National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
29 May 2026
Subject: Disability Advocacy Network Australia’s submission – National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Dear Committee Members
Disability Advocacy Network Australia (DANA) recommends that the Committee not support passage of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 on the current compressed timetable. Additional time is required to scrutinise and amend the Bill to avoid harm, introduce safeguards and address unintended consequences.
DANA submits that the Bill should receive scrutiny at least comparable to previous NDIS Bills. NDIS Bill No. 1 was scrutinised over 20 weeks, including six hearings and two committee reports. NDIS Bill No. 2 was scrutinised over 16 weeks. This larger and more consequential Bill is being pushed through in four weeks. There is no defensible basis for rushing changes of this scale, particularly when the same fiscal urgency arguments used to justify compressing scrutiny of NDIS Bill No. 1 two years ago have not held.
DANA agrees that reform of the NDIS is necessary, but the proposed changes in the Bill are broad, complex and highly consequential. The Bill changes core features of the NDIS, including eligibility, planning, funding, review rights, Ministerial powers, the governance role of states and territories, and the relationship between the NDIS and other service systems.
Reforms of this kind carry substantial risk if implemented without sufficient testing, transparency and co-design with the people, families and organisations most affected by them. It is entirely foreseeable that harm will occur where engagement and testing with the disability community has been extremely limited, as has occurred with this Bill.
When systems fail, the consequences are not abstract. People lose supports they rely on and their entire lives are upended. These situations cause significant harm to people with disability and their families – and ultimately becomes significantly more expensive for governments.
The Committee should recommend that:
a) the Bill be delayed until at least the Spring sittings in mid-September 2026 to allow proper consideration, targeted amendments, and consultation on the most consequential measures; and
b) the additional time be used to develop amendments that preserve the original intent of the scheme, including practical review rights, link between assessed need and funded support, fair access and permanence rules, protections against unfair debt and record- keeping burdens, and limits on broad Ministerial and delegated powers.
Emma Bennison
Chief Executive Officer
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
Detailed submission
Disability Advocacy Network Australia’s submission follows in two parts:
• Part A – Why the Bill needs time for scrutiny, consultation and amendment
This part explains why the Bill should not proceed on the current timetable.
• Part B – What needs to be fixed in the Bill
This part identifies the key areas where amendments and safeguards are required – this focuses on six priority areas:
• Priority area 1 – Plan correction, unscheduled reassessment and plan renewal
• Priority area 2 – Review rights and practical remedies
• Priority area 3 – Funding caps and rationing
• Priority area 4 – Narrowing what the NDIS will fund
• Priority area 5 – Access, permanence and appropriate treatment
• Priority area 6 – Debt, record-keeping and participant burden
DANA has sought member input on the Bill in preparing this submission. However, the compressed timeframe has made meaningful member consultation difficult, particularly given the scale and complexity of the proposed changes.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
Part A – Why the Bill needs time for scrutiny, consultation and amendment
Part A explains why the Bill should not proceed on the current timetable.
DANA’s position is that the Bill is too broad and consequential to be rushed.
It changes the operating model of the NDIS, depends on reform settings that are not yet settled, and has not been properly tested with people with disability, families, advocates, states and territories, or affected service systems.
The following sections explain why the Committee should recommend additional time for scrutiny, consultation and amendment before returning the Bill to the Senate.
- The Bill changes the operating model of the NDIS
The original intent of the NDIS was to move away from disability programs controlled by government budgets rather than individual need. Those programs were wait-listed, capped, rationed and crisis-driven. The NDIS established a model of individualised reasonable and necessary supports based on need.
The Bill changes core features of that model. It increases the burden of proving eligibility, narrows what supports are recognised, allows recognised supports to be arbitrarily capped or reduced, restricts pathways to correct errors, limits practical merits review and oversight, and shifts key outcomes into instruments, rules, methods and operation of law.
DANA’s concern is that these measures shift the NDIS back toward the model it was created to replace: a system where a person’s support is controlled by government budget settings rather than individual need. The changes make the Scheme more controllable for Government, but less individualised, less needs-based and subject to less oversight.
This is a fundamental change to the NDIS model. It risks returning the Scheme to the wait- listed, capped, rationed and crisis-driven approach that the NDIS was designed to end. That is not restoring original intent.
- Technical changes have real consequences for people
Many of the Bill’s most significant changes are framed as technical amendments to access, planning, funding, rules or review pathways. In practice, these mechanisms determine whether people can get the supports they need to live safely and participate in the community.
When plans cannot be corrected, supports are capped, access is narrowed or review rights are weakened, the consequences fall on people with disability and their families. People may become isolated, face housing instability, be unable to leave hospital, get to work, or participate in community life.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
These risks are likely to fall hardest on people already facing poverty, isolation, communication barriers, thin service markets, limited informal support, or limited access to advocacy.
