Submission 318
SWAN Submission to the Senate Inquiry into the ‘Securing the NDIS for Future Generations’ Bill 2026
wa-
South West Autism Network
Submission 318
Acknowledgements
SWAN acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which this submission was produced, the Wardandi Noongar people. We acknowledge their deep spiritual connection to this land and extend our respects to community members and Elders past and present.
About SWAN
South West Autism Network (SWAN) is a not-for-profit, charitable organisation that has been supporting autistic individuals and their families in the south-west region of Western Australia for the past 17 years. We are a Disabled Persons and Families Organisation (DPFO) with more than 2,000 members, and we provide free support to many more people with disability and their families. All staff, volunteers, and Board members either have a disability or are family members of someone with a disability.
Our primary role in the community is to provide information, peer support, advocacy, and connections to mainstream and disability services. We build the capacity of people with disabilities and their families to navigate disability and mainstream systems to meet their needs and participate in their local communities. We support people seeking diagnosis, post-diagnosis, and across their lifespan, and provide autistic-safe space group programs for autistic children, teens, and young adults through our AutStars and YES Programs. We also deliver Youth Mental Health First Aid training to the wider community.
As a regional not-for-profit Disabled Persons and Families Organisation (DPFO) providing information, peer support and advocacy, we are able to draw on 17 years’ experience supporting autistic individuals and their families, carers, support workers, allied health professionals, and the wider community. Our submission aims to include the voices of everyone who will be impacted by these proposed amendments to the NDIS Act.
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Executive Summary
The Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 must not be passed. The Bill should be withdrawn, and thorough consultation with the disability community and our representative organisations be made with a full exposure draft and minimum three month consultation before any further amendments to the NDIS Act 2013 are made.
What do you think should happen with this Bill?
Other
4.7%
Withdraw & consult
widely before further
changes
84.7%
As shown in the pie graph above, 84.67% of survey respondents (856 people) said the Bill should be withdrawn and the Government should consult widely with the disability community before making any further changes to the NDIS law. Only six people (0.59%) said the Bill should be passed mostly as it is.
The Bill would significantly and harmfully narrow access to the NDIS, reduce and cap supports, expand automation and coercive compliance powers, weaken procedural fairness and review rights, and move the Scheme away from a rights-based, person-centred model towards a rationed, bureaucratic system driven by cost-containment instead of need. It is inconsistent with the Disability Royal Commission’s findings and with Australia’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), and it will predictably cause serious harm to people with disability, their families and communities.
Access and eligibility – tighter gatekeeping and loss of ‘whole-of-person’ assessment The Bill makes it harder to get onto, and stay on, the NDIS by introducing a narrow functional capacity definition (section 9B), new treatment exhaustion rules and the power to refuse access where other systems ‘should’ provide support (proposed sections 25A and 25B), and by allowing access to be revoked where people are deemed ‘uncontactable’. These changes sit in a context where there are already at least 232,546 Australians with profound disability not on the NDIS, and access requirements are already extremely difficult.
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Standardised functional capacity tools and stricter permanence rules will disproportionately harm autistic people, people with psychosocial disability, people with fluctuating or cumulative disabilities, and those in regional and remote areas who cannot access the necessary assessments and treatments.
Removing eligibility lists (such as List A) will drive people with disability further into crisis, risk safety by delaying access and insert additional bureaucratic hoops to navigate through a standardised assessment tool that will lack the nuance and flexibility to appropriately assess the impact of the wide diversity of disability types.
The Bill also allows plans to be suspended and access revoked if the NDIA cannot contact a participant, without enforceable requirements to use accessible, safe communication methods or to consider disability-related barriers, hospitalisation, homelessness or trauma. Survey responses show 92.21% of respondents are moderately to extremely worried that people will lose NDIS access when they have done nothing wrong, simply because NDIA’s communication practices are inaccessible or unsafe. This is inconsistent with the Disability Royal Commission and the UNCRPD, which require accessible processes, continuity of supports and protection against institutionalisation.
Plans, reviews and unspent funds – less stability, less responsiveness, weaker safeguards
The Bill rewrites planning and review processes by introducing plan end dates and automatic renewals, tightening unscheduled reassessments, lengthening decision timeframes from 21 to 90 days, and removing key deemed-decision safeguards. Under proposed section 50A, plans can be automatically renewed without genuine engagement with the participant and without carrying over one-off supports such as home or vehicle modifications, and the renewed plan will not be a reviewable decision.
Unspent funds are treated as a proxy for lower need, despite the fact that under-utilisation most often reflects market failure, extensive waitlists, cancellation, hospitalisation or regional workforce shortages - not a lack of need. Survey data shows 95.25% of respondents agree or strongly agree the Bill will make it much harder to change plans when needs change, and the majority want unspent funds to carry over at least where delays are caused by long waitlists.
Proposed section 48A sharply narrows the circumstances in which participants can request an unscheduled reassessment to ‘significant and ongoing’ changes, leaving many urgent but time-limited crises outside the net. This exposes people to serious risks of neglect, abuse, hospitalisation and death when informal supports break down, providers collapse or initial plans were plainly inadequate. Limiting who can request plan changes (to participants or a single plan nominee) ignores the reality that many people rely on support coordinators, advocates and other helpers to navigate the system and leaves those without family or a nominee at particular risk. It also ignores the reality that NDIA only permit participants to have one plan nominee. This means that where a participant is unable to communicate with NDIA direct (because of their disability) and the plan nominee becomes incapacitated or passes away, there would be no method for having the plan reassessed.
Ministerial powers to cut funding – scheme-wide, non-reviewable cuts and caps
The Bill creates an extraordinary and alarming new Ministerial power under section 34A to reduce funding for specified groups of supports scheme-wide by legislative instrument, even where those supports have been assessed as reasonable and necessary for individuals. The Government has already stated its intention to use this power to cut social, civic and
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community participation budgets by 50% and capacity-building supports by 10%, affecting whole categories of essential support.
These cuts are indiscriminate and fail to consider how decisions are made by NDIS delegates. There are hundreds of thousands of participants whose Core supports are already structured so that social, civic and community participation funding is being used to cover essential daily living and supervision needs - including for many people requiring 24/7 support, people in Supported Independent Living, and participants whose carers rely on NDIS supports to stay in paid work. Survey results are overwhelming: more than 95% of respondents oppose these powers and foresee major negative impacts, including worse mental health, increased isolation, greater family stress and fewer people with disability and carers able to remain in employment.
The Bill also allows the Minister to set maximum caps, intensities and worker-to-participant ratios for supports (amended section 33 and subsections 33(2EA)-(2EB)), and hard-wires these caps into new budget algorithms for New Framework Plans (amended section 32K). This shifts real power over how much support participants can ever receive away from transparent, individualised planning into behind-the-scenes instruments that are not subject to merits review, contrary to the Disability Royal Commission’s warnings against blunt rationing and quotas.
Automation, compliance powers and debts – a Robodebt-style risk in the NDIS The Bill establishes a broad legislative framework for automated decision making by the NDIA via sections 59B-59E, allowing computer programs to take ‘administrative action’ on the NDIA’s behalf, including actions that involve discretion, evaluative judgment and forming a state of mind. These provisions initially apply to key payment and planning sections (33, 45, 45A, 45C) and can be extended to other provisions by Ministerial instrument. Despite some safeguards, the effect is to normalise automation in a system already experienced as confusing and punitive, with 72.6% of survey respondents opposing increased automation.
At the same time, Schedule 2 significantly expands NDIA’s monitoring, investigation and coercive powers (sections 73ZSA, 73ZSB and related provisions), and introduces stronger information-gathering and appearance requirements with a 60-penalty-unit civil penalty (currently $19,800) for failures to comply. It imposes new record-keeping duties (section 45B) on participants and nominees and links failure to keep records to automatic debts of the full amount of claims paid, without clear, disability-specific defences or explicit merits review rights for the underlying debt decision. This record-keeping requirement is inserted despite the fact that self-managed participants are already required to upload invoices, receipts and other evidence to the NDIS Portal with each claim. We note also that Medicare claims do not impose additional record-keeping requirements large fines for failing to keep records.
The debt and record-keeping provisions are particularly dangerous in light of NDIA’s own debt error rate: 24.2% of reviewed debts between 2017 and 2024 contained errors. Yet the Bill does not make the original decision that a debt exists a reviewable decision under section 99, even though it does add review rights for some lesser compliance decisions such as issuing a compliance notice. Participants face increased risk of automatic debts, fines and enforcement where records are missing due to disability, poverty, disaster or NDIA’s failure to properly explain obligations, while lacking a clear, direct path to challenge whether the debt should have been raised at all.
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Survey respondents explicitly connect these changes with Robodebt: they justifiably fear an opaque, automated debt-raising regime in which it is harder to understand how decisions are made, harder to fix mistakes and harder to access justice. The approach conflicts with key recommendations of the Robodebt Royal Commission on automation safeguards, transparency, review rights, and empathetic, proportionate debt recovery, and is inconsistent with the Disability Royal Commission and the UNCRPD’s requirements for procedural fairness and access to justice.
Reasonable and necessary criteria – from individual need to cost-cutting
Schedule 1, Part 6 rewrites the ‘reasonable and necessary’ framework by amending the objects in section 3, inserting new sustainability principles in section 17B, repealing section 31, and inserting an extensive set of new subsections in section 34. Removing section 31 strips out the key statement of the outcomes and assistance the NDIS is meant to pursue, while the new provisions explicitly prioritise ‘financial sustainability’, require supports to arise directly from access-qualifying impairments, and emphasise ‘fair and consistent’ funding across similar participants.
These changes push decision-making towards standardised budgets, averages and caps, rather than individual circumstances, particularly for people with multiple impairments or complex needs whose support requirements cannot be neatly tied to a single diagnosis. Survey respondents warn that this version of ‘consistency’ will mean complex people are squeezed into simplified categories and funded to an average, not to their actual needs, undermining early intervention, holistic support and the ‘whole-of-person’ approach the NDIS was meant to embody.
Choice, control and provider registration - back towards block-funded, provider-centred models
The Bill advances fraud and integrity measures that, in practice, tighten provider registration and limit the ability of participants to use non-registered providers, particularly for core supports and personal care while doing little to reduce fraud. This undermines self-management and plan management, reduces flexibility, and risks recreating a provider-centred, block-funded system in which people must fit around providers rather than the provider being required to meet the needs of the participant, or lose their custom.
Mandatory or heavy-handed registration requirements will be particularly harmful in regional and remote areas, where participants already face thin markets, long waitlists and high travel costs. Forcing people to use distant registered providers will increase cost and reduce the amount of actual support, and undermine safe, trusted relationships with local workers, small businesses and community connections that often make support viable in the first place. This is inconsistent with the Disability Royal Commission’s emphasis on choice and control and with the UNCRPD’s requirement that people with disability have the right to choose their own supports, including in their homes and communities.
Cost-cutting at the expense of rights, safety and long-term sustainability
The Bill reframes the NDIS as a scheme whose primary obligation is ‘financial sustainability’, and uses that lens to justify tighter access, reduced supports, caps and Ministerial determinations, instead of targeting structural waste, price distortions and poor administration. Survey data show most respondents do not support this direction and foresee severe negative impacts, including reduced employment for people with disability and carers, more unpaid care (especially by women), increased hospitalisation, greater use
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of aged care and justice systems, and heightened risks of violence, abuse, neglect and premature death.
There are credible, rights-respecting alternatives to cost control. SWAN’s submission identifies significant savings from reducing unnecessary high-cost reports, improving decision quality, providing draft plans for correction, reducing reliance on external legal contest, and addressing inefficiencies in outsourced partner models. These options align with the Disability Royal Commission’s call to fix systems and structures rather than cutting supports, and with the UNCRPD’s requirement that financial measures do not undermine the right to live independently and be included in the community.
Conclusion and key asks to the Senate
SWAN’s position is unequivocal: this Bill must be withdrawn and the Government must consult widely with the disability community before any further amendments to the legislation are made. It represents a fundamental shift away from a rights-based, individualised NDS towards a rationed, automated, compliance-heavy system that will exclude people, cut essential supports, and increase avoidable harm and cost across the broader social system.
At minimum, SWAN calls on the Senate to:
- Reject or substantially amend the access and eligibility provisions (including sections 9B, 24, 25A, 25B, 30(1A), 40A) so that access remains grounded in whole-of-person assessment, fluctuating and cumulative disability, and practical availability of supports.
- Reject automatic plan renewals without genuine participant engagement, the narrowing of unscheduled reassessments, the extension of decision timeframes to 90 days, and the removal of deemed-decision safeguards, and ensure that unspent funds are not treated as a blunt proxy for reduced need.
- Remove Ministerial powers to make support determinations under section 34A and to set hard caps and ratios under section 33 and section 32K, or at the very least subject any such instruments to strict rights-based criteria, Parliamentary oversight, individual risk assessment and enforceable review rights.
- Fix procedural fairness and review rights before expanding automation, compliance and debt powers: make debt decisions reviewable, prohibit fully automated debt-raising and adverse compliance decisions, and require accessible human decision-making, explanation and independent auditing of automated systems.
- Preserve and strengthen the original objects and principles (including the substance of section 31) so that financial sustainability is balanced with, not placed above, rights, inclusion, safety and person-centred support.
- Reject any move towards mandatory provider registration that undermines self-management, plan management and local, trusted support arrangements, particularly in regional and remote areas.
If Parliament proceeds with this Bill as drafted, it will be doing so in full knowledge of clear, detailed evidence from people with disability, families and practitioners that the reforms will cause foreseeable and avoidable harm. The Senate should insist on a different path - one that secures the NDIS by fixing inefficiencies and improving decision-making, not by cutting away the supports and rights that people with disability need to live safely and with dignity.
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Contents
- Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 2
- About SWAN …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2
- Executive Summary …………………………………………………………………………………………… 3
- Contents …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8
- Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 9
- Getting onto the NDIS (Access and Eligibility) …………………………………………………… 12
- Plans, Reviews and Unspent Funds ………………………………………………………………… 25
- Funding Cuts by Ministerial Determination ……………………………………………………….. 31
- Automation, Compliance Powers and Debts …………………………………………………….. 38
- Changes to the Reasonable and Necessary Criteria ………………………………………….. 53
- Narrowing of Supports …………………………………………………………………………………… 59
- Choice and Control ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 62
- Repercussions of Cost Cutting ……………………………………………………………………….. 67
- Where Could Alternate Savings Be Made in the NDIS? ……………………………………… 70
- Recommendations …………………………………………………………………………………………… 72
- Contact …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 77
- Appendix One: Plain English Survey Full Report ………………………………………………….78
- Appendix Two: Easy Read Full Survey Report …………………………………………………..426
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026 Page 7
Introduction
This submission was prepared by South West Autism Network (SWAN). In order to write this submission, we listened to the views and concerns of people with disability, their families and advocates, allied health workers, service providers and the wider community. To aid in gathering quantitative and qualitative data, SWAN created 2 surveys (a comprehensive Plain English version and an Easy Read version) and invited responses from across Australia. We explained the proposed changes to the NDIS Act in a way that was clearer to people than the information released from the Government and had an overwhelming response to the Plain English survey, with 1387 responses and 1023 completed surveys (74%) received in seven days. We also received 63 completed survey responses to the Easy Read version of the survey in the same timeframe.
Due to receiving 2,162 written comments across the two surveys, SWAN are submitting the full report for each survey as appendices to this submission. We are very conscious of the inaccessibility of the consultation timeframe for people with disability and families, and given the very significant impact the proposed Bill will have, it is critical that people with disability and our families are heard by the Senate Inquiry.
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Easy Read Survey Respondents
Supporter/
disability worker
19 People with disability
25
Carers
36
As shown in the pie graph above, the 63 respondents to the Easy Read survey were comprised of 39.68% people with disability, 57.14% carers and 30.16% supports or disability workers.
Survey responses were received from every state and territory, including, metropolitan, regional, remote and very remote areas as shown in the bar graph below.
Location of Survey Respondents
Metropolitan Regional Remote e e e
e Very Remote
WA 158 400
NT
SA
OLD 232
NSW 171 337
ACT
VIC 289
TAS
0 100 200 300 400
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026 Page 9
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Respondents to our Easy Read survey were also spread across the country, with at least one response from every state or territory except the Northern Territory, as shown in the pie chart below.
Easy Read Survey Respondents’ Location
SA WA 4 4
ACT NSW 1 29
We also asked survey respondents if they identified as First Nations, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD), LGBTQIASB+, low-income threshold or other intersectional identities, as shown in the pie graph below.
Intersectionality of Survey Respondents
Other 34
Not Applicable 617
CaLD LGBTQIASB+ 78 232
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026 Page 10
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The question on intersectionality was not included in the Easy Read survey due to the complexity of the NDIS Bill, extremely short consultation timeframe preventing SWAN from developing a thorough Easy Read survey.
Survey respondents were asked to select the disability or disabilities they or the person(s) they care for / work with have (as many disability types as are applicable).
Disability Type
Autistic
Intellectual
Psychosocial
Physical
Neurological
Sensory
Multiple
Complex needs
Other
0 200 400 600 800 1000
As SWAN primarily supports autistic people (as well as people with other disabilities), the high response rate identifying autism was expected. This question was included in the Easy Read survey, but as a comment box. Please see the full Easy Read survey report in Appendix B for more information on the disability types of respondents to the Easy Read survey.
Getting onto the NDIS (Access and Eligibility)
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), in 2022 people with disability comprised 21.4% (5.5 million) of the Australian population.
