Submission on the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Amendment
(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission author: Peter Whittigan
Date: 31 May 2026
Prepared for the Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Position in brief: The Bill should not proceed in its current form. Measures directed at fraud, provider integrity, transparent pricing and better administration may be appropriate in principle, but Schedule 1 would substantially narrow access, reduce funding, limit reassessments and shift risk from government design and market settings onto participants and families. Amendments should be made before passage, and access-restricting measures should not commence until genuinely accessible, independently evaluated alternatives are in place.
Executive Summary
I, Peter Whittigan, make this submission in response to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. I recognise the importance of maintaining the long-term sustainability and integrity of the NDIS. Fraud, poor-quality providers, conflicts of interest and distorted market pricing harm participants and should be addressed. However, sustainability cannot be achieved by making disabled people and families bear the consequences of gaps in mainstream systems, unaffordable allied health markets, or government scheme design.
My principle concern is that the Bill responds to system-level cost pressures by reducing participant rights and practical access to support. It introduces a narrower definition of functional capacity; restricts participant-requested plan reassessments; permits ministerial determinations reducing funding for categories of supports; embeds financial sustainability into the reasonable and necessary test; expands reliance on informal care; tightens permanence by reference to treatments that may be inaccessible in practice; and creates access barriers where other service systems are said to be available.
These changes risk punishing participants and families for doing exactly what the NDIS invited them to do: seek support that had been made available under the Scheme. Families do not set the prices of the allied health services they seek, nor the scarcity of any available alternatives outside the NDIS. The NDIS has become the only functioning pathway for many children, autistic Australians and families with complex support needs to receive the support many desperately need. Removing or reducing support before alternatives are proven, accessible and adequately funded is unsafe policy.
A single weekly allied health appointment typically costs (in my experience in metropolitan Melbourne) approximately $200 per hour. On a fortnightly schedule this will total $5,000 of expenditure per year. For weekly appointments this equals $10,000 in annual cost. And this is for only one ongoing appointment. Many children and participants will need more than one provider, and many families have more than one disabled child. No ordinary Australian family can absorb costs like this privately. The appropriate response is not to blame participants for seeking therapy, but to reform market pricing and reimbursement settings. The Bill itself recognises a need for price setting. A Medicare-like approach - transparent maximum prices, evidence based benefit schedules, and public contribution rules - should be explored before restricting access to necessary support.
Thriving Kids and foundational supports are presented as part of the policy context for future access changes. However, the Explanatory Memorandum also acknowledges that the details of child access changes remain subject to further intergovernmental agreement and that widespread foundational supports should be in place before access and budget-setting changes for children are implemented. Participants should not lose established supports based on an untested replacement architecture.
Summary of recommendations
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Amend proposed section 34A so funding cannot be reduced below the realistic cost of reasonable and necessary supports without individual safeguards, reasons, review rights and evidence of safety.
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Do not commence access changes linked to Thriving Kids or foundational supports until those services are nationally available, adequately funded, independently evaluated and demonstrably able to meet need.
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Amend the functional capacity and permanence provisions so that assessments reflect real-world functioning, real access to treatment, and the realities of disability in context.
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Maintain proper recognition of autism diagnoses and ensure functional assessment complements, rather than undermines, established clinical diagnostic practice.
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Prioritise pricing reform, market stewardship and service availability over reducing access for participants and children.
Full Parliamentary Submission
- Introduction My name is Peter Whittigan. I make this submission as a concerned member of the Australian community in response to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
I acknowledge the seriousness of the fiscal and integrity issues raised by the Government. The NDIS must remain viable for all Australians now and into the future. It must also be protected from fraud, exploitation, conflicts of interest and poor-quality services. However, the NDIS exists because Australians with disability and their families need support that ordinary private markets and mainstream systems have not reliably provided. The Scheme cannot be made sustainable by withdrawing support before there is a proven, accessible and equitable alternative.
This submission therefore supports the objective of a sustainable and high-integrity NDIS, but opposes the Bill in its current form. The Bill should be amended so that sustainability is achieved through pricing reform, market regulation, provider integrity, administrative improvement and staged transition to proven alternatives - not by reducing access or shifting costs back to families.