These are not hypothetical concerns. The Disability Royal Commission heard extensive evidence about the connection between inadequate support, isolation, segregation, and increased risk of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Supports that enable people to live safely, stay connected and participate in community life are not optional extras. They are practical safeguards.
- The Bill shifts significant cost and responsibility to states and territories
The Bill gives the Commonwealth stronger control over eligibility, funding, supports and rules, while increasing the risk that states and territories carry the consequences when people cannot access NDIS supports.
If access is narrowed, supports are capped, or plans become harder to correct, unmet need does not disappear. It shifts elsewhere. That means greater pressure on hospitals, mental health systems, housing and homelessness services, education, justice, child and family services, families, informal carers and advocates.
This is particularly concerning because the alternatives the Bill appears to rely on are not yet in place. Thriving Kids has been announced, but it is still being designed. Broader Foundational Supports remain unresolved, despite National Cabinet agreeing in 2023 to design additional Foundational Supports to be jointly commissioned by the Commonwealth and states and territories.
States and territories raised these concerns during scrutiny of NDIS Bill No. 1. They opposed changes in that Bill that would constrain access or supports before Foundational Supports were in place, because this would create service gaps and shift pressure back to mainstream systems. That concern remains directly relevant to this Bill.
It is unclear how states and territories can genuinely be “better off overall” under the NHRA- NDIS funding deal if the Bill shifts significant responsibility and cost back to state and territory systems, while the Commonwealth retains the key funding controls and Budget savings.
- The broader reform program remains unsettled
The Bill depends heavily on future rules, instruments, assessment tools, methods and implementation processes. Many of the practical details that will determine how the reforms operate are not yet developed, tested or settled.
This includes the New Planning Framework, functional capacity assessment tools, budget- setting methods, support determinations, access thresholds, alternative support rules and transitional arrangements. These are critical details. They will shape who enters the Scheme,
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
what supports are recognised, how budgets are calculated, and how decisions are reviewed or challenged.
There is also a gap between the Budget announcements and the implementation demands created by the Bill. The Bill widens the scope for automation and fewer planning decisions to reduce NDIA administrative effort (and therefore size of the NDIA). At the same time, it significantly increases the number and complexity of access decisions by introducing mandatory functional capacity assessments and removing access lists.
There has not yet been a clear Budget announcement for the assessor workforce or NDIA capacity needed to make these access decisions safely and consistently. While this may occur in the next financial year, Government may intend to make this investment at MYEFO later this year. In the meantime, Government must commit that participants will not be required to pay for functional capacity assessments, consistent with the NDIS Review’s recommendation, and that access assessments will not be automated.
- NDIS Review consultation is not consultation on this Bill
The Committee should be cautious about accepting previous consultation as a reason to limit scrutiny, consultation and amendment of this Bill.
The Bill appears to combine measures from the NDIS Sustainability Taskforce with measures arising from the NDIS Review. These were very different processes. There has been no public consultation on the work of the Sustainability Taskforce, despite those measures forming a substantial part of the Bill.
The NDIS Review did undertake consultation. However, consultation on the NDIS Review should not be treated as consultation on the Bill now before Parliament. This is particularly important because the Bill appears to selectively adopt parts of the NDIS Review while leaving out important safeguards developed through consultation.
For example, the Review supported a move toward functional capacity assessment, but also recognised that assessment should not be required where diagnosis or other evidence already clearly establishes eligibility. The Bill moves away from access lists without clearly preserving that safeguard.
The same issue arises in relation to the Davis decision. The NDIS Review supported legislative clarification of permanence, but stressed that treatment outside the NDIS should be available and affordable. The Bill introduces an appropriate treatment test, but does not clearly require that treatment be practically available to the person. Government also committed to consult on measures responding to the Davis decision when those provisions were removed from NDIS Bill No. 1 under pressure from states. That consultation has not occurred publicly.
Government has still not published its formal response to the NDIS Review, despite receiving the recommendations in November 2023 and committing to respond. It is difficult to accept reliance on the Review and its consultation as a basis for this Bill when Government has not released its own formal position on the Review’s recommendations over two years later.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
- Fiscal urgency should not replace scrutiny
The Committee should be equally cautious about accepting fiscal urgency as a reason to limit scrutiny of this Bill.
Similar arguments were used in relation to NDIS Bill No. 1. At the time, the Government argued that delay would have significant fiscal consequences, including an estimated $1.06 billion increase in NDIS expenditure if passage was delayed by two months.1
However, subsequent Budget updates show that the financial impact of that Bill has not been achieved as estimated by the Scheme Actuary. The Government is now seeking further powers to control Scheme growth, including measures that go beyond those debated in NDIS Bill No. 1. This should make the Committee cautious about accepting claims of fiscal urgency as a reason to bypass proper scrutiny.
