Joint Supplementary Submission (Provider advocacy)

Submission 402 - Supplementary Submission

Senate Community Affairs Legislation

Committee

NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for

Future Generations) Bill 2026

Joint Supplementary Submission

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Submission 402 - Supplementary Submission

About us

Inclusion Australia has eight member organisations representing more than 460,000 Australians with an intellectual disability. Inclusion Australia represents more than 60 per cent of NDIS participants.

Down Syndrome Australia leads a consortium of 13 organisations representing over 20,000 people with Down syndrome and similar chromosomal variations.

National Disability Services (NDS) has more than 1,000 member organisations across every state and territory. NDS members support more than half of all NDIS participants across

Australia

Ability First Australia (AFA) is Australia’s largest disability industry alliance, representing 25 leading not-for-profit disability service providers across the country. Its members support more than 50,000 NDIS participants and account for around 10% of registered NDIS payments.

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Submission 402 - Supplementary Submission

Contents About us ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2 Executive Summary ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 4 1.0 Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5 2.0 Protect participants requiring 24-hour supports and employment supports …………………. 6 Recommendation 1 …………………………………………………………………………………… 9 3.0 Establish a formal implementation escalation pathway …………………………………………… 9

Recommendation 2 …………………………………………………………………………………. 10 4.0 Ensure implementation includes individual risk assessment …………………………………… 10 Recommendation 3 …………………………………………………………………………………. 11 5.0 Improve transparency around Support Determinations ………………………………………….. 12 Recommendation 4 …………………………………………………………………………………. 12 6.0 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 12

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Submission 402 - Supplementary Submission

Executive Summary

Inclusion Australia, the Down Syndrome Australia consortium, National Disability Services

and Ability First Australia welcome the opportunity to provide this supplementary submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 (the Bill).

Collectively our organisations represent and support approximately 60 per cent of NDIS participants. Together, we support a sustainable NDIS and recognise the importance of reform to ensure the Scheme remains available for future generations. We continue to support measures that strengthen the long-term sustainability of the Scheme, improve safeguarding, increase consistency in planning and build a more effective provider market.

We acknowledge the amendments made during consideration of the Bill in the House of Representatives. These amendments respond to several concerns raised throughout the inquiry process, including improving transparency around automated decision-making, refining aspects of plan management, and introducing a mechanism for excluding specified supports from Support Determinations.

These are positive developments.

However, significant and serious implementation risks remain.

As reforms move from legislation into practice, ensuring that participants are safeguarded from unintended consequences becomes increasingly important. The remaining concerns identified are not about the overall direction of reform. They are about ensuring the legislation can be implemented safely, consistently and in a way that reflects Government’s stated policy intent.

This supplementary submission focuses on four practical priorities that we believe can be addressed through further amendments or clarification before the Bill is finalised.

We recommend that Parliament:

1. explicitly protect participants requiring 24-hour supports and employment-related supports from future Support Determinations;

2. establish a formal escalation pathway where implementation creates safeguarding risks or serious unintended consequences;

3. ensure transition to the new planning framework identifies and corrects existing planning anomalies for participants with complex needs; and

4. strengthen transparency and accountability surrounding future Support Determinations.

Together, these changes would improve confidence in implementation, strengthen safeguards for participants with complex needs and help ensure the Government’s stated policy intent is realised in practice.

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Submission 402 - Supplementary Submission

1.0 Introduction

Throughout this inquiry, our organisations have consistently supported the need for reform.

The NDIS must remain capable of providing high-quality supports to people with permanent and significant disability while maintaining public confidence and long-term financial sustainability.

Since the first tabling of the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 (the Bill) and through submissions to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Parliament has considered evidence from participants, providers, disability representative organisations and experts. Every witness who provided evidence to the Committee’s hearings in June, except for government representatives, agreed that more time is needed or amendments are required before the Bill passes.

Several amendments have now been adopted.

These improvements are welcome.

We acknowledge:

• amendments introducing an excluded supports mechanism within Support Determinations;

• increased transparency around automated decision-making;

• improvements to the proposed plan management framework; and

• additional clarification within the Explanatory Memorandum. These changes demonstrate the value of consultation and parliamentary scrutiny.

However, they also highlight that the remaining implementation detail matters.

The issues outlined below represent practical improvements that will help ensure Government’s stated policy intent is achieved without creating unintended consequences for participants or the providers supporting them.

