Submission from Rowena Skinner
The NDIS unquestionably requires:
- sustainability;
- accountability;
- consistency;
- and safeguards against misuse. I would propose a thorough investigation of current costs charged by the private sector and agencies before this bill is considered. We have been told that there may be up to $8 billion dollars in fraud and misuse of funds by providers. Surely they should be the target of any reform in the first instance to see what savings can be made here. Just removing people will not reduce the fraud and misuse of funds and the large profits that private firms are making.
The proposed Bill goes far beyond fraud prevention or administrative reform. Taken cumulatively, the reforms represent a substantial shift away from:
- individualised support;
- participant autonomy;
- procedural fairness;
- and rights-based decision-making. And if this bill passes through parliament unchanged, for many disabled people and their families, the consequences could be life-changing in negative ways.
One of the most concerning changes this bill proposes is a new definition for what counts as a “permanent” disability.
Right now, a person can generally access the NDIS if they’re likely to need support for life and there are no appropriate treatments available that could remedy their disability. Importantly, those treatments must actually be accessible to the person.
But under the proposed changes, treatments that merely reduce the impacts of disability – even if they don’t “cure” it – could potentially be used as grounds to deny access.
And those treatments may not even need to be realistically accessible. That means a person with a lifelong disability could potentially be denied support because a treatment exists somewhere in theory, even if it is financially out of reach or unavailable where they live.
That’s not strengthening the NDIS. That’s narrowing access to it.
The bill also introduces a formal definition of “functional capacity” and opens the door for standardised assessment tools to determine eligibility.
Disabled people have been raising concerns about this for years.
Because standardised assessments rarely capture the reality of living with disability. They often fail to account for fluctuating conditions, masking, exhaustion, or the cumulative impact of navigating inaccessible systems every single day.
Currently, NDIS funding is generally determined based on an individual’s circumstances and support needs. But this bill would allow the Minister to cut funding across entire categories of support.
That means support could potentially be reduced not because a person’s needs changed, but because the government decided a category itself should receive less funding.
The bill would also make it harder for participants to request unscheduled plan reassessments and allow plans to be suspended if a participant is deemed “not contactable.” Importantly, the bill does not clearly define what “not contactable” means. But if a plan is suspended for long enough, a participant could lose NDIS access entirely. Contact means ensuring contact paths are not just a phone call, but based on the needs of the person taking into account their accessibility to contact means. Eg ringing someone who is deaf without using special technology that enables them to respond.
Again, the government continues to frame these reforms as a response to fraud. But none of these changes target provider fraud in any meaningful way.
Instead, they target eligibility, support and reassessment processes. And, most importantly, disabled people themselves.
The proposed amendments expressly permit funding reductions across categories of supports for the purpose of “ensuring the financial sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme”. Critically, subsection 34A(5) expressly states that these reductions may apply even where:
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the funding provided is less than the total cost of a reasonable and necessary support; and/or
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the funding provided is less than the total costs of all reasonable and necessary supports under the plan. This is an extraordinary provision. It effectively acknowledges that participants may meet the statutory criteria for supports to be considered reasonable and necessary, yet still not receive sufficient funding to access those supports. This fundamentally alters the practical meaning of “reasonable and necessary supports”. The Scheme increasingly risks shifting from:
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an individualised rights-based model;
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toward a capped and rationed funding model primarily driven by fiscal constraints. Most concerning is proposed section 25A(2), which provides that treatment may still be considered “appropriate treatment” even where a participant’s individual circumstances restrict access to that treatment. The legislation expressly notes that this includes:
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financial circumstances; and
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geographical location. This provision is highly problematic. It effectively permits decision-makers to conclude that a participant has not undertaken all appropriate treatment even where:
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treatment is financially inaccessible;
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unavailable in regional or remote areas;
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subject to excessive waiting lists;
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or otherwise practically unattainable. In conclusion, this is an unfair and unreasonable bill that targets individual people with disabilities and not the costs levied by providers and profit making entities. Start with them, not those with disabilities. I would also point to other areas where savings could be made. For example funding for private education is $12 billion, surely disabilities are what the government should be supporting, not private education. Also increasing tax on gas and mining and reducing subsidies will provide much needed funds. The government have so far, not supported this. Their primary role is to support community needs, not big corporations.