Budget pressure does not justify passing legislation before Parliament has had time to properly test it, particularly where previous estimates of the fiscal impact of legislative change have not held.
This Bill is broader and more consequential than previous NDIS amendment Bills. It changes more parts of the Scheme and relies on more future rules, methods and instruments. It should receive scrutiny that is at least comparable to previous NDIS Bills, so people with disability, families, advocates, states and territories have enough time to understand, test and propose amendments to it.
- The Bill needs time to be tested and fixed
The issue is not delay for its own sake. The issue is whether Parliament has enough time to understand, test and fix a Bill that affects access, funding, review rights, plan correction, and the supports people rely on to live safely.
The Committee should recommend that the Bill be delayed until the Spring sittings in September 2026. That time should be used for proper scrutiny, targeted amendments, co- design and consultation on the most consequential measures.
At a minimum, safeguards should be developed for plan correction, review rights, funding caps, reasonable and necessary supports, access and permanence, debt and record-keeping, and delegated powers. The submission from the Justice and Equity Centre also highlights drafting issues, omissions and practical consequences that require further consideration before potential passage.
1 Answer to Question on Notice - IQ24-000124 - National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024 [Provisions] Public Hearing – 25 July 2024
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This work needs to happen before the Bill is passed, not afterwards through limited consultation on delegated legislation.
Part B – What needs to be fixed in the Bill
Part B identifies the key areas where amendments and safeguards are required.
DANA’s position is that the Bill creates linked risks across access, planning, funding, review rights and participant protections. These risks should be addressed before potential passage, not left to future rules, instruments or implementation processes.
The following sections set out the priority areas where DANA recommends targeted amendments to avoid harm and unintended consequences.
Priority area 1 – Plan correction, unscheduled reassessment and plan renewal
Participants must be able to correct plans before they reach crisis.
The Bill narrows the pathways for people to request reassessments. It may be intended to stop unnecessary plan “top-ups”, but the same mechanisms will also capture people who need legitimate plan correction.
DANA’s concern is that these changes will make it harder for people to fix plans that are unsafe, inadequate, wrong or out of date. If the threshold is too high, the process is too formal, or the NDIA has too long to decide, people may only get help once in crisis - when supports have collapsed, informal care has broken down, housing is at risk, or a person has entered hospital or crisis services.
DANA recommends that the Bill be amended to preserve effective pathways for participants to correct plans before crisis.
Who can request reassessment and how
Many people cannot identify, evidence or request a plan change without support from an advocate, trusted community organisation, family member or other supporter. This is particularly significant for people from CALD and refugee backgrounds, people with trauma, those with psychosocial disability, people with limited English or low literacy, and people who distrust government systems.
It is also a risk for people in group homes or other supported settings who have no active family contact or informal supports. A process that formally allows only the participant, nominee or
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child representative to request reassessment may still fail if the person has no practical support to make that request.
The Bill should be amended to make clear that participants can be supported by individual advocates, communication supporters, trusted organisations and decision-making supporters to request plan correction. This would involve a legislative note clarifying that a request made by a ‘participant’ includes situations where the participant consents to another person making the request on their behalf.
If the policy intent is to prevent provider-driven reassessment requests, the Bill should target that directly rather than creating an inclusionary list.
Threshold for changing a plan
The proposed threshold does not account for how support needs change in real life. Deterioration may be gradual before a person is in crisis. Informal support may become unreliable before it collapses. Family stress, trauma, poverty, housing instability and caring responsibilities may interact over time. A person’s plan may become unsafe or unworkable even if there has not been one sudden, easily evidenced event.
The key drafting issue is the presence of two thresholds that appear to require both a significant change in support needs and a significant and ongoing change in functional capacity or living arrangements. Existing uses of similar language in the Act appear to be linked to crisis or emergency funding (section 47A; permitted variations – old framework plans). While the Explanatory Memorandum includes examples that appear broader than crisis or emergency situations, this is not reflected in the Bill. The risk is that “significant and ongoing” becomes a crisis threshold in practice.
The Bill should be amended to ensure the plan correction threshold includes material changes in support need, not only crisis-level or sudden changes. It should include grounds such as safety risk, carer breakdown, housing instability, family violence, provider withdrawal, hospital discharge and support collapse.
The Bill should be amended to widen the scope of plan variations as a genuine pathway for targeted, temporary or urgent changes where full reassessment is not needed. Otherwise, people may be left without a practical way to fix a plan unless they meet the higher reassessment threshold.