Each of our organisations have provided detailed submissions to the inquiry and provided evidence to the Committee. This submission should be considered in the context of the more detailed and substantive issues outlined in these earlier submissions.

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2.0 Protect participants requiring 24-hour supports and employment supports

Potential impact on participants requiring continuous or 24-hour support Throughout the Senate inquiry, participants, families, providers and representative organisations consistently raised concerns about the potential impact of Support Determinations on people with the highest support needs.

A recurring theme in the evidence was that participants requiring continuous or 24-hour support rarely receive that support through a single funding category. Instead, their support arrangements are typically built across multiple funding streams that together provide a continuous roster of care.

For many Supported Independent Living (SIL) participants, SIL funding provides only part of the roster. Support in Community, Civic and Participation (SCCP) funding is frequently used to fund periods of one-to-one support during the day, community access, behavioural support implementation and other supports necessary to maintain safe and continuous care.

This is not a technical funding issue. For participants who require 24-hour support, the interaction between SIL, SCCP, daily living, behaviour support, informal supports and other funded supports can determine whether the person receives safe, continuous and person centred support across the whole day. Reducing one component of an integrated support arrangement can compromise the integrity of the entire roster, despite there being no change to the participant’s assessed support needs.

This risk should be understood in the context of the findings of the Disability Royal Commission. The Royal Commission found that violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation can occur in disability services, including in people’s homes, day programs and community settings. It also identified failures by some services to prevent maltreatment, respond effectively to complaints and incidents, embed human rights, strengthen choice and control, and support people to learn, develop skills and participate in the community.

The Royal Commission’s findings reinforce that safeguarding is not achieved only through regulation after harm occurs. It also depends on people having the supports, relationships, routines and community connections that reduce isolation and make harm more visible and less likely to occur.

Inclusion Australia’s submission emphasised that SCCP supports are closely connected to inclusion, safety, wellbeing, friendship and participation in community life for people with intellectual disability. People with intellectual disability raised concerns that reductions to community participation supports could leave people isolated, unsafe or unable to take part in everyday community life. People should not be expected to replace funded supports with

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Submission 402 - Supplementary Submission

unpaid friendships or informal support, particularly where paid support is the only reliable support available.

The Down Syndrome Australia consortium raised serious concerns that reductions to SCCP funding would remove supports that allow people to live inclusive lives in their community, including participation in the workforce, and could directly contribute to isolation, segregation and harm. Support needs do not disappear when they cease to be funded; rather, they are shifted to families, carers, health, mental health, child and adult protection systems, and crisis services, often at a higher cost and at a point of greater risk.

These submissions reinforce the central concern raised by our organisations: blunt reductions to SCCP or related supports may unintentionally undermine the very safeguards the Government is seeking to strengthen. For people with the most significant support needs, community participation is not an optional or discretionary support. It may be part of the structure that enables the person to leave home safely, maintain relationships, sustain routines, reduce isolation, avoid crisis and remain connected to people outside a closed support environment.

This risk is particularly relevant given the Government’s commitment to future commissioning of Supported Independent Living. Participants should not experience reductions to funding that currently forms part of an integrated support arrangement before replacement commissioning arrangements capable of meeting the same support needs are operational. Ability First Australia highlighted the importance of sequencing these reforms to avoid unintended impacts on participants who rely on 24-hour supports and whose daily living needs are currently funded across multiple support categories.

Employment and employment enabling supports The inquiry also highlighted concerns about the interaction between SCCP funding and employment-related supports. While the Government has stated that employment supports are not intended to be affected, it is not always clear which supports contribute to employment outcomes in practice.

Many participants rely on a combination of funded supports to gain, maintain and succeed in employment. For example, SCCP funding may support travel training, assistance to build confidence using public transport, support to establish workplace routines, community-based skill development, or one-to-one assistance that enables a participant to leave home and attend work. These supports may sit alongside formal employment supports but are equally critical to achieving successful employment outcomes.

This interaction is particularly important given the findings and recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission on employment. The Royal Commission identified systemic barriers preventing people with disability from finding and maintaining fair work, including low expectations, discriminatory attitudes, inaccessible recruitment processes, lack of support to

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prepare for work, inadequate workplace adjustments and weak pathways from school to work. It also emphasised the importance of improving national disability employment programs, supporting inclusive employment and strengthening opportunities for people with cognitive disability.