- 4.1% or 1,007,002 people had a profound disability
- 3.8% or 998,197 people had a severe disability
- 3.1% or 814,319 people had a moderate disability
- 6.1% or 1,602,369 people had a mild disability
- 10.4% or 2,731,909 people had a schooling or employment related disability
As at the 31st March 2026, there were 774,456 NDIS participants, only 77% of the people identified by ABS in 2022 as having a profound disability.
The assumption that there are currently people with disability who should not be on the NDIS is incorrect – the Government’s own evidence clearly shows that there
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approximately a further 232,546 people with profound disability not currently on the NDIS.
It remains extremely difficult to gain access to the NDIS.
To meet the eligibility criteria under Section 24 of the NDIS Act 2013, applicants must prove:
- They have a disability caused by a permanent impairment, or have a psychosocial disability caused by a permanent impairment
- Their permanent impairment significantly impacts their life and their ability to do everyday tasks
- They’ll likely need NDIS supports for their lifetime
Applicants seeking NDIS Access must also prove:
- Their impairment substantially reduces their functional capacity
- Their impairment affects their ability to work, study or take part in social life
- They need a high level of support from others
- They need supports that are ‘NDIS supports’
The proposed amendments in the Bill to access and eligibility lack procedural fairness - making the NDIS harder to enter, harder to stay in, and less fair for people with profound and significant disability. The changes in proposed section 9B, proposed section 25A, proposed section 25B, proposed section 48A, proposed section 40A and proposed subsection 30(1A) point in the same direction - tighter gatekeeping, narrower eligibility, more procedural barriers, and a greater risk that people with significant disability support needs will be excluded or removed from the Scheme.
These concerns are not about resisting sensible integrity measures. SWAN supports action to address fraud, waste and poor administration. The problem is that this Bill makes minimal changes to target fraud, instead targeting people with disability for funding cuts and removal from the scheme they have already proven they need. It also shifts more risk onto participants and families by making access harder; increasing the burden of proof on people with disability; increasing out of pocket costs and by allowing support to be interrupted or cancelled in circumstances where the person has done nothing wrong.
How the total number of NDIS participants will be impacted by
reforms
■ Pre-reforms ■ After reforms
900k
850k
800k
750k
700k
650k
600k
30 June 2025 30 June 2026 30 June 2027 30 June 2028 30 June 2029 30 June 2030 30 June 2031
Guardian graphic Source, Department of Health, 01sab11ity and Ageing
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026 Page 12
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The strongest message in SWAN’s survey was that respondents are not afraid of accountability. They are instead justifiably afraid of being removed, delayed, repeatedly tested, or disbelieved by a system that is already inaccessible and often traumatising. Respondents repeatedly said they fear the Bill will lead to more people having to keep proving lifelong disability, more people being judged by rigid processes instead of lived reality, and more people falling through the gaps.
SWAN is especially troubled about proposed section 9B, which defines ‘functional capacity’, and proposed subsection 9B(2), which would allow Rules to set criteria and tools for assessing functional capacity, including the creation and use of a standardised assessment tool as a gateway to NDIS access. We note that despite rhetoric to the contrary, NDIS Access is granted based on diagnosis and/or evidence of impact on function.
On paper, standardisation may sound fair, but in practice, it risks producing the opposite result. Many disabilities are complex, cumulative, fluctuating, masked, or highly affected by environment, trauma, communication barriers and the availability of support. A standardised tool will not capture that reality for many autistic people, people with psychosocial disability, people with intellectual disability, children with emerging support needs, and people with multiple and intersecting impairments.
Further, there is no standardised Functional Capacity Assessment (FCA) tool in existence suitable for use across all disability types, and the development, validation testing and peer review of such a tool would require a minimum of five years.
Adding a requirement that people with disability undergo a standardised Functional Capacity Assessment to gain access to the NDIS has serious repercussions, including:
- Additional cost burden, increasing poverty impacts.
- Extensive additional wait times, particularly for people in regional and remote communities, driving people with disability and families into crisis.
- Serious wellbeing and mental health impacts.
- Risk of being completed by inexperienced and/or unqualified assessors
The NDIA introduced List A for eligibility to streamline access for some disability cohorts, and reversing this will have severe impacts for the affected cohorts. For example: a) Motor Neurone Disease (MND): The average life expectancy for MND from diagnosis is approximately 2-3 years. All people with MND will require NDIS access, as urgently as possible. The requirement of a FCA together with other proposed changes in this Bill are likely to incur a wait time of 12-18 months or more before NDIS Access is approved – more than half of the life expectancy of someone diagnosed with MND. b) Spinal cord or brain injury resulting in quadriplegia, paraplegia or tetraplegia: The requirement of an additional FCA increases the mental health impacts of a life altering disability while unnecessarily delaying NDIS access and leaving the person with disability taking up a hospital bed for months longer than is needed, due to the lack of access to support. c) Amputation or congenital absence of two limbs: Again, the requirement of an additional FCA increases the mental health impacts, delays NDIS access unnecessarily and means that someone who has undergone amputation is left taking up a hospital bed for months longer than is necessary. d) Permanent blindness in both eyes: The additional requirement of a FCA means unnecessary delays in accessing NDIS, possible increased hospital stays and significant risk to safety.
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Similar issues arise for all conditions on List A for eligibility, including autism. There is no suitable tool for assessing functional impact for autistic people. All functional assessments require at least some element of self-reporting of impairments. This requires:
- A thorough understanding of the disability
- A thorough and clear understanding of the individual’s strengths and impairments
- Strong self-awareness and self-assessment
- Strong communication skills
- A qualified, allied health assessor with extensive experience and expertise in autism
For autistic children, the issues above also occur. It is extraordinarily difficult for a non-diagnostician to clearly identify, assess and communicate the strengths and impairments of an autistic child. Diagnosticians are trained in assessing children, teens and/or adults against the DSM-V(TR) criteria for autism spectrum disorder – not in clearly identifying and explaining an autistic person’s impairments for NDIS Access purposes.
Removing the current eligibility lists will actively cause harm to people with disability while increasing costs for disabled people and families and the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments. The current eligibility lists must remain in effect, with a Functional Capacity Assessment tool developed and provided free of charge to people with disability who do not have an eligible diagnosis on List A. Importantly, Down Syndrome and Intellectual Disability (IQ of 70 or less) must be added to List A eligibility, to bring the NDIS in line with the eligibility requirements of disability support in other systems.
Functional Capacity Assessment for Access
| Mostly Good | Unsure |
|---|---|
| 4.2% | 3% |
As can be seen in the graph above, 70.1% of survey respondents (864 people) felt that the introduction of a standard tool to measure functional capacity is not a good idea. Of the 1,233 who answered this survey question, we received an additional 372 comments that were primarily in opposition of the introduction of a standardised tool to measure how much a disability affects daily life.
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‘’ A standard tool may measure whether someone ‘can’ do a task, but miss whether they can do it safely, repeatedly, consistently, independently, and without significant distress or exhaustion. , , - Allied Health Professional
These risks are even greater in regional and remote areas. Survey respondents repeatedly said that people in regional communities already struggle to get timely assessments, specialist evidence, allied health reports and appropriate treatment. A tighter access model that depends on a standardised tool will not operate fairly where the services needed to generate that evidence are delayed, unavailable or unaffordable.
We note also that the Government has previously refused to confirm that Functional Capacity Assessments to gain access to the NDIS would be provided free of charge. This isks the NDIS becoming accessible only to people with disability with the financial means to access the assessment tool.
As can be seen in the graph below, 79.4% of survey respondents reported that they are either very worried or extremely worried that the new ‘functional capacity’ rules could make it harder for some people to get onto the NDIS.
Concern About Functional Capacity
Assessment for NDIS Access
e Extremely worried e Very worried
e Moderately worried e Slightly worried
e Neutral e Not worried
Moderately worried
11.5%
Extremely worried
54.3%
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026 Page 15
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Level of Agreement with Permanent Disability Changes
As can be seen in the pie graph above, of the 1,229 people who answered the question, ‘The Government wants stricter rules for permanent disability, including requiring that all ‘appropriate’ treatments have been exhausted, and considering whether treatment might improve the condition. Do you support this change?’; 82.83% of respondents advised that they do not support this change. SWAN received a further 379 comments in response to this question.
'' It is already re-traumatising many (if not all
of us) that go through reviews and have to re-prove
our permanent condition is permanent. Why can't
they understand what the word 'permanent' means.
All our medical expenses cost WAY more than they
should and we get asked to provide thousands of
dollars' worth of reports every few years just for
specialists to write 'yes, they still have their
PERMANENT condition' ,,
- Person with disability
SWAN strongly opposes the proposed section 25B, which would again allow the NDIA to refuse access on the basis that another system should provide support. This would overturn the effect of NDIA v Sutherland, which confirmed that a person did not have to prove other systems could not meet their needs before accessing the NDIS. Survey respondents were clear about the real-world problem here: ‘the other systems aren’t there’. In practice, people are already being told to go to health, mental health, education, housing, aged care or community systems that are underfunded, unavailable, or unable to meet disability-related need. Redirecting people away from the NDIS without real alternative supports will not reduce need. It will shift cost and crisis onto families, hospitals, schools, mental health
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services, justice and emergency systems, and the creation of foundational supports simply duplicate administrative and bureaucratic costs while delivering dramatically less actual support to people with profound and significant disability.
'' I have a friend with OVA claims that took 8 years to finalise.
They were able to get support under the NDIS while they
argued with DVA. I also know veterans who are still fighting
for very needed supports who are currently getting NDIS
support. ..it is life saving and has prevented suicide and self-harm. , ,
- Person with a disability
We are particularly concerned about the impact of the proposed section 25B on First Nations people. Together with the changes in the Aged Care Act 2024, this would effectively redirect First Nations people aged 50 years and over to Aged Care facilities, which are not typically equipped to provide support for non-age related disabilities. See also First Peoples Disability Network’s Written briefing to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse and Neglect of People with Disability (2020).
Aged care homes are built to manage the end of life and general frailty. They are not built, funded, or staffed to help disabled people live active, independent lives in their communities. During the Disability Royal Commission, the First Peoples Disability Network (FPDN) warned that pushing First Nations disabled people into institutions like aged care homes is a form of structural violence. It strips people of their right to independent living and continues a long history of forcing First Nations people out of their communities and into institutions.
Support for requirement to use other systems
{eg. workers compensation or motor accident insurance)
3.5% Strongly against
32.3%
Support
13.9%
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026 Page 17
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As shown in the graph above, 50.45% of survey respondents were ‘against’ or ‘strongly against’ the Government’s proposal to require people to use other systems, whilst 17.42% of respondents reported that they ‘strongly support’ or ‘support’ this proposal. Of the 1,223 who completed this question, SWAN also received 367 comments in response to this question.
'' If these other systems are accessible, people will access them first before coming to the NDIS, cause they're often easier and quicker to access. These systems often provide some initial support, but not ongoing support where needed. There's a gap there that the NDIS should be filling! likewise,
Medicare care plans provide some subsidised appointments with allied health, but for those of us who need regular and ongoing support from these providers, we've used up our yearly quota of sessions by February and then have to either go into debt, or lower our quality of life without the ongoing support. ,,
- Disabled carer
In addition to the majority of survey respondents being against or strongly against the Government’s proposal to require people to use other systems, as can be seen below, 94.8% of survey respondents reported that they are ‘moderately’, ‘very’, or ‘extremely’ worried that people will get stuck between systems (NDIS, health, insurance, aged-care etc) and not get the support they need.
Level of concern that people will get stuck between systems and not get the support they need
Unsure
Moderately worried 0.2%
6.3%
Very worried
18.7%
Extremely worried
69.9%
Submission 318
Of the 1,231 respondents who answered this question, SWAN received an additional 219 comments.
'It will be very easy for government departments to\n'play handball' with people with a disability, with all\nclaiming that the person's care is not their responsibility,\nand people with a disability and their families will fall\nthrough the cracks.'\n- Person with disability\n```
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## Source release page 21
# Submission 318
## 20
25B is that people with psychosocial disability are likely to be inappropriately excluded because their disability does not fit a narrow functional profile, because they have not tried every treatment, or because they are pushed towards another system instead. That outcome would undermine the equal recognition of psychosocial disability as disability.
There is also a serious risk to autistic people, especially autistic women, gender-diverse people, people who mask, and people whose support needs are underestimated because they appear ‘fine’ in short, formal or highly structured settings. Survey respondents repeatedly expressed fear that autistic participants will be disbelieved or excluded by models that rely on superficial presentation rather than the day-to-day reality of disability. A standardised, impersonal or overly medicalised gateway is especially unsafe for people whose disability is often hidden, misread or minimised.
Another change proposed in the Bill is for the NDIA to have 90 days to decide whether someone can access the NDIS instead of the 21 days allocated now. In October 2023, NDIA started to transition to the PACE computer system. As part of this transition, NDIA changed the process for applying for access to the scheme. Whilst applicants are currently still able to apply direct to NDIA by completing a NDIS Access Request Form, the NDIA will redirect the applicant to a Local Area Coordinator (LAC) or Early Childhood Approach (ECA) Partner In The Community (PITC) to collect proof of identity.
This coincided with the introduction of the Community Connections Plan, intended as an optional unfunded plan for people with disability deemed ineligible for the NDIS.Whilst the intention of the Community Connections Plan is reasonable, the implementation by PITC has been and continues to be extremely problematic. Instead of preparing the Community Connections Plan if a person with disability not eligible for the NDIS wants one, the PITC are preparing Community Connections Plans as a mandatory step prior to finalising the NDIS Access Process (regardless of whether the person is eligible, ineligible, or even wants a Community Connections Plan.The practical impact of this on people applying for access to the NDIS has been extreme.While NDIA only start recording the time an applicant is waiting for an access decision from the moment the PITC finalises the Access Request and sends it to the Eligibility team for processing, the actual time the applicant has waited is typically 3-12 months or longer – prior to the PITC sending the application to the Eligibility team for processing.The NDIA’s data reporting on wait times for processing Access Requests against the Participant Service Guarantee have been incorrect since October 2023 due to this issue.
People with disability applying for NDIS Access are typically waiting 4-13 months or longer for their Access application to be processed – even if their disability is on the current List A for eligibility.Allowing the NDIA an additional 69 days to process NDIS Access applications will drive people with disability and families into even more crisis than is currently occurring and exacerbate the impact of these wait times on hospitals and other stop-gap measures.
As shown in the graph below, of the 1,229 respondents who answered this survey question,80.15% reported that they do not support NDIA having 90 days to decide whether someone can access the NDIS, instead of the 21 days currently allocated in the Participant Service Guarantee.
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## Source release page 22
# Support for NOIA to have 90 days to decide
##
### on NDIS Access applications
SWAN is also extremely concerned that the Bill makes it easier for people to lose access once they are in the Scheme.
Proposed section 40A would allow the NDIA to suspend a plan where the person is said to be 'not contactable', and proposed subsection 30(1A) would allow access itself to be revoked if that situation continues.
We note that the Bill does not require contact attempts to be accessible and does not require the NDIA to consider the risk of suspension before acting, even though the Explanatory Memorandum suggests that risk should be considered. Survey responses show why this matters. Respondents described participants who cannot answer unknown calls, who rely on email or support people, who are Deaf, blind, non-speaking, hospitalised, homeless,
traumatised, overwhelmed, or unable to manage bureaucratic contact because of disability itself. In that context, loss of support for being 'uncontactable' is not an integrity measure, but a foreseeable pathway to crisis.
The same concern applies to proposed section 48A, which would sharply narrow the circumstances in which a participant can request a reassessment of their plan. Participants would only be able to seek reassessment if there has been a significant and ongoing change in support needs, and the NDIA would have longer to decide the request and more control over whether it is considered at all. This may appear to be a planning issue, but it also affects access in practice because it makes it harder for participants to respond to changing needs before they reach crisis. It also reflects a broader shift in the Bill towards more rigid process and less individualised support.
These provisions do not align with the findings of the Disability Royal Commission (DRC). The DRC heard extensive evidence about systems that disbelieve people with disability, rely on narrow definitions of need, place people in crisis before help is available, ignore communication access, and create conditions for abuse, neglect, exclusion and institutionalisation. The Commission called for systems that are rights-based, accessible, trauma-informed, person-centred and safe.
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## Source release page 23
# Submission 318
22
access through inaccessible process is contrary to the DRC recommendations and will actively cause harm to people with disability.
The Bill also sits uneasily with Australia’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disability (UNCRPD). The Convention requires equal recognition before the law, non-discrimination, accessibility, respect for autonomy, and the right of people with disability to live in and participate in the community on an equal basis with others. Access rules that depend on rigid functional testing, inaccessible communication, unrealistic treatment expectations, or redirection to non-existent services risk undermining those rights. So do processes that disproportionately harm people with:
- Communication-related disability
- Psychosocial disability
- Intellectual disability
- Autistic people
- First Nations people
- People from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) backgrounds
- People from low socio-economic
- People living in regional and remote communities.
SWAN is equally concerned about the removal of the ‘whole of person’ approach to assessing NDIS eligibility and support needs. Disability is complex, and people rarely have a single disability – rather, it is far more common to have multiple, intersecting disabilities. as shown in graph below from our survey results, autistic people have many common co-
occurring disabilities.