NDIA decision timeframe
If a person’s circumstances are serious enough to justify a reassessment request, a three- month wait may be unsafe. Members described current delays under the 21-day timeframe already leaving people without requested supports, with plans sometimes reaching reassessment dates before earlier change requests are resolved.
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The 90-day timeframe should not apply to urgent matters as it compounds the risk. Extending the statutory timeframe risks normalising delay where timely correction is needed.
The Bill also repeals the current ‘deemed refusal’ provision, where a failure by the NDIA to make a decision within a specified statutory timeframe is treated as a refusal. This removes meaningful consequences for non-compliance with timeframes and limits participants’ ability to seek review once that timeframe has passed.
The Bill should be amended to ensure the 90-day timeframe does not apply to urgent matters. It should include an urgent decision pathway for safety risk, hospital discharge, housing instability, carer breakdown, provider withdrawal or support collapse.
The Bill should be amended to reject the removal of deemed refusal. Retaining this safeguard is essential to ensuring timely decision-making, accountability, and access to review rights for participants.
Plan renewal and unspent funds
Unspent funds often reflect service failure, not lack of need. Underspending may be caused by waitlists, thin markets, inaccessible or culturally unsafe services, lack of support coordination, delayed assessments or poor implementation. This is a particular issue for rural and remote communities.
Plan renewal should not carry forward unsafe or inadequate plans without participant input and review. Unspent funds should not be removed where underspending reflects service gaps, thin markets, implementation failure or lack of support coordination.
The Bill should be amended to require safeguards before a plan renews by operation of law. In line with JEC’s recommendation, permit participants to request a reassessment within a specified timeframe prior to plan renewal (e.g., up to three months before the plan expires).
Participants should have a meaningful opportunity to raise concerns and dispute an automatic renewal, and renewal outcomes should be reviewable to ensure they do not carry forward an unsafe, inadequate or outdated plan.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
Priority area 2 – Review rights and practical remedies
Rights must be practical, not theoretical.
The Bill shifts important outcomes into mechanisms that may be harder to challenge, including operation of law, legislative instruments, rules, methods and notices. DANA’s concern is that participants may formally retain some review rights, while losing the practical ability to fix the current problem affecting their supports.
Members identified that review rights, advocacy and appeal pathways are often the only way people can correct unsafe, inadequate or wrong decisions. If those pathways are narrowed, delayed or made harder to identify, participants are left with no effective remedy.
DANA recommends that the Bill be amended to preserve practical remedies wherever a participant’s access, supports, funding, plan pathway or ability to use supports is affected.
Support determinations and funding reductions
The Bill allows funding for groups of supports to be reduced by Ministerial determination. If the reduction is not applied plan-by-plan, participants will not have a direct merits review pathway to challenge the practical impact on their supports.
This creates a practical review problem. A participant may experience the reduction directly through loss of funding, service withdrawal or reduced access to support, but may have no clear pathway to challenge whether the reduction leaves their plan workable, safe or sufficient.
DANA has two concerns about this power. The first is whether participants have any practical remedy when a support determination affects them. The second is whether Government should have this power at all. The broader funding and rationing concern is addressed in Priority area 3 – Funding caps and rationing below.
The Bill should be amended to provide an individual exemption, hardship or review pathway where a support determination reduces funding in a way that affects a participant’s ability to obtain necessary supports.
DANA’s broader position is that the Bill should be amended to remove the support determination power. If the power is retained, the Bill should require National Cabinet agreement before the power is exercised and establish a funding floor so the power cannot be used to make recognised supports unavailable in practice.
Plan renewal by operation of law
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Old framework plans will renew automatically when they reach their end date, without the making of a new reviewable decision. This may carry forward inadequate, unsafe or outdated plans without a clear pathway to challenge the appropriateness of the renewed plan itself.
DANA is concerned that this power may allow operational convenience to override individualised need. Where the NDIA is facing backlogs, plans could simply be renewed to reduce workload. Where Government is seeking to control Scheme growth, automatic renewal could also become a mechanism to hold plans steady rather than assess whether they still meet a participant’s reasonable and necessary support needs.
This creates a significant risk that participants remain locked into plans that no longer reflect their circumstances, support needs or safety risks.
The Bill should be amended to provide an effective review pathway where a renewed plan does not meet the participant’s needs, carries forward an error, or renews without proper consideration of changed circumstances.
Transition to new framework planning
Where a participant requests reassessment, the CEO may instead give a notice moving the person toward new framework planning.
This is particularly concerning during the transition to new framework planning. For the next several years, participants who seek to have inadequate plans corrected may instead be moved into a new planning process that is not yet settled, not well understood, and likely to cause significant anxiety. For some participants, the risk of being moved into an unknown needs assessment process may discourage them from seeking plan correction at all.