The Government’s own employment reform agenda also recognises the need to improve pathways to inclusive employment for people with disability, including people with high support needs. Current work on supported employment reform, structural adjustment, disability employment advocacy, WorkAbility Expos and Inclusive Employment Australia reflects the policy direction toward broader employment opportunity, not reduced participation.

Against this backdrop, employment-related supports should be protected broadly enough to capture the practical supports that enable a person to attend, maintain and progress in work. This includes supports that may not be labelled as “employment supports” in a participant’s plan but are necessary to achieve employment outcomes. Without this clarity, supports essential to economic participation could be unintentionally captured by future Support Determinations, despite the Government’s stated policy intent.

Realising Government’s stated intent We welcome the Government’s repeated assurances that participants requiring 24-hour supports and employment-related supports are not intended to be adversely affected by Support Determinations.

However, policy intent alone does not provide sufficient certainty for participants, families, providers or NDIA decision-makers responsible for implementing the reforms. The recently adopted excluded supports mechanism is an important safeguard, but greater clarity is needed to ensure these protections are consistently understood and applied.

The Explanatory Memorandum should make Parliament’s intent explicit through worked examples demonstrating how these protections operate in practice. This should include examples of participants whose continuous support relies on a combination of SIL and SCCP funding; participants who rely on a combination of daily living, SCCP, informal supports and behaviour support to ensure they receive the 24-hour support they require; and participants whose employment outcomes rely on supports funded across multiple support categories, including SCCP.

Doing so would provide enduring guidance for planners and delegates, reduce implementation risk and ensure that the Government’s stated policy intent is consistently reflected in practice. It would also align implementation with the Disability Royal Commission’s emphasis on safety, inclusion, choice and control, and the need to reduce the systemic conditions that increase isolation, segregation and risk.

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Submission 402 - Supplementary Submission

Recommendation 1 We recommend that:

• participants assessed as requiring continuous or 24-hour supports, including where those supports are delivered through a combination of funding categories, be explicitly protected from Support Determinations, including future determinations made under section 33.

• employment supports and employment-enabling supports be explicitly protected from Support Determinations.

• the Explanatory Memorandum include worked examples demonstrating how these protections apply where participants rely on multiple funding categories, including SIL, daily living, informal supports, behaviour support and SCCP, to deliver continuous support.

• the Explanatory Memorandum include worked examples demonstrating how supports funded through SCCP can contribute to employment outcomes, including travel training, workplace routines, community-based skill development and one-to-one support that enables a participant to attend or maintain work.

• the implementation of Support Determinations include a safeguard to ensure that reductions do not increase isolation, segregation or safeguarding risk for participants with intellectual disability, Down syndrome or other participants with high and complex support needs.

• these protections apply to both the current SCCP determination, and any future Support Determinations made under the Act.

3.0 Establish a formal implementation escalation pathway

Reforms of this scale inevitably create unforeseen consequences.

The success of the reforms will depend not only on legislative design but also on Government’s ability to identify implementation issues early and respond quickly.

Many implementation issues first become visible to providers supporting participants every day.

Without a structured mechanism for escalating these issues, there is a risk that safeguarding concerns become systemic before corrective action can occur.

This is particularly important during implementation of:

• Support Determinations.
• the transition to new planning arrangements.
• Functional Capacity Assessments. 9

Submission 402 - Supplementary Submission

• expanded provider registration.
• foundational support reforms. Our organisations believe that implementation should incorporate a proactive mechanism capable of identifying significant participant harm, provider market impacts and emerging implementation issues before they become widespread.

A formal escalation mechanism is particularly important where implementation risks are foreseeable. Evidence provided throughout the inquiry has highlighted that reforms of this scale may produce unintended consequences despite the best intentions of Government. Where participant safety, continuity of supports or employment outcomes are placed at risk, implementation arrangements should include mechanisms to identify and address emerging issues before harm becomes systemic. Experience from previous reforms demonstrates that correcting implementation failures after supports have been disrupted is significantly more difficult and costly than identifying risks early and responding proactively.

Recommendation 2 Establish a formal implementation escalation mechanism enabling providers, participants and the NDIA to rapidly identify, review and respond to funding decisions or implementation issues that create safeguarding risks or serious unintended consequences.

4.0 Ensure implementation includes individual risk assessment

Budgets for SCCP and Capacity Building Daily Activities (CBDA) for participants with old framework plans will be progressively adjusted from 1 October 2026 through Ministerial Support Determinations.