- Key Concerns 2.1 The Bill risks punishing families for seeking support that was offered to them It is disappointing and dismaying that reform is being framed in a way that can make participants and families appear responsible for growth in Scheme costs. Participants did not design the Scheme. They did not create the absence of suitable alternatives. They do not set the price of allied health appointments. They do not choose for disability and developmental services outside the NDIS to be fragmented, underfunded or inaccessible.
Families applied for support through a lawful public scheme and used the supports that were offered to them. We act in good faith. We should not blame Australians for needing support, and then seeking support for what they need.
Reform should be staged, transparent and evidence-led. It should not abruptly narrow access, reduce funding or require families to rely on services that do not yet exist in a usable form.
2.2 There are not yet real alternatives to NDIS-funded supports A recurring assumption in the Bill and Explanatory Memorandum is that other systems can or should meet needs that are currently met through the NDIS. In principle, the NDIS should complement health, education, early childhood, community, aged care and compensation systems. In practice, those systems often do not provide timely, affordable, disability-specific, ongoing allied health and developmental support.
For many families, especially families of children with developmental delay, autism, communication needs, behavioural needs or multiple therapy requirements, the NDIS is not an optional enhancement. It is the only realistic pathway to regular support. The existence of another system on paper is not the same as practical access to assessment, therapy, equipment, behaviour support or care coordination.
The Bill should not allow a person to be excluded or revoked from the Scheme because another system is theoretically responsible, unless that system is actually available, accessible, funded, clinically appropriate, timely and able to meet the person’s need. Otherwise, the legislation risks creating a gap into which children and families will fall.
2.3 Allied health costs are not participant-driven Participants do not control the market price of allied health. Families do not decide that speech pathology, occupational therapy, psychology, physiotherapy, behaviour support or dietetics often cost in the order of $200 per hourly appointment.
At that price ($200 per hour), a fortnightly therapy appointment will cost $5,000 per year. A weekly therapy appointment will total $10,000 per year. If more than one child in a family needs support, those figures multiply. These amounts are unaffordable for ordinary Australians, particularly where caring responsibilities reduce parents’ capacity to work.
The fact that NDIS plans may appear expensive is therefore not evidence that families are over-using supports. It is often evidence that the underlying service market is too expensive and that families have no affordable substitute. Reform should focus on price, supply, workforce and reimbursement settings rather than blaming participants for using the supports they need.
2.4 Reform pricing and market settings before reducing access The Bill’s pricing reforms point in the right direction, but the access and funding reductions go too far. Medicare manages public expenditure through benefit schedules, item rules, public contribution levels and regulated payment arrangements. It does not respond to the cost of health care by telling people that clinically necessary care is no longer necessary simply because the market price is high.
The NDIS should adopt a similar approach. Where there is evidence of excessive provider pricing, distorted markets or poor value, the Government should set transparent price and benefit limits, require appropriate evidence, regulate provider behaviour and invest in public or community alternatives. The burden should not be shifted onto participants by reducing budgets below the real cost of treatment/therapy.
A Medicare-like approach would also be clearer for families and providers. It could identify what the public scheme will contribute, what evidence is required, what outcomes are expected, and what price is reasonable. That approach is fairer and more transparent than blunt reductions in funding categories or access rules.
2.5 Support determinations could reduce funding below the cost of necessary support Proposed section 34A is one of the most concerning provisions. It would allow the Minister, by legislative instrument, to reduce funding component amounts for specified groups of supports in old framework plans. The provision expressly contemplates that a participant may receive less funding than the total cost of a reasonable and necessary support, or less than the total cost of all reasonable and necessary supports in the plan.
This is not merely an administrative adjustment. It changes the practical meaning of reasonable and necessary support. A support may be recognised as reasonable and necessary, yet the participant may still be left without enough funding to purchase it. For families relying on allied health, behaviour support, support coordination, community participation or capacity-building supports, the consequence may be that the plan looks adequate on paper but cannot be implemented in practice.
