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Submission 3209 — Ms Heather Rumball — NDIS Future Generations Bill

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Submission – NDIS Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025

Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Submitted by: Heather Rumball

Role: Concerned community member, family member of person with a disability, advanced behaviour support practitioner, ethical and participant-focused service provider. Over 30 years of sector experience.

Date: 28 May 2026

Introduction

I welcome the opportunity to provide a submission regarding the NDIS Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025.

I support the need for genuine safeguards, prevention of exploitation, and the reduction of fraudulent conduct within the NDIS. The Australian community and the people the scheme serves directly deserve a system that is safe, sustainable, transparent, and accountable. Reforms aimed at integrity and safeguarding must remain firmly grounded in the principles upon which the NDIS was established including choice and control, participant dignity, autonomy, inclusion, and human rights. This is what we advocated and signed up for.

My concerns arise from both lived and professional experience working alongside participants,

families, and  providers  navigating  increasingly complex  administrative,  compliance, and

regulatory systems. In practice, many current failures within the NDIS do not stem from a lack of

regulation  alone  or  fraud, but from  systemic  complexity,  inconsistent  decision-making,

inadequate participant support, poor communication, inaccessible processes, and the growing imbalance of power between participants and institutions.

While the objectives of the  Bill are understandable, there  is a significant risk that broad

enforcement powers and increasingly compliance-heavy approaches may unintentionally create fear, discourage ethical providers, and further disadvantage vulnerable participants already struggling to navigate the system.

Support for Stronger Safeguards

I support:

  • action against deliberate fraud and exploitation,
  • improved safeguarding for participants experiencing abuse, neglect or coercion,
  • greater accountability where providers engage in harmful or poor conduct, and
  • more responsive mechanisms for investigating serious issues that impact the wellbeing of people with a disability, their families and communities.

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Public confidence in the NDIS depends upon maintaining integrity and trust. However, integrity measures must not come at the expense of accessibility, procedural fairness, participant safety, or human rights.

There is an important distinction between deliberate exploitation and ordinary participant or provider confusion within an increasingly complex system. Safeguarding frameworks should therefore prioritise proportionality, education, accessible communication, and support for compliance rather than reactive, protective and punitive responses.

Administrative Growth and System Sustainability

Fraud should be addressed appropriately, but it represents only one component of the broader structural and financial challenges facing the NDIS.

There is growing concern within the disability community that public discussion regarding scheme sustainability has increasingly focused on fraud and compliance while insufficient attention is being given to rising administrative complexity, service quality, support competence and other hidden costs.

Participants, families, carers, supporters and providers now navigate repeated reassessments, extensive evidence requirements, complex review pathways, inconsistent decision-making, reporting obligations, and increasing compliance systems. These processes create significant indirect costs across the scheme and frequently divert time, resources, and energy away from direct participant support.

Participants and families often spend years fighting to obtain and retain supports essential to safety, regulation, communication, participation, and daily functioning. Many are repeatedly required to justify why basic supports and human dignity should not be treated as optional expenditures.

The cumulative impact of this instability is substantial. Participants and carers experience chronic fear that supports may be reduced, delayed, or withdrawn at any time. This contributes to burnout, mental distress, financial pressure, trauma and adversarial relationships with institutions. Having to consistently retell their story is trauma inducing for many.

Importantly, inadequate or unstable supports frequently create downstream costs across hospitals, mental health systems, housing services, emergency systems, and unpaid family care networks.

A sustainable NDIS should therefore be assessed not only through reductions in participant expenditure, but through:

  • participant wellbeing and safety,
  • reduction in crisis escalation,
  • workforce competency, capability and sustainability, NDIS_Submission_HR_10626 - Copy Page 2 of 9
  • administrative efficiency,
  • reduction in adversarial disputes, and
  • meaningful social and economic participation outcomes.

Concerns Regarding Shared Supports and Institutional Risk

There is growing concern regarding increasing pressure toward shared and group-based support arrangements as a cost-management strategy within the NDIS.

