Submission 35
Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance
Scheme
Inquiry into the “Securing the NDIS for Future Generations” Bill
Submitted by:
Eire Rowan
Social Policy Student, University of Melbourne
NDIS Participant
Hawthorn East, Victoria
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Executive Summary
This submission argues that the Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill is based on a misleading premise. The NDIS is not “unsustainable.” Rather, the pressures on the scheme arise from:
- Chronic underfunding of mainstream systems
- The government’s underestimation of disability prevalence and complexity
- The structural consequences of a market‑based service model
- The absence of publicly funded disability support providers
- The existence of the missing middle in mental health
- Forty years of neoliberal policy design that treats care as a commodity The bill does not address these systemic drivers. Instead, it shifts responsibility onto disabled people. This submission proposes the establishment of a National Disability
Submission 35
Support Service (NDSS) as a publicly funded provider to ensure long‑term sustainability, quality, and equity.
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- Introduction I write this submission as both a social policy student and a disabled person who relies on the NDIS. The title of this bill, Securing the NDIS for Future Generations, is highly inaccurate. It does not secure the NDIS. It secures the government’s ability to restrict access while avoiding accountability for decades of underinvestment in disability, mental health, and community services.
The government’s claim that the NDIS is “unsustainable” is contradicted by its own recent 2026 budget decisions, including more than $50 billion in new defence spending. This proves that the issue is not fiscal capacity but political priorities.
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- The Political Framing of “Unsustainability” Is Misleading The narrative of “unsustainable growth” frames disabled people as a budgetary threat. This framing obscures the real drivers of cost growth:
- Underestimation of disability prevalence
- Underestimation of support complexity
- Underfunding of mainstream systems
- Market‑based service delivery models that inflate costs
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The bill avoids addressing these structural issues and instead places responsibility on participants.
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- Government Underestimation of Disability and Support Needs The original actuarial modelling assumed:
- A smaller disability population
- Lower support needs
- Functioning mainstream systems
- Stable, low‑cost service markets These assumptions were incorrect. Australia has always had this many disabled people. Our needs were always this complex. The NDIS is not “overgrown”; it is revealing the true scale of unmet need that successive Labor and Liberal governments ignored.
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- The NDIS Is Carrying the Weight of Underfunded Mainstream Systems The NDIS is absorbing people who should have been supported by:
- State mental health services
- Community mental health programs
- Outpatient Medicare‑funded psychology services
- Trauma‑informed care
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- Disability‑inclusive education
- Public health systems These systems have been chronically underfunded until they became crisis‑only or inaccessible. The NDIS is functioning as the de facto safety net for multiple failing systems.
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- The Missing Middle: A Structural Failure Created by Underfunding The missing middle exists because governments have refused to fund mental health systems at the level needed.
Primary care cannot meet complex needs.
Specialist services cannot accept people until they are in crisis.
Medicare psychology is capped and inaccessible.
The so-called “solution” Medicare Mental Health Centres are only intended for low to moderate intensity treatment, not the long-term treatment needed for more complex conditions like Complex Trauma.
Trauma‑informed care is not funded as a mainstream expectation.
As a result:
People fall through the gaps of underfunded systems and enter the NDIS because it is the only functioning system left.
This is not a participant failure.
It is a policy failure.
Submission 35
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- Neoliberalism and Market-Based Social Policy: The Real Driver of Rising Costs Since the 1980s, Australian social policy has been shaped by neoliberal market-based approaches: outsourcing, competition, individualised funding, and the belief that markets deliver better outcomes than public systems.
The NDIS was built inside this ideological framework. It was designed as a market, not a public service.
And markets behave like markets:
- Providers maximise revenue
- Prices drift upward
- Administrative overhead grows
- Profit becomes a cost baked into every support This is not misuse.
This is market logic.
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- Why Private Providers Are Inherently More Expensive Than Public Providers The NDIS is not expensive because disabled people are expensive.
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It is expensive because the government chose a market model that bakes profit and overhead into every hour of support.
A. Profit Extraction
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Profit margins are built into every billable hour.
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Public providers do not extract profit.
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Private providers must. B. Administrative Overheads Private providers must keep:
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Billing systems
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Marketing and client acquisition
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Executive salaries and boards
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Insurance and risk management
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Compliance and audit costs
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Duplicated infrastructure None of these costs improve care.
All of them increase prices.
C. Workforce Instability Private providers rely on:
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- Casualisation
- Gig‑style rostering
- High turnover This increases recruitment costs and reduces continuity of care.
D. Market Competition Increases Costs Competition does not reduce prices in human services.
It increases them.
Providers upsell, expand services, and maximise billable hours.
Participants cannot “shop around” for continuity of care.
Workforce shortages give providers pricing power.
This is why the NDIS price cap keeps rising:
It is designed to keep private providers profitable.
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- The Bill Punishes Disabled People for Government Failures The bill does not address:
- Underfunding of mental health
- Underfunding of community supports
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- Underfunding of trauma‑informed care
- Underfunding of early intervention
- Underfunding of public health
- Underfunding of disability‑inclusive education Instead, it reframes the consequences of underfunding as if disabled people themselves caused them.
This is not policy.
This is blame‑shifting.
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- A Sustainable Alternative: A National Disability Support Service (NDSS) If the government wants sustainability, it must abandon the market model and rebuild public capacity.
A proposed example: A National Disability Support Worker Service. Thai service would:
- Deliver core supports through salaried workers
- Provide stable employment
- Ensure consistent quality
- Fill service gaps in rural and low‑profit areas
- Reduce administrative waste
- Support complex needs
- Run without profit extraction
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This is how the NDIS is genuinely secured for future generations.
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- Conclusion The government is not facing a NDIS cost crisis.
It is facing the consequences of its own ideological choices.
For forty years, governments have insisted that markets are the solution to every social problem. Now, when the predictable costs of that model appear, they blame disabled people instead of the economic framework they created.
This bill does not secure the NDIS.
It secures the political narrative that the problem is us — not the system.
The NDIS is not the failure.
Neoliberalism is.
If the government wants sustainability, it must rebuild public systems that serve people, not profit. It must confront the reality that care cannot be efficiently or ethically delivered through a market. And it must commit to a service like the proposed National Disability Support Service that provides stable, high‑quality, publicly accountable support.
Disabled people deserve honesty, not scapegoating.
We deserve systems that work.
We deserve a future that is secure.