Illegal changes to NDIS plan and smear campaign on NDIS participants (Individual advocacy) | External submission

Submission 2853

SUBMISSION TO PARLIAMENT REGARDING THE DRAFT NDIS BILL

I am an NDIS participant. I have been on the NDIS since 2022, which is long enough that I consider myself an NDIS Veteran. The connotations that accompany the word “veteran” are exactly why it is the term I use. I know that for my submission to have value, you require proof of my own societal value, so let me assure you that before I became too disabled to work or study, I had worked and paid taxes for 15+ years. My partner - also disabled but not an NDIS participant - continues to work and pay taxes, gladly, as do most people in my life who care about me.

I had intended for this submission to be a full and detailed breakdown of both the superordinate and provision-specific issues within this Bill. Unfortunately, due to the combined impact of my underlying severe disabilities, the last seven months spent fighting the NDIA in relation to illegal changes to my NDIS plan, and the significant distress caused by Labor’s smear campaign on NDIS participants leading up to the tabling of this Bill, I find myself too unwell to undertake and type up the analysis as intended. To that end, I have decided to focus on the foundational issues with the Bill and its incompatibility with existing legal and humanitarian obligations. These overarching inconsistencies can be extrapolated across the Bill as a whole to demonstrate the bad faith nature of each individual provision as well as the objectives of the Bill.

But firstly, if you read no further into my submission, this is all you really need to understand:

Whether or not disabled people are able to access the Scheme and receive appropriate supports is not going to change the number of disabled people that exist and the effect that this will have on the economy and the overall fabric of society. It will not change the fact that an increasing number of people are becoming disabled, or being recognised as disabled. Disability itself is not inherently bad - for humanity, for progress, or for the economy. As the actual data shows, when disabled people are given the supports needed to live a better life, they actually go out of their way to contribute back to society, and the economy benefits. Stifling the growth of the NDIS is actually the surest possible way to stifle the economic growth and advancement of this country. This is not speculation or hyperbole, this is an outcome that has been demonstrated time and again across the world.

This government thinks that they can control the amount of support people with disabilities require by simply denying them that support. Sorry, but that’s the barn door you’re trying to close and the horses are long gone. This is just not the way reality works. A great analogy I saw in the disability community recently may help make my point clearer:

This is like the government saying that the number of people with cancer has increased >> these people need cancer treatment >> cancer treatment is expensive >> so let’s change the definition of cancer.

Ok, well now you’ve got less people with “Cancer”, but you’ve still got a bunch of sick and dying citizens.

You cannot ideologically disappear an entire cohort of people simply because they’re inconvenient and don’t currently serve you politically. When you don’t pay now, you pay more later: that is the whole reason the NDIS - and Insurance Scheme - was established. Therefore, the intended effects of this Bill are in direct contradiction with the original objectives of the Scheme, prompted by the United Nations Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities (“UNCRPD”) and ratified in the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act (2013) (“the NDIS Act”).

Superordinate Issues and Inconsistencies with This Bill

The Language Used in This Bill and Supporting Materials is Inflammatory

Submission 2853

The supporting documentation to this Bill, such as the explanatory notes, are worded in such a way as to bias the reader towards the government’s manufactured story around the NDIS – for example, that it is easy to access, that participants engage in frequent rorting and fraud, that the price limits are out of control, and that the Agency lacks any capacity for oversight and correction currently. These assertions are provably false for anyone who has experience with the NDIS, NDIA or the NDIS Act.

Here is an example:

New subsection 48(2) provides that a reassessment of a participant’s plan may be conducted on the CEO’s own initiative or at the request of the participant, their plan nominee, or a child’s representative. This explicit limitation on who can request a reassessment will end the ability for plan managers and support coordinators requesting reassessments without good reason and without the participant’s knowledge.

The Government has Been Untruthful About the Primary Targets of this Bill

The Bill has been sold to the general public on the basis of combating the (unproven and non-existent) high rate of fraud within the Scheme. Yet by the Treasury department’s own modelling, the Bill is expected to only save $900 million TOTAL by 2030 by measures targeting fraud. This is the 3rd lowest amount of anticipated savings out of the 10 reform items included in the Bill.

Of course, we know that the government and their media have focussed heavily on the fraud rhetoric based on the outcomes of the research conducted by RedBridge consultancy firm, at a cost of $~400,000. Prior to that, apparently the general public felt incredibly favourable towards the NDIS. These days, my fellow disabled comrades are being abused by strangers on the street and online (previously the only safe space many of us had) simply because people think anyone disabled is on the NDIS and is therefore a ‘rorter’. There is a direct line that can be drawn from the Labor government’s fraud rhetoric that the mainstream media couldn’t spread quickly or gleefully enough, to the tanking mental health and rise in hate crimes against disabled people.

