To the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee,

My name is and I am an NDIS participant living with multiple permanent and complex disabilities. I am making this submission based on my lived experience navigating disability, the healthcare system, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, internal review processes, and Administrative Review Tribunal.

While I acknowledge the need to ensure the long-term sustainability and integrity of the NDIS, I am concerned that these reforms are being assessed primarily through a fiscal and administrative lens. The NDIS was established to promote the independence, social and economic participation, and inclusion of people with disability. Reforms should be assessed against these objectives and should not be measured by how many people can be removed from support, how many reviews can be automated, or how quickly administrative processes can be completed. Any amendment that creates barriers to accessing support, increases administrative burdens, or reduces participant safeguards risks undermining the very purposes for which the Scheme was created.

The Committee should carefully consider whether the projected NDIS savings represent genuine efficiencies or merely a redistribution of costs across government systems. Reduced disability supports frequently result in increased utilisation of public hospitals, emergency departments, mental health services, primary healthcare, housing and homelessness services, aged care supports, informal carers, and community organisations. Fiscal sustainability should be assessed across the whole-of-government service system rather than within the NDIS budget in isolation.

I am deeply concerned about provisions that may affect participants who are deemed “not contactable.” These provisions appear to assume that the NDIA’s communication systems and administrative processes are accessible and functioning effectively. Unfortunately, my own experience demonstrates that this is not always the case.

I have personally experienced situations where I was provided with virtually no notice of contact from the NDIA. On one occasion, I received approximately one minute’s notice of an unexpected call. At the time, I was attending a medical appointment and was therefore unable to answer. When I returned the call immediately afterwards, I was unable to speak with the staff member who had contacted me and was advised to wait for further written correspondence. Following this experience, I repeatedly requested that a note be placed on my file stating that I require a minimum of one hour’s notice before receiving telephone contact from the Agency wherever practicable. This request was made because of the functional impacts of my disabilities and my need to coordinate medical appointments, support services, and daily activities. Despite these requests, this accommodation has repeatedly been ignored by the NDIS.

Importantly, this is not an isolated incident. Similar experiences are regularly reported throughout the disability community by participants, carers, advocates, and providers. The concern is that the proposed legislation places significant consequences on participants who may be considered “not contactable,” while failing to address longstanding issues with the Agency’s own failing communication practices. If these provisions are enacted without substantial improvements to administrative processes, communication systems, accessibility accommodations, and procedural safeguards, there is a real risk that participants will be unfairly disadvantaged through no fault of their own.

Many participants experience periods of hospitalisation, surgery, autistic burnout, mental health crises, housing instability, communication difficulties, or significant deterioration in their condition that can affect their ability to respond within prescribed timeframes. A failure to respond should not automatically be interpreted as disengagement, particularly where disability-related barriers may be impacting communication. Before any participant can be deemed “not contactable,” the NDIA should be required to demonstrate that reasonable, accessible, and disability-responsive attempts at communication have occurred, including consideration of the participant’s communication needs, prefered contact methods, support persons, representatives, and any accommodations recorded on file. Participants should not be placed at risk of losing supports because their disability temporarily affects their ability to engage, nor should they be penalised for administrative failures beyond their

Control

Strong legislative safeguards are needed to ensure disability-related barriers are properly recognised and accommodated before any adverse action is taken.

One of my strongest concerns relates to increased administrative requirements, compliance obligations, and procedural demands placed on participants. Living with a disability already requires significant effort simply to manage daily life. My conditions involve chronic pain, autonomic dysfunction, fatigue, neurological symptoms, sensory issues, cognitive overload, and fluctuating capacity. Every request for evidence, every review, every reassessment, every deadline, and every administrative process consumes time and energy that could otherwise be spent managing health, maintaining independence, participating in the community, or simply recovering from the impacts of disability. Increasing bureaucratic obligations risks creating barriers for those the Scheme was designed to support.

I am concerned that changes to access, review and reassessment processes may reduce flexibility and make it harder for participants to have changing circumstances recognised. Many participants do not fit neatly into predefined categories. There is a significant risk that increasingly standardised systems will fail to adequately recognise the complexity of individual circumstances. Disability is not always static, people experience deterioration, injuries, complications, additional diagnoses, and fluctuations in support needs. The NDIS must remain responsive to these realities. Participants should not be trapped in rigid administrative systems that fail to respond when support needs change.

