that creates:
- further uncertainty,
- reduced job security,
- lower workforce morale,
- or destabilisation of service delivery models will ultimately reduce workforce retention and participant outcomes.
The Government must recognise that disability support is highly skilled, emotionally demanding work requiring significant professional capability.
Frontline workers should feel valued and respected, not continually blamed for broader systemic failures.
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Submission 249
Support Coordination
Auscare Support holds extremely serious concerns regarding proposed reforms impacting Support Coordination, including movement toward commissioned service models and increasingly outcome focused or time-limited approaches.
Support Coordination is not an optional administrative service.
It is one of the most critical safeguarding and stabilisation mechanisms within the entire NDIS ecosystem.
Our 45 Support Coordinators collectively support more than 1,000 participants, many of whom live with highly complex needs, vulnerability, trauma, psychosocial disability, unstable housing, family breakdown or significant behavioural and health-related challenges.
Every single day, our teams respond to:
- crisis situations,
- provider collapse,
- abuse and neglect concerns,
- safeguarding incidents,
- housing emergencies,
- mental health deterioration,
- carer burnout,
- hospital discharge failures,
- family violence,
- service withdrawal,
- and situations where participants are at immediate risk of homelessness, institutionalisation or harm.
Support Coordinators are often the only professionals holding fragmented systems together.
Yet despite this reality, Government appears to be considering reforms that may:
- restrict participant choice,
- impose commissioned provider models,
- reduce funding flexibility,
- and shift Support Coordination toward outcome-based, time-limited frameworks. We are deeply concerned that these reforms demonstrate a fundamental disconnect between policy design and operational reality.
Support Coordination is not a “set and forget” service.
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Submission 249
Disability is not static.
Participants do not simply become “stable” and no longer require coordination.
Human lives change constantly.
Participants may experience sudden deterioration due to:
- illness,
- trauma,
- provider withdrawal,
- housing instability,
- exploitation,
- psychiatric crisis,
- or the death of a parent or carer. In those moments, Support Coordination becomes the critical intervention preventing total system collapse.
The idea that disability support can be neatly measured through short-term outputs or arbitrary timelines ignores the complexity of human lives.
True outcomes are often invisible in spreadsheets.
Sometimes the most important outcome is:
- preventing homelessness,
- avoiding hospitalisation,
- reducing risk of abuse,
- maintaining fragile support networks,
- or simply ensuring a participant remains safe and connected to community. These outcomes matter.
They also save governments enormous downstream costs across:
- health systems,
- emergency services,
- mental health,
- housing,
- child protection,
- and justice systems. Page 7 of 9
Submission 249
Cuts to Support Coordination are not genuine savings.
They are cost shifting.
We are equally concerned about the proposed commissioning approach.
The Government has not clearly explained:
- how providers will be selected,
- how participant choice will be preserved,
- how continuity of care will be managed,
- how conflicts of interest will be prevented,
- or how workforce shortages and regional service gaps will be addressed. Participants build trusted relationships with Support Coordinators over many years.
These relationships are often central to participant wellbeing, trust and safety.
Any reform that destabilises those relationships risks causing significant harm to vulnerable Australians.
Support Coordination must remain:
- participant-led,
- flexible,
- relationship-based,
- responsive to changing circumstances,
- and available for participants whose lives do not fit neatly into rigid funding assumptions or artificial timelines.
Without strong Support Coordination, the broader NDIS system risks destabilisation.
Public Narrative Around the NDIS
Auscare Support is increasingly concerned by the growing negativity surrounding the NDIS in public and political discourse.
The constant framing of the NDIS as a “cost problem” is deeply damaging.
Participants should not be made to feel guilty for needing support.
Families already carrying extraordinary emotional and financial burdens should not feel blamed for accessing services their loved ones require to live safely and with dignity.
Australians with disability are not economic liabilities.
They are citizens entitled to inclusion, opportunity and support.
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Submission 249
The Government must take responsibility for resetting the narrative surrounding disability and the value of social investment.
Any Australian’s life can change in an instant.
A car accident. A stroke. A workplace injury. A degenerative diagnosis. A child born with complex needs.
Disability does not discriminate.
The NDIS exists because Australia recognised that people with disability deserve more than survival. They deserve dignity, participation and quality of life.
That principle must remain at the centre of all reform.
Conclusion
Auscare Support supports meaningful reform that strengthens the integrity, accountability and long term sustainability of the NDIS.
However, sustainability must not come at the expense of participant dignity, safety, autonomy and access to essential supports.
The future of the NDIS cannot be secured through fear-based reform, participant exclusion or reductions to frontline supports that actively prevent crisis and system failure.
We urge the Australian Government to:
- preserve participant choice and control,
- strengthen safeguarding without reducing essential supports,
- invest in workforce sustainability,
- engage meaningfully with frontline providers,
- recognise the growing and evolving reality of disability within Australia,
- and ensure reforms remain grounded in operational reality and human dignity. The NDIS is not simply a budget measure.
It is a reflection of Australia’s values as a society.
Sincerely
Jo McIntyre
CEO
Auscare Support
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