Submission 2881 — Name Withheld — NDIS Future Generations Bill

Submission to the Inquiry into the

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs

1 June 2026

Submitted by A registered psychologist and private practice owner

AHPRA-endorsed in Clinical and Counselling Psychology

Psychology Board of Australia Approved Supervisor

South Australia

Full submitter details provided to the Committee Secretariat on lodgement. The submitter requests that this submission, if published, be published without identifying particulars.

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1. Summary 1.1 This submission addresses three provisions of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 which, in combination, raise serious concerns about the safety of NDIS participants with complex or co-occurring presentations:

(a) Schedule 4 — which authorises Rules specifying a support needs assessment tool and budget method, the operational form of which has not been publicly released;

(b) Proposed s 34(1)(aa) — the “directly arising” test, reversing NDIA v Eastham (2026)*; and

(c) Proposed ss 34(1E)–(1F) and proposed s 34A — the mandatory evidence hierarchy and support determinations.

1.2 The submission proposes specific amendments to each provision. It does not oppose the Bill in its entirety, and recognises the legitimate sustainability objectives the reforms seek to achieve.

2. About this submission 2.1 This submission is made in two capacities. The first is in a personal and professional capacity by a registered psychologist endorsed by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency in both clinical psychology and counselling psychology, a Psychology Board of Australia approved supervisor, and a practitioner with over twenty years of clinical experience. The second is on behalf of a private psychology practice in South Australia, employing registered and provisional psychologists who provide supports to NDIS-funded participants.

2.2 Approximately one-third of the practice’s revenue is derived from NDIS-funded supports. This commercial interest is disclosed transparently. The submission is made notwithstanding this commercial interest, because the concerns raised relate to the impacts of the Bill on participants and their families, and are anchored in patterns currently being observed in clinical practice.

3. Schedule 4 — the Bill authorises infrastructure for an assessment tool that has not been publicly scrutinised

3.1 What the Bill does 3.1.1 Schedule 4 of the Bill establishes the legal architecture for “new framework planning” by authorising NDIS Rules to specify a support needs assessment tool and a budget method (proposed s 32K, as amended). The Explanatory Memorandum (pp. 141–142) states that the support needs assessment tool will “identify support needs without reference to NDIS supports”, and that those outputs will then “be translated using the outputs of the tool and be reflected in the budget method.”

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3.1.2 The Explanatory Memorandum further acknowledges (p. 130) that “the operationalisation of new framework planning will involve at least computer assisted decision making”, and that “a computer-based program could be used in the new framework planning process.” Proposed s 59C lists section 33 — the planning provision — as a designated provision in respect of which the CEO may arrange for administrative action to be taken by a computer program.

3.2 The concern 3.2.1 The Bill authorises this infrastructure without specifying the assessment tool, its scoring methodology, or the way scores will translate into participant budgets. One operational instrument widely understood to be intended for this role — the Instrument for the Classification and Assessment of Support Needs (I-CAN) — has been licensed by the NDIA from the University of Melbourne and the Centre for Disability Studies, but its full structure, its weighting of disability types, and the budget translation methodology are not in the public domain.

3.2.2 Parliament is being asked to authorise the legal infrastructure for an instrument the public has not seen. Once the legal architecture is in place, the operational tool can be modified through Rules and Ministerial determinations without further parliamentary consideration. This is a substantial transfer of decision-making authority away from primary legislation, in respect of a tool whose distributional effects on participants have not been independently scrutinised.

3.3 Recommendation 3.3.1 Defer the commencement of Schedule 4 until the assessment tool, its scoring methodology, and the budget translation method have been published, and have been subject to formal consultation including with the National Boards of the regulated health professions and with disability representative organisations. While the Bill does not itself prescribe a budgeting algorithm, it establishes the legislative framework through which assessment outputs may be translated into budgets via rules and administrative systems

4. Proposed s 34(1)(aa) — the disregard of co-occurring conditions 4.1 The Bill’s intent — Nykolai 4.1.1 The Explanatory Memorandum (pp. 26–27) illustrates the intended operation of proposed s 34(1)(aa) using the worked example of “Nykolai”, a 14-year-old NDIS participant with cerebral palsy who has subsequently been diagnosed with ADHD. The example records that the ADHD-associated behaviours are affecting Nykolai’s siblings, his school participation, and his parents’ capacity to cope. The Explanatory Memorandum then directs that the NDIS planner cannot consider supports related to the ADHD; funded supports must address the physical impairment alone. This is the government’s own worked illustration of what the Bill is designed to do — a 14-year-old disengaging from school, a family in crisis, and the scheme required by law to look past all of it.