Co-Occurring Disabilities With Autism
Other
68
Psychosocial
330
Multiple
297
Neurological
200
Survey respondents described the likely effects in stark but consistent terms: loss of therapy, loss of early support, loss of routine, loss of regulation, loss of community participation, worsening mental health, family burnout, and greater long-term cost to Government when early, preventative and maintenance support is withdrawn. Numerous respondents explicitly said these changes would put lives at risk. This is evidenced by
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## Source release page 24
## Submission 318
23
current statistics around the lifespan of autistic people (shown in the infographic below), including those who are considered to be ‘less disabled’ and those who have a co-occurring intellectual disability. It reflects lived experience of what happens when disability support is delayed, denied or withdrawn in systems that have no reliable fallback.
### What does research say about autism, early death and suicide risk?
Brief findings on premature mortality, preventable deaths and suicide risk.
| |
| :--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **39 years** | **38%** | **Up to 8x** |
| Average age of death in a 20-year study of autistic adults <br> Smith DaWalt et al., 2019 | Potentially avoidable deaths among people with intellectual disability in NSW <br> Salomon | Higher risk of death by suicide for autistic people <br> Brown et al., 2024 |
| **13x** | **31-70%** | **38%** |
| Higher suicide risk for autistic people without intellectual disability who also have ADHD <br> General population ■ 1x <br> Hirvikoski et al., 2019 | Estimated share of autistic people who also have intellectual disability <br> Papadopoulos et al., 2021 | Autistic 8-year-olds in a large US study who were classified as having intellectual disability <br> Maenner et al., 2023 |
| | | |
| Note: figures come from different studies and populations. | Sources: Smith DaWalt et al, (2019); Salomon; Brown et al. (2024); Hirvikoski et al. (2019); Papadopoulos et al. (2021); Maenner et al, (2023) | Highest suicide risk is among autistic people without intellectual disability. <br> Hirvikoski et al., 2019 |
For these reasons, SWAN strongly opposes the access and eligibility changes in the Bill unless they are substantially amended.
Our position is simple: access to the NDIS must not depend on whether a person fits a narrow template, can survive repeated assessments, can answer inaccessible contact attempts, or lives in a place where the right evidence and treatment are available. The Senate should amend the Bill so that access remains grounded in dignity, individual need, whole-of-person assessment, and the right of people with disability to live safely and participate in the community on an equal basis with others.
The Senate should at a minimum:
* Reject proposed section 9B to the extent it enables rigid functional testing through Rules;
* Reject proposed subsection 25A(2) and the ‘all appropriate treatment’ requirements in proposed subsections 24(5)(a) and 25(1B)(a);
* Reject proposed section 25B; and
* Remove the plan suspension and revocation provisions in proposed section 40A and proposed subsection 30(1A) unless strong accessibility, safety and human rights safeguards are inserted.
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 23
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## Source release page 25
# Submission 318
24
The Bill should instead;
- Preserve the whole-of-person approach;
- Recognise cumulative and fluctuating disability;
- Protect access for people whose disabilities are not well captured by standardised
tools;
- Require accessible and human decision-making and oversight by appropriately
qualified professionals; and
- Ensure that no one loses NDIS access because another service system or treatment
is unavailable in practice.
That approach would be more consistent with the purpose of the NDIS, the findings of the
Disability Royal Commission, and Australia’s obligations under the UNCRPD.
## Plans, Reviews and Unspent Funds
SWAN is deeply concerned about the Bill's changes to plan end dates, plan renewals, mid-
plan reassessments and unspent funds. Taken together, these changes will make plans
less stable, less responsive and less individualised, while giving participants and families
fewer practical ways to fix a plan when something goes wrong.
The key proposed changes are in proposed section 50A, proposed section 48A, proposed
subsection 48(3), Schedule 1 item 20 replacing existing subsection 48(4), and proposed
subsection 32B(2A). These provisions would replace reassessment dates with plan end
dates, automatically renew plans, stop unused funding carrying over, make reassessment
requests harder, extend the NDIA's decision time from 21 days to 90 days, and remove
current safeguards if the NDIA does not decide within the timeframe set out in the Participant
Service Guarantee.
'' 90 days for anything in the NDIS is too long;
these are people's lives, not applicants for a
rental property. Anyone that is currently a
participant, carer, family member or support
provider knows (that any disability related
process} extends far beyond 90 days, yet allows
only 28 days to appeal any or all decisions? , ,
- Person with disability
On paper, these may look like minor administrative changes. In practice, they enable
automatic plan renewal without proper engagement with the participant. Under proposed
section 50A, a renewed plan can be created without any requirement that it be prepared
with the participant, and one-off supports from the old plan will not carry over. We note that
the Minister may be able to make additional 'alterations' to renewed plans, including cuts to
funding in that plan, and that the renewed plan would not be a reviewable decision under
section 100.
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## Source release page 26
# Submission 318
25
This model treats unspent funds as if they automatically show lower need. That is not how
disability support works in the real world. Funds often go unused because extensive waitlists
are too long, services are cancelled, the participant is in hospital, difficulties sourcing or
accessing support, or the local market simply cannot provide the support. In regional and
remote areas especially, under-utilisation often reflects market failure, not lack of need, and
it is unfair and unsafe to let automatic renewal lock in lower budgets on that basis. We note
also that it remains common for NDIA delegates to allocate funding to support categories
that the participant neither wants or needs – artificially creating a plan under-spend while
support need remain unmet.
One-off supports like assistive technology, home or vehicle modifications may not be utilised
within the original plan’s timeframe due to extensive waitlists. For example, the wait time in
most areas of regional WA to access home modifications currently exceeds two years. This
means that if a regional WA participant’s NDIS plan has a duration of two years and includes
home modifications, their plan would be renewed without discussion with them, and
excluding the amount allocated for home modifications - and this would not be a reviewable
decision. The lack of nuance here is extremely harmful.
As shown in the graph below, 39.59% of survey respondents felt that unspent funds should
always carry over to the new plan, and 46.50% felt that unspent funds should carry over to
the new plan in some situations, such as when the funding has not been spent due to long
waitlists.
Should unspent money roll over into the
next plan?
Unsure
5.7%
Yes - sometimes
46.5%
Survey respondents repeatedly described the reforms as creating ‘harder plan changes’,
‘increased administrative burden’, more time spent ‘fighting systems instead of living life’,
and a system that is less responsive to the reality of diverse disability needs and
intersectional factors. As can be seen in the graph below, 95.25% of survey respondents
(1,102 people) ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ that the Bill will make it much harder for some
people to get their plan changed when their needs change. Many respondents also said the
cumulative effect of the Bill would be increased uncertainty, stress, fear of losing supports,
and more pressure on families already carrying an unsustainable load.
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## Source release page 27
# Submission 318
26
The Bill will make it much harder for some people
to get their plan changed when their needs change
Unsure
4.5%
Yes - always
31.3%
Strongly agree
57.7%
SWAN is also extremely concerned about the proposed narrowing of unscheduled reassessments.
Under proposed section 48A, participants will only be able to request an
unscheduled plan reassessment where there has been a significant and ongoing change in support needs that affects either functional capacity in an ongoing way or personal or environmental circumstances in a specified way.
Because the change must be 'ongoing', many real and urgent situations may not qualify, even when the plan is clearly no longer working.
If passed, this amendment will cause serious harm, including increased neglect, violence,
able relinquishment of care, unnecessary hospitalisation and death of people with disability.
Plans often become unworkable because of provider collapse, a failed school arrangement,
escalating family burnout, gradual deterioration, a change in behaviour support needs, or because the original plan was plainly inadequate from the start.
NDIA never allocate funding in a participant's NDIS plan for unexpected crisis situations which may be temporary.
For example, consider a participant requiring 24/7 support, with an informal support person providing the majority of this support.
If that informal support person is hospitalised for six weeks, either planned or unplanned, the new provision would prevent the NDIA from temporarily increasing funded supports to ensure the safety of the participant for that six week period.
The likelihood of the participant experiencing neglect or malnutrition, sustaining injury, or dying in such circumstances is acute.
An unscheduled reassessment system that only responds once the situation is severe enough, permanent, or neatly categorised is not a safe or person-centred review system.
As can be seen in the infographic below, when asked what impact limiting mid-plan changes will have, of the 1,154 respondents who answered this question, only 15 people felt there would be no impact on participants and families, and 172 respondents felt it would result in fewer unnecessary reviews. 98.70% of survey respondents said that there would be significant negative impacts caused by the proposed change.
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# Concerns About Reassessment Limits
## SWAN survey findings on proposed NDIS reassessment limits
The South West Autism Network (SWAN) asked survey respondents about the likely impact of reassessment limits in the NDIS. Percentages show the share of respondents who selected each concern. Respondents could select more than one response.
### Main concerns
- Safety at risk: **87.52%** *(1,010)*
- Critical crisis support lost: **77.82%** *(898)*
- No timely plan changes: **77.56%** *(895)*
- People fall through the gaps: **75.48%** *(871)*
- Inadequate funding: **72.53%** *(837)
Safety at risk | Critical crisis support lost | No timely plan changes | People fall through the gaps | Inadequate funding
---|---|---|---|---
People would have to wait three months or more for urgent changes to their plans, putting their safety at risk. | Temporary changes, such as an informal carer being hospitalised, would not be covered, leaving people without critical supports when they need them. | People would not get adequate funding that does not meet their needs. | More people would fall through the gaps. | New NOIS participants and families would be stuck with inadequate funding that does not meet their needs.
Other responses:
There would be fewer unnecessary reviews (12.13%) *$(172)$*
There would be no impact on participants and families (1.30%) $(15)$. Other $[e$]
### Source:
SWAN survey Note: respondents could select more than one response.
SWAN is especially concerned that these changes will disadvantage participants who cannot self-advocate easily or have difficulties with communication. The Bill creates a stricter process for reassessment requests and, under proposed subsection 48(3), the NDIA must only consider a request if it is made in the required form and includes any information the NDIA asks for.
The Bill also limits S48 plan change requests to only participants or nominees. Again, this proposed change fails to consider the practical realities of how NDIS operates. NDIA allow two type of nominee:
- Plan Nominee: able to make decisions about the participant and their NDIS plan on behalf of the participant. This is also referred to as a Child Representative for children under 18 years.
- Correspondence Nominee: able to receive communication about the participant and their plan, such as letters, copies of NDIS plans etc., but not permitted to make decisions on behalf of the participant.
It is important to recognise that the NDIA only permits participants to have one Plan Nominee. Under the proposed amendment, if the participant is unable to communicate with the NDIA direct because of their disability and the Plan Nominee (typically the participant’s primary carer or informal support) is incapacitated or dies, there is no pathway under the Bill to have the plan changed.
In practice, many participants rely on support coordinators, providers, advocates and family members to identify risk early, gather information, and help trigger review processes. Survey respondents repeatedly said the system is already too hard to navigate and will become even harder for people with communication disability, executive functioning disability, fatigue, trauma, literacy barriers and fluctuating mental health. As can be seen in the infographic below, when asked who they think is most at risk of being harmed by stricter rules on asking for changes to their plan, the top three concerns were for:
- ‘People without family or a nominee to help them’ (**89.22%** ≈ 1,035 respondents),
- ‘People with communication difficulties’ (**89.05%** ≈ 1,033 respondents), and
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## Source release page 29
# Submission 318
28
- ‘People whose conditions change over time’ (86.03% ≈ 998 respondents).
NOTE: Respondents could select more than one answer.
Who did our respondents think is most
at risk of being harmed by stricter rules?
SWAN survey findings on proposed NDIS reassessment limits
The South West Autism Network (SWAN) asked respondents who they think is most
at risk of being harmed by stricter rules for asking for changes to an NDIS plan.
Respondents could select more than one answer.
---------------- Top 5 groups most at risk ~-------~
~ ~ (!) © (D 0 89.22% 89.05% 86.03% 85.95% 72.76% (1,035) (1,033) (998) (997) (844)
People without family People with People whose People with cognitive People with
or a nominee to communication conditions change or intellectual psychosocial
over time help them difficulties (fluctuating or disability disability
degenerative disabilities)
Other res onses
People living in Children and New NDIS group homes or 63.79% 61.98% families participants institutions . 66.55%(772) (740) their (719) 0 0 8
7.16% Other 1.47% Unsure 0.43% Noone (17) ) [ @ (5) [0 (83) ) [ 0
0 Note: respondents could select more t han one answer. ~ Source: SWAN survey
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## Source release page 30
# Submission 318
scheme-wide cost reduction, including proposed section 17B and the broader changes to planning principles, including the complete and alarming proposed removal of section 31.
Survey respondents repeatedly cited this change as a move away from person-centred support, choice and control, and toward a system that is more rigid, more adversarial and more focused on containing costs than responding to people’s real disability support needs.
That direction is inconsistent with the core themes of the Disability Royal Commission. The DRC highlighted the harm caused when systems are inaccessible, inflexible, crisis-driven and built around administrative convenience and austerity measures, rather than the lived reality of people with disability. It called for systems that are safe, accessible, person-
centred and responsive, and that reduce rather than intensify the risk of neglect, abuse,
exclusion and family collapse. A planning system that allows automatic renewal without real engagement, narrows reassessment rights, prolongs delays and weakens review safeguards moves against the DRC recommendations, instead of supporting them.
It is also inconsistent with the UNCRPD. The Convention requires Australia to uphold dignity, autonomy, accessibility, participation, and the right of people with disability to live in the community with choices equal to others. Those principles are not met by a planning system that only works for people who can manage complex forms, chase deadlines, survive lengthy delays and whose lives luckily fit into a standard template. This is not the reality for the majority of people with disability - a rights-based scheme must be accessible in practice,
ot just in theory.
The human impact of these planning changes is immediate. Plans are not just paperwork - they are what allow people to maintain therapy, routine, communication support, behaviour support, employment, study, community access, family stability and safety. Survey respondents described sleeplessness, acute terror, fear of losing support coordination, fear of losing therapy and community access, and fear that slowly and carefully built supports will disappear through rushed, impersonal or automated decisions. It’s clear for anyone familiar with how NDIS functions that the Bill will not create certainty or fairness, but instead create more hypervigilance, crisis planning, deeper distrust of the NDIA, and by extension, the Government.
Due to the very significant harms these changes will incur, SWAN strongly opposes the Bill’s plan renewal, unscheduled reassessment and unspent funds provisions unless they are substantially amended. At a minimum, the Senate should:
- Reject automatic plan renewal under proposed section 50A without meaningful participant engagement;
- Amend proposed section 48A so reassessment remains broadly available where a plan is no longer working in practice;
- Require NDIA to enable participants to have more than one Plan Nominee to safeguard participants unable to communicate with NDIA direct;
- Reject the extension in proposed subsection 48(3) from 21 days to 90 days;
- Retain strong deemed-decision safeguards instead of Schedule 1 item 20 to ensure procedural fairness remains; and
- Ensure that unspent funds are never treated as a blunt proxy for reduced need without proper examination of service gaps, workforce shortages, hospitalisation,
regional barriers and other real causes of under-use.
NDIS plans must remain individualised, reviewable and responsive to real life. Participants must be able to seek urgent changes when a plan is unsafe, inadequate or unworkable, and
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## Source release page 31
# Funding Cuts by Ministerial Determination
SWAN strongly opposes the Bill’s proposed Ministerial determination power because it would allow unlimited funding cuts across classes of supports and/or groups of participants at any time, without individual assessment, and without the agreement of Parliament, States and Territories.
Under proposed section 34A of the Bill, the Minister would be able to make ‘support determinations’ that reduce how much funding is available for particular groups of supports, even when those supports have been assessed as reasonable and necessary for individual participants. The Government has already indicated it intends to use this power to reduce budgets for social, civic and community participation by 50% and capacity-building supports by 10%. These are not minor administrative adjustments - they are deliberate, broad and unilateral cuts to supports that participants rely on every day to remain safe, connected, regulated and able to participate in ordinary life.
## Minister's power to cut funding for class of support or class of participant
Unsure
1.6%
Strongly disagree
88.3%
As shown in the pie graph above, only 1.73% (20) of the 1,160 survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the proposed amendments to allow the Minister to cut funding for any type of support or cohort of participants, whilst 96.12% (1,115) of survey respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed. We received a further 307 comments in response to this question.
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## Source release page 32
# Submission 318
31
t The unfettered most alarming and indiscriminate feature of this it is power Proposedis how section 34A would allow the Minister to reduce
My (disabilities are) 1 funding for specified groups of supports through legislative instruments, rather than by returning to so complex that this )! '' would be catastrophic. ,, r Parliament to amend the Act each time.
- Person with disability Because these determinations operate at scheme level, they are not individual plan decisions and are not open to normal merits review with participants.
In practice, this creates an extraordinary new power for the Minister to cut participant funding across entire support categories without passing new primary legislation, and without participants having a clear right to challenge the cut – even where the determination results in funding significantly below the participant's reasonable and necessary funding allocation. If Parliament gives this power away, it will not only empower the current Minister, but will also arm future Ministers with an extraordinary tool to reduce funding for all participants, for selected groups of participants, for all supports,
or for selected supports, in whatever way the Government of the day decides.
We are frankly alarmed by the indiscriminate nature of these brutal cuts. A 50% reduction to social, civic and community participation budgets and a 10% reduction to capacity-building budgets do not turn on a person’s actual support needs, risks, safeguards, environment or goals. They are blunt, across-the-board reductions that ignore the reality that disability supports are highly individual, and that apparently similar budget lines can serve very different functions in different people’s lives.
