National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission from Ability First Australia May 2026
Introduction Ability First Australia (AFA) welcomes the opportunity to make this submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
Ability First represents 16 of Australia’s largest not-for-profit registered NDIS providers. Our members support approximately 92,000 Australians with disability, their families and carers and employ more than 28,000 disability workers across each state and territory. Many of our members have served Australians with disability for more than 90 years. These are the providers that support participants with the most complex support needs, and in pre-NDIS days were often the providers of last resort.
We support the Government’s intent in bringing this Bill forward and adjacent reforms. The financial sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is a national priority, and we agree that targeted reforms to access, integrity and governance are necessary to put the Scheme on a stable long-term footing.
The success of these reforms includes ensuring that Scheme still works for those who need it most.
The cumulative impact of the Bill, the announced reductions to social, civic and community participation and capacity building funding, the introduction of differentiated pricing, the move to new framework planning and the commissioning of Supported Independent Living and Support Coordination will fall most heavily on participants with complex needs, participants in 24-hour supports, participants in thin markets, and participants whose communication and cognitive needs make navigating reformed systems difficult without sustained support. For many of these participants, there is no alternative quality service to move to if the reforms reduce the support they currently receive or destabilise the providers who currently provide it.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
General comments on the Bill This Bill marks the most significant single legislative reform to the NDIS since its inception. Ability First supports its core directions: a more consistent and disciplined approach to access; a stronger integrity framework with proportionate enforcement; a clearer governance architecture for pricing; and the operationalisation of the new framework planning system.
The Bill is also one part of a much larger reform program, and the cumulative impact warrants the Committee’s attention. The Bill, the announced reductions to social, civic and community participation and capacity building funding, the introduction of differentiated pricing, the move to new framework planning, the commissioning of Supported Independent Living, Plan Management, Support Coordination, and the operationalisation of foundational supports are taking effect on overlapping timeframes, often on the same cohort of complex participants and the same group of providers.
Considered together, the speed and scale of the cumulative impact on participants with complex needs, and on the registered not-for-profit providers who support them, will exceed anything the sector has previously absorbed. The Committee’s assessment of the Bill is unavoidably also an assessment of the reform program.
The participants who carry the greatest impact from the cumulative reforms are those for whom no alternative quality service exists: participants in 24-hour supported independent living, participants with high or complex needs, participants in thin markets, participants leaving hospital or institutional care, and participants with significant cognitive or communication disability who cannot navigate complex systems without supported decision making. Whether the Bill and the broader reform program succeed will be measured by what happens to these participants over the next 18 months.
The financial position of the not-for-profit registered provider sector is not currently capable of absorbing the cumulative reform impact. Benchmark data from the Ability Roundtable, which represents around 20% of all registered provider payments by value, shows registered providers serving large numbers of participants with complex needs entering their fifth consecutive year of losses, with median liquidity ratios below one month of operating expenses. Members of Ability First have advised that, in the absence of transition arrangements, they will be required to withdraw services from participants with complex needs and close service sites during the reform period.
Ability First is committed to working with Government and would welcome the opportunity to appear before the Committee to provide any further information that would assist.
Recommendations Schedule 1: Access and planning measures
- That the use of new subsection 33(2EA), which enables the Minister to determine maximum support intensity and maximum worker-to-participant ratios be subject to guardrails for participants with high intensity supports, such as those in Supported Independent Living (SIL), and Specialist Disability Accommodation.