4.2 The harm this produces

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4.2.1 Comorbidity is the rule, not the exception, among NDIS participants. The Australian Evidence Based Clinical Practice Guideline for ADHD (AADPA, 2022; NHMRC-approved) directs that intervention occur within a holistic, multi-disciplinary framework; untreated ADHD in adolescence is associated with school failure, suicidality, substance use, and accidental injury (Faraone et al., 2021). For a young person already living with cerebral palsy, these risks compound rather than substitute.

4.2.2 The pattern the Bill establishes is one of categorical exclusion: a participant’s co-occurring condition is acknowledged as real, diagnosed, and clinically significant, yet excluded from the scope of funded supports because it does not match the access impairment. The Nykolai example in the Explanatory Memorandum is not a case of the planner failing to recognise the ADHD — the diagnosis is on file, its impacts are described, and its consequences for the family are accepted. The planner is required by the Bill to disregard it nonetheless. This is a fragmented response to a child whose needs are clinically inseparable, produced not by oversight but by design. This will lead to poorer outcomes for the children, whose future functioning in the community depends on us being able to support their earlier development as a whole.

4.3 The safeguard the Bill removes from participants 4.3.1 The codes of conduct governing registered health practitioners — including the Psychology Board of Australia Code of conduct for psychologists (effective 1 December 2025) — exist to protect the public. They require treating practitioners to act in the best interests of those they care for and to respond to material risks of harm. The Bill, by confining funded supports to the access impairment alone, removes from participants the response that framework was designed to ensure they receive. The downstream consequences of harm to NDIS participants are escalated to emergency departments, child protection services, coronial review, and AHPRA notification.

4.4 Recommendation 4.4.1 Amend proposed s 34(1)(aa): replace the “directly arising” test with an “arising from or substantially interacting with” test, restoring the position established in NDIA v Eastham (2026).

5. Proposed ss 34(1E)–(1F) and proposed s 34A — supports being removed despite evidence of effectiveness

5.1 What the Bill does 5.1.1 Proposed s 34(1E) introduces a mandatory order in which the CEO must weigh evidence when deciding whether a support is “effective and beneficial.” Top priority is given to research that is published, peer-reviewed and generalisable, followed in descending order by evidence for people in similar circumstances, evidence of outcomes for the participant, and any other matter. The Explanatory Memorandum (p. 53) is explicit: the CEO may decide a support is not effective and beneficial where peer-reviewed evidence is limited or absent, even where there is evidence the support is working for the individual participant.

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5.1.2 Proposed s 34A authorises the Minister to make support determinations, including determinations that cap funding, frequency, duration, and worker-to-participant ratios for particular classes of support.

5.2 The pattern in current practice 5.2.1 The combined operational effect of these provisions is already being observed in current planning practice. Participants who have established therapeutic relationships with allied health practitioners — supported by clinical reports demonstrating measurable functional gains — are seeing those supports removed at plan reassessment. In their place, participants are being offered alternative supports they did not request, in some cases at substantially higher funding levels than the supports being removed.

5.2.2 A participant who has told the planning process that an existing support is working for them, and who can demonstrate functional gains, should not have that support replaced with an alternative they did not ask for. The Bill, by privileging averaged research evidence over both participant outcomes and treating practitioner observation, authorises this pattern and risks entrenching it across the Scheme.

5.3 Recommendation 5.3.1 Amend proposed s 34(1E) to remove the mandatory hierarchy. Require the CEO to integrate research, treating practitioner observation, and participant outcomes, with no single source determinative.

5.3.2 Amend proposed s 34A so that support determinations may not be applied to remove or substantially reduce funding for a support where there is documented evidence the support is producing functional gains for the individual participant, save with the participant’s informed consent.

6. Conclusion 6.1 The amendments proposed are intended to preserve the safeguards that the Scheme exists to deliver, without compromising the Bill’s broader sustainability objectives.

*Chief Executive Officer of the National Disability Insurance Agency v Eastham [2026] FCA 147

AADPA (2022)

Australian Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guideline for ADHD.

Faraone SV et al. (2021)

The World Federation of ADHD International Consensus Statement: 208 Evidence-based Conclusions

about the Disorder. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.

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