This creates a chilling effect. People should not have to choose between living with an inadequate plan and triggering a transition into a new planning framework they do not understand, have not been given detailed information about, and that has not yet been tested.
It is also unclear how quickly a participant who receives a transition notice will move through the new framework planning process. If a notice can be used to avoid a reassessment decision, but the new framework planning process does not occur promptly, the participant may be left in an inadequate plan without a clear remedy.
The Bill should be amended to ensure transition notices cannot be used to avoid reviewable decisions where a participant is seeking urgent or necessary plan correction. Participants should retain an effective pathway to correct unsafe, inadequate or outdated plans during the transition to new framework planning.
Instruments, rules and methods
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More outcomes may be determined through instruments, rules and methods rather than individual decisions. This makes it harder for participants and advocates to identify what has happened, why it happened, and how to challenge it.
Members emphasised that rights are only meaningful if participants can use them in practice. That requires clear decisions, clear reasons, accessible information, and a pathway that can actually fix the problem.
The Bill should be amended to require clear notice, reasons, transparency and review pathways where instruments, rules or methods materially affect participant supports.
The Bill should be amended to broaden the pathways to seek plan reassessments or variations
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Priority area 3 – Funding caps and rationing
Recognised need must be funded, not rationed.
The Bill creates mechanisms that allow funding for supports to be capped, reduced or only partly funded, including where those supports have otherwise been recognised as reasonable and necessary. DANA is extremely concerned that this breaks the link between assessed need and funded support.
The practical effect is that the Scheme may say a person needs a support, but still not fund enough for the person to obtain it. That is a capped and rationed model. It means government budget settings can override individualised assessment of need at scale.
DANA recommends that the Bill be amended to prevent recognised support needs being capped, reduced or partially funded in ways that make supports unavailable in practice.
Support determinations and funding reductions
The Bill allows funding for groups of supports to be reduced by Ministerial determination. If the reduction is not applied plan-by-plan, participants will not have a direct merits review pathway to challenge the practical impact on their supports.
Most significantly, this power is a key mechanism for moving the NDIS back toward the model it was created to replace. It allows Government to cap or reduce funding for groups of supports, even where those supports have otherwise been recognised as reasonable and necessary. This breaks the link between assessed need and funded support.
The practical effect is that the Scheme may say a person needs a support, but still not fund enough for the person to obtain it. That is a capped and rationed model. It means government budget settings can override individualised assessment of need at scale.
DANA is extremely concerned that the Bill gives the Commonwealth an extremely broad power over participant supports, while states and territories will be left to carry the consequences if unmet need shifts into health, housing, education, justice, mental health or family systems.
This resembles the kind of broad Ministerial control over NDIS funding that was strongly opposed when proposed under previous Commonwealth Ministers.
The Bill should be amended to remove this power.
If the power is retained, the Bill should be amended to:
• require the agreement of National Cabinet before the power is exercised, to ensure that states and territories are no worse off as a result of Commonwealth decision-making; and
• establish a funding floor so that the power cannot be used to lower the total cost of the NDIS below the previous year, with an adjustment made for growth based on
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comparable programs, including Medicare, aged care, Child Care Subsidy and hospital funding.
Funding caps in new framework plans
For new framework plans, caps or limits may be built into the budget-setting method. This means rationing may occur when the budget is calculated, rather than through a visible funding reduction later.
This creates the same practical risk. A participant may be assessed as needing support, but the final budget may still be constrained by a cap, method or rule. Participants may not know whether their budget reflects an individualised assessment of need or the application of a funding limit.
DANA is concerned that Government is attempting to re-introduce the 1:3 home and living mandatory ratios recommended by the NDIS Review. This was ruled out by the previous Government as part of NDIS Bill No. 1, but appears to be re-introduced on a much broader scale where mandatory capped ratios can be applied across all support categories.
The Bill should be amended to ensure budget-setting methods cannot override individualised assessment of need, particularly risk assessments. Participants should receive clear information about how their budget was calculated and have an effective pathway to challenge the result.
Partial funding of reasonable and necessary supports
The Bill appears to allow funding to be less than the total cost of a support that has otherwise been recognised as reasonable and necessary.
This fundamentally changes the character of the Scheme. It reverses the principle confirmed in McGarrigle that the NDIS cannot simply part-fund reasonable and necessary supports because of broader scheme sustainability concerns. If a support is reasonable and necessary, the participant should receive enough funding to obtain it. A partially funded reasonable and necessary support may be unavailable in practice.