I am deeply concerned about any increased reliance on automated processes, administrative decision-making, or systems that reduce meaningful human consideration of evidence. During my own NDIS access and planning journey, an administrative error resulted in my Occupational Therapy Functional Capacity Assessment not being added to my file at the time my application was submitted. This was not a minor document, the Functional Capacity Assessment was a comprehensive assessment prepared by a qualified Occupational Therapist and detailed the substantial functional impacts of my disabilities across multiple domains of daily living. It was highly relevant evidence that should have informed decision-making from the outset.

The omission of this evidence was not identified during the original assessment process. It only came to light during my planning meeting, when it became apparent that critical information had not been considered. At that point, the appropriate course of action should have been to pause the process, ensure all relevant evidence was obtained and reviewed, and reassess my support needs based on a complete evidentiary picture. Instead, the planning process proceeded. An inadequate plan was approved based on incomplete information. I subsequently sought an internal review, raising concerns regarding the missing evidence and its significance, the issue was not appropriately resolved. As a result, I was ultimately forced to pursue the matter through the Administrative Review Tribunal process.

This experience raises serious concerns about proposals to increase administrative decision-making or rely more heavily on automated systems. My circumstances demonstrate that even where substantial evidence exists, administrative failures can occur. More importantly, those failures can remain undetected or uncorrected through multiple stages of review. If existing processes involving human decision-makers can fail to identify and rectify errors of this nature, I question how increased automation will improve outcomes for participants with complex disabilities. The risk is that automation may simply accelerate the consequences of administrative errors rather than prevent them. Once incorrect information enters a system, automated processes may be more likely to perpetuate that error rather than identify it.

People with disability should not bear the consequences of administrative mistakes made by government systems. Had I not possessed the knowledge, persistence, support, and resources necessary to challenge these errors through multiple review processes, the incorrect decision may continue to remain. Many participants do not have that capacity, and they should not be disadvantaged because of administrative failures that are entirely outside their control. This is particularly concerning because the participants most likely to struggle with navigating complex review processes are often those with the greatest support needs, cognitive impairments,

Communication Barriers in Decision-Making

communication barriers, psychosocial disabilities, or limited access to advocacy. A system should not rely upon a participant’s ability to fight for years in order to correct an administrative mistake.

Furthermore, Complex disabilities cannot be reduced to algorithms, administrative categories, or standardised assumptions. People with disability deserve decisions that properly consider their individual circumstances, medical evidence, functional impairments, and lived experience. Before any expansion of automated decision-making powers is considered, there must be clear evidence that existing administrative systems can reliably capture, review, and appropriately consider all relevant evidence. My experience demonstrates that this cannot currently be assumed. The consequences of administrative error in the NDIS are not merely procedural. They directly affect a person’s safety, independence, health, quality of life, and access to essential supports. For that reason, meaningful human oversight, accountability, and review must remain central to all significant NDIS decisions.

I am concerned that NDIS decision-making processes can, at times, result in specialist medical and allied health evidence being selectively relied upon or given insufficient weight without clear justification. Participants often invest considerable time and financial resources obtaining reports from treating specialists and allied health professionals who possess detailed knowledge of their conditions, functional impairments, treatment history, prognosis, and support needs.

While I acknowledge, the NDIA is responsible for making decisions under the legislation, there are concerns that administrative decision-makers may effectively substitute their own interpretation of complex medical evidence for the opinions of treating clinicians. This can create situations where consistent professional recommendations are discounted or disregarded despite being supported by practitioners with significantly greater expertise in the participant’s condition.

The consequence is that many participants are forced into internal reviews and Administrative Review Tribunal proceedings simply to have existing evidence properly recognised and considered. Where the NDIA departs from consistent specialist or allied health evidence, clear reasons should be provided and supported by appropriately qualified clinical expertise. Improving the consideration of professional evidence at the earliest stage would reduce unnecessary disputes, improve participant confidence, and support the efficient operation and long-term sustainability of the NDIS.