Participants,  families,  carers, and  providers  are  increasingly  observing  a  shift  toward

encouraging or normalising reductions from individualised 1:1 support to 1:2 or 1:3 staffing arrangements.

While shared supports may be appropriate where genuinely chosen and individually suitable, they must never become a default substitute for necessary individualised supports.

For many participants, 1:1 support is not a luxury. It is a critical safeguard necessary to maintain:

  • physical and emotional safety,
  • emotional regulation,
  • communication access,
  • trauma-informed support,
  • capacity to work and contribute,
  • capacity to be meaningfully included,
  • prevention of restrictive practices, and
  • protection from violence, neglect, exploitation, and abuse.

The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability,

whose Final Report was tabled on 29 September 2023, identified serious systemic concerns

regarding  violence,  neglect,  restrictive  practices,  institutional  control,  overmedication,

communication  barriers, and  failures  in  safeguarding and  complaint  responses  within

congregate and group-based settings.

The Royal Commission identified several conditions associated with increased risk of serious harm, deterioration, and preventable death, including:

  • inadequate staffing ratios,
  • reduced individual oversight,
  • inconsistent staffing,
  • overreliance on restrictive practices,
  • use of unauthorised restrictive practices,
  • use of practices that were not least restrictive,
  • poor communication access,
  • trauma-insensitive responses,
  • social isolation, and NDIS_Submission_HR_10626 - Copy Page 3 of 9
  • environments where participant needs became secondary to operational efficiency and compliance.

These findings are highly relevant to current concerns regarding increasing reliance on shared support arrangements and reductions in individualised 1:1 supports. There is a clear risk that

people  will be placed  in untenable situations and increase the  risk of harm the Royal

Commission found and warned us about.

Safeguarding also includes the need for supportive and invested relationships, clear ways to communicate discomfort or dissatisfaction, access to effective advocacy, and environments that reduce risk. Investment in exploring the establishment of individual safeguarding processes is required.

Participant and Family Oversight as the Core of Safeguarding The proposed NDIS Amendment Bill 2025 should enshrine that safeguarding against systemic abuse centres on the participant and their family as the primary overseers of supports, rather than leaving oversight to providers who may hold disproportionate power (as can occur with SIL arrangements). The Bill must ensure that participants, supported by their chosen family and informal supporters, have the authority to monitor, question, and change their supports as needed, including when they identify risks of violence, abuse, neglect, or exploitation. This means embedding rights and practical mechanisms for participants and their families to:

  • Access information about their supports,
  • Raise concerns without fear,
  • Request independent reviews, and
  • Replace providers when needed. Safeguarding should be framed as the participant’s and family’s role in governing supports, not as a matter of providers being mandated to “include” them.

When providers control the narrative of how a participant’s needs, strengths, and risks are described, they can influence plan decisions, service allocations, and oversight in their own favour, which undermines autonomy and can mask neglect, coercion, or financial exploitation. Controlling the narrative also distorts the evidence base used to design and monitor supports, making it harder to detect patterns of harm across a provider’s portfolio.

The Amendment Bill should require that participant-led accounts, independent reports, and family perspectives be given equal or greater weight than provider reports in risk assessments, plan reviews, and complaints processes. By making clear that providers cannot negotiate on behalf of participants or dictate how their stories are told, the Bill would protect participants from being spoken over, reduce the potential for conflict of interest, and reinforce that safeguarding is fundamentally about the participant and their network retaining power over their own lives and funding. The Bill must balance risk with participants’ ability to choose who

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provides their support, recognising that people with disability are the best decision-makers about their own lives.

Value for Money and Quality of 1:1 Self-Managed Support. The proposed NDIS Amendment Bill 2025 must recognise that 1:1 self-managed support delivers both better value for money and higher quality outcomes for many participants, particularly those with complex or high support needs. Self-managed participants can negotiate support rates below the NDIS price limits, meaning more of their funding goes directly to supports rather than provider margins, and they can choose providers who offer better quality at lower cost based on their own research and relationships. This flexibility allows participants to access unregistered providers, employ people they trust, and tailor support hours to their actual needs rather than accepting package solutions designed for shared arrangements.