- That the Minister, when making a determination under new section 34A (reducing funding for groups of supports), be required to have regard to: 2 | P a g e
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
a) The impact on people with disabilities when finding or maintaining employment. b) The impact of reducing community participation on family members who may need to give up employment to resume direct care roles, and also removing their respite benefits. c) The impact the decision may have on participants with complex needs, in particular participants in Supported Independent Living for whom social, civic and community participation funding is the practical mechanism for essential daily living support during weekday daytime hours. This will have an impact on SIL staffing rosters, the cost of services and may directly affect the safety and continuity of 24x7 support. d) The direct impacts a determination may have on the financial viability of registered not- for-profit NDIS providers delivering supports to complex people with disability. 3. That, in light of the Government’s announced commissioning of Supported Independent Living, any determination under section 34A reducing funding for groups of supports (in particular the announced reductions to social, civic and community participation funding) not be applied to participants in Supported Independent Living until commissioning arrangements are in place that bundle the participant’s full daily living support requirements into the commissioned service. Schedule 2: Fraud and integrity measures 4. That, in implementing the expanded civil penalty regime, the Department and the Commissioner have regard to the implications for the director and officer liability of not-for- profit boards. Schedule 3: Governance arrangements 5. That the Agency’s pricing advice under new subsection 45C(14) be informed by an annual collection of actual cost data from a representative sample of registered providers, with separate cost analysis for participants with high or complex support needs, and that this advice be published. 6. That the financial viability of registered not-for-profit NDIS providers (including providers of last resort) be made a mandatory consideration for the Minister when making pricing determinations under section 45C(17). 7. That the operation of automated decision-making under new Division 5 of Part 1 of Chapter 4 be subject to a right of human review on participant request for decisions affecting NDIS access or significant changes to plan funding. Schedule 4: New framework planning 8. That the method for working out reasonable and necessary budgets under subsection 32K(1) be informed by actual cost data, with particular regard to the cost of supports for participants with high or complex needs. Consideration should also be given to degenerative conditions that can rapidly change or deteriorate, such as Motor Neurone Disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis. In these cases, consider allowing for interim reviews. 9. That registered not-for-profit providers be engaged as design and consultation partners through the transition to new framework planning.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
- That the Department and the Agency develop specific arrangements for engaging participants in the design and implementation of the new framework planning process, including the support need assessment, that accommodate participants who cannot engage verbally or digitally. This is particularly important for older participants, participants with complex disability, non-verbal participants, and participants with institutionalised backgrounds who do not have informal support networks and for whom state based public advocate systems are not consistently available to provide substitute decision making support. Without specific accommodation, these participants will be effectively excluded from a process that will determine their funding for the remainder of their lives.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
About Ability First Australia Ability First Australia (Ability First) is one of the largest not for profit industry alliances between 16 of Australia’s leading disability service providers. Ability First is a national body of leading disability service providers with member organisations in all states and territories. Our members have a long and trusted history, having supported people with disability for between 50 and 90 years.
Our members represent the interests of over $3 billion worth of support services to over 92,000 people with disability, their families and carers. Together, our members provide services to over 20% of Australians who currently receive NDIS funding for disability services.
Our members are Aruma, Achieve Australia, Ability WA, Cara, Carpentaria, Cootharinga, CPL, Melba, MSWA, Northcott, Novita, Rocky Bay, Scope, St Giles, Vertaview Group and Yooralla.
Ability First members serve as providers of last resort, accepting participants with complex behavioural needs, providing hospital discharge accommodation, and operating in markets where commercial providers do not.
Schedule 1: Access and planning measures Part 1: Defining functional capacity Ability First supports the introduction of functional capacity in primary legislation.
We note that the operational substance of the definition; the methodology, the thresholds, the assessment tool, and the matters that may or must not be taken into account, is delegated to NDIS rules, and that the rules may further incorporate documents prepared by the Agency. The assessment tool will be a key operational document in the new access regime, and we believe its development, periodic revision and parliamentary scrutiny warrant particular care.
Part 2: Unscheduled plan reassessments Ability First supports the principle that unscheduled plan reassessments should be limited to circumstances of genuine and ongoing change in support needs.
We raise one operational consideration. Where a participant’s support needs change rapidly, for example, following a hospital discharge, or a fast change in functional ability, providers are often the first to identify the need for a planning response. The Bill maintains the CEO’s own-motion powers, which we welcome, but the practical experience of providers is that the time between identifying a change in support needs and a plan response can be lengthy. During that period, providers commonly absorb the cost of delivering the additional supports the participant needs.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
An example of this is providers rapidly responding to behavioural support changes for people with behaviours of concern. Providers are often required to increase support intensity in real time to ensure safety and continuity of care. In practice, this means providers routinely absorb significant unfunded support hours to stabilise situations, which can in turn drive further escalation in complexity, including increased exposure to occupational violence and associated workforce and cost impacts. This is further compounded by regulatory obligations, including requirements of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to ensure continuity of support, irrespective of funding adequacy.
We are also aware of instances where the reassessment process is protracted, resulting in further deterioration beyond that which originally triggered the reassessment request. We recommend that the reassessment process be time bound and include the right for the participant to be involved.
Our suggestion is that the Department, the Agency and the peak bodies work together on operational arrangements to ensure provider-flagged changes in support needs can be appropriately escalated, and that the financial risk associated with rapid changes is not transferred onto providers.