In my own matter, I was asked during Tribunal proceedings to provide additional evidence that had already been supplied to the NDIA Months prior and included within the Agency’s own T-Documents. This raises serious concerns about whether relevant evidence is being adequately considered and reviewed before key decisions are made or Tribunal matters proceeding.

One of my greatest concerns is the broader direction of reform and the apparent expectation that some participants will transition away from the NDIS and into alternative systems. Participants are frequently told that support needs may instead be met through foundational supports, health services, housing services, community programs, or other mainstream systems. However, many of these alternatives either do not currently exist, remain under development, are geographically inconsistent, or are already overwhelmed. Removing participants from the NDIS before replacement systems are fully operational does not eliminate support needs, It simply transfers the burden elsewhere. The risk is that people with disability will fall into gaps between systems that policymakers acknowledge exist but have not yet addressed. No participant should lose support based on promises of future services that do not currently exist.

I am concerned about the broader impacts these reforms may have on the disability workforce. The NDIS supports an entire ecosystem of allied health professionals, support workers, behaviour support practitioners, therapy assistants, support coordinators, specialist clinicians, and disability service providers. If large numbers of participants lose access to supports or experience significant funding reductions, there is a real risk of workforce contraction across the disability sector.

This may lead to:

• Reduced availability of therapists and specialist clinicians.
• Increased workforce shortages and waiting times.
• Loss of disability-specific expertise.

Reduced participant choice and control.

Loss of continuity of care.

Once skilled professionals leave the disability sector, rebuilding that workforce becomes extremely difficult. The consequences will extend far beyond individual participants and may affect the capacity of the entire disability support system. I am also concerned that insufficient attention has been given to the potential economic and employment consequences of these reforms. The disability sector is one of Australia’s largest and fastest-growing workforces and is heavily reliant on the skills and experience of allied health professionals, support workers, and disability specialists. Many of these occupations are female-dominated professions.

If reforms result in widespread reductions to supports, participant exits from the Scheme, or provider instability, there is a real risk of job losses across a sector that employs hundreds of thousands of Australians. This raises broader concerns about workforce participation, economic security, and gender equity. The impacts of these reforms will not be limited to NDIS participants. They may also affect the livelihoods of support workers, therapists, clinicians, administrative staff, and small business owners who have built careers and services around supporting people with disability. The disability sector has spent years developing specialist expertise, workforce capacity, and service infrastructure.

If significant contraction occurs, those skills and resources may be permanently lost. This would create a paradoxical situation where future governments may seek to improve disability services but find that the workforce and infrastructure required to deliver those services no longer exist. Before implementing reforms that may substantially reduce demand for disability supports, the Government should carefully assess the potential impacts not only on participants, but also on employment, workforce sustainability, regional economies, service availability, and the predominantly female workforce that underpins much of Australia’s disability support sector.

I urge the Committee to:

• Engage meaningfully with participants, families, carers, clinicians, and disability organisations before implementing significant changes.
• Consider the impact of reforms on allied health professionals, disability providers, and the broader disability workforce.
• Ensure no participant loses support before equivalent alternative systems are established and operational.
• Strengthen protections before participants can be deemed “not contactable.” by ensuring disability-related communication barriers are recognised and accommodated.
• Ensure safeguards are implemented regarding access, review and reassessment decisions, ensuring decisions are participant-centred.
• Ensure new functional capacity assessments do not disadvantage participants with complex, fluctuating, or multi-system disabilities.

The NDIS was created because Australia recognised that people with disability should not be excluded from society due to circumstances beyond their control. Legislative reform should strengthen that principle, not weaken it. I ask the Committee to carefully consider the lived experiences of participants with complex disabilities when assessing these amendments.

The true measure of the NDIS is not how much money it saves. It is whether people with disability are able to live safe, independent, connected, meaningful lives with dignity and equal opportunity. Disability does not disappear when support is removed. The need remains. The question is simply whether Australia chooses to support people with disability openly and effectively, or whether the burden is shifted onto individuals, families, carers, and other already stretched systems.

Thank you for considering my submission.

Yours sincerely,

NDIS Participant