Critically, the proposed Ministerial powers to cut funding fail to consider how the NDIS actually operates and allocates funding. Funding for daily living support is capped at six hours per day. Anything above this requires an extensive home and living support application with very expensive accompanying reports. Due to this, it is common for NDIA to supplement the Core budget for participants requiring higher intensity supports with more hours of social, civic and community participation funding, which is not capped. This means that there are high numbers of participants requiring 24/7 support who have more funding allocated to social, civic and community participation than to daily living supports. The impact of non-appealable 50% funding cut to this cohort is dramatic. There is risk of participants who require 24/7 support having their Core funding cut by 30% or more. The case study below provides an example of how these cuts will impact people with disability in real world settings.
Case study:
Paul is a 31 year old NDIS participant who lives with his parents, both of whom work full time thanks to Paul's NDIS funding. Paul requires support 24/7, but because he lives with his parents and NDIA expects them to provide substantial informal supports, there has been no Home and Living application submitted, and NDIA has not allocated funding in Paul’s NDIS plan for a Home and Living assessment or exploration and design funding. Paul’s NDIA planner allocated funding for three hours per weekday of daily living supports funding and six hours per week day of social, civic and community participation funding, in order to cover his parents' work hours and travel time. If the Bill is passed, Paul’s total Core funding would be cut by 33%, and at least one of Paul’s parents would no longer be able to work.
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## Source release page 33
# Submission 318
Paul and thousands of other participants will still require 24/7 support after the cut. Their
disability impacts and support needs do not reduce simply because the Minister reduces
one budget line.
If the social, civic and community participation portion is cut by 50%
regardless, thousands of participants will be left without enough funding to remain safe,
and providers are at risk of being unable to maintain safe staffing arrangements, including
safe ratios in the community and around other people. This also impacts people living in
Supported Independent Living (SIL) and Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA)
arra ngements, reducing safety and increasing segregation – against the recommendations
of the DRC.
Whilst the Bill says the Minister must consider safety when making a determination, the
proposed section 34A framework still allows determinations that leave people with less
funding than the assessed cost of their reasonable and necessary supports. The
Government’s planned 50% cut to all social, civic and community participation funding will
severely impact people with disability, particularly people with 24/7 support needs. These
cuts will also dramatically impact informal carers – primarily women – driving carers back
out of the workforce to provide unpaid care. This will increase Australian welfare costs and
drive more people with disability and families into poverty, in a cost of living crisis.
Many people with disability also utilise social, civic and community participation funding to
support their employment. A brutal 50% cut to this critical support also pushes people with
disability out of employment and back onto welfare payments and poverty.
Determinations that leave people with less funding than the assessed cost of their
reasonable and necessary supports creates an obvious and unacceptable safety risk. For
many participants, social, civic and community participation funding is not about
discretionary outings or lifestyle extras. It is part of the practical structure that makes
constant supervision, behaviour support, structured routine, regulated engagement,
community presence and safe support possible. Cutting that funding can increase the risk
of self-harm, harm to others, burnout in staff and families, failed placements, restrictive
responses, avoidable hospital presentations and greater involvement with emergency,
mental health and justice systems.
Survey responses collected by SWAN echo this, warning that cuts to these supports will
mean more isolation, more family strain, more mental health deterioration, more loss of
independence and more long-term demand on hospitals, schools and crisis systems.
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## Source release page 34
# Submission 318
## How do you feel about the Minister being able to reduce funding levels eg. 50% cut to social and community participation and 10% cut to capacity building
Neutral
Strongly disagree
87.1%
As shown in the pie graph above, of the 1,100 people who answered this question, 95.27% of survey respondents (1,048 people) ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ with the Government’s proposal that the Minister be able to reduce funding levels for some groups of supports for many participants at once (i.e., 50% cut for social, civic and community participation and 10% cut to some capacity-building supports). SWAN received an additional 322 comments.
It’s quite common for adult NDIS Participants with intellectual disability, Down Syndrome, Acquired Brain Injury and/or autism to only or mostly have funding for Social, civic and community participation allocated in their Core budget, even though they also need daily living supports. This is primarily due to:
- Historical and commendable priority of NDIS to support people with disability to participate in social and community activities, including employment, rather than being segregated at home.
- NDIA’s cap of six hours per day on daily living supports before a Home and Living Supports application and extensive evidence is required.
- Flexibility of the Core budget meaning that funding may be allocated by a NDIA delegate under one support category with the intended flexibility of use for all Core supports.
The government doesn't want disabled people to be out socially. This is all about sit down, shut up and accept the fact we allow you to even eat.
The Ministerial power breaks the core design, intention and promise of the NDIS as an individualised scheme. The original promise of the NDIS, reflected in the current SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
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<a id="source-page-35"></a>
## Source release page 35
# Submission 318
objects in section 3 and principles in section 4, section 31 and in the ‘reasonable and necessary supports’ framework in section 34, was that supports would be based on a person’s own circumstances, goals and needs.
The Bill instead adds new, reduced
principles in proposed section 17B and
related amendments that require the NDIA
to prioritise ‘financial sustainability’ and '' How can people live
enable scheme-wide cuts through support meaningful lives if they're
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<a id="source-page-36"></a>
## Source release page 36
# Submission 318
## More isolation for people with disability (92.62%)
What did our respondents think the impact would be of cuts to social, civic and community participation and capacity building supports?
### SWAN survey findings
Respondents were asked what impact reduced funding for social, civic and community participation and capacity building supports would have. The vast majority expected harmful impacts across daily life, mental health, family wellbeing, community participation and employment.
e Main expected impacts ----------- - -
~ 92.99% 94.08% • 93.08% (1,033) e e e (1,021) ~--~ (1,022)
Worse mental •■I I■• More pressure and stress .,.. Less participation in
health outcomes on families and carers community and social activities
Increased anxiety, distress Greater strain on those Fewer opportunities to connect,
on who provide support. contribute and belong.
92.62% 90.26%
(1,017) (991)
More isolation for Less building of skills
people with disability and independence
Reduced social connection and Fewer chances to develop skills
inclusion in the community. and build self-reliance.
Other responses
~._, 84.24%(925) ~ 79.05%(868) 62.66%(688) 0.82%(9) 0.46%(5) Less people with disability ~ G 0 More reliance on Fewer jobs for Unsure Very little impact and unpaid carers in Australian workers unpaid supports --paid employment
respondents could select more than one response.
Source: SWAN survey 0 Note:
4D
It’s important to note that 79.05% of survey respondents indicated that these cuts will directly lead to significantly less people with disability and unpaid carers being able to remain in paid employment, and the subsequent economic impact of this.
The Disability Royal Commission repeatedly found that lack of appropriate support is a central driver of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation in homes, services and institutions.
A Ministerial power that allows broad, indiscriminate cuts to exactly the supports that reduce risk is inconsistent with those findings. These impacts also sit uneasily with Australia’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The UNCRPD requires Australia to support people with disability to live independently, be included in the community, ensure equal access to services and supports, and to take effective measures to protect people from violence, abuse and neglect. A law that enables the Minister of the day to cut essential supports at scale, without individual assessment, accessible safeguards or effective review, undermines autonomy, participation and equality in practice. It risks pushing people back into institutional or quasi-institutional responses that the UNCRPD is specifically designed to prevent, and the DRC recommended against.
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## Source release page 37
# Submission 318
## The survey evidence that SWAN collected in only seven days clearly shows that the disability community profoundly understand these risks.
### 1. The vast majority of unpaid ef,
#### Respondents used stark language
##### ~,~
###### F; •· carers are women. This is because they know what happens
####### Handmaid's Tale stuff - forcing when supports are cut from people ; I ""£: ' ·'i women back into the home. I was already living at the edge of
######## an unpaid carer for decades. My son, ffe exhaustion, poverty and systemic
######### /( } who has complex support needs, #.,-'J failure. They linked the proposed
########## }t severe intellectual disability and + changes to increased distress,
########### ;/ .:;· level 3 autism is now in supported '.~fJ suicidality, family collapse,
################ [ preventable hospitalisation and ~- independent living. The fact that he
######################## <1 deaths. Those warnings are credible i, had NDIS supports available through t
############################ ##.' evidence of foreseeable harm and,,, his tween and teen years meant that ;;.•·✓ I was able to complete a Bachelor of -~ f' Government as ‘anxiety’ or ‘fear of change’.// I am now doing a PhD and contributing
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<a id="source-page-38"></a>
## Source release page 38
# Submission 318
## Schedule 4 Embeds Caps Into New Budget Calculation Algorithm For New Framework Plans Through Changes To Section 32K Including Subsections 32K(3C) - (3E)
These provisions mean that when the NDIA calculates total budget amounts and funding components under the new algorithm, the calculations must conform to any caps set by the Minister's section 33 instruments and cannot exceed them — regardless of individual circumstances.
In practical terms, this shifts real power over how much support people can ever receive away from transparent, participant-facing planning and into behind-the-scenes ministerial instruments, with caps then hard-wired into plan budgets.
The Disability Royal Commission rightly warned against systems that ration support through blunt rules and quotas. Furthermore, the UNCRPD requires States to progressively realise rights, not to normalise legal ceilings that prevent people with disability from getting the supports they actually need to live safely and participate in their communities. These funding caps are likely to particularly impact people with high and complex support needs, risking their safety.
### Unilateral Ministerial Powers In Proposed Section 34A To Cut Funding Without Parliamentary Oversight Or Agreement Of States And Territories Are So Broad And Dangerous That They Must Be Removed From The Bill Entirely
The new cap-setting powers in amended section 33 and new subsections 33(2EA)-33(2EB), and the budget-method provisions in amended subsections 32K(3C)-(3E), are likewise too broad and dangerous, requiring removal from the Bill. These provisions would allow the Minister, by legislative instrument, to set maximum amounts, intensities, and ratios for supports and to have those caps hard-wired into the way participant budgets are calculated. This enables large, indiscriminate reductions to participant funding through instruments made outside the full scrutiny that attaches to primary legislation.
At an absolute minimum, Parliament should not permit any power that allows such broad, scheme-wide cuts to participant funding without:
- A clear requirement for individual assessment and consideration of risk in every affected plan
- Transparent criteria and rights-based safeguards written into the Act itself, not left to future instruments
- Independent oversight and meaningful parliamentary scrutiny of any determination that reduces available supports; and
- Enforceable internal and external review rights for every participant whose plan is affected by a ministerial instrument or cap.
A law that lets the Minister of the day cut supports at scale in the name of 'sustainability' will not secure the future of the NDIS. It will drive people with disability backwards, increase preventable deaths and violence, and undo decades of disability rights progress recognised by the Disability Royal Commission and required under the UNCRPD.
## Automation, Compliance Powers And Debts
SWAN is deeply concerned that the bill expands automation, compliance and powers in ways that further undermine procedural fairness for people with disability. Procedural fairness, or natural justice, means that before the Government makes debt-related decision that harms a person's rights or interests, the person should have a real opportunity to know
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## Source release page 39
# Submission 318
what is alleged, respond to it, and have the matter decided fairly. These are not technical extras - they are basic protections against arbitrary and harmful Government action.
The Bill introduces a new legislative framework for automated decision making by the NDIA in proposed sections 59B, 59C, 59D and 59E. Proposed section 59B would allow the NDIA to arrange for computer programs to take 'administrative action' on the CEO's behalf, including action involving a discretion, an evaluative judgement or the forming of a state of mind. Proposed section 59C initially designates section 33, section 45, section 45A and section 45C for this purpose, and proposed subsection 59C(2) would allow the Minister to expand automation to other provisions later by legislative instrument. While the Bill includes some safeguards, including standard operating procedures and notice requirements in proposed sections 59D and 59E, the overall effect is still to normalise automated decision making in a system that many participants already experience as inaccessible, confusing and punitive.
SWAN is disturbed by the proposed expansion of compliance and enforcement powers in Schedule 2, Part 2 of the Bill. These amendments give the NDIA broad monitoring and investigation powers in relation to a wide range of provisions in the Act, including through proposed sections 73ZSA and 73ZSB. Proposed section 73ZSL requires the Minister to make a determination setting conditions for the exercise of these powers against participants and prospective participants, and proposed section 73ZSM allows the Minister to determine when those powers must not be exercised. Those safeguards are cautiously welcomed, but they are not a substitute for clear primary legal protections. They depend on future legislative instruments, not rights guaranteed on the face of the Act. In practice, this means the breadth of the NDIA's coercive powers is set in the Bill, while many of the protections are postponed to laterThe Bill also expands rule-making.
The NDIA’s power to compel information from participants and prospective participants. Item 12 of Schedule 2 inserts proposed subsection 53(3), creating a civil penalty of 60 penalty units (currently a fine of $19,800) if a person refuses or fails to comply with a requirement to give information or produce a document under subsection 53(1). Further items in Schedule 2 also expand the content and effect of notices under sections 53 and 54, including allowing notices to require a person to appear before an Agency officer to answer questions. This is a significant escalation in the compliance framework. It increases legal exposure for participants, but does not create matching,
rights to advocacy, communication support, procedural adjustments or
supported decision making when a notice is issued.disability-specific
The Bill also creates new and debt risks. Item 83 inserts proposed section
45B, which requires records to be kept for: • Participants – three record-keeping years
- Nominees – five years
- Providers – seven years
Item 86 then replaces subsection 182(4), so that if a person makes a claim and receives payment, they are required to keep records under section 45B. Any failure to comply with the section 45B requirement will automatically incur a debt of the full payment claimed. We note that the Bill does not put clear, exemptions or defences on the face
of the Act that would protect participants whose failures are linked todisability, disadvantage or circumstancesdisability-specificbeyond their control, and the Bill does not clearlyadd these new debts to the list of reviewablerecord-keepingdecisions, leaving participants record-keeping
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 38
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## Source release page 40
# Submission 318
39
with at best uncertain merits review pathways. This is a very serious and harmful change
that lacks procedural fairness.
This provision enables the application of an automatic debt against people with disability –
a debt which, in practice, may be very difficult to challenge effectively. Robodebts could
be appealed, and NDIS participants and nominees must have the same right to appeal
debts, especially given that NDIA itself has identified a very high error rate in past debt
decisions. NDIA’s own public reporting shows that 24.2% of 475 debts applied between
2017 and 2024 contained errors.
The NDIA requires that self-managed participants upload invoices, receipts or other
evidence to the NDIS Portal with each funding claim made. The NDIA considers plan
implementation support to new and existing participants to be optional - contrary to extensive
advice provided to the NDIA by participants and advocate members of the Better Planning
Working Group, tasked with addressing inter-plan and intra-plan inflation. Because plan
implementation support is deemed ‘optional’, it is almost never provided. This means that
NDIA and NDIS Partners In The Community (PITC) very rarely explain to participants and
nominees approved to self-manage NDIS funding that they are required to keep records for
at least five years (current requirement). SWAN provide this information to every participant
or nominee self-managing NDIS funding that we provide Information, Linkages and Capacity
building (ILC) support to.
Alarmingly, the Bill puts no enforceable duty on the NDIA to proactively inform every
participant and nominee about their legal obligation to keep records and provide them on
demand, the potential fine of $19,800 (or more) for failing to do so, or the fact that debts will
automatically be applied if a participant or nominee fails to produce a document related to
the claim that the NDIA demands they produce. Likewise, there are very minimal limitations
on the types of documents that the NDIA can demand participants / nominees provide. For
example, there are no limitations to prevent the NDIA from demanding a participant supply
documentation they are unable to access (eg. therapy case notes). Worse – failing to
provide these documents could result in a fine of $19,800 or more, along with a debt being
applied to the claim that is not clearly recognised as a reviewable decision under the Bill.
It means a person can become liable for a debt, not because the support was fraudulent or
not delivered, but because the required records were not kept in the way later required by
ules. This means that if the participant or nominee is not advised by the NDIA that they are
required to keep records, they could be fined and automatically issued a debt. Likewise, if
the participant’s records are inadvertently destroyed through fire, flood or computer storage
loss – they will automatically incur a debt that may be extremely difficult to challenge in
practice and potentially be fined $19,800.
The lack of fairness in this provision is incredibly shocking and breaches human rights.
Many survey respondents compared the requirements in this provision as ‘unfair’ or as
‘criminalising participants’, as well as comparing it to requirements in other schemes such
as Medicare, where there is no requirement to keep records of rebates.
The provision enabling participants and nominees to be fined 60 penalty units must be
removed, and NDIS debts must be clearly added to the section 99 reviewable decisions and
section 100 internal review framework, so that participants have an explicit right to merits
review of any debt decision.
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<a id="source-page-41"></a>
## Source release page 41
# Community concerns about record-keeping requirements and penalties
Respondents were asked what concerns they had about proposed record-keeping requirements and penalties under the NDlS Bill. Most respondents were concerned that people could face debts or penalties even when supports were genuine and already evidenced through claim records. Respondents could select more than one answer.
## Main concerns ~---------~ ~---------~
| 71.98% | 68.24% | 62.14% | 11!'1& | 60.08% |
|--------|------------------|---------------|--------------|-----------|
|(732) (694) (632) 'f,,;;:I (611)|Already upload 0No one explains the Debt if a Fine for lost receipts|
|receipts with claims rules and penalties receipt is lost or missing records||
Respondents said it is unreasonable to require participants and nominees support, so participants and what is required. Respondents said NDIA rarely provides plan implementation support, so participants and nominees may not be told. Respondents were concerned that NDIA could apply a debt if a receipt is lost, and that debt cannot be appealed. Respondents were concerned that people could be fined if they lose a receipt or fail to keep extra records as well.
### Other responses---------
- I don't have any concerns about the 88.10% of respondents expressed concern llftJ& 11.90% record-keeping 7.47% Other
-'(121) requirements and (76) about these proposed record-keeping
penalties requirements and penalties.