The only express constraint in proposed section 34A(3) is that the Minister must have regard to participant safety. Safety is essential but insufficient. The law should also require consideration of adequacy, continuity of support, developmental impact, family sustainability, regional availability, participant rights, and the effect on children and people with complex needs.
2.6 The new reassessment threshold may leave participants unable to respond to changing needs The Bill would limit participant-requested plan reassessments to circumstances satisfying proposed section 48A. The desire to prevent inappropriate provider-driven reassessment requests is understandable. However, the proposed threshold is narrow and may not reflect how disability support needs change in real life.
Families may need changes to support because school demands change, therapy goals change, informal care becomes exhausted, a parent’s work or health circumstances change, a child’s behaviour escalates, a provider withdraws, or a participant’s needs become clearer after support begins. Not all of these changes will fit neatly within the proposed categories of significant, ongoing and unanticipated changes, or involve a substantial reduction in daily activity performance.
The move from a 21-day timeframe to a 90-day period also risks harm. A child may lose months of intervention at a critical developmental stage. A family may experience crisis while waiting. A participant may be left without the support needed to remain safely at home, at school or in the community. A 30 to 60 day timeframe would be more reasonable.
2.7 Functional capacity must be assessed in context, not stripped of real-world barriers The proposed definition of functional capacity asks whether a person can undertake an activity without assistance from other people, assistive technology or modifications, and in a context that excludes, as far as possible, environmental and personal circumstances (Schedule 1, Part 1, Proposed Section 9B). While consistency in assessment is valuable, disability is experienced in real environments, not in a hypothetical neutral setting.
The risk is that functional capacity becomes an abstract test detached from actual participation. A person’s support needs are shaped by communication environments, sensory load, family circumstances, school settings, transport options, housing, geography, poverty, workforce availability and the accessibility of mainstream services. Excluding these circumstances may produce standardised decisions, but not necessarily fair or accurate ones.
The Bill should require that functional assessment includes real-world participation, environmental barriers, the availability of informal supports, and the supports reasonably required to prevent deterioration. A consistent assessment that ignores reality will not be equitable.
2.8 Autism diagnosis should not be treated as a superficial label The policy debate around NDIS reform has often implied that diagnosis and functional impairment are separate concepts, and that moving from diagnostic access to functional assessment is inherently more rigorous. That framing is particularly concerning for autism.
Autism is not diagnosed by a blood test or a self-imposed label. It is diagnosed through careful clinical assessment of social communication, restricted and repetitive behaviours, developmental history, adaptive functioning, sensory differences, behaviour, observation across settings, reports from families and educators, and the effect of these features on daily life. In other words, autism diagnosis already relies heavily on behavioural observations, functional impairments, capability assessments and developmental outcomes.
Functional assessment can complement autism diagnosis, but it should not be used to diminish the validity of the diagnosis or to suggest that existing diagnostic practice is not already grounded in function. The Bill should make clear that established clinical diagnoses remain relevant evidence and that functional tools will not be applied in a way that disadvantages autistic people with fluctuating, masked, context-dependent or less visible support needs.
2.9 The permanence provisions may penalise people who cannot access treatment The Bill would provide that an impairment is not permanent, or likely to be permanent, unless the person has undertaken all appropriate treatment, any other treatment is unlikely to materially improve, reverse or alleviate the impact, and the impairment is likely to persist for the person’s lifetime. It also provides that treatment may be appropriate even if a person’s individual circumstances restrict access, including financial circumstances and geographical location.
This is unjust. A person should not be denied disability support because an evidence-based treatment exists somewhere in Australia but is unaffordable, unavailable in their region, subject to long waitlists, unsuitable for their family circumstances, or inaccessible due to transport, workforce or service shortages.
The permanence test should focus on realistic, accessible and clinically appropriate treatment. It should not assume that theoretical availability is enough. Otherwise, the Bill risks excluding people precisely because mainstream systems have failed to provide timely treatment.
2.10 Thriving Kids is untested and should not be used to justify withdrawing supports The Explanatory Memorandum links access reforms for children to the rollout of Thriving Kids and foundational supports. Those supports may become valuable if they are properly designed, funded and implemented. At present, however, they remain untested as a substitute for individualised NDIS supports.