Part 3: Impairment-linked support Ability First supports the principle that NDIS funding should be directed to supports arising from a participant’s impairment. We are mindful, however, of the operational realities of participants with multiple co-occurring impairments.
We encourage the Committee, and the Department in developing rules, to ensure that the operational application of paragraph 34(1)(aa) as amended by the Bill to require the need for support to arise ‘directly’ from an impairment, does not narrow funded supports for this cohort below what they reasonably require to participate in ordinary life. Part 4: Support determinations Ability First supports the policy intent of providing the Minister with a transparent mechanism to manage Scheme sustainability.
We do, however, ask the Committee to consider whether the power in section 34A warrants additional procedural safeguards, given its scope. The provision allows the Minister to reduce funding components by any percentage less than 100, with the only mandatory consideration being the safety of participants (subsection 34A(3)), and expressly contemplates funding being set below the actual cost of providing the support (subsection 34A(5)).
We ask the Committee to consider whether the Minister should be required, in making a determination, to have regard to the safety of participants and financial viability of not-for-profit registered providers serving the participants whose funding will be affected.
We note the first planned use of this power, which we understand is to give effect to the announced 50% reduction to social, civic and community participation (SCCP) funding.
A central feature of how Supported Independent Living operates in practice is that SIL funding does not, on its own, fund 24 hours, 7 days a week of support. Between approximately 9am and 3pm on weekdays, the essential daily living support of many participants in SIL is funded through their SCCP budget, on the basis that participants are supported in community-based engagement during this period rather than at home. The supports delivered in that window are not discretionary leisure 6 | P a g e
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
activity; for participants with complex needs they are essential personal care, supervision and behavioural support delivered in community settings.
A 50% reduction in SCCP funding will, for many participants currently receiving 24x7 supports, materially reduce the funding for the supports they require to remain safe. People receiving 24x7 supports are nearly always already supported at the lowest safe staffing ratio for their needs, and there is no further capacity to reduce ratios safely without unacceptable risk to the participant, co- residents and workers.
This consequence appears not to have been fully accounted for in the Impact Analysis prepared by the Department, which works from average plan values and assumes a discretionary component in SCCP funding that for many participants on 24x7 supports does not exist.
The Impact Analysis itself acknowledges that the change will disproportionately affect participants in SIL who depend on 24x7 supports for their health and wellbeing. Where SCCP funding components are reduced for participants in SIL settings, the immediate operational consequence is borne by the SIL provider.
The harm to participants in SIL from a 50% reduction in SCCP funding would: reduce participants’ access to meaningful daily routines, community connection and structured activity, with associated wellbeing and behavioural support consequences; compound existing financial pressure on SIL providers; create quality and safeguarding obligations that cannot be met from the reduced funding; and is likely to increase the incidence of occupational violence and aggression in SIL settings as participants respond to loss of routine.
Ability First suggests the solution is to sequence these changes with the announced commissioning of Supported Independent Living.
Ability First notes that the Government has committed to commissioning Supported Independent Living as part of the broader reform program. Commissioning of SIL, properly designed, would bundle the participant’s full daily living support requirements (including the support currently funded through social, civic and community participation budgets during weekday daytime hours) into a single commissioned service. Under commissioned arrangements, the participant-plan-level funding mechanism that is the subject of the announced SCCP reductions would no longer be the funding pathway for SIL participants’ essential daily living support.
The announced 50% reduction to SCCP funding will, on its current settings, take effect before commissioning arrangements are in place. The consequence is that the impact will be incurred by participants, providers, the workforce and the broader Scheme in respect of a cohort that the Government has committed to transitioning out of the participant-plan system.
Ability First does not take a position in this submission on the design of SIL commissioning arrangements, which are being progressed separately. We do, however, ask the Committee to consider whether the sequencing of the reform program requires that section 34A determinations not be applied to SIL participants in advance of commissioning arrangements being in place.
Part 5: Plan renewal Ability First supports the move to statutory plan end dates.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
We note that the cessation of carry-over of unused funding at renewal will have operational consequences for participants and providers, particularly those in regional and remote markets, where service delivery is often less predictable. There are also examples where an extended hospital stay or unforeseen event results in a participant unable to use all supports provided for in a plan. We would welcome the opportunity to work with the Department and the Agency on operational arrangements that recognise the realities of thin markets and allow for exceptional circumstances.