The legal reasoning in McGarrigle does not need to be repeated. What matters is the person at the centre of the case. Mr McGarrigle sought transport funding to get to work and to a group program. These were not extravagant supports or costs. They were ordinary supports that enabled a young adult with disability to participate in work, community and family life.
If transport support is only partly funded, the practical question is what happens next. Does the person choose between employment and staying home? Does the family absorb the cost? Does the person lose work, community participation or independence? Does a low-cost support that sustains ordinary life disappear, only for the system to face higher costs later through isolation, crisis, relocation or more intensive supported accommodation?
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That is the policy failure this Bill risks creating. A modest support that enables participation may be treated as a budget pressure, even though removing it may increase both personal harm and long-term system cost.
The Bill should be amended to preserve the link between recognised need and funded support. If a support is reasonable and necessary, the Scheme should fund it at a level that makes it practically available.
Supports that prevent isolation and crisis
Government has indicated that funding caps or reductions will be first used to cut social, civic and community participation and capacity-building supports.
These supports should not be viewed as discretionary. For many individuals, they play a critical role in preventing isolation, functional decline, carer burnout, and increased safeguarding risks. They enable people to work, study, form relationships, and participate in everyday community life. In contrast, reduced access to participation supports can lead to greater social isolation, poorer mental health, increased reliance on informal carers, and heightened vulnerability to abuse, neglect and exploitation.
For Aboriginal participants in remote communities, participation can also involve fulfilling cultural obligations, maintaining connection to Country, attending community events, and sustaining kinship networks all of which are essential to safeguarding wellbeing, identity and inclusion.
The Bill should be amended to require safety, participation and safeguarding impacts to be assessed before any support category is capped or reduced. It should also require National Cabinet agreement before this power is used, so states and territories are not left carrying the downstream costs of Commonwealth funding decisions.
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Priority area 4 – Narrowing what the NDIS will fund
The NDIS must recognise support needs as they occur in real life.
The Bill narrows the reasonable and necessary framework by tightening the link between supports and eligible impairments, increasing reliance on other service systems, strengthening value-for-money and evidence tests, and increasing expectations on families and informal supports.
DANA’s concern is that the Bill narrows what the NDIS will fund by relying on assumptions that may not hold in real life: that needs can be cleanly traced to one eligible impairment, that lower- cost supports are suitable, that families can absorb more care, that mainstream systems will step in, and that published evidence exists for the support a person needs.
DANA recommends that the Bill be amended to preserve individualised reasonable and necessary decision-making that reflects the reality of people’s lives, not theoretical service systems, family capacity, lower-cost options or administrative categories.
Supports must arise directly from eligible impairments
The Bill requires supports to address needs arising directly from impairments for which the participant meets the disability or early intervention requirements.
This may be difficult demonstrate for people with multiple impairments, comorbidities, psychosocial disability, chronic health conditions, or support needs shaped by trauma, poverty, housing, family violence or other circumstances. In practice, people’s support needs often arise from the interaction between disabilities, environment and life circumstances. They cannot always be separated cleanly into one eligible impairment.
The Bill should be amended to recognise that disability support needs may arise from the interaction of multiple impairments and circumstances. The test should not exclude supports where it is not feasible to clearly demonstrate that the need directly arises from those interacting impairments.
Other service systems
The Bill strengthens the requirement to consider whether another system should fund or provide support, shifting the NDIS to a scheme of ‘last resort’.
DANA is concerned this will operate on the basis of theoretical responsibility rather than practical availability. Other systems may be responsible in theory but unavailable, inaccessible, delayed, unsafe or inadequate in practice.
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The Bill should be amended to ensure supports are not refused on the basis that another system should provide them unless that system is actually available, accessible, timely and adequate.
This Bill should be amended to better define ‘NDIS supports’ to govern the interface between the scheme and other service systems
Lower-cost alternatives
The Bill strengthens consideration of lower-cost alternatives.
A lower-cost support may exist on paper but be unsuitable, unsafe, inappropriate, unavailable in thin markets or ineffective for the participant. Lower cost should not be treated as better value where it does not meet the person’s actual support need. In addition, the use of lower cost alternatives delay or prevent the effectiveness of the support, particularly capability building and assistive technology supports. This is likely to result in impairments worsening over time and support needs becoming greater.
Government is not required to always accept the ‘lowest cost’ when it makes value for money decisions itself, it is unclear why it would enforce a requirement on participants to accept the lowest price when Governments value for money framework is clear that price is only one factor to consider.
The Bill should be amended to ensure lower-cost alternatives are only preferred where they are actually available, safe, suitable and effective for the individual participant.
Evidence requirements
The Bill gives greater weight to published, peer-reviewed and generalisable evidence.