The key question is not whether a new model is desirable in principle. The question is whether it exists, whether it is accessible nationally, whether it has sufficient workforce and funding, whether it can meet the needs of autistic children and children with developmental delay, whether families can actually obtain support when needed, and whether outcomes have been independently evaluated.
The Bill should include a statutory precondition that access-restricting provisions for children cannot commence until Thriving Kids and foundational supports are demonstrably operational, accessible and effective. The NDIS Review’s own caution - that changes for children should only occur once widespread foundational supports are in place - should be translated into legislative safeguards.
2.11 Plan suspension and revocation require stronger safeguards The Bill would allow suspension of a plan where the CEO has made reasonable attempts to contact a participant for information or reports and the participant is not contactable. Participant status may then be revoked if the plan has been suspended for at least 90 days. While the Agency needs workable contact processes, this power must be handled with exceptional care.
Participants may be difficult to contact for reasons directly related to disability, family crisis, housing insecurity, family violence, language barriers, digital exclusion, hospitalisation, mental illness, caring responsibilities or regional disadvantage. Suspension and revocation could therefore affect precisely those participants who have the least capacity to navigate administrative systems.
At minimum, the Bill should require multi-channel contact attempts, nominee and advocate engagement where appropriate, plain language notices, extended safeguards for children and people with cognitive disability, proactive support before suspension, and a rapid reinstatement mechanism with backdating where the participant re-engages.
- Specific Recommendations Recommendation 1 - Do not pass Schedule 1 in its current form: Schedule 1 should be amended before passage. Access, planning and funding provisions should be redesigned to protect participants from abrupt loss of support and to ensure individualised safeguards.
Recommendation 2 - Amend proposed section 34A: Support determinations should not be allowed to reduce funding below the realistic cost of reasonable and necessary supports unless there has been individual consideration, written reasons, review rights, transition support and evidence that safety, continuity and outcomes will not be harmed.
Recommendation 3 - Preserve timely participant-requested reassessments: Proposed section 48A should be broadened to include clinically justified changes, family crisis, provider market failure, exhausted informal care, major developmental transitions and urgent circumstances. The 90-day timeframe should be shortened.
Recommendation 4 - Assess functional capacity in real-world context: The functional capacity definition and associated rules should require consideration of environmental barriers, real-world settings, fluctuating support needs, masking, informal support sustainability, assistive technology and the practical availability of services.
Recommendation 5 - Protect children and families: The reasonable and necessary amendments should not operate on a presumption that parents can absorb substantial disability-related care. The legislation should recognise that disability support needs are additional to ordinary parenting and that family capacity can be exhausted.
Recommendation 6 - Do not use theoretical treatment access to deny permanence: The permanence provisions should be amended so that only treatment that is clinically appropriate, affordable, timely and practically accessible to the person can be treated as relevant to whether an impairment is permanent or likely to be permanent.
Recommendation 7 - Do not rely on alternative service systems unless they actually meet need: A person should not be excluded or revoked because another system is theoretically responsible unless that system is actually available, accessible, funded, timely and capable of meeting the person’s needs.
Recommendation 8 - Delay child access changes until Thriving Kids is proven: Access changes linked to Thriving Kids or foundational supports should not commence until independent evaluation shows that the replacement system is nationally available, adequately funded, effective and accessible to families.
Recommendation 9 - Maintain recognition of autism diagnoses: The Bill and associated rules should state that autism diagnoses remain valid and relevant evidence, and that functional assessment is to complement rather than undermine clinical diagnosis.
Recommendation 10 - Prioritise pricing reform: Government should develop transparent NDIS pricing and benefit settings similar in concept to Medicare-style schedules, with maximum prices, evidence requirements and public contribution rules, before reducing participant access.
Recommendation 11 - Strengthen safeguards around suspension, revocation and automation: Suspension, revocation and automated administrative action should include robust notice, supported decision-making, advocate engagement, review rights, auditability, backdating and safeguards for children and participants with cognitive, psychosocial or communication disabilities.
- Conclusion The NDIS is a critical national institution. Its sustainability matters. But sustainability must not be achieved by making disabled Australians and their families carry the cost of system failure. Families have sought support because the NDIS was the system made available to them. There are still no equivalent alternatives for many children, autistic Australians and participants with complex needs.