## SWAN survey findings
As shown in the infographic above, when asked what concerns survey respondents have about the record-keeping requirements and penalties that could be introduced if this Bill is passed, 11.90% of respondents (121) did not have any concerns. 88.10% of respondents expressed significant concern about the risks of this provision.
The participants with dual roles: self directing their own supports as both participant and provider (employee): no clarity has been provided around if those records are expected to be kept for 3 or 7 years.
-Self managing NDIS participant
The Bill also shortens the period for making claims. Item 89 amends paragraph 45A(5)(a)
to reduce the claim period from two years to 90 days, with late claims only allowed in 'exceptional circumstances'. On paper this may look like an appropriate integrity measure. In practice it creates a much harsher environment for people who self-manage or otherwise deal with invoices, receipts and claims while living with disability, fatigue, trauma, executive functioning barriers, communication barriers or caring responsibilities, and may lack the capacity to hound providers for invoices not received.
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<a id="source-page-42"></a>
## Source release page 42
# Submission 318
41
## How can some participants keep receipts and records?
Seriously this needs some '' common sense applied to it and somebody
designated to look out for the participants
who can not do this for themselves - and it
needs to be NDIS to do this and not some }
external company.
-Carer
__.~~
As shown in the pie graph below, 41.13% of survey respondents predicted a mostly negative impact if the Government requires all claims for NDIS supports to be lodged within 90 days of the service being delivered (instead of up to 2 years).
Impact of 90 days for claims to be lodged
(instead of up to 2 years)
Unsure
4.5%
Mostly positive
26.7%
Mostly negative
41.1%
Mixed
27.8%
Survey respondents repeatedly warned that the reform agenda assumes levels of literacy,
executive functioning and emotional capacity that many participants simply do not have. We note also that people would be forced to pay out of pocket if providers invoice after the 90 day deadline, or if invoices are missed. This fails to consider the high number of people with disability and families living in poverty. For context, 37.63% of survey respondents identified as being in a low-income household.
Of the 1,026 participants who responded to this question, 26.61% of respondents felt this change would be mostly positive as it would help people keep track of their budgets, and 27.78% reported feeling mixed about the change, recognising that there could be both positive and negative impacts.
SWAN recommends scaling the period for lodging claims down over time. 12 months for the first year, six months for the second year, and 90 days thereafter, with a positive
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<a id="source-page-43"></a>
## Source release page 43
#
## Submission 318
42
requirement for NDIA to ensure that participants are advised of the change. This enables time to ensure that participants, nominees and providers are made aware of the change and to reduce the risk of participants being forced to pay out of pocket for missed or lost invoices and/or provider mistakes in invoicing.
'' Job losses, business closures, participant loss of providers who know them and offer support tailored to their needs, lack of choice and control will all be consequences of these changes. Nothing good comes from this for participants. ,,
- Person with disability
SWAN is particularly concerned that the Bill strengthens compliance and debt settings without fixing the existing gap in review rights for debt decisions. Where a claim is paid but required records are not kept, the person will automatically owe a debt under proposed subsection 182(4). However, the Bill does not add the core decision that a debt exists to the reviewable decision list in section 99.
Instead, Item 48 adds only two new reviewable decisions: a decision to give a compliance notice under proposed subsection 73ZSI(1), and a decision to vary or revoke a compliance notice under proposed subsection 73ZSI(5). That is important because it shows Parliament has chosen to add new review rights in some areas, but not for the central debt-raising decision itself. In other words, participants may face stronger compliance powers, record-keeping liabilities and debt exposure, while still lacking a clear, direct merits review pathway for the original debt decision.
'' Invoices should be automatically logged by the NDIS when claims are processed. There is no need for this to be a participant responsibilty. ,,
- Person with disability
This is a profound procedural fairness problem. A person whose interests are adversely affected by a government decision should have a genuine opportunity to know the case against them, respond to it, and have the decision independently checked. When the State can raise a debt but does not provide a clear merits review pathway against the making of that debt, practical justice is denied. The fact that later decisions, such as waiver or recovery decisions, may sometimes be challenged is not the same thing as a full right to contest whether the debt should have been raised at all.
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 42
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## Source release page 44
# Submission 318
43
SWAN is also concerned that increased ~ ......---,..,.._ __ """""~."~'~~ ' -
automation will make these problems
significantly worse. The Bill expressly ~ allows automated decision making I'm concerned that participants { under proposed section 59B, and the will be left to personally pay the l '' bill when Plan Managers have Explanatory Memorandum makes it
lost or refused to process clear this is intended to cover payment
invoices, or if providers have been and rejection of claims and may later be
slow to submit invoices. This would expanded to other areas. Automated or
be extremely unfair, especially semi-automated systems reducef given the lack of education explanation, reduce flexibility, and
provided to participants about \ reduce the opportunity for context to be f their financial risk / duty in these considered before an adverse outcome
situations. 90 days is a joke. occurs. l Completely out of keeping with
Medicare and private health l This is especially dangerous in disability insurance which both allow
systems, where misunderstanding two years.
communication style, executive function - Person with disability/carer l difficulty, trauma responses or support
--~ •• . -~" " needs can easily be misread as non- ",
compliance.
What is your view on more automation
(like processing claims and payments)
Unsure
3.5%
Neutral
12% Strongly disagree
46.4%
As shown in the pie graph above, survey respondents were asked for their view on the proposed Bill changes that would allow more tasks to be done automatically by computer systems. Of the 1,062 survey respondents who answered this question, 11.95% of people reported that they agreed or strongly agreed, 11.96% indicated a neutral stance, and 72.60% reported that they disagreed or strongly disagreed with the proposal to increase automation.
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## Source release page 45
# Submission 318
44
As long as automaton 1 ~ '' is not used to determine 1
funding or to settle disputes,, 1
- Person with disability /
The lesson from Robodebt is that unlawful and harmful systems do not begin with one
dramatic failure. They begin when Governments normalise automation, suspicion, reversal
of burdens, weak review rights and poor procedural fairness. The Robodebt Royal
Commission showed the devastating human cost of an administrative system built on those
features. SWAN’s concern, clearly shared by respondents to our survey, is that this Bill
moves the NDIS further in that direction by combining automated decision making, stronger
compliance tools, shorter claim periods, strict record-keeping rules and debt consequences,
without putting equally strong procedural fairness protections in place.
Community concerns on
automated decision making
SWAN survey findings on the proposed NDIS Bill
Respondents were asked what concerns they had about automated
decision making and algorithms in the NDIS. Respondents could 0 select more than one answer.
Top concerns
~-------~ ~ -------~
82.29% 80.32% 80.13% 78.73%
(878) (857) (855) (840) ~ (i NDIA might apply a debt It will be harder to eErrors that cut or delay There will be less incorrectly, and debts
understand how my funding or someone human judgement and are not reviewable
decisions were made else's funding less flexibility decisions •
77.41% 69.73% 7.59% 1.41% (826) I) (744) (81) (15)
Systems and Other I don't have any eIt will be harder processes may not (please specify) concerns about to fix mistakes
be accessible automation • "
As can be seen in the infographic above, survey respondents reported a number of concerns
associated with the proposal to increase automated decisions in the NDIS. Of the 1,067
respondents who answered this question, the top 5 concerns were:
1. It will be harder to understand how decisions were made (82.29%)
2. Errors that cut or delay my funding or someone else’s funding (80.39%)
3. There will be less human judgement and less flexibility (80.13%)
4. NDIA might apply a debt incorrectly, and debts are not reviewable decisions (78.73%)
5. It will be harder to fix mistakes (77.41%)
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 44
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## Source release page 46
# Submission 318
45
Robodebt literally {J '' caused vulnerable
people to die. (
This could easily do the same.,, }
- Person with disability
The Robodebt Royal Commission made a series of recommendations and findings about
the future of automated decision making, the use of algorithms and other related matters.
These should be carefully scrutinised in conjunction with this Bill and others to ensure that
we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. SWAN has noted some apparent conflicts with
the Robodebt Royal Commission’s recommendations that exist in the Bill, which are outlined
below.
The Robodebt Royal Commission recommendations include:
Recommendation 17.1: Reform of legislation and implementation of regulation
'The Commonwealth should consider legislative reform to introduce a consistent legal
framework in which automation in Government services can operate. Where automated
decision-making is implemented:
- there should be a clear path for those affected by decisions to seek review
- departmental websites should contain information advising that automated
decision-making is used and explaining in plain language how the process works
- business rules and algorithms should be made available, to enable independent
expert scrutiny.'
Schedule 3, Part 2 of the Bill gives the NDIA express legislative authority to use computer
programs (ADM) for administrative actions, including making evaluative determinations,
processing claims, and approving plans. However, there is no whole-of-Government
framework in place to ensure these safeguards are met. Currently, participants cannot see
or review the information the automation relies on to make decisions. Errors made by ADM
(such as incorrectly applying a debt) are not reviewable decisions, and the algorithms
themselves are currently not subject to the independent expert scrutiny recommended by
the Royal Commission.
There is transparency in other non-automated decision-making in Government policy – for
example, the Impairment Tables, the charts used to assess level of functional impairment
for eligibility for the Disability Support Pension, are publicly available and published
documents. A lack of transparency may be severely detrimental to a person with disability
if they do not understand the business rules being applied. For example, if an autistic person
develops schizophrenia and requires ongoing care in a different setting or requires more
care for that specific impairment, they and those who support them should be able to access
and understand the business rules for decisions made by automatic decision making. This
may also apply in reverse, that rule making may adversely affect budgeting decisions in a
way that creates a 'false underspend'.
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<a id="source-page-47"></a>
## Source release page 47
## Submission 318
**Recommendation 18.1: Comprehensive debt recovery policy for Services Australia**
> ‘Services Australia should develop a comprehensive debt recovery management policy which among other things should incorporate the Guideline for Collectors and Creditors' issued by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Examples of such documents already exist at both federal and state levels. Any such policy should also prescribe how Services Australia undertakes to engage with debtors, including that staff must:
* ensure any debt recovery action is always ethical, proportionate, consistent and transparent
* treat all recipients fairly and with dignity, taking each person's circumstances into account before commencing recovery action
* subject to any express legal authority to do so, refrain from commencing or continuing recovery action while a debt is being reviewed or disputed, and
* in accordance with legal authority, consider and respond appropriately and proportionately to cases of hardship.
Services Australia should ensure that recipients are given ample and appropriate opportunities to challenge, review and seek guidance on any proposed debts before they are referred for debt recovery.’
These are essential considerations if applied to NDIS participants, who are often exceptionally marginalised and therefore vulnerable.
> “I think the debt issue is especially concerning. If debts are applied incorrectly but are not reviewable decisions, that creates a major fairness and accountability problem ... A person could potentially receive an incorrect debt, lose funding or supports... [and] struggle to event understand how the decision occurred without having clear review rights.”
- Person with disability
Under Schedule 2, Part 4, the Bill establishes mandatory record-keeping obligations, requiring participants to retain records of their claims for three years (five years for nominees). If a participant fails to keep these records for a paid claim, they automatically owe a debt to the NDIA for that amount.
The Bill does not allow for any exemptions or defences to this rule; for example, if a participant’s house burns down, destroying their records, or if they are displaced from their housing and lose access to records.
Automatically raising debts without the ability to consider individual circumstances, vulnerabilities, or financial hardship would not be in line with the Royal Commission's requirement for empathetic and proportionate debt recovery.
**Recommendation 10.1: Design policies and processes with emphasis on the people they are meant to serve**
> ‘Services Australia design its policies and processes with a primary emphasis on the recipients it is meant to serve. That should entail:
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<a id="source-page-48"></a>
## Source release page 48
# Submission 318
47
- avoiding language and conduct which reinforces feelings of stigma and shame associated with the receipt of Government support when it is needed
- facilitating easy and efficient engagement with options of online, in person and telephone communication which is sensitive to the particular circumstances of the customer cohort, including itinerant lifestyles, lack of access to technology, lack of digital literacy and the particular difficulties rural and remote living
- explaining processes in clear terms and plain language in communication to customers, and
- acting with sensitivity to financial and other forms of stress experienced by the customer cohort and taking all practicable steps to avoid the possibility that interactions with the Government might exacerbate those stresses or introduce new ones.’
The Bill introduces strict rules empowering the NDIA to abruptly suspend, and eventually revoke, a participant's plan if they are 'uncontactable' for 90 days. This mechanism fails to account for participants who may be unreachable due to hospitalisation, mental health crises, or cognitive challenges, posing a severe risk of cutting vulnerable individuals off from essential supports.
As shown in the graph below, of the 1,066 survey respondents who answered this question, 92.21% reported being moderately, very, or extremely worried about the proposed changes that would allow the NDIA to suspend a plan, and possibly cancel a participant’s NDIS status if they cannot contact the participant for a period of time, even if the person has not done anything wrong. SWAN received an additional 296 comments addressing this concern.
How worried are you that NOIA would be able to
suspend or cancel someone's NDIS Plan if they
cannot contact them?
Not worried
2.6%
Very worried
11.4%
Extremely worried
74.2%
Additionally, the Ministerial Determinations that cut funding across the scheme, creating confusing outcomes where a planner might assess a support as ‘reasonable and necessary’
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 47
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## Source release page 49
# Submission 318
for a participant, but a blanket Ministerial cap prevents the participant from actually spending
the funds.
Mistakes are often made by large bureaucratic systems - the difference when suspending a
service for a disabled person is that the service or support may be the thing that enables
them to continue living. As shown in the pie graph below, people with disability, families and
providers are very familiar with NDIA’ track record in providing accessible communication
methods. 88.47% of the 1,067 people who responded to this question said that they were
not so confident or not at all confident that NDIA’s communications are accessible and
reliable enough to avoid people being wrongly suspended.
How confident are you that NDIA letters, emails, phone
calls and online systems are currently accessible and reliable enough to avoid people being
wrongly suspended?
Unsure
2.3%
Not so confident
15.5%
Phone contact itself is often ineffective and unsafe. Calls from private or unfamiliar numbers
are commonly ignored because scam calls are widespread and because callers often begin
by asking for personal identifying information, which is exactly what scammers do. In that
context, participants are acting rationally and safely when they do not answer or do not
engage with unexpected calls claiming to be from the NDIA. It is not acceptable to punish
people with disability for protecting themselves from scams. The Bill as drafted leaves too much room for the NDIA to treat unanswered or unverified calls as evidence of non-engagement, rather than as a predictable response to unsafe communication practices.
Text messages are sometimes used to signal that an NDIA staff member will call, but this practice is inconsistent. Participants and families report that staff frequently forget to send a text notification, leaving people with no safe or reliable way to verify whether a caller is genuinely from the NDIA. For participants with anxiety, trauma histories, executive functioning disability or previous coercive system contact, this inconsistency can be enough to prevent engagement altogether.
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## Source release page 50
# Submission 318
49
## The Disability Royal Commission
emphasised that people with
disability, particularly those with ``redacted`` trauma histories or psychosocial
``redacted`` disability, need predictable,
transparent, verifiable processes to
with NOIA communication systems.
And those challenges can have serious consequences even before adding powers like suspension or cancellation
for non-contact.
Common issues people already report include:
- long wait times • inconsistent information between staff
- missed callbacks • confusing letters
- difficult-to-understand !language
and gives the participant a record of what was said.
- Allied Health Professional
Where the Agency changes contact preferences unilaterally and then relies on failed phone
contact as evidence that a participant is ‘uncontactable’, any suspension process that
follows is not fair. It is structurally stacked against the participant and inconsistent with the
UNCRPD’s requirement to respect people’s expressed preferences and support their
autonomy in interactions with public authorities.
This raises serious issues of procedural fairness and disability accessibility. Before
suspending a plan because the NDIA claims it cannot contact a participant, the law should
require the Agency to use the participant’s nominated communication methods, to make
genuine and repeated attempts across multiple accessible channels, to consider whether
the person needs communication support, and to ensure that contact attempts are verifiable
and safe. The Disability Royal Commission has been clear that procedures must be
adjusted to accommodate disability-related communication needs. Anything less creates a
real risk that people will be treated as ‘missing’ when, in fact, the Agency has simply failed
to communicate in an accessible way.
The person could be ``redacted``in a coma or homeless
for all they know.,,
- Person with disability
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 49
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# Submission 318
The consequences of plan suspension or cancellation are severe.
If a participant’s plan is suspended, supports may stop even though the person still needs assistance with eating, showering,
m medication, behaviour support, communication, transport, supervision or community access.
This can put people at immediate risk of neglect, family breakdown, hospital admission, homelessness, abuse and preventable crisis.
The Royal Commission documented the ways in which withdrawal of support and sudden changes in services
can directly lead to violence, abuse and avoidable institutionalisation.
A suspension power that can be triggered by communication failures builds that risk into the law.
These risks are even higher for participants who already face communication barriers: autistic people, Deaf people, blind people,
p eople with psychosocial disability, people with intellectual disability or acquired brain injury, people who use AAC, and people
who need support to read, understand or respond to correspondence.
The Disability Royal Commission found that these groups are already more likely to experience service gaps, barriers and abrupt changes.
A plan suspension power that does not explicitly account for those realities will predictably harm the very people the NDIS exists to support and will be inconsistent with the UNCRPD's requirements to ensure continuity and accessibility of support services.
For these reasons, SWAN opposes any plan suspension or cancellation power based on 'failure to make contact' unless the Bill is substantially amended. At a minimum, the legislation should:
- require the NDIA to use the participant’s nominated communication methods and prohibit unilateral changes to contact preferences
- require multiple, documented attempts across accessible and verifiable channels before any suspension is even considered
- require decision-makers to consider disability-related communication barriers, trauma, safety concerns and past system abuse, and
- prohibit suspension of essential supports unless the Agency can demonstrate it has taken all reasonable steps to engage the participant in alternative ways.