DANA is concerned this may disadvantage supports with limited formal evidence, emerging practice evidence, or strong evidence of effectiveness for the individual participant. It may also discount practitioner evidence, lived experience and evidence of what has worked for the person in practice.
The Bill should be amended to require decision-makers to give appropriate weight to individual evidence, practitioner evidence, lived experience and evidence of previous outcomes for the participant.
Family and informal supports
The Bill increases expectations on families, carers, informal networks and communities.
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Many families and carers already provide unsustainable levels of support. Assuming informal support will continue, or can increase, can create safeguarding risk, carer breakdown, family stress and poorer outcomes for participants. This is likely to impact other service systems and result in worse outcomes for families (e.g., parents needing to work full time and rely more on family benefits).
The Bill should be amended to require decision-makers to consider carer sustainability, family violence, sibling impacts, safeguarding risk, and the consequences of assuming unpaid support will continue.
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Priority area 5 – Access, permanence and appropriate treatment
Access decisions must reflect real life.
The Bill changes the access architecture for the NDIS, including functional capacity assessment, permanence, appropriate treatment and alternative supports.
DANA supports fair and consistent access decisions. Diagnosis alone should not be the only pathway into the NDIS, and functional capacity can be a useful part of access decision-making. However, the Bill must not replace one unfair access system with another.
DANA’s concern is that critical safeguards recommended by the NDIS Review have not been carried into the Bill. Without those safeguards, people may be excluded from the Scheme based on theoretical assessment, theoretical treatment, or the theoretical availability of other systems.
DANA recommends that the Bill be amended to ensure access decisions are based on real- world functioning, real-world treatment access and real-world support availability.
Functional capacity assessment
The Bill moves toward greater reliance on functional capacity assessment, including future methods, criteria and thresholds.
The NDIS Review supported a move toward functional assessment, but not as a blanket requirement. It recommended that functional assessment should “apply only to individuals where the functional impact of the impairment(s) cannot be determined through an alternative form of evidence, such as a diagnosis that indicates the threshold level of impairment for eligibility has been met” (NDIS Review Supporting Analysis, p. 244).
It is not appropriate to require people to undergo a further assessment where existing evidence clearly establishes that they meet the access requirements. That safeguard is not clearly preserved in the Bill.
Functional capacity assessment may improve consistency, but only if the tools are properly designed, funded, tested and delivered by appropriately skilled assessors. The assessment process must also account for fluctuating, episodic, psychosocial, cognitive, acquired and complex disability. These requirements were all clearly recommended by the NDIS Review.
The Bill should be amended to include the safeguards recommended by the NDIS Review, including that access changes should not commence until assessment tools, thresholds, safeguards, funding and workforce arrangements are settled and co-designed with people with disability and their representative organisations.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
Diagnosis and access lists
The NDIS Review supported moving away from blunt diagnosis lists, but it also recognised that access lists reduced burden where eligibility was already clear. It expressly warned that “the current Access Lists should not be removed until the other changes proposed are in place”, including making the process of applying for NDIS access more transparent and simple (NDIS Review Supporting Analysis, p. 228).
Critically, the NDIS Review recognised that access lists provide benefits where a person’s diagnosis strongly indicates that they meet NDIS access requirements. The Review did not recommend removing those benefits without replacement. It recommended moving toward streamlined access for people whose diagnosis or other evidence already clearly establishes eligibility.
This matters for people with disabilities where functional impact is already evident through existing evidence.
The Bill should be amended to allow streamlined access where diagnosis, impairment evidence or other reliable information clearly establishes eligibility, and to prevent duplicative assessments.
Permanence and appropriate treatment
The Bill tightens permanence by requiring ‘all appropriate treatment’ to have been undertaken, and by considering whether other treatment could materially improve, reverse or alleviate the impact of the impairment.
The NDIS Review supported legislative clarification following the Davis decision, but it did not recommend a purely theoretical treatment test. It said any legislative change should ensure that “treatment for people with disability outside the NDIS likely to be affected by the change is available and affordable” (NDIS Review Supporting Analysis, p. 248). It also said the process should include “extensive engagement with people with disability and representative organisations, as well as administrative law experts” (p. 248).
The Bill does not clearly require treatment to be practically available before it is relied on. This creates a risk that people are excluded because treatment exists in theory, even where it is unavailable, unaffordable, delayed, unsafe, clinically unsuitable, culturally unsafe or practically inaccessible. This concern is amplified for individuals in remote communities, where access is further constrained by limited transport options, including cost and availability.
The Bill should be amended to require appropriate treatment to be actually available, affordable, timely, clinically appropriate and safe before it can be relied on to refuse access and that;
Disability Advocacy Network Australia Page 20
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
The Bill should be amended to remove the provisions relating to ‘all appropriate treatment’.