Evidence shows that self-management or self-directed support with plan management, gives participants direct control over which providers are engaged and when, which reduces the risk of systemic abuse and increases accountability. When participants and their families oversee supports directly, they can respond faster to concerns, change providers without bureaucratic barriers, and ensure supports align with their safety priorities and personal goals.

The Bill should therefore avoid any provisions that would restrict access to self-management or push participants toward shared or agency-managed arrangements under the assumption that these are more cost-effective, as this overlooks the real cost savings, safeguarding and quality

improvements  that  come  from  participant-led  decision-making  and  direct  provider

relationships.

Concerns Regarding Scheme Exits and Community Infrastructure

There is also significant concern regarding participants exiting or being removed from the NDIS without adequate community infrastructure and safeguarding being established.

Public  discussion regarding scheme  sustainability has  increasingly referenced  substantial

reductions in participant numbers. However, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding what supports, services, housing pathways, advocacy systems, respite options, mental health supports, or community programs will exist for those individuals outside the NDIS apart from information relating to the Thriving Kids program where some information is available. Although official figures relate to 160,000 people being impacted, advocacy groups are reporting it is more likely that over 200,000 people impacted.

Many  mainstream and community  systems  currently  remain  inaccessible,  fragmented,

overstretched, or unable to adequately support people with disability with complex needs.

Without substantial reinvestment into accessible community infrastructure, there is a serious risk that participants exiting the NDIS may experience:

  • homelessness/inappropriate placement, NDIS_Submission_HR_10626 - Copy Page 5 of 9
  • mental health deterioration,
  • hospitalisation,
  • family and carer breakdown/burnout,
  • institutionalisation,
  • social isolation, and
  • increased vulnerability to abuse, violence, neglect, and exploitation. A sustainable disability support system cannot simply reduce participant numbers without ensuring that safe, accessible, rights-based community infrastructure exists to support people outside the scheme.

Human Rights and the CRPD Australia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on 17 July 2008 and is obligated to uphold the dignity, autonomy, safety, and inclusion of people with disability.

Several CRPD rights are directly relevant to these concerns, including:

  • Article 19 — the right to live independently and be included in the community,
  • Article 16 — freedom from exploitation, violence, and abuse,
  • Article 17 — protection of physical and mental integrity,
  • Article 12 — supported decision-making, and
  • Article 28 — the right to an adequate standard of living and social protection. Safeguarding must extend beyond financial oversight, compliance and fraud prevention.

True safeguarding also requires protection from:

  • institutional harm,
  • unnecessary restriction,
  • social isolation,
  • administrative trauma,
  • destabilisation of supports, and
  • policies and practices that undermine autonomy, dignity, and inclusion. NDIS_Submission_HR_10626 - Copy Page 6 of 9

Recommendations

I recommend that the Committee consider amendments to:

  1. Strengthen procedural fairness protections and independent oversight mechanisms, ensuring participants and families have accessible pathways to challenge decisions.

    1. Ensure all enforcement powers are proportionate, transparent, and subject to

    accessible review rights, with clear distinction between deliberate fraud and

unintentional non-compliance.

3. Embed  supported  decision-making  principles  directly  within  the  legislation,

recognising participants as the primary decision-makers about their own lives and supports.

4.  Require  plain-language and  accessible communication standards across  all NDIS

processes, including plan reviews, investigations, and complaints.

  1. Differentiate clearly between deliberate fraud and unintentional administrative non- compliance, with education and support prioritised.

  2. Reduce unnecessary administrative burden on ethical providers and community-based services, focusing compliance on genuine risks rather than minor technical breaches.

    1. Ensure shared supports remain genuinely voluntary and based on informed

participant choice, with 1:1 support recognised as a critical and evidenced participant safeguard.

  1. Improve independent advocacy access for participants subject to investigations or compliance action, ensuring they are not required to navigate complex processes alone.

