National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submission 3955

4th July 2026

Committee Secretary Department of the Senate PO Box 6100 Parliament House CANBERRA ACT 2600 AUSTRALIA

RE: Submission regarding the New NDIS legislation

Why are people who were born with severe disabilities needing to be reassessed when their circumstances will never change?

This would also apply to people who have acquired irreparable physical damage in an accident.

Once all submitted required evidence and supporting documentation has been lodged, and been rejected; why then does supporting documentation need to be reacquired and re-lodged again for reassessment, when circumstances have not changed or gotten worse? In most cases the exercise of re-acquiring documentation would be costly and time consuming and would delay investigation for months.

With examples above; people will only need more assistance as they get older not less.

The budget setting AI tool needs to be able to be manually amended by senior staff when the algorithm has obviously got it wrong; otherwise, people will suffer from loss of services for months waiting for reassessment. This is not practicable or humane.

The AI plans need to be able to be altered by senior staff with discretion.

Excerpts from Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care portal

“Under the new NDIS legislation, computer and AI-generated plans generally cannot be altered by NDIA staff. The budget-setting tool automatically determines funding based on your functional assessment, and staff have no discretionary power to manually amend the specific dollar amount produced by the algorithm.

The transition to automated budgeting and planning involves several specific parameters:

• Limited Staff Discretion: NDIA staff will not be allowed to manually alter the support budgets generated by the assessment software.
• Review Rights: If you are unsatisfied, you can request an internal review. This process may result in the system running another automated assessment using the same tool.
• Tribunal Powers: Under the reforms, independent bodies like the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) are severely limited. They generally cannot directly change or reinstate funding in your plan, but can only send it back to the NDIA for a reassessment.”

“Under the Participant Service Guarantee, once you have submitted all required evidence and supporting documentation, the NDIA officially aims to complete a plan reassessment within 28 days.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submission 3955

However, if they need to determine whether you are eligible to receive supports initially, they have 14 days to make a decision or ask for more details.

The complete reassessment process breaks down into these stages:

• The Check-in: The NDIA’s contact will reach out to you about 2 to 3 months before your plan’s reassessment date.

• The Decision: Once they receive your documentation, they will notify you of their decision within 21 days.

• Finalizing the Plan: Once they agree to do the reassessment, creating and finalizing the new plan takes up to 28 days.

In cases of a change of situation or an internal review of a decision, the NDIA has up to 60 days to process the review“

That is a total of 4 months’ plus, delay; this is unacceptable.

On your own website it is stated -

“Use of Artificial Intelligence

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) such as large language models, and other computer assisted writing tools, is becoming more common. The use of these tools can present risks to the quality and accuracy of information produced if they are not used expertly and with an appropriate understanding of their limitations. If you are making a submission to a committee inquiry you are responsible for the accuracy of the information contained in your submission, including where AI tools have been used.“

It is admitted above that AI is not infallible and can make mistakes and is only as good as the information fed into the algorithm.

It should be noted that previous attempts to use AI - Robodebt - by the “Department of Human Services did not manually or automatically alter the algorithm to prevent inaccurate debts, despite widespread public outcry, internal warnings, and adverse decisions from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The algorithm operated by automatically placing the burden of proof on the recipient to provide physical documents to override the computer generated debt“ and “following a 2019 Federal Court ruling that the automated system’s income-averaging methodology was unlawful, the government was forced to manually recalculate over 500,000 debts, subsequently abandoning the scheme and paying out over $1.2 billion in a class action settlement”

I would hope that lessons have been learned from past mistakes and not repeated to the detriment of the Aged and Disabled in our communities.

Regards