The Bill contains worthwhile objectives, particularly in relation to fraud, provider integrity and pricing transparency. However, the access and planning provisions in Schedule 1 are too broad, too blunt and
insufficiently safeguarded. They risk reducing support before replacement systems exist and before the real drivers of cost - market pricing, service scarcity, lack of mainstream supports and provider behaviour - have been addressed.
I respectfully urge Parliament to amend the Bill so that reform is evidence-led, rights-respecting and practically safe. Disabled people and families should not be punished for seeking the support they were offered. The Scheme should be secured for future generations by making it fairer, clearer and better governed - not by withdrawing support from those who need it most.
Appendix A - Legislative Analysis
This appendix summarises the key provisions considered in this submission and their practical significance for participants and families.
Bill provision What it does Submission concern / suggestedamendment
Schedule 1, Part 1 - functional capacity Defines functional capacity as a person’s A consistent test is useful, but disabilityability to undertake an activity without support needs are experienced in real assistance, assistive technology or world environments. Rules should modifications and, as far as possible, require assessment of actual excluding environmental and personal participation, fluctuating needs, circumstances. environmental barriers, informal support sustainability and assistive technology.
Schedule 1, Part 2 - plan reassessments Limits participant-requested The threshold may be too narrow and tooreassessments to circumstances slow for children, family crises, informal involving significant and ongoing changes care breakdown, school transitions, in eligible support needs, with specific provider withdrawal or emerging needs. A functional or personal/environmental broader urgent/interim pathway is triggers and a 90-day decision period. needed.
Schedule 1, Part 3 - direct link to Requires supports to address needs This may exclude supports that are
impairment arising directly from impairments that necessary because of the interactionmeet disability or early intervention between impairment, family requirements. circumstances, environment, school, communication and behaviour. The word “directly” should not be applied so narrowly that integrated disability support is lost.
Schedule 1, Part 4 - support Allows the Minister to reduce funding This is a major reduction power. It should
determinations component amounts for specified require individual safeguards,support groups in old framework plans, consultation, reasons, review rights, including where funding is less than the adequacy assessment and evidence that total cost of reasonable and necessary supports remain purchasable. supports.
Schedule 1, Part 5 - plan renewal Automatically renews old framework Automatic renewal may reduceplans on their end date, with alterations administrative burden, but participants including removal of one-off funding and need reviewable decisions where funding other changes determined by legislative is changed, and safeguards where needs instrument; making the renewed plan is have changed. not a reviewable decision.
Schedule 1, Part 6 - reasonable and Amends objects and principles to Financial sustainability should not
necessary supports emphasise financial sustainability, override the practical adequacy ofallows maximum funding/intensity/ratio support. Evidence requirements must not settings, changes value-for-money and penalise children or therapies where evidence considerations, and sets individualised outcomes are clinically expectations around family and informal meaningful. Family support should not be support. treated as an unlimited substitute for funded support.
Schedule 1, Part 7 - plan suspension and Allows suspension where a participant is Participants may be uncontactable
revocation not contactable after reasonable because of disability, crisis,attempts, and revocation where communication barriers or disadvantage. suspension has continued for at least 90 Stronger safeguards, advocate days. involvement and rapid reinstatement are needed.
Schedule 1, Part 8 - permanence Introduces “all appropriate treatment” The test should be based on realisticand allows treatment to be considered access to clinically appropriate appropriate even where individual treatment. Theoretical treatment circumstances such as financial availability should not exclude people circumstances or geographical location who cannot actually access treatment. restrict access.
Schedule 1, Part 9 - alternative supports / Adds alternative support requirements The law should require proof that the
other systems and allows exclusion or revocation where alternative system actually meets theimpairments are excluded because of person’s need in practice. Paper
compensation schemes or declared responsibility is not enough. alternative supports.
Schedule 3 - pricing and automation Creates ministerial price-setting Automation requires transparency,mechanisms and permits automated auditability, disability-accessible administrative action with specified explanation rights and most importantly safeguards. the right to human review.