Part 6: Reasonable and necessary supports Ability First supports the policy intent of providing greater clarity and consistency to the application of the reasonable and necessary test.
We make two observations for the Committee’s consideration.
The value for money provision Ability First supports the principle of value for money in funding decisions. We note, however, that the operation of the comparison to comparable supports at potentially lower cost will depend on what is treated as a ‘comparable support’.
Registered quality providers operate to the regulatory standards of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, maintain governance, quality and safeguarding systems, undertake compliance audits, and incur the associated costs of doing so. Unregistered providers, in general, do not. If the value-for- money test treats supports provided by registered providers and unregistered providers as comparable for cost purposes, the natural consequence will be downward pressure on registered providers and movement of participants out of the registered provider market. This would be inconsistent with the integrity and quality direction of the broader reform program.
We would welcome the Committee’s consideration of whether the operational definition of ‘comparable supports’ should account for the quality, safeguarding and registration standards under which the comparator support is provided.
The Ministerial power to set maximum support intensity and worker-to- participant ratios Ability First supports the policy intent of subsection 33(2EA). We do, however, draw the Committee’s attention to the breadth of this power and its implications for participants in Supported Independent Living, and other high intensity support settings.
The economics of Supported Independent Living and similar settings rely on participant ratios that are close to the ratios at which services are funded. Where a participant departs, is temporarily absent, or where a vacant room cannot be filled by a participant of matching support needs, the service operates at a loss until the gap is filled. The Ability Roundtable analysis quantifies this dynamic in detail. A Ministerial cap on support intensity or worker-to-participant ratios set below operational reality would compound this dynamic and accelerate the rate at which complex-needs services become uneconomic. The clinical and practice safety implications also warrant careful consideration: rosters, supervision arrangements and crisis response capacity in these settings are built around the participant’s actual support requirements rather than around the funded ratio. This includes managing the episodic nature of complex health issues and behavioural support for those with
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
behaviours of concerns. We understand this may be addressed through commissioning of SIL and it would be helpful to clarify this. Part 7: Plan suspension Ability First supports the introduction of a plan suspension mechanism where the Agency is unable to contact a participant. However, we note that disengagement from the Agency is often itself a signal of distress, particularly for participants with psychosocial disability or those experiencing crisis. Providers who maintain ongoing relationships with participants are often well placed to support re- engagement before suspension becomes necessary.
We would welcome operational arrangements ensuring that the Agency’s contact attempts include engagement with the participant’s nominated providers. Part 8: Tightening the meaning of permanence Ability First supports the tightening of the permanence test and providing for a ‘once and done’ approach to evidencing. Participants should not have to re-prove permanence.
Part 9: Eligibility based on access to other services Ability First supports the principle that the NDIS should not displace other service systems, whether motor vehicle accident schemes, workers’ compensation schemes, or appropriate alternative service systems for particular impairments.
Schedule 2: Fraud and integrity measures Ability First supports the integrity agenda set out in Schedule 2.
Part 1: NDIS provider definition Ability First supports the amended definition of NDIS provider.
Part 2: Civil penalties and regulatory powers Ability First supports the expansion of civil penalty and regulatory powers.
One operational matter for the Committee’s consideration is the implication of the expanded civil penalty regime for the directors and officers of not-for-profit boards. Many Ability First members are governed by volunteer boards drawn from the disability community, the philanthropic sector and the broader community. The introduction of substantial civil penalties could in some circumstances raise issues under directors’ duties and director and officer insurance arrangements. The disability sector benefits from skilled company directors who may see joining a disability provider board as too high of a personal risk.
Part 3: Information gathering powers Ability First supports the strengthening of the Agency’s information gathering powers.
Part 4: Retention of records Ability First supports the introduction of standard record retention requirements.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
Part 5: Reducing claim times (90-day claim window) Ability First supports the principle of more timely claiming. We note that delays in claiming are often due to issues with plan managers.
Without plan manager reforms, providers may face a sizeable financial liability from the change to a 90-day claim window.
Part 6: Registered plan management providers Ability First supports the policy intent of removing conflicts of interest from the plan management market.
Schedule 3: Governance arrangements Part 1: Decision-making on pricing Ability First strongly supports the introduction of a clearer statutory framework for pricing decisions. In particular:
• The power to differentiate pricing on the basis of support intensity, remoteness, in-person versus remote delivery, provider qualifications, registered versus unregistered status, and participant funding management is consistent with longstanding sector advocacy for tiered pricing, • The requirement for the Agency to provide advice with regard to the cost of safe, efficient, high- quality provision, diversity and competition, and financial sustainability brings these considerations into the statute, and • The framework provides a transparent basis for future pricing reform, consistent with NDIS Review recommendations.