The reality of being on the Scheme as a participant is that yes, you do encounter fraud. Usually providers attempting to defraud the NDIS through your own funding. Through personal and wide ranging anecdotal experience, I can tell you that the majority of participants have attempted to report this fraud to the Agency, with little to no result. This is despite the creation of the Fraud Fusion Task Force, and the existence of the Quality and Safeguards Commission. I personally provided the Agency and the QSC with evidence of multiple counts of fraud and attempted extortion by a registered provider on two separate occasions, by phone and email respectively. No meaningful action was taken in either case, and in the latter I was in fact told that this was not a matter to bring to the QSC. The registered provider is still practising today, and has continued their attempts at extortion for nearly 2 years now. The other instance of attempted fraud I personally experienced was also by another registered provider. This is an extremely common story within the NDIS participant community.

In summary: This Bill does very little at all to address the fraud issues that actually exist within the Scheme. The fraud measures in this Bill are anticipated to save less than $1 billion dollars by 2030 by the government’s own best-case modelling. The Bill and its supporting explanatory documents repeatedly state that mandatory registration will prevent fraud. This is simply untrue, and the government lacks the evidence to make these claims.

The Public has Not Been Afforded Appropriate Consultation Opportunity on This Bill

The consultation process for this Bill has been deliberately stifled. What is generally a months-long public and parliamentary consultation process has instead been shortened to ~2 weeks. With no actual pressing urgency existing, the only conceivable explanation for this is that the Labor government knows that the Bill will not stand up to any real scrutiny, particularly by the incredibly knowledgeable and determined disability community. The length of the Bill is considerable and the reforms proposed are both incredibly complex yet deliberately vague and unfurnished. This government is banking on the disabled community and their allies being too unwell, exhausted,

Submission 2853

overwhelmed, traumatised and confused to mount any real defences. They are unabashedly taking advantage of the limited capacity that literally defines the disability community, in order to push through legislation that specifically targets said cohort - the most vulnerable cohort in the country by any measure.

This is a flagrant violation of the democratic processes of this country, a middle finger to its citizens, and a breach the UNCRPD, to which Australia is a signatory. This process falls short of the principles of transparency and accountability enshrined in the Australian Constitution.

The consultation process has been further stifled by the barriers to submission that have arisen more recently, in particular since the consultation period was extended from 29 May 2026 until 1 June 2026. The APH website was no longer accepting submissions by Saturday, 30 May 2026, and this issue has continued on and off. The website then instead directed people to submit their submission to a particular email address. Within a number of hours, this email address was bouncing submissions back. A new email address was given for submissions. At this time (Sunday evening), there is no clear process for submission where people can be assured their submission has been received, as many have not received confirmation of receipt. In the context of the government’s behaviour surrounding this Bill, these barriers raise serious concerns as to 1) the legitimacy of the consultation process, particularly from an accessibility perspective; and 2) the competence of this government in general, but especially with regards to technology, noting that this Bill contains measures to introduce automated assessments (aka i-CAN) and payments (aka RoboDebt 2.0 aka RoboNDIS).

There has been investigation by the disabled community into these issues, and no evidence was found that this was deliberately caused by the government or APH to hinder submissions. However, these investigations did show that each time the web page was loaded, the site made around 100 separate requests, causing it to become congested and functionally unusable. My wonderful partner is a software engineer and I asked for his opinion on this. He said that whilst there appears to be no evidence of deliberate tampering from the limited information available, there is absolutely no reason why the site should be making 100 separate requests every time the page is loaded, and that this in itself is indicative of extremely poor design.

Of paramount importance to consider here are four points:

Negligence is negligence, whether it’s active or passive - especially in matters of democracy and accessibility. A website that is not fit for purpose is not an oversight, it is a choice.
Impact > intent ie impact is to be given more weight than intent.
Many in the disabled community have seen so clearly the utter contempt with which this government regards them, that they are willing to believe the democratically-elected Australian government would deliberately interfere with the parliamentary consultation process, one of the cornerstones of our democracy.
All available data points to the Australian government being consistently ill-equipped to implement any form of technology in a manner that is consistent, safe and reliable, and on budget.

In summary: An enquiry needs to be held into this absolute sham of a process, including the degree to which our democratic rights were impinged upon, and whether the Disability and Discrimination Act 1992 (hereafter “DDA 1992”) was violated by accepting written, electronic submissions only (based on my research, the answer to both is Yes).

This Bill Disproportionately Punishes Women

If this Bill passes, it will have a disproportionately detrimental effect on women over men - ironic, since Labor considers itself the party for women and Albanese himself campaigned on the back of his own disabled mother’s labour and sacrifices. The ways in which this Bill will disproportionately punish women are numerous, including:

Submission 2853

Women make up ~70% of the workforce in the NDIS sector. This Bill will result in innumerable job losses across the sector, including plan managers, support coordination and support workers. Many women are drawn to these jobs in part because of the flexibility afforded, which allows them to earn for their families whilst also being available to take care of them. With these job losses, we will see:

A) An increase in unemployment rates; and B) An increase in welfare payments such as JobSeeker and other family support payments; and C) A decrease in income tax payable to the ATO. 2. Women make up the largest proportion of informal carers, being approximately 72% of primary carers and approximately 60% of secondary carers. With all reforms in the Bill coming into play, the end result will be more pressure and responsibility placed on informal carers, particularly mothers, who are already significantly under-supported and at breaking point. This will result in mass job resignation (see point 1 above for the consequences of this), significant financial strain on families who are already struggling in a cost of living crisis (which we know increases the risk of family and domestic violence in general, where disabled people are the most likely cohort to be the victim of violence and abuse), increased carer burnout, increased poor physical and mental health outcomes and increased mortality, increased social isolation, greater strain on already-stretched public health and support services, increased surrender of children to the state, increased rate of financial abuse, bankruptcy and houselessness. I strongly draw the readers attention to the fact that two separate family annihilations have occurred this year already where the children were disabled, before this Bill was even tabled.

