National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 328
I am a sole trader Support Coordinator based in the Riverland region of South Australia. I currently support approximately 70 active NDIS participants alongside a small team of three staff. I am writing because the reality I see every day in regional service delivery does not align with the picture the government has presented publicly about the state of the NDIS and the proposed reforms.
At present, I am receiving referrals that I cannot service. Seven people in my region, all assessed as eligible for the NDIS and requiring support coordination, are currently sitting on my waitlist in an area already experiencing severe workforce shortages. In addition, I am personally aware of at least two experienced local Support Coordinators who are leaving the sector due to the prolonged uncertainty surrounding the future of support coordination and uncertainty that has now persisted for almost three years.
The proposed changes, including the introduction of a government-vetted panel system for Support Coordinators, will not improve this situation. In regional areas like the Riverland, where participant choice is already heavily restricted by geography and workforce availability, limiting which coordinators people can access is not a quality safeguard and it is a reduction in access presented as reform.
The 2023 Independent NDIS Review was clear that foundational supports must be established before significant changes to eligibility or plan funding occur. Those foundational supports do not currently exist in regional South Australia. There is no alternative infrastructure capable of supporting the people who will lose access to the scheme or experience reduced supports under these changes. When plans are cut or access ends, responsibility does not disappear and it shifts to families, hospital emergency departments, overstretched community services, and frontline workers like myself who are already operating at capacity. The government has not released any modelling regarding these downstream impacts and costs. I am asking why.
I am also deeply concerned about the way fraud figures have been used to justify sustained political pressure on the scheme. In July 2024, parliament was told that billions of dollars were being lost to fraud. At that time, the confirmed fraud figure was $34.5 million across 72 active cases within a $42 billion scheme. In March 2026, the government voted down a Senate inquiry into the very fraud claims it had repeatedly cited publicly.
I work in this sector every day. The inefficiency I see is not widespread participant fraud. It is systemic complexity, poor planning decisions, excessive administrative requirements, and delays. Participants are repeatedly required to prove permanent disabilities have not changed. I have clients being asked to reconfirm conditions that are lifelong and irreversible. Participants seeking a change of circumstances are routinely directed to obtain costly Functional Capacity Assessments, despite widespread understanding within the sector that these reports are often given limited consideration in planning decisions.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 328
I ask the committee to reject this bill until foundational supports are genuinely established in regional and rural communities. I also ask that the government be required to table the full evidentiary basis for the fraud claims made in July 2024 and reconcile those claims with the confirmed figures available publicly. If these reforms have been developed responsibly, then the downstream cost modelling for health systems, carers, emergency services, and community organisations should also be released.
Finally, I ask that the submission deadline be extended. Allowing only fifteen days to respond to 113 pages of legislation, in a sector already experiencing burnout and workforce shortages, does not constitute meaningful public consultation.
Kind regards,
Pippa Pech
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