Submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme

Amendment (Securing the NDSI for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Committee Secretary Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee PO Box 6100 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 1 June 2026

Dear Committee Secretary,

Please accept this submission in response to the inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

As a Member of the Labor Party and a heavily regulated allied health professional with decades of clinical experience across public health, education, and private practice, I am writing to express grave concerns regarding the sweeping legislative and structural changes proposed in this Bill. While ensuring the long-term financial sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is important, the mechanisms introduced by this legislation shift the core philosophy of the scheme away from a human rights-based framework of choice, control, and equity, turning it into a system of rationed support and restrictive bureaucracy that will deeply destabilise vulnerable Australians.

I urge the Committee to fundamentally amend or reject key components of this Bill based on four critical

areas of failure: the devastating regulatory burden on independent allied health sole practitioners, the complete absence of participant and youth consultation, arbitrary plan budget reductions, and the punitive tightening of eligibility criteria.

1. Duplication of Regulation and Exorbitant Compliance Costs for Sole Practitioners

The push toward mandatory NDIS registration for all providers under the guise of “safeguarding” and “anti-fraud” measures is fundamentally flawed, economically unviable, and completely ignores the extensive, rigorous frameworks already safeguarding the public.

• Prohibitive Compliance Costs:

The financial burden of full NDIS registration and independent third-party auditing—frequently exceeding $12,000—is completely prohibitive for independent sole practitioners. Unlike large corporate entities, a sole trader cannot absorb these massive structural overheads or the non-billable administrative hours required.

• Redundant Regulation of Allied Health:

The premise that mandatory NDIS registration is required to ensure quality completely ignores that university-qualified allied health professionals are already bound by national professional boards, strict codes of ethics, rigorous continuing professional development (CPD), and mandatory clinical standards. Furthermore, practitioners operating within public systems (such as the NSW Department of Education or billing through Medicare) are subject to continuous institutional oversight. Our written clinical notes, milestone tracking, and intervention plans are already regularly submitted to government bodies, ensuring complete transparency without NDIS administrative bloat.

• The Fallacy of Misdirected Anti-Fraud Measures:

Framing mandatory registration as a primary weapon against fraud is a severe misdirection of regulatory resources. Financial malpractice within the NDIS is overwhelmingly systemic, technological, or tied to unscrupulous corporate syndicates and non-clinical service types—not individual, professionally regulated clinicians. Equating “unregistered” with “fraudulent” is a dangerous fallacy. Choosing to operate via the unregistered pathway is an administrative and financial necessity to keep care affordable. If forced to register, up to 92% of the unregistered provider market will face unviability, driving a mass exodus of highly skilled practitioners from the sector.

2. Erosion of Participant Choice and the Inappropriate Role of the DCJ

Forcing mandatory registration across therapeutic support categories effectively guts the founding NDIS principle of participant choice and control, with catastrophic consequences for regional and vulnerable communities.

• The Regional Crisis and the Telehealth Fallacy:

In regional, rural, and remote areas, small local practitioners will be forced out by registration costs, calling a severe decentralisation of services. Families will face enforced travel burdens, driving hours to metropolitan centres. While telehealth is a valuable tool, digital delivery is simply not a solution for every individual—particularly young children with complex developmental delays, speech sound disorders, or high sensory and behavioural support needs that require hands-on, face-to-face clinical intervention.

• Inappropriate Governance (DCJ and Thriving Kids):

Serious concerns must be raised regarding utilising the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) to oversee or regulate early-intervention spaces via Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and Not-for-Profits (NFPs). A child protection and corrective services framework is fundamentally mismatched with therapeutic, capacity-building care.

Psychological Barriers and Trust: Due to intergenerational trauma and systemic failures in foster care oversight, many vulnerable and Indigenous families hold profound, justifiable suspicions toward the DCJ. Forcing early-intervention disability services under a DCJ or NGO-managed umbrella will actively deter families from engaging with vital supports out of fear of unjust surveillance, causing them to withdraw entirely. Furthermore, large corporate NFP structures rarely align with clinical autonomy or competitive remuneration, worsening workforce shortages.