Unlike the existing planning process, these adjustments are applied across categories of supports rather than following an assessment of an individual participant’s circumstances. Participants should not experience a reduction in safe and effective supports solely because of the way those supports happen to be funded across categories.

We are concerned that this approach does not include a mechanism to identify participants for whom the reduction may create unintended consequences. Participants with complex support needs often rely on multiple support categories working together to deliver safe, continuous and person-centred supports. Existing planning issues, historical funding arrangements and the interaction between different support categories mean that a category-wide funding adjustment may have significantly different impacts from one participant to another.

This risk is amplified where participants are simultaneously affected by current plan reassessments, Support Determinations, new framework planning arrangements, commissioning reforms and other components of the broader NDIS reform agenda. While

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these reforms may be designed and implemented separately, participants experience them cumulatively rather than sequentially. They do not experience reform one measure at a time.

Participants with complex support needs are particularly exposed to the combined effect of multiple reforms occurring within a short period of time. For example, a participant who undergoes a plan reassessment in September that results in a significant reduction in SCCP funding will then be subject to a further 50 per cent reduction in SCCP funding from 1 October under the arrangements proposed in the Bill. In practice, this means participants may experience multiple reductions to essential supports within a matter of weeks, regardless of whether each individual decision was made under a different reform process.

Our organisations are receiving reports of participants experiencing significant reductions in plan budgets including in SCCP funding through reassessment processes. The Committee should therefore consider the cumulative impact of reforms, rather than assessing each measure in isolation. A reform that may appear proportionate when considered on its own can have a substantially different effect when combined with other concurrent changes affecting the same participant.

This is particularly concerning for participants with complex support needs who rely on intensive daily supports across a range of categories. The loss of multiple elements of support at the same time can increase risks to safety, stability, community participation and continuity of care, while also increasing pressure on families, providers and mainstream systems.

The Government has consistently stated that the reforms are not intended to compromise participant safety, continuity of supports or employment outcomes.

However, without an individual risk assessment mechanism, there is no systematic way to identify participants where applying a Support Determination would be inconsistent with that policy intent.

Recommendation 3 We recommend that the implementation of Ministerial Support Determinations include a mechanism for individual risk assessment where there is evidence that applying the determination may create a material risk to:

• participant safety.
• continuity of supports.
• achievement of the outcomes and objectives of the participant’s plan.
• employment participation and employment outcomes.
• the effective delivery of supports where multiple funding categories are being used together to meet an assessed need.

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Submission 402 - Supplementary Submission

Individual risk assessment should consider the cumulative impact of concurrent reforms and funding adjustments, rather than assessing each change in isolation.

Where such risks are identified, the NDIA should have the ability to review the participant’s circumstances and implement appropriate mitigation measures before the funding adjustment takes effect.

5.0 Improve transparency around Support Determinations

Support Determinations represent one of the most significant new powers introduced through this Bill. These determinations have the capacity to affect funding for participants with old framework plans across entire categories of supports through legislative instrument.

The first SCCP determination has highlighted the importance of clear implementation guidance.

Participants, providers and planners require confidence that future determinations will be transparent, evidence-based, proportionate and capable of being independently scrutinised.

This requires more than parliamentary scrutiny.

It requires practical implementation material explaining how determinations operate across different participant groups, ongoing monitoring of impacts once implemented, and monitoring of provider market viability where participants with complex needs or participants in thin markets may have limited alternative service options.

Recommendation 4 Future Support Determinations should be accompanied by:

• published impact assessments.
• consultation prior to implementation.
• worked examples illustrating practical application across different participant cohorts.
• public reporting on participant outcomes.
• monitoring of provider market impacts. 6.0 Conclusion

Our organisations remain supportive of reform.

The amendments already made demonstrate that constructive consultation has strengthened the Bill.

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Submission 402 - Supplementary Submission

The recommendations contained in this supplementary submission are intended to continue that process.

They do not alter the policy intent of the legislation.

Rather, they seek to ensure that implementation reflects Government’s stated objectives while protecting participants with complex needs, supporting provider sustainability and maintaining confidence in the reform agenda.

As implementation progresses, practical safeguards will be just as important as legislative change. These targeted improvements will help ensure the reforms deliver their intended outcomes without creating avoidable risks for participants, families and the providers who support them.

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