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## Source release page 52
# Submission 318
## steps to communicate in ways the participant can actually receive and trust,
consistent with the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations and the
UNCRPD.
A disability support system should never withdraw essential supports because of its own
inaccessible communication practices. Any contact-based suspension power that ignores
this reality is unsafe, unjust and incompatible with a rights-based NDIS.
These concerns are also supported by the Disability
Royal Commission and Australia’s obligations under
the UNCRPD. The DRC repeatedly found that people
'' I am not against with disability are exposed to harm when systems are
automation in itself. inflexible, difficult to navigate, and fail to provide
However, the accessible complaints, review and accountability
Government(s) have shown time and time again
that they can't get it right. The UNCRPR requires Australia to ensure equal
Al and LLM (Large recognition before the law, effective access to justice,
Language Model) are NOT freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse, and
smart enough to be across access to the supports needed to exercise legal
capacity and participate in the community on an equal
basis with others. A compliance and debt regime that
is highly automated, hard to challenge and difficult to
navigate is inconsistent with those principles.
For these reasons, SWAN opposes any expansion of automated compliance and debt
powers unless Parliament first fixes the existing procedural fairness failures in the NDIS Act.
At a minimum, the law should be amended to:
- Make the original decision that a debt is due to the Agency fully reviewable through
internal and external merits review.
- Prohibit fully automated debt raising and adverse compliance decisions.
- Require accessible human decision making before any adverse action is taken
against a participant.
- Require notices and processes to be disability accessible in practice, including
communication adjustments and supported decision making where needed.
- Ensure participants are given clear notice, reasons, adequate time to respond, and
access to advocacy and review support.
- Enshrine a statutory ‘Right to a Human’, allowing participants to immediately escalate
an automated compliance flag to a human delegate without enduring a lengthy formal
review process.
- Mandate a ‘Right to an Explanation’, requiring the NDIA to provide participants with
accessible, plain English explanations of exactly how and why an automated system
reached its conclusion, in line with international privacy standards like the EU’s
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
- Require mandatory, independent algorithmic auditing of all NDIA automated systems
to prevent the replication of systemic biases (e.g., racism, ableism, sexism) present
in training data and mandate the public release of these audit results.
- Strictly limit the NDIA’s information gathering, data matching and surveillance
powers, ensuring that the deployment of automated systems adheres to strict data
minimisation and privacy principles.
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## Source release page 53
# Submission 318
52
'' Will the minister get to know ,
each participant? If not,
they have no right to determine
what a person needs or
doesn't need. 77
- Person with disability.
Australia cannot claim to have learned from Robodebt while preserving a system in which
people with disability can still be pursued for debts without full procedural fairness. The
Senate must amend these provisions so that integrity measures do not come at the expense
of justice, safety and basic rights.
## Changes to the Reasonable and Necessary Criteria
SWAN is profoundly apprehensive that the Bill changes how the 'reasonable and necessary'
test works in ways that will narrow supports, standardise decisions and prioritise low cost
over actual effectiveness, safety and benefit to the participant. The Government has said it
will 'clarify' and 'strengthen' what counts as reasonable and necessary, but the Bill seeks to
do this by amending section 3, inserting new section 17B, repealing section 31, and adding
a long list of new subsections to section 34 of the NDIS Act (Schedule 1, Part 6).
Removing section 31 strips out the existing, vital statement of the kinds of outcomes and
assistance the NDIS is meant to pursue, and makes it easier to recast 'reasonable and
necessary' in narrower, cost-cutting driven terms. Taken together with the new planning
and support needs assessment framework, these changes make it easier for the NDIA to
refuse, limit or downgrade supports that participants genuinely need to live safely and well.
A central problem is that these amendments shift the scheme away from individualised
and towards standardised budget methods and judgments
about what should be funded. The Bill replaces the existing 'reasonable and necessarydecision‑makingsupports' object with a new object that ties NDIS supports to 'theformula‑drivenfinancial sustainability of
the scheme' (amended section 3(1)(d)), and inserts new 'scheme sustainability' principles
in section 17B requiring the CEO to prioritise sustainability, fund only supports that arise
directly from impairments, and distribute funding 'fairly and consistently'
across participants with similar needs. access‑qualifying
Together with new subsections 34(1)(aa), 34(1A)–34(1K), these provisions push
toward averages and standardised caps rather than individual
circumstances (the original intention of the scheme). In disability systems, this kind of decision‑making 'consistency' commonly means complex people are squeezed into simplified categories and
funded to an average instead of to their actual need, rather than being supported in all of
their diversity.
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 52
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## Source release page 54
**Submission 318
53**
What is your view of the NOIA being required to prioritise saving money and being "fair between participants" when making decisions?
Unsure
6.6%
Disagree
14.6%
66%
As shown in the pie graph above, of the 1,083 survey respondents who answered this question, 80.61% reported that they disagree or strongly disagree with the proposal requiring NDIA to prioritise saving money and being ‘fair between participants’ when making decisions about what supports are ‘reasonable and necessary’. A further 271 comments were made regarding this issue.
When asking survey respondents what concerns them l '' The NDIS 11the most about this extra focus on cost and ‘fairness returns $2.25between participants’, 1,096 responded to this for each dollarquestion, with the top 3 responses:
spent (on it). ,,1. People treated like numbers, not individuals
2. Less individualised decision-making - Person with a disability I
3. More pressure on families and informal supports. -----....,.,..~.;- . ~-__,__....,..__,....,.,;
'' Without support I nor my
husband would be able to work.
We would become entirely
dependent on the government
pension system. ,,
- Person with disability
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 53
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## Source release page 55
# Submission 318
## Community Concerns about Cost and 'Fairness Between Participants'
### SWAN survey findings on the proposed NDIS Bill
Respondents were asked what concerns them most about the extra focus on cost and 'fairness between participants' when making decisions about what supports are 'reasonable and necessary'. Respondents could select more than one answer.
Top concerns
- **71.90%** (788) ~ People treated like numbers, not individuals
- **61.59%** (675) Less individualised decision-making
- **60.58%** (664) More pressure on families and informal supports
- **58.85%** (645) More confusing and inconsistent decisions
- **56.57%** (602) Fewer people with disability and family members able to be part of the workforce
- **55.93%** (17) Fewer jobs for Australian workers
- **54.93%** (620) Individual plans
- **1.55%** (613) I'm not worried about this
SWAN is especially concerned that the changes prioritise low cost as a dominant consideration in the reasonable and necessary test.
'' No two people {with}
disability have the exact
same needs, therefore determining what's 'reasonable and necessary' will differ from person to person.,,
- Person with disability
New subsections 34(1A)-34(1C) require the NDIA, when deciding whether a support is ‘value for money’, to prioritise cheaper, ‘comparable’ supports and to favour leasing over purchasing assistive technology where there is any short-term change expected in the participant’s circumstances.
This creates a real risk that participants will be pushed toward cheaper supports, equipment or service models that are not actually effective or beneficial for them. A support is not good value simply because it costs less upfront. True value for money must consider whether the support works, whether it is safe, whether it prevents harm and whether it reduces longer-term costs across health, education, housing and justice systems.
For example, under these new value-for-money provisions a wheelchair user may be steered towards a cheaper wheelchair because it appears to save money in the NDIS budget. If that wheelchair is not properly fitted, does not provide adequate postural support or pressure management and leads to pressure sores, pain, injury or reduced mobility, it is clearly not value for money. It simply shifts cost and harm - from the NDIS to the health system.
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# Submission 318
## Section Heading: The Impact of Cost-Based Testing on Support Availability and Appropriateness
The same false economy can arise across assistive technology, therapy, behaviour support,
continence products, communication devices, support worker arrangements and daily living
supports.
These changes matter because the reasonable and necessary test was never intended to be a
test for the cheapest possible support. Section 34 has always required supports to be related
to disability, effective and beneficial, and to assist participants to pursue goals, function in
daily life and participate in the community.
By hard-coding an obligation to compare costs and prefer cheaper 'comparable' supports,
The Bill turns a needs-based test into a lowest-cost test.
If the NDIA is driven to choose low-cost substitutes rather than appropriate supports, the scheme will cease to be genuinely needs-based in practice and people with disability will be harmed by inappropriate and inadequate supports that do not meet their actual needs – in the same way that occurred in the old systems the NDIS was designed to replace.
We are not all the same people. Our needs are individual. We should be treated as such. Also our environments aren't the same.
- Person with disability
SWAN is also concerned that the Bill revives and strengthens ‘other systems’ defences in the reasonable and necessary test.
Proposed paragraph 34(1)(g) requires the CEO to refuse an NDIS support if it ‘would be more appropriately provided or funded’ by another scheme or existing Government service system, even where the support is on the ‘in’ list for NDIS supports. This sits alongside the new ‘alternative supports’ access test in section 25B.
Together, these provisions make it easier for the NDIA to argue that health, education, housing or aged care should provide the support instead, or that a support should not be funded because it is not the lowest-cost way of addressing the issue. A support is not genuinely available from another system just because the law says it should be. If the service is unavailable, unaffordable, delayed, geographically inaccessible or unsuitable for
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## Source release page 57
# Submission 318
## Page 56
The person’s complexity, then pushing the person out of the NDS does not solve the need.
It simply relocates the harm.
For autistic people and others with complex, lifelong and intersecting disabilities, the risk is
even greater. Many effective supports are relational, prevent functional decline or regression and are highly individual. They may not look ‘efficient’ in a spreadsheet, but they
prevent escalation, maintain regulation, support communication, preserve family functioning
and reduce future crisis costs. The new 'directly arising from the impairment' requirement
in subsection 34(1)(aa), and the way 'effective and beneficial' is re-interpreted in subsections
34(1E)–(1F) by prioritising generalised, peer-reviewed research over lived experience and treating-practitioner evidence, will make it harder to justify these kinds of supports.
As can be seen in the graph below, 89.82% of survey respondents felt that there would be
a negative impact on people with multiple of complex needs if the NDIS only funds supports
that are directly linked to the impairment used for access. Of the 1,100 respondents who answered this question, SWAN received an additional 267 (voluntary) comments. An example of these comments has been noted below, however the full list of comments can be accessed in the appendices.
- What impact do you think it would have on people
- with multiple or complex needs if NDS only funds
- support for impairment(s} approved for access?
Unsure
5.5%
Mostly negative
89.8%
When reasonable and necessary is interpreted narrowly in this way, the supports that are most preventative and most person-specific are the ones most at risk. In plain language,
The individualised supports needed by people with complex, multi-faceted or rarer disabilities.
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 56
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## Source release page 58
#
## Survey respondents repeatedly said the reforms would reduce flexibility, ignore evidence from people's own lives and treating practitioners, make supports harder to access and force people to •, '' My (disabilities are) spend more time proving their needs inside so complex that bureaucracy.
This would be They emphasised that many of the most catastrophic. meaningful outcomes in disability support are preventative and long-term: keeping people emotionally regulated, supporting families before burnout, helping children participate in school and preventing escalation and crisis. These are precisely the outcomes that are undermined when decision-making is driven by immediate cost-cutting and standardised caps, rather than real benefit.
The interaction with other parts of the Bill makes this even more dangerous. Participants will face a new sustainability-first principles framework (section 17B), a narrowed 'directly arising' test in section 34, new value-for-money and 'effective and beneficial' rules in subsections 34(1A)-(1F), revived 'other system' arguments in paragraph 34(1)(g), and, at the same time, support determinations under section 34A and caps in statements of supports under subsections 33(2EA)-(2EB). Taken together, these changes create a system where participants can lose effective supports not because their needs have reduced, but because law and policy have redefined adequacy downward.
The human consequences will be very serious. If participants are pushed onto cheaper but less effective supports, they are likely to experience worsening physical health, increased distress, reduced participation, more family strain, greater risk of abuse or neglect and higher use of hospitals, emergency departments and crisis services. That is not sustainability. It is underfunding by another name, and it contradicts both the Disability Royal Commission's call for properly resourced, person-centred, preventative supports and Australia's obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to ensure access to the supports needed for independent living and community inclusion.
SWAN does not oppose clear guidance or evidence-based decision-making. What SWAN opposes is the use of 'clarity', 'consistency' and 'value for money' as a cover for narrowing supports and forcing participants to accept low-cost options that do not meet their actual needs. The NDIS was meant to support people with disability to live ordinary lives with dignity, safety and autonomy, not to provide the cheapest support that can be defended on paper.
For these reasons, SWAN calls on the Senate to reject any changes to the reasonable and necessary criteria that give primacy to low cost and 'scheme sustainability' over effectiveness, safety and genuine benefit to the participant. Any reform must preserve genuine individual assessment, require decision-makers to consider long-term outcomes and cost shifting, and ensure participants are not forced to accept supports or equipment that are cheaper in the short term but ineffective, unsafe or harmful in practice. Without these safeguards, the Bill will turn one of the NDIS's core protections into a mechanism for rationing, harm and exclusion, in direct contrast with the findings of the Disability Royal Commission and the rights guaranteed by the UNCRPD.
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## Source release page 59
# Narrowing of Supports
The Bill’s narrowing of supports will not save money in any real sense. In many cases,
it will increase costs by stopping participants from using flexible, practical and
options that work as well as, or better than, more expensive alternatives.
lower-costWhen the scheme becomes more prescriptive about which supports,disability-specificproducts or providers
are 'acceptable', it reduces innovation, reduces participant and locks
people into more rigid pathways. This is directly at odds with the DisabilityRoyal Commission's call for flexible supportsproblem-solvingthat are responsive to people's lives,higher-cost,rather than constrained by inflexible program rules, and with the UNCRPDobligation to support independentperson-centred,living and full inclusion in the community.
The Bill’s changes to ‘reasonable and necessary’ and support categories sit within a wider
reform direction that makes the scheme more and substantially less flexible -
in opposition to the recommendations of the Independent NDIS Review. When combinedwith stricter lists of what counts as an 'NDIS support'rules-boundand rules that push
towards particular kinds of providers and products, these amendments will make it harderfor participants to choose safe, effective, mainstream options. decision-makersThis is the opposite of genuine value forlow-costmoney. A participant who can solve a problem
safely, effectively and cheaply should be able to do so, not forced into a more expensive
oute.
In practice, this means more reliance on registered providers, products
and formal service channels, even where ordinary community services and mainstreamtechnology would work just as well. That does not improve outcomes.disability-specificIt simply increases
cost and delay. At SWAN, we hear complaints about registered providers multiple times
every week, but can count on one hand the number of complaints about non-registered
providers that we have heard since the NDIS rolled out in 2018. Complaints about registered
providers SWAN receive typically involve:
- General over-charging
- Charging for services not provided
- Frequent changes of support worker without warning
- No choice of support worker
- Failure to act on complaints made
The Disability Royal Commission highlighted the importance of choice and control, and
warned against rigid systems that strip people of practical power in their
own lives. The UNCRPD similarly requires that people with disability have access to thesupports they need to live independently and participate in thedecision-makingcommunity, including through
accessible mainstream services and technology, not only through specialised or segregated
programs. A narrowed supports framework that funnels people into options or
forces us to purchase from a single body, provider or panel undermines these obligations.In addition, it creates additional burden on the taxpayer. Many people withhigh-costdisability call this
the 'disability tax',
Wheelchair repairs provide a clear example of how the 'disability tax' operates. Often, a
local bike repair shop can safely repair a damaged wheelchair wheel quickly and at much
lower cost than a specialist mobility equipment provider. The outcome is the same: the
wheelchair is repaired and the participant regains mobility. But the local repair option is
significantly cheaper and often much faster to access. A system that is so narrow that it
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## Source release page 60
# Submission 318
59
effectively forces participants into repair pathways is not efficient. It is wasteful.
It shifts public money into more expensive channels for no net benefit and often at the costof longer wait times and reduced independence.higher-cost
Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is another example. A
communication device can cost many thousands of dollars, whereas an
iPad with an AAC app can often deliver a communication outcome for a fractiondisability‑specificof that price. If the scheme makes it harder to fund the mainstream technologyoption simply because it is not packaged andhigh‑qualitymarketed as a specialist device, the narrowingof supports drives public expenditure up, not down. It alsolower‑costdelays access to communication
and participation, which can have serious developmental, behavioural, educational and
safety consequences for autistic people and others with complex communication needs.
This is the kind of rigid, siloed thinking the Disability Royal Commission warned against.
The NDIS 'Displacement Tax': Paying More for the Same Results
The exact same item often costs 100% to 1,000% more when sold through specialist disability channels.
Communication: Mobility: Home automation: Daily living: Sensory Tools: Specialist devices vs. Specialist tyres vs. "ECUs" vs. smart plugs Medical vs. retail Stools "Therapy" vs. high street standard iPads bike shops
Specialist supplier Specialist supplier Specialist supplier Specialist supplier
,
TttEl!AP't'AJO . SENSoRytOOl.
Specialised environmental Height-adjustable Pop-it sold as
Specialist AAC device Wheelchair tyre control unit aluminium shower stool a 'therapy' tool
A$14,495 A$160 A$450+ A$185 A$30
Retail alternative Retail alternative Retail alternative Retail alternative Retail alternative
iPad with AAC app BMX / bike tyre Smart plug Comparable shower stool Same pop-it at a mainstream retailer 111\ A$1, 180 total A$55 A$19.50 A$49.90 i1A$3
These examples show why narrowing supports is fundamentally flawed. It assumes that the
most legitimate support is the most specialised, when in reality mainstream products, local
services and participant-led solutions are often cheaper, faster and equally effective. By
reducing flexibility, the scheme prevents participants and families from finding
sense solutions that work in real life. This contradicts the Royal Commission’s emphasis on respect for lived experience and removing barriers in mainstream systems,common-and
it undermines the UNCRPD requirement that States ensure access to affordable mobilityaids,co-design,technology and community services on an equal basis with others.