We offer two observations to the Committee.
Pricing decisions and actual provider costs The main consideration we offer the Committee on pricing is that the long-standing structural gap between assumed and actual costs has been at the root of the not-for-profit registered provider viability crisis, and that the new pricing framework provides an opportunity to close this gap. Ability Roundtable data shows the FY25 gap between Disability Support Worker Cost Model assumptions and actual incurred costs at approximately 10% of the hourly price. The gap is concentrated in corporate overheads, supervision and quality and compliance. These are categories of expenditure that are essential to safely supporting participants with complex needs.
We encourage the Committee to consider whether the advice provided by the Agency should be informed by an annual collection of actual cost data from a representative sample of registered providers, with separate cost analysis for participants with high or complex support needs, and whether the advice should be published.
Provider viability as a mandatory consideration Ability First suggests that the financial viability of registered not-for-profit NDIS providers should be made a mandatory consideration alongside these matters. 10 | P a g e
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
Part 2: Automation of administrative action Ability First supports the introduction of a transparent legislative framework for automated decision- making within the Agency.
Our suggestion is that decisions which significantly affect participants (including decisions to grant or refuse NDIS access, decisions to suspend or revoke plans, and decisions resulting in significant changes to plan funding) be subject to a right of human review on participant request, without administrative penalty.
Part 3: Minor amendments Ability First has no substantive comment on the minor amendments in this Part.
Schedule 4: New framework planning Ability First supports the implementation of new framework planning.
The relationship between funding amounts and actual costs Ability First draws the Committee’s attention to subsection 32K(3C), which provides that a funding amount under a reasonable and necessary budget ‘may be more than, equal to or less than the actual cost of providing or acquiring the support or group or class of supports’.
The Ability Roundtable data we referenced earlier in this submission demonstrates that under the current cost model, there is already a structural gap between funded prices and actual incurred costs. Subsection 32K(3C) makes explicit that the new framework planning regime is being designed with this gap as a permissible feature.
We ask the Committee to consider whether the methodology should be required to be informed by actual cost data, particularly for participants with high or complex support needs. The Ability Roundtable benchmark provides a ready-made source of this data, and AFA is committed to working with the Agency on its use.
Participant engagement through the transition Ability First members support large numbers of participants for whom standard consultation and assessment processes are not accessible. This includes participants who are non-verbal, participants with complex cognitive and communication disability, and older participants whose communication needs have changed over time. It also includes a significant cohort of participants with institutionalised backgrounds, many of whom transitioned to community settings during the closure of large residential institutions, who do not have family or informal support networks to assist with formal processes.
For these participants, the most appropriate substitute decision making arrangement is often a formal guardianship order through state-based public advocate systems. The Office of the Public Advocate in Victoria, the NSW Public Guardian, and equivalent bodies in other jurisdictions face significant resourcing constraints and are not always able to respond to new applications within timeframes consistent with NDIS planning processes. The practical consequence is that participants who most
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 258
need substitute decision making support in the planning process may not be able to access it at the time the support need assessment is conducted.
Ability First members are well placed to identify these participants and to support the Agency in designing engagement arrangements that meet their needs.
Provider engagement through the transition Ability First welcomes the Government’s decision to defer the commencement of new framework planning rollout to 1 April 2027.
We encourage the Government, the Department and the Agency to substantively engage registered not-for-profit providers as design and consultation partners through the transition.
Other amendments in Schedule 4 Ability First supports the other amendments in Schedule 4.
The broader reform agenda This Bill is one element of a broader package of NDIS reforms. Ability First appreciates that several elements of the reform program including the commissioning of Supported Independent Living, the Foundational Supports framework and Thriving Kids, the commissioning of support coordination, and the implementation of new framework planning, are being progressed through processes other than this Bill.
Ability First welcomes the Government’s commitment to placing the NDIS on a sustainable long-term footing. The reforms, taken together, represent an opportunity to secure the future of the NDIS for the people it is intended to serve.
We thank the Committee for the opportunity to make this submission. We would welcome the opportunity to appear before the Committee at a hearing, and to provide any further information that would assist its deliberations.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Rowley Chief Executive Officer Ability First Australia
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