Female Participants are already underrepresented on the NDIS. This imbalance is extremely unlikely to be resolved by any of the provisions in this Bill, and if anything is likely to make it harder for females to gain access given the rate of medical negligence, misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, and lack of research into many conditions that predominantly affect women and girls, such as endometriosis and ME.

In summary: This Bill is grotesquely punitive towards women and girls, whether by intention or accident. The economic and humanitarian risks have either not been considered, or have been considered and discarded as unimportant. All options show a concerning lack of understanding and foresight by the Labor government and the other supporters of this Bill.

The NDIS Already Sustains Itself and Then Some AKA This Government is Either Maths-Illiterate

Or Fundamentally Dishonest

The government has worked hard to sell the lie to the citizens of Australia that the NDIS is a burden on the economy and is unsustainable in its current form. This is laughably disprovable to anyone with the most basic grasp of 3rd grade maths:

Research has shown that for every $1 that goes into the NDIS, $2.25 is returned to the Australian economy. This is through a combination of participants being able to work (and therefore pay tax and have disposable income) that otherwise couldn’t, spending on good and services, volunteering and advocacy, and general community participation*. So if for every one billion dollars spent on the NDIS, that money PLUS an additional 1.25 billions dollars gets fed back into the economy, that means the NDIS operates at a net economic gain - a large one at that. Therefore, we can extrapolate that for every one billion dollars REMOVED from the NDIS, the economy suffers from a loss of at least 1.25 billion dollars. You may argue that there is no possible way to predict that - however, with a 50% reduction in Social and Community Access and Capacity Building for every single participant built into this Bill, there is absolutely guaranteed to be a net economic loss.

In summary: The Australian government has deliberately mislead the Australian public in matters of significant economic consequence, and must be held to account. This Bill is ideological not economical in nature, and if the government disputes this they should be required to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, given the impending harm to the disabled

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community.

*I acknowledge that at this point in time I am unaware if this research accounted for more indirect economic contributions, such as parents being able to work who wouldn’t otherwise, less people on welfare, etc etc. If it did, the net effect remains as described. But if not, the economic consequences will be more devastating and far reaching than predicted. The bottom line is that there is no benefit to the economy with this Bill.

The Timing of This Bill is Not a Coincidence

We cannot consider this Bill separate from the global context in which it is occurring. The world is currently is the midst of multiple mass-disabling events, including numerous genocides and multiple pandemics. This is not hyperbole; this is demonstrable fact, despite our government’s refusal to address any of these matters.

The plans for “reforming” the NDIS began in 2021, and has been rolled out in stages by way of multiple separate legislative instruments. It is not a coincidence that Australia, as well as numerous countries around the world, began to restrict the rights and entitlements of disabled people around this time. Being the second full year of the global COVID pandemic, governments around the world saw the writing on the wall: a mass-disabling event, handled as poorly as it was where profit was prioritised over human lives, is naturally going to result in an increasingly disabled population. Unfortunately, an increasingly disabled population requires more support, which costs money, and calls for thoughtful and informed social and economic planning. This was a fantastic opportunity to build a cohesive, robust society which supported people to be productive and live their best lives. Because as demonstrated by decades upon decades of international research, happy and healthy people with a robust support system are more productive and ultimately less of a “burden” on their country in the long run. Instead, we’ve seen a number of governments REDUCE spending on public health, RESTRICT access to social safety nets, and engage in coordinated efforts to paint disabled people as rorters and grifters who are the primary reason everyone else is struggling. Once again, this is not suspicion or conspiracy: this is a documented, provable pattern.

With all this considered, adding in the more recent cost of living crisis and a society that is looking for an outlet for their fear and stress and uncertainty, and you have the perfect environment in which to introduce this Bill. Further still, hold a few focus groups to locate the pressure point (fraud! Rorters! Free cruises!), distribute the message via a mainstream media that is barely more than political party mouthpieces, to an audience of fractured and angry general public who has already shown themselves to be unwilling to suffer even the smallest inconvenience to keep others safe (see further: lockdown, masking, etc) and who already hates “bludgers”, and selling this Bill was a piece of cake. People are already scared of disability, so why not exploit that fear? Disabled people are easy targets. And bonus: NDIS participants are among the most disabled, the most struggling, and are already worn down and out from the never-ending bureaucracy of the Scheme that has only increased since 2024. That same bureaucracy that made the workings of the NDIS so completely opaque to the average citizen of course meant that they would believe it works however the government mouthpieces told them.

In summary: I will repeat the point I made at the beginning as it is very relevant here in considering this Bill in context:

Submission 2853

again across the world.