SWAN is also extremely concerned that the narrowing of supports is tied to an increasingly
expensive evidence burden placed on participants. Since late 2021, the NDIA has required
lengthy and costly allied health reports before approving equipment, assistive technology,
plan changes or any additional supports. Functional Capacity Assessment (FCA) reports
alone typically cost $2,300-$3,500, with those costs being met from participant plans and,
in aggregate, from the scheme itself. Depending on the complexity of the report required
and the type of NDIS support the person is being assessed for, the cost skyrockets. Allied
health reports assessing people for Supported Independent Living and/or Specialist
Disability Accommodation, for example, commonly cost anywhere from $6,0000-$11,000.
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 59
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# Submission 318
Importantly, NDIA will only consider a report that is less than six months old, meaning that
by the time participants reach the end of the S48 plan change request queue (currently the
only option for getting a plan reassessment for most participants due to NDIA automatically
extending the vast majority of plans), well over six months have passed. It’s then common
for NDIA delegates to instruct participants to source another FCA and resubmit a new S48
plan change request. Alternately, an NDIA delegate may deny all supports recommended
in a report.
This can require people to undergo second or third assessments to what is
already known and documented: that their disability is permanent, their needs are wellunderstood,
and the question is simply whether a particular supportre‑establishis appropriate and
proportionate. This is administratively irrational and deeply unfair. It generates churn and
costs inside the scheme without improving decision quality or safety. It is directly at odds
with the Royal Commission’s call for simpler, accessible systems and with
the UNCRPD’s demand that procedures be accessible and tailored to the needs of personswith disability. trauma‑aware,
These costs are hard to justify when the NDIA has publicly acknowledged that allied health
reports submitted by participants as evidence are rarely read in full, and that some of the
material they contain cannot be considered under the legislation. It is even harder to justify
in light of the Disability Royal Commission’s findings that excessive bureaucracy,
inaccessible processes and burdensome documentation requirements exclude people with
disability from the supports they need.
The cumulative cost of this approach is enormous (approximately $1.55 billion per year).
Even without precise figures, it is clear that redirecting a fraction of the resources currently
absorbed by repeated assessments and lengthy reports would fund a significant
amount of practical support, equipment, local repairs and mainstream technology.That is a far more crediblehigh‑costpathway to sustainability than restricting flexible,supports or forcing participantslow‑costonto products and providerpathways. common‑sense higher‑cost disability‑specific
At present, the scheme is spending large sums on bureaucracy and duplicated evidence
while claiming it must narrow supports to control costs. This approach cannot be reconciled
with the Royal Commission’s recommendations or with Australia’s obligations under the
UNCRPD to use resources in ways that actually support inclusion, autonomy and safety.
Survey responses strongly support this critique. Respondents consistently said the reforms
would increase bureaucracy, paperwork, delay and administrative burden, and would force
people to spend more time fighting the system instead of living their lives. They described
the loss of flexibility and the removal of as direct threats
to safety, participation and dignity. Narrowing supports is not just restrictive. It is inefficient,
extensive and harmful, and it runs contrarycontext‑sensitiveto the decision‑makingapproach
The Disability Royal
Commission and the UNCRPD require. rights‑based
For these reasons, SWAN opposes any further narrowing of supports through restrictive
lists, rigid categories or assumptions that privilege particular provider types or specialist
products over safe, effective mainstream options. The Senate should:
- Ensure that the NDIS remains flexible enough to fund mainstream options,
local repairs, solutions and ordinary technology used for purposes where these are safe, effectivelower‑costand good value. participant‑led disability‑specific
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## Source release page 62
# Submission 318
## Address the waste and harm created by excessive report requirements and prohibit the NDIA from demanding repeated assessments where a person's
disability and core support needs are already well established.
high-cost
A scheme that blocks innovation and funds bureaucracy instead of practical supports is not being secured for the future. It is being made less efficient, less humane and less sustainable, in breach of the vision set out by the Disability Royal Commission and the rights protected by the UNCRPD.
### Choice and Control
SWAN strongly opposes the Bill’s move towards tightening provider registration and limiting the circumstances in which participants can use providers, especially in ways that would restrict and plan management. These changes sit withinSchedule 2 (fraud and integrity measures) andnon-registeredthe new ‘provider and worker registration’framework that will beself-managementimplemented through rules under Part 3 of Chapter 4 of the NDIS Act.
Read together with the Disability Royal Commission and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), this direction represents a shift away from individualised funding and choice, and back towards a more model in which power sits with organisations rather than with people with disability.block-funded, provider-centred
A move towards mandatory provider registration for core supports, including personal care,
is inconsistent with the Royal Commission’s emphasis on choice, control and safe, trusted relationships, and with the UNCRPD requirement that people with disability have the right to choose their support providers on an equal basis with others, including in their own homes. Individualised funding was a core NDIS reform, intended to move disability support away from block funding and towards purchasing.When fundingprovider-drivenis channelled through a smaller pool ofparticipant-driveregistered providers, more money is absorbed by overheads, administration and profit margins, and less reaches the person with disability as actual support. This does not create efficiency. It recreates the same system that the NDIS was meant to replace, As can be seen in the infographic below:provider-centred
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 61
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Submission 318
62
Choice vs. Control: The NDIS Registration Shift
The 'Securing the NDIS for Future Generations' Bill threatens to replace individual choice with a
provider-centred system, shifting power from people with disability back to large organisations
and government rules.
Mandatory Shifting Power to 67% Say Personal Higher Overheads A Breach of
Registration Limits Large Organisations Choice is Vital Mean Less Support Human Rights Your Choice
Large registered Non-registered Participant-driven Provider-led providers purchasing providers Registered
providers ~l? .. j
REGlmATIONMANO~TORY I
' ----n
Your
Participant support •
New rules restrict your Funding moves away from Survey data shows a majority Large registered providers Restricting support choices
ability to use non-registered participant-driven purchasing of participants require the spend more on administration in your own home is providers, even those you and back toward-outdated, flexibility to choose their and profit, leaving less money inconsistent with the UN
already trust. provider-led 'block funding'. own support teams. for your actual care. Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities.
The impact will be especially severe in regional and remote Australia. SWAN’s submission
to the Provider and Worker Registration Taskforce and submission to the Definition of a
NDIS Provider highlighted that many communities in regional Western Australia have no
registered providers at all, and others have only one provider in practice despite looking like
a ‘market’ on paper. This is due to providers registering for the entire state, but only having
a physical presence and offering services in a small number of specific locations.
In these areas, participants rely on local providers because they are the only
people available, the only people willing to travel, or the only people who understand theparticipant and community context.non-registeredAny reform that effectively makes registration
mandatory will drive the majority of small local providers, sole traders and mainstream
professionals out of the NDIS space because the compliance burden is too high for the very
small number of participants they support. In many regional communities its common for
NDIS participants to make up less than 5% of non-registered providers’ client base.
The decision to bear the financial cost of registration and audit, including undertaking the
burden of red tape is a business decision. Businesses will only undertake registration where
the cost and workload of NDIS registration provides a return on investment. For most non-
registered providers in regional Australia, there is simply no return on investment. That will
leave many people in regional and remote communities with one provider or no provider at
all, which is the opposite of choice and control.
These changes also have serious safeguarding implications. The Disability Royal
Commission showed that people are at greater risk of violence, abuse and neglect when
they have no real choice of provider and no safe way to complain. If a participant has access
to only one provider, or can only receive supports from large agencies with long waiting lists,
they may be unable to complain about violence or abuse for fear of losing the support they
need to eat, shower, travel, communicate or get out of bed.
In small communities, this fear is entirely rational. A framework that narrows the provider
pool, especially in personal care, therefore risks increasing, not reducing, violence and
abuse. This is inconsistent with the Royal Commission’s recommendations on safeguarding
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 62
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## Source release page 64
# Submission 318
and with the UNCRPD requirement to protect people with disability from exploitation,
violence and abuse, including in institutional and settings.SWAN is particularly alarmed by the Government’sin‑homestated intention that personal care
supports should move to a model over time. Personal care is exactly the
area where choice and control are most critical. Many people with disability haveexperienced violence, abuseregistered‑onlyand neglect, including sexual violence. Being forced to use a
registered provider for personal care, where the provider organisation rather than the
participant decides who enters their home and who performs intimate care, is a profound
violation of autonomy and dignity.
People with disability have the same right as anyone else to decide who sees them naked,
who assists them to shower or toilet, and who touches their bodies, including intimate parts.
A model that removes that choice and gives it to a provider roster is not a safeguarding
model. It is a model that tells people with disability that they do not have the same right as
other people to control access to their own bodies, contrary to the UNCRPD’s guarantees
of bodily integrity and freedom from degrading treatment.
A 2022 report titled Exercising meaningful choice and control in the NDIS: Why participants
use unregistered providers, authored by Professor Helen Dickinson, Dr Sophie Yates, and
Dr Raelene West, noted that people with disability and their families have several reasons
for choosing unregistered providers. They included:
- Real safety and trust: For intimate personal care, people want to know exactly who
is coming into their home. Participants reported feeling unsafe and anxious when
registered agencies sent ‘just anyone’ or unknown workers due to high staff turnover.
Choosing their own non-registered workers gave participants a sense of comfort and
safety.
- Flexibility and individualised support: Registered agencies often have rigid,
inflexible rules about how tasks must be done. Non-registered workers allow
participants to direct their own care and train the worker to do things exactly how they
need them done in their own home.
- Attitude over qualifications: The study showed that participants did not always
value formal qualifications. In fact, some avoided highly trained workers because
they came with pre-conditioned attitudes or a ‘boxed-in’ approach to disability.
Participants cared more about finding a worker with the right personality, mutual
respect, and a willingness to listen.
- Better value for money: Non-registered support workers offer more flexible shift
times. Participants can also negotiate wages directly. This often means the worker
gets paid a better rate while costing the NDIS plan less overall, because the
participant is not paying the heavy administrative overhead fees of a registered
agency.
SWAN’s Taskforce submission also showed that registration is not a reliable proxy for safety
or quality. Participants reported that some registered providers were poor quality, unsafe,
unavailable or culturally inappropriate, while some providers offered safer,
more consistent and more personalised support. Registration status does not tell aparticipant whether a worker is the right person to providenon-registeredintimate care, whether they will
communicate respectfully, whether they understand trauma, whether they are safe in a small
community context, bear discriminatory attitudes towards First Nations, CaLD or
LGBTQIASB+ individuals, or whether the participant feels safe with them.
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## Source release page 65
# Submission 318
The Disability Royal Commission cautioned against relying solely on formal compliance processes and paperwork as indicators of safety and instead emphasised listening to people with disability about who they trust and why.
"" My experience has been that
NDIS registered providers have been
lower qualirty and hi:gher cost and
spend more time meeting the many
arduous conditions and paperwork
requirements to keep registration
tllan they do actually helping people, ,,
- Person witlll dlsabllily
The financial and practical impacts are also serious. When participants in regional areas are forced to use registered providers from outside their town, travel costs consume large parts of their budgets and reduce the amount of actual support they can receive. SWAN has documented cases where participants pay more than $700 for a single one hour appointment, leaving little funding for direct support. A model will deepen this regional penalty, further entrenching inequity for people who already face distance, thinmarkets and limited choice. This is inconsistent with theregistration-heavyUNCRPD’s requirement that people with disability in rural and remote areas have equal access to services and supports.
SWAN is also concerned that pushing towards mandatory registration will reduce innovation and practical Regional participants and families often make support arrangements work by drawing on local relationships, small businesses, mainstreamprofessionals andproblem‑solving.trusted individuals who are not formal disability providers. This is not a flaw. Often it is the only reason people can access support at all. Removing this flexibility will not automatically make the system safer. It will make it more expensive, less responsive and less humane, contrary to both the spirit of the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations and the UNCRPD’s emphasis on supporting living arrangements and community connections chosen by the person.
"" Many of the deaths caused by abuse
or negligence of providers have been
caused by registered providers who
are still registered. Registration
doesn't keep us safe ,,
- Person with disability
We note that whilst the Independent NDIS Review recommended mandatory provider registration, the Review Panel conducted no consultation with people with disability and families in Western Australia. Only WA providers and a small number of advocacy
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## Source release page 66
# Submission 318
## Community Views about Registration of Providers
### SWAN survey findings on the proposed NDIS Bill
Respondents were asked for their views about mandatory registration of providers.
Respondents could select more than one answer.
Top community views
| | | | |
| ---: | ---: | ---: | ---:
| **Important to choose**providers that are right for me, whether registered or not | **Registration is expensive**, time consuming, and does not guarantee safety or quality | **Allied health professionals are already regulated** by AHPRA and other bodies | **Non-registered providers allow more innovation,** flexibility, and value for money |
| (690) | (666) | (637) | (541) |
| 67.32% | 64.98% | 62.15% | 52.78% |
| **Registered providers may miss out in small communities** | **Concern about no Self-Direction with registered provider category** | **Negative experiences with registered providers** | |
| (464) | (435) | (391) | (371) |
| 45.27% | 42.44% | 38.15% | 36.20% |
Other views
| Registered providers | Limiting access could leave one or no providers in a community needing non-registered providers | Regional and remote people need non-registered providers to access support | Directly employed support workers are trusted and need to continue |
| (352) | (339) | (282) | (256) |
| 34.34% | 33.07% | 27.51% | 24.98% |
All providers should be registered | No concerns about mandatory provider registration | |
|(197)|(65)| | |
|19.22%|6.34%|||
For these reasons, SWAN calls on the Senate to strongly reject any move towards mandatory provider registration or enrolment that prevents participants from choosing providers.
Any regulatory model must preserve full participant choice to engage providers, particularly for personal care and in regional and remote areas, and must not allow 'safeguarding' language to be used to justify the removal of bodily autonomy, choice and control.
The Government must also implement the Taskforce’s recommendation of a Self-Direction registration category with minimal bureaucratic requirements.
A scheme that forces people with disability to accept intimate care from whoever a provider chooses, or leaves them with one provider and no safe way to complain, is not protecting people with disability. It is exposing them to greater harm and breaching the rights affirmed by the Disability Royal Commission and the UNCRPD.
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## Source release page 67
# Repercussions of Cost Cutting
SWAN is extremely worried that the Bill treats disability support as a budget problem to be
cut, rather than a social and economic investment that sustains participation,
employment and community life. The amendments place ‘financial sustainability’ at the centre of the
scheme objects and decision-making framework, including by rewriting the reasonable and
necessary object in section 3(1)(d) and inserting new scheme-sustainability principles in
section 17B. In practice, these provisions risk turning the NDIS from a rights-based social
insurance scheme into a rationed program defined primarily by cost containment, in tension
with the Disability Royal Commission’s vision of properly resourced, person-centred support
and with Australia’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (UNCRPD).
The Bill reframes reasonable and necessary supports so that what is funded must not only
be related to disability, effective and beneficial, but must also fit within a tighter sustainability
framework and standardised funding limits. These changes sit alongside proposals to
reduce funding for social, civic and community participation by half through rules and support
determinations. Treating social, civic and community participation as an area for large,
across-the-board cuts ignores the Disability Royal Commission’s clear finding that inclusion
and visibility in community life are critical safeguards against violence, abuse, neglect and
exploitation. It also conflicts with the UNCRPD’s requirement that States ensure people with
disability can participate in the community, in public life and in cultural, recreational and
leisure activities on an equal basis with others.
Spending on the NDIS must also be understood in context. The scheme supports only a
fraction of Australians with disability, even though millions live with substantial impairment
and support needs. Cutting support to those already in the Scheme does not change the
underlying need. Instead, it shifts costs into other systems, such as health, education,
housing and justice, and into unpaid care. The Disability Royal Commission documented
how the absence of adequate community-based disability support leads directly to
hospitalisation, institutionalisation, homelessness and contact with the criminal legal system.
Cutting NDIS supports will predictably increase these harms and costs.
The Bill’s direction is economically short-sighted. The NDIS enables many people with
disability to work by funding transport, personal care, support workers, therapies and
communication tools that make employment possible. It also enables family members and
informal carers to engage in paid work because they are not required to provide all care
themselves. When supports are cut, both forms of labour-force participation are reduced.
This is especially damaging for women, who still perform most unpaid care. The Disability
Royal Commission highlighted the gendered impact of inadequate disability support, and
the UNCRPD requires States to address the multiple discrimination experienced by women
and girls with disability. Deep cuts to supports will push more women in particular out of
paid work into unpaid care, with long-term consequences for income and superannuation.
The social risks are equally serious. Reducing social, civic and community participation
funding increases isolation and dependence, which in turn increases the risk of violence and
abuse. People with disability are safest when they are seen and heard, included in
community, and connected to multiple relationships and services. When funding for
community access is cut, people become more isolated, more dependent on a small number
of carers or providers, and less visible to the wider community. The Disability Royal
Commission repeatedly found that isolation, closed settings and over-reliance on a single
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## Source release page 68
# Submission 318
provider or family system are key risk factors for violence, abuse and neglect. Cutting participation supports moves the Scheme in exactly the wrong direction.