Limits on treatment expectations
The Bill needs clear limits on what can count as appropriate treatment. Without limits, the test may invite coercive or disproportionate expectations about invasive, high-risk or life-altering treatment.
The Bill should be amended to make clear that treatment is not appropriate where it is coercive, disproportionate, high-risk, rights-infringing, inconsistent with bodily autonomy, or unacceptable having regard to the person’s circumstances.
Alternative supports and other systems
The Bill allows access to be affected where another system, scheme or support is considered responsible for meeting the person’s needs.
DANA is concerned that people may be refused access, or have access revoked, because another system is theoretically responsible, even where that system is not actually providing timely, adequate or safe support.
This risk is particularly acute for people living thin market and or remote and very remote communities, where alternative systems - such as health, mental health, aged care, or community services - may be limited, under-resourced, or entirely unavailable. Even where services exist in policy, they may not be accessible in practice due to distance, workforce shortages, transport barriers, or cultural inappropriateness.
The Bill should be amended to ensure access is not refused or revoked unless alternative supports are actually available, adequate and in place, with no gap in support.
Disability Advocacy Network Australia Page 21
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
Priority area 6 – Debt, record-keeping and participant burden
Integrity measures must not punish participants for system failure.
DANA supports action against fraud, exploitation and deliberate misuse of NDIS funds. People with disability are often harmed first when providers, nominees or others misuse the Scheme.
However, the Bill’s record-keeping, debt and compliance measures may create risk for participants who are not acting fraudulently, but who cannot comply without support, do not control records, or are affected by provider, nominee or system failure.
A central challenge is ensuring reforms effectively address provider misconduct without introducing additional barriers for participants trying to access supports.
The Bill should be amended to ensure fraud and integrity measures target misconduct, exploitation and deliberate misuse, not participants who face disability-related barriers or are harmed by the conduct of others.
Record-keeping obligations
The Bill requires participants to keep records relating to NDIS claims and payments.
Many participants face cognitive, communication, literacy, psychosocial, housing, digital access, language or trauma-related barriers that make administrative compliance difficult without support. Some participants rely on nominees, family members, plan managers or providers to manage records and claims.
The Bill should be amended to ensure participant record-keeping obligations are simple, accessible, proportionate and supported. Participants should receive clear information and practical support before any compliance action is taken.
Debts where records are missing
The Bill will allow a debt to be raised where required records are not kept.
This risks punishing participants who did not intentionally misuse funds and who may not have had practical control over the records. Missing records may reflect provider failure, nominee failure, plan manager issues, poor advice, coercion, exploitation, disability-related barriers or lack of support.
The Bill should be amended to prevent debt being raised against participants where they were not at fault, did not control the records, relied on others, or could not comply because of disability-related, safety-related or system-related barriers.
Disability Advocacy Network Australia Page 22
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
Records controlled by others
In many cases, records may be held or managed by providers, plan managers, nominees, family members or other people.
Participants should not be made liable for failures by the people or organisations best placed to keep records. This is particularly important where a participant has limited decision-making support, has been exploited, or relies on others to manage services and claims.
The Bill should be amended to require the NDIA to pursue the person or organisation responsible for the missing records before raising a debt against a participant.
Shorter claiming timeframes
The Bill reduces the timeframe for making claims.
This may create risk for people who self-manage, rely on others to claim, or face crisis, hospitalisation, family violence, homelessness, digital exclusion or limited support. A shorter claiming period may also affect people in thin markets or complex support arrangements where invoices, evidence or provider records are delayed.
These risks are heightened in remote and very remote areas, where administrative processes often take longer due to limited-service availability, workforce shortages, unreliable telecommunications, and delays in receiving documentation or processing claims. Shorter timeframes may not account for these practical constraints, increasing the likelihood that participants in these areas are unable to submit claims in time.
The Bill should be amended to include broad exceptional circumstances (e.g., remoteness) and hardship pathways for late claims, including disability-related, safety-related and system- related barriers.
Suspension and revocation where participants are not contactable
The Bill includes stronger powers where participants cannot be contacted.
This may create serious risk for people experiencing homelessness, family violence, psychosocial disability, cognitive disability, hospitalisation, coercion, unstable support arrangements or limited access to phones, email or mail. These risks are compounded for people living in remote and very remote areas, where access to reliable telecommunications, postal services, and safe or consistent points of contact may be limited or intermittent.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 275
Being “not contactable” should not be treated as disengagement without first testing whether the person is unsafe, unsupported or facing practical barriers to communication
The Bill should be amended to require accessible contact attempts, advocacy referral, supported decision-making and safeguarding checks before suspension or revocation occurs.
Ends.
Disability Advocacy Network Australia Page 24