  2. Require ongoing co-design and post-implementation review involving people with disability and community stakeholders, with transparent reporting on outcomes.

    1. Ensure no large-scale reduction in participant access occurs without adequate

community infrastructure being established, with open and transparent practice and clear accountability for outcomes.

  1. Recognise self-managed support as delivering better value for money and quality outcomes, ensuring participants cannot be restricted from self-management or pushed

    toward shared or agency-managed arrangements based on unfounded cost-

effectiveness assumptions, and recognising that participant-led decision-making and direct provider relationships deliver real cost savings and quality improvements.

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Conclusion

The NDIS must remain both sustainable and rights based.

The Disability Royal Commission was established in direct response to overwhelming evidence of widespread violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation of people with disability, including serious harm and preventable deaths. The Final Report documented countless cases where people with disability died prematurely due to inadequate supports, institutional neglect, overmedication, restrictive practices, isolation, and failures in safeguarding. Families who lost loved ones testified that these deaths were preventable and resulted from systemic failures to provide adequate individualised care, communication access, and protection from harm. The Royal Commission made 222 recommendations precisely because the status quo was causing irreparable harm and loss of life.

The findings of the Disability Royal Commission demonstrate that participant safety is closely connected to stable supports, communication access, individualised care/support, autonomy, and genuine community inclusion.

For many participants, 1:1 supports function as essential safeguards that prevent escalation, restrictive practices, abuse, neglect, crisis presentations, and serious harm.

If the Bill is passed without incorporating the amendments recommended above, there is a significant risk that it will inadvertently recreate the very conditions the Royal Commission warned against. Providers may retain disproportionate power to control participant narratives and negotiate on their behalf, shared supports may become the default rather than genuinely voluntary choices, and participants may be restricted from self-management even though it delivers better value for money, safeguarding, and improved quality outcomes. This could lead to increased systemic abuse, reduced participant safety, greater reliance on restrictive practices, more crisis presentations to hospitals and emergency services, and erosion of trust between participants, families, and the scheme. Without strong protections for participant and family oversight, supported decision-making, and access to self-managed supports, the Bill risks undermining the very safeguards it is intended to strengthen and could cause lasting harm to vulnerable participants who depend on the NDIS for their safety and wellbeing.

Reforms intended to strengthen the scheme should not unintentionally recreate conditions

associated  with  institutional  harm,  excessive  control,  or  participant  destabilisation.

The long-term success of the NDIS depends not only on financial integrity, but on maintaining fairness, trust, accessibility, human dignity, and the rights of people with disability to live safely and meaningfully within community.

We cannot afford to fail the families who lost loved ones and the participants currently at risk. The Royal Commission gave us clear warnings about what happens when systems prioritise control and cost over individualised support and participant voice. Passing this Bill without the recommended amendments would betray those warnings and the people who suffered.

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AI Use Statement

Generative AI was used to assist with research, editing, and formatting of this submission. All views, arguments, recommendations, and content are my own. I have reviewed and verified all information and take full responsibility for this submission.

References:

  • United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), adopted 13 December 2006. Australia ratified the CRPD on 17 July 2008.

  • Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, Final Report, tabled 29 September 2023. Available at:

https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/final-report

•  Department  of  Health and Aged Care  (2025). NDIS Amendment  (Integrity and

Safeguarding)            Bill       2025        Overview.         Available          at:

https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/ndis-amendment-integrity-and safeguarding-bill-2025-overview

  • NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (2026). Regulator welcomes new powers to strengthen NDIS integrity and safeguards (6 April 2026). Available at:

https://www.ndiscommission.gov.au/media-centre/regulator-welcomes-new-powers strengthen-ndis-integrity-and-safeguards

https://www.inclusionaustralia.org.au/submission/ndis-safeguarding-and-integrity-bill no-2-2025/

carers/empowering/international-disability-rights

•  1800RESPECT  (2025).  Safety  planning  with  people  with  disability.  Available  at:

https://1800respect.org.au/inclusive-practice/supporting-people-with-disability/safety planning

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