Families will also carry more pressure. When formal supports are reduced, families who are already exhausted are forced to take on more supervision and crisis management. The Royal Commission heard evidence from families who were pushed to breaking point and, in some cases, to relinquish care because they could no longer keep a family member safely at home without adequate support. Survey respondents expressed similar fear and distress, warning of catastrophic consequences if the supports that currently make family life survivable are withdrawn. The proposed funding cuts are inconsistent with the UNCRPD's obligations to support families and to prevent separation or institutionalisation based on disability.
Cost-cutting will also push more people with disability unnecessarily into hospitals and aged care. When preventative, capacity-building and community-based supports are removed, people’s health and mental health deteriorate, crises escalate, and there is no way to maintain safety in the community. The likely consequences include more avoidable hospital admissions, more delayed discharges and more people occupying acute beds because the supports needed for safe discharge do not exist, as well as more people being funnelled into aged care or other inappropriate settings. The Disability Royal Commission strongly criticised the placement of younger people with disability in aged care. Policies that reduce NDIS supports and increase that risk are regressive and inconsistent with the UNCRPD’s guarantee of the right to live in the community with choices equal to others.
Other groups will be disproportionately affected, like people living in regional, rural and remote settings. For example, a return to block funding removes choice and control, and the introduction of strict administrative requirements that fail to account for the severe lack of local services. Regional participants face almost impossible geographical barriers, including a total absence of local services, a lack of accessible transport, and specialist waitlists that can exceed four years. These impacts are magnified if the person is from, for example, a First Nations background or community – a reduction of workforce availability or return to block funding will mean that culturally appropriately supports are less likely to be available.
People with disability and families will also be disproportionately impacted by the requirements to exhaust all ‘appropriate’ medical treatments and provide extensive specialist evidence to prove our disabilities are permanent, as specialist doctors and allied health professionals are predominantly concentrated in major metropolitan centres.
The proposed legislation removes essential existing protections that grant NDIS access when treatments are geographically unavailable, and mandatory provider registration threatens to force out the few remaining independent local practitioners. Consequently, rural participants who cannot afford the immense travel costs to seek care in capital cities or interstate will be unfairly denied vital support simply because of where they live.
There are better ways to address cost pressures than cutting participant supports. The disability community, including platforms such as Our NDIS, has identified alternative savings measures such as reducing excessive administrative burdens and duplicated reporting, addressing provider price distortions and overcharging, improving internal NDIA decision-making, and reducing unnecessary legal and tribunal costs. These kinds of structural reforms are much more consistent with the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations and with a UNCRPD-compliant approach than blunt reductions
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## Source release page 69
**Submission 318
participant supports. As can be seen in the graph below, the majority of survey respondents reported that they are not in support of the Government's proposed changes. Of the 1,022 participants who answered this question, 11.74% of respondents 'agree' or 'strongly agree' with the proposed changes, 12.92% neither agreed nor disagreed, and 68.59% of respondents reported that they 'disagree' or 'strongly disagree' with the Government's proposed changes.
Level of support for Government's proposed
changes to fraud, claiming and provider registration
Unsure
6.8%
Neutral Strongly disagree
12.9% 50.3%
SWAN’s concern is not only that the proposed cuts are harsh. It is that they are economically and socially self-defeating. The NDIS is an investment in safety, inclusion, workforce participation and strong local communities. Rewriting the Act to place scheme sustainability ahead of rights-based principles, and using that framework to justify deep cuts to core supports, social, civic and community participation and flexible funding, will reduce employment, increase unpaid care, push people into hospitals and aged care, weaken regional services and increase the risk of violence, abuse, neglect and premature death. That is a false economy and inconsistent with the Disability Royal Commission's vision and Australia's obligations under the UNCRPD.
This just sounds like a way for J businesses to monetise disability l '' even more and to take away } choice and control. ,,
- Person with disability
to align the Bill with those obligations, SWAN urges the Senate to:
- amend the objects and principles so that financial sustainability is balanced with, not placed above, rights, inclusion and safety
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## Source release page 70
**Submission 318
69**
- protect social, civic and community participation funding as a key safeguarding measure, not a primary savings target, and
- prioritise structural efficiency measures over cuts to individual supports, so that the NDIS remains a genuine investment in people with disability and the wider Australian community.
Where Could Alternate Savings Be Made in the NDIS?
SWAN does not accept that the only way to control NDIS costs is to cut participant supports. The Bill itself shows that Parliament can choose where to focus cost control: it amends the objects in section 3 and inserts new scheme-sustainability principles in section 17B, and then uses those principles to justify tighter access, narrower supports and new caps, rather than tackling structural waste and poor administration. That choice is inconsistent with the Disability Royal Commission’s emphasis on properly resourced, person-centred support and with the UNCRPD requirement that financial measures not undermine the rights of people with disability to live independently and participate in the community.
There are multiple areas where genuine savings could be made without harming people with disability. Many of these alternatives come down to a simple principle: believe people with disability, reduce bureaucracy, and stop spending public money fighting participants instead of supporting them. The Disability Royal Commission repeatedly found that complex, adversarial and opaque systems are both harmful and expensive, and recommended that Governments simplify processes, reduce documentation burdens and invest in early, collaborative resolution of issues. The UNCRPD likewise requires States to ensure access to justice on an equal basis and to provide procedural accommodations, not build systems that exhaust people into giving up.
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## Source release page 71
# Submission 318
70
One of the clearest savings opportunities is to reduce the demand for expensive allied health reports to justify relatively small or low-cost supports – a saving of approximately $1.55 billion per year.
Participants are regularly required to obtain Functional Capacity Assessments and other specialist reports costing thousands of dollars in order to request supports that are plainly disability-related and comparatively inexpensive. For example, it is common for a person to be told they must obtain a costly occupational therapy driver assessment ($2,200-$$3,100) in order to justify a modest increase in funded driving lessons ($700-$1400). That is not evidence-based spending. It is bureaucratic overreach that costs more than the support being sought, contradicts the Disability Royal Commission's call for proportionate evidentiary requirements, and undermines the UNCRPD’s requirement that procedures be accessible and not unduly burdensome.
Another clear area for savings is the cost of legal contest and external review. Under section 100 of the NDIS Act, participants can seek internal review of reviewable decisions, and many then go on to external merits review in the Administrative Review Tribunal because plans contain errors, unjustified cuts or refusals that should never have occurred. Each matter that proceeds to external review consumes substantial time, legal resources and administrative effort for both the Agency and the participant. Money currently spent on fighting people with disability could be better spent on getting decisions right the first time, providing draft plans, and resolving disputes early and collaboratively, as recommended by the Disability Royal Commission.
A major source of avoidable cost is the Agency’s failure to provide draft plans for checking before plans are finalised. When a participant receives a final plan with errors, missing supports, incorrectly coded items or unexplained reductions, the only practical option is often to seek internal review under section 100 or a change of circumstances reassessment under section 48. This creates a cycle of avoidable reviews, reassessments, correspondence and delay, all of which add cost. Providing draft plans, and building in a short, supported period for participants to check and correct errors before approval, would likely reduce the volume of reviews and disputes, improve trust and align with the Disability Royal Commission's recommendations on co-design and shared decision-making.
There are also legitimate questions about the cost and effectiveness of contractor arrangements, including Local Area Coordinators and early childhood partners. These outsourced structures add layers between participants and the NDIA, and they do not always improve the quality, consistency or timeliness of decisions. Where contractor models duplicate work, increase handovers, or create confusion about who is responsible for planning and support connection, they generate administrative cost without corresponding value. The Disability Royal Commission criticised fragmented governance and unclear accountability across disability systems, and called for streamlined, accountable structures that people with disability can navigate.
Further savings can be found in reducing duplicated administration, improving decision quality, and streamlining participant communication so that people are not repeatedly required to re-prove permanent disability or resubmit material the Agency already holds. At present, the system often creates churn by rejecting existing evidence, demanding fresh reports, and forcing people through multiple review stages because the original decision was wrong or incomplete. That kind of churn does not protect scheme integrity. It wastes money and conflicts with the UNCRPD’s requirement that people with disability have effective and practical access to benefits and services without unnecessary barriers.
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## Source release page 72
# Submission 318
71
The disability community has already identified many of these alternative cost drivers and savings opportunities. Collective work such as the Our NDIS campaign highlights structural inefficiencies and spending pressures that could be addressed before Parliament contemplates cutting participant supports, including administrative waste, duplicated assessments, unnecessary compliance burdens and policy settings that drive up legal and transactional costs rather than improve outcomes. These proposals are consistent with the Disability Royal Commission’s approach: fix systems and structures before limiting people’s rights and supports.
SWAN’s position is that the NDS can and should be made more efficient, but not by making life harder or more dangerous for people with disability. Real savings come from getting decisions right early, reducing bureaucracy, trusting participant evidence, limiting adversarial legal processes, improving policy design and eliminating systems that generate unnecessary reassessments and disputes. The Senate should insist that these options are exhausted, and that the objects and principles in sections 3, 4, 17A and 17B are interpreted in line with the Disability Royal Commission and the UNCRPD, before Parliament considers any further cuts to the supports people need to live safely and participate in their communities.
## Recommendations
### Core recommendation
**1. Withdraw the Bill and restart with proper co-design**
- The Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026 should be withdrawn.
- Any future amendments to the NDIS Act 2013 should be developed through genuine co-design with people with disability, families and our representative organisations, including release of a full exposure draft and a minimum three-month consultation period before legislation is introduced.
### Access, eligibility and continuity of supports
**2. Reject key access-tightening provisions**
- Reject or substantially amend proposed section 9B (functional capacity), and any Rules that enable rigid, standardised functional assessment tools as gatekeepers to the Scheme.
- Establish a two-pathway method for applying for NDS Access:
a) List A diagnosis basis, or
b) Free Functional Capacity Assessment
- Retain and improve eligibility lists (such as List A) for clearly qualifying conditions,
and add missing cohorts such as Down syndrome and intellectual disability (IQ ≤70), while providing no-cost functional capacity assessment pathways for others.
- Reject the ‘all appropriate treatment’ requirements and stricter permanence tests in proposed amendments to sections 24 and 25, including proposed subsections 24(5)(a) and 25(1B)(a).
- Reject proposed section 25B, which would again allow the NDIA to refuse access on the grounds that another system 'should' provide support.
- Reject proposed section 25A(2) to the extent it entrenches treatment exhaustion as a barrier to access.
### Protect ‘whole-of-person’ assessment and complex and/or fluctuating disability
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## Source release page 73
# Submission 318
- Preserve the existing 'whole-of-person' approach to access and supports,
including the substance of section 31.
- Ensure the Act recognises cumulative, fluctuating and intersecting disabilities,
and explicitly protects access for autistic people, people with psychosocial
disability, people with masked or episodic disability, and those whose needs are
not captured by standard tools.
## 4. Prevent loss of access through process and 'uncontactability'
- Remove proposed section 40A (plan suspension for 'not contactable') and
proposed subsection 30(1A) (revocation of access following suspension), unless
strong, enforceable safeguards are inserted.
- If any 'uncontactable' provisions remain, require: accessible, multi-channel
communication attempts; assessment of disability-related barriers,
hospitalisation, homelessness or crisis; and a positive obligation on NDIA to use
the person's preferred and safe communication methods.
## Plans, reviews, reassessments and unspent funds
### 5. Reject automatic plan renewal without real engagement or review rights
- Reject proposed section 50A unless it is amended to require genuine planning
conversations, proper review of needs, and carry-over of one-off supports
delayed by waitlists or market failure.
- Ensure that decisions about plan renewals and any associated changes are
expressly listed as reviewable decisions under sections 99 and 100.
### 6. Restore fair, responsive reassessment arrangements
- Reject proposed section 48A in its current form. If any tightening of
unscheduled reassessments is pursued, it must:
a) Cover crisis and time-limited situations where safety, housing, family
stability or health are at risk, and
b) Allow for early intervention rather than waiting for permanent
deterioration.
- Maintain the ability for trusted others (e.g. support coordinators, advocates) to
request plan changes with the participant’s consent
- Require NDIA to enable participants to have two plan nominees to avoid the
issues arising where the sole plan nominee is incapacitated or has died.
### 7. Keep the Participant Service Guarantee meaningful
- Retain the 21-day time limit for deciding reassessment requests and access
decisions, or require strong, enforceable consequences (including deemed
favourable decisions) if the NDIA exceeds extended timeframes.
- Do not remove existing 'deemed decision' safeguards without replacing them
with equivalent or stronger protections.
- Require NDIA to measure time passage for Access Request decisions from
the when the participant initially applies for Access, not after the PITC finalises
the unnecessary Community Connections Plan and submits ID documents.
## SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 72
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## Source release page 74
# Ministerial Powers, Caps and 'Support Determinations'
## Remove Section 34A Support Determinations
- Remove the Minister's power to make support determinations under section 34A that reduce funding component amounts scheme-wide.
- At minimum, if any such power remains, require:
a) Strict statutory criteria consistent with the UNCRPD and Disability Royal Commission recommendations;
b) Parliamentary approval and sunsetting;
d) Explicit exclusion of supports essential for safety, wellbeing, communication and participation; and
e) Individual review rights for affected participants.
# Prevent Non-reviewable Caps and Hidden Budget Algorithms
## Fix Review Rights and Procedural Fairness Before Expanding Automation
- Make the original decision that a debt exists a reviewable decision under section 99, with clear internal review rights under section 100.
- Prohibit fully automated debt-raising and adverse compliance decisions; require that any debt, suspension, or serious adverse action involving a participant be made or confirmed by a human delegate.
- Enshrine a statutory 'Right to a Human', allowing participants to immediately escalate any automated compliance flag or adverse automated outcome to a human decision-maker without having to initiate a full, formal review.
# Strengthen Transparency and Safety of Automated Systems
## Limit Coercive Compliance and Information-Gathering Powers
- Amend Schedule 2 to:
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## Source release page 75
# Submission 318
## Strictly limit information-gathering powers
a) Strictly limit information-gathering, data-matching and surveillance powers to what is necessary and proportionate;
b) Insert strong, disability-specific safeguards, including access to advocacy, interpreters, communication supports and supported decision-making for any person facing compliance action; and
c) Exclude participants, prospective participants and nominees from civil penalty exposure where non-compliance is linked to disability or NDIA failures.
- Ensure that powers in sections 73ZSA, 73ZSB, 73ZSL and 73ZSM are accompanied by clear statutory limits, not left primarily to legislative instruments.
### Reform record-keeping and debt provisions to avoid ‘Robodebt-style’ harm
- Re-draft section 45B so that:
- Record-keeping obligations for participants and nominees are realistic and disability-informed;
- participants are not automatically liable for the full amount of a claim solely due to missing records; and
- here are clear, statutory exemptions and defences for disability, disaster, poverty, NDIA failure to explain obligations, and circumstances beyond a person’s control.
- Require NDIA to proactively and accessibly inform all participants and nominees of record-keeping duties, timeframes, and consequences, before any penalty or debt can arise.
- Ensure that any civil penalties for non-compliance with information notices (e.g. under sections 53 and 189) cannot be imposed on participants or nominees without consideration of disability impacts and available supports.
## 'Reasonable and necessary', sustainability and object of the Scheme
### Re-balance 'reasonable and necessary' away from pure cost-containment
- Retain and strengthen the original purpose language of the Act, including the substance of section 31, so that financial sustainability is one consideration, not the dominant driver.
- Amend new section 17B and the section 34 amendments so that:
a) They explicitly recognise rights, inclusion, safety, choice and control as co-equal objectives;
b) They preserve the ‘whole-of-person’ lens and recognise needs arising from multiple impairments; and
c) They prevent the exclusion of support needs simply because they are not directly traceable to a single access-qualifying impairment.
## Align the Bill with the Disability Royal Commission and UNCRPD
- Audit all proposed amendments against key DRC recommendations and UNCRPD obligations (including Articles 12, 14, 19, 24, 25, 26 and 28).
- Remove or redraft provisions that promote gatekeeping, rigid standardisation, institutionalisation, or cost-cutting at the expense of safety and equal participation.
## Choice, control and provider registration
### Protect self-management, plan management and local supports
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## Source release page 76
# Fiscal Sustainability and Alternative Savings
## 18. Pursue Rights-Respecting, Evidence-Based Savings Instead Of Cuts To Supports
- Ensure That Participants Retain The Right To Choose Non-Registered Providers,
Especially For Core Supports And Personal Care, And That Risk Management
Occurs Through Proportionate Safeguards Rather Than Blanket Bans.
- Implement The Self-Direction Category Recommended By The Ndps Provider
And Worker Registration Taskforce, With Minimal Bureaucratic Requirements
And No Cost To Participants And Nominees.
Fiscal sustainability and alternative savings
18. Pursue rights-respecting, evidence-based savings instead of cuts to supports
- Focus on system efficiency and quality improvements, including:
a) Reducing duplication and unnecessary high-cost reports;
b) Improving decision quality and providing draft plans for correction;
c) Reducing heavy reliance on external legal contest and litigation;
d) Fixing inefficiencies in outsourced partner (LAC/ECA/PITC) models;
and
e) Investing in foundational supports and mainstream interfaces to reduce
downstream crisis costs.
- Require Government to publish transparent modelling showing that any
cost-containment measure will not increase costs in health, housing, aged
care, education, mental health, justice and emergency systems.
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## Source release page 77
# Submission 318
76
- South West Autism Network
**Contact**
CEO: Nick Avery
Email: info@swanautism.org.au
Web: https://www.swanautism.org.au
SWAN Submission to Senate Inquiry into NDIS Bill 2026
Page 76