3. A Profound Lack of Genuine and Inclusive Consultation

The bedrock principle of the disability movement is “Nothing About Us, Without Us.” Regrettably, this Bill represents a severe departure from that principle.

No Open, Participant-Led Co-Design: The community and providers have been given an incredibly compressed window to review a complex, 109-page piece of legislation that fundamentally changes daily survival and business viability. True co-design requires time, accessibility, and iterative feedback—none of which have been genuinely provided.
The Complete Exclusion of Youth Voices: Children and young adults comprise a massive portion of NDIS participants. There has been an absolute absence of targeted, accessible, and meaningful consultation with youth. To make massive alterations to the developmental and social support networks of young participants transitioning into adulthood, without actively involving them in the conversation, is a systemic failure.

4. Devastating Reductions to Plan Budgets and Pushing Participants Off the Scheme

The Bill grants unprecedented structural power to reduce plan funding via top-down, non-negotiable mechanisms while actively tightening entry rules to push participants out of the scheme altogether.

Arbitrary Cuts to Social and Civic Participation: The proposed framework to reset social and community budgets—resulting in drastic, immediate cuts of up to 50% for core social participation and 10% for capacity-building allocations—is a direct assault on the mental and physical well-being of participants, removing transparent legislative scrutiny and increasing the risk of institutionalisation.
The Danger of Automated Decision-Making: Expanding the legal framework to allow computer algorithms and automated software to determine eligibility and allocate funding blocks is incredibly dangerous. Human lives and complex functional needs cannot be accurately or safely calculated by mathematical modelling. Nor can it safely nor appropriately take into consideration changes in circumstance of the participant.
Flawed “Functional Capacity” and “Permanence” Tests: Shifting to rigid, isolated “functional capacity” tests that evaluate what a person can do without their existing assistive technology or communication tools wilfully ignores real-world barriers. Furthermore, defining an impairment as permanent only if common treatments cannot “materially improve, reverse, or alleviate” it sets an impossibly dangerous bar. For many participants, continuous therapy merely manages degeneration or holds symptoms at bay; labelling a minor, temporary “alleviation” as evidence that a condition is no longer permanent will be weaponised to strip people of eligibility, while completely ignoring the compounding impact of complex, intersecting secondary conditions.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Subjecting highly regulated clinical workforces to identical auditing standards as high-risk, unregulated personal care or housing sectors will devastate the allied health market. The NDIS must balance

Safeguarding With Market Sustainability

so that participants are not “protected” out of receiving any therapy at all.

I ask that the Senate Committee recommend:

Exempt Professionally Regulated Allied Health: Recognise AHPRA, peak professional body registrations, Medicare compliance, and existing state department reporting structures (such as NSW Department of Education note submissions) as a deemed equivalent to NDIS compliance, allowing a “light-touch”, zero-cost verification pathway.
Preserve the Unregistered Pathway: Allow self-managed and plan-managed participants to continue utilising unregistered allied health professionals to preserve market diversity, local geographic coverage, and essential face-to-face service delivery options.
Halt DCJ Encroachment: Ensure that clinical, developmental programs for children remain decoupled from child protection and the justice system to maintain community trust and reduce NFP red tape.
A Halt on the Bill for Genuine Co-Design: Pause the progression of this legislation until an extensive, independent, and accessible co-design process is undertaken—specifically including dedicated consultations with young people, families, and sole practitioners.
The Removal of Automated Decision-Making: Strip the Bill of provisions allowing algorithm-led funding allocations to protect human-centered, individualised care.

Thank you for your time and your serious consideration of this submission. I am very concerned that the NDIS Legislative changes are also going to cost the Labor Party significant votes and we should not feel too comfortable with our majority at the moment, when trust in our Labor party is falling in response to this situation.

Sincerely,