NDIA Accountability Project

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Accountability Failures in NDIS System Due to Unchecked Discretion (Family or carer experience)

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Submission 411

Silvia Dropulich

Email:

Mobile:

19 May 2026

Submission: Accountability Failures in the NDIS Amendment Bill

2026

The danger is not funding cuts. The danger is the expansion of unreviewable administrative power in a system already failing to exercise its existing powers lawfully, consistently, or transparently.

  1. Executive Summary This submission draws on:

  • six years of lived experience navigating the NDIS as the parent and advocate of an autistic young person with complex disability needs

  • professional training in law, psychology, and journalism

  • evidence previously provided to Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Inquiry into the Integrity of the NDIS Submission 89 to the Integrity

Inquiry

(https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Disability_Ins urance_Scheme/NDISIntegrity/Submissions)

•   findings of the Administrative Review Tribunal in ART Case              (case details

available on request)

  • documented conduct escalated to the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Ministerial offices, and the media (including a detailed submission to Four Corners 2 Sep, 2025, ‘Legalised Exploitation in the NDIS One Nod at at Time, full submission available on request)

The central concern is this:

The NDIS Amendment Bill 2026 expands discretionary and automated administrative power in a system that already demonstrates structural accountability failures.

The Bill:

  • centralises discretion upward
  • embeds standardised assessment tools
  • expands automated decision-making

Submission 411

  • increases Ministerial rule-making power
  • and narrows the participant’s practical ability to obtain an individualised, reviewable, evidence-based decision

This is not integrity reform. It is the legislative consolidation of an accountability vacuum.

  1. The NDIA Already Operates in a Space of Unchecked Discretion In 2025, before my son turned 18, I followed explicit NDIA Nominee instructions to ensure continuity of decision-making:
  • I used the exact NDIA consent forms provided
  • lodged them in person before his 18th birthday
  • received written acknowledgement
  • and was repeatedly assured the process was progressing correctly The NDIA then failed to process the application before its own stated deadline requiring me to do all of this before turned 18.

After this failure — entirely of the Agency’s making — the NDIA attempted to impose new consent requirements retroactively, requirements that did not exist when the application was lodged.

Over the following months:

  • advice contradicted itself
  • legal provisions were misstated
  • procedural rules shifted depending on the staff member
  • responsibility evaporated At one point, the Team Leader of the NDIA Ministerial Complaints Team attempted to isolate my autistic son to obtain “consent” through head-nodding and yes/no prompts, despite severe anxiety, communication vulnerabilities, and extensive clinical evidence.

A recording of this interaction is available on request.

This was not “process”. It was coercive administrative conduct enabled by zero accountability.

This is the environment the Bill proposes to strengthen.

  1. The ART Tribunal Decision: A Case Study in Structural Accountability Failure The Administrative Review Tribunal’s decision in is not peripheral, it is diagnostic.

3.1 The Tribunal did not dismiss the matter on merits

The Tribunal did not find:

  • that the NDIA acted correctly
  • that my application lacked merit

Submission 411

  • or that the evidence was insufficient None of these issues were reached.

The Tribunal dismissed the matter solely because the NDIA had not made a decision.

The Tribunal found:

“The CEO did not make any decision… prior to the application being filed.”

And critically:

“There is nothing in s 86… which provides a statutory deeming provision within which the CEO must make a decision.”

3.2 The legal consequence was stark

Because the NDIA:

  • received a complete application

  • acknowledged it

  • provided assurances

  • and then failed to act there was:

  • no decision

  • therefore no internal review

  • therefore no external review

  • therefore no jurisdiction The NDIA avoided scrutiny not because it was right, but because it did nothing.

This is not a procedural quirk. It is a structural loophole that defeats the purpose of administrative review.

  1. This reasoning Incompatible With Core Administrative Law Principles Section 86 of the NDIS Act creates the conditions for administrative paralysis.

It violates foundational administrative law principles:

4.1 Duty to decide within a reasonable time

Section 86 imposes no timeframe and no obligation to decide.

4.2 Review rights must not be defeated by inaction

Section 86 allows the NDIA to avoid review entirely by not deciding.

4.3 Agencies cannot benefit from their own delay

The NDIA’s failure to act resulted in:

  • the participant losing the benefit of the pre-18 framework

Submission 411

  • the parent losing nominee continuity
  • and the NDIA avoiding review 4.4 Procedural fairness requires clarity, timeliness, and reviewability

Section 86 provides none of these.

4.5 Administrative power must be reviewable

Section 86 creates a non-reviewable zone where inaction is effectively immune from scrutiny.

This is inconsistent with the rule of law.

  1. Evidence From Submission 89: A System Already Failing Integrity Tests My published Submission 89 to the Integrity Inquiry documented:

  • lawful but exploitative billing

  • weak regulatory enforcement

  • provider impunity

  • participant-driven enforcement

  • a compliance system concerned with appearance, not substance The Bill does nothing to address:

  • exploitative provider incentives

  • weak auditing

  • inconsistent decision-making

  • or the absence of enforceable accountability mechanisms Instead, it expands the discretionary space in which these failures occur.

  1. Evidence From Four Corners Submission: Consent Theatre and Administrative Evasion In my submission to Four Corners, I documented:

  • the NDIA’s refusal to acknowledge a lawful pre-18 nominee application

  • the Ministerial Complaints Team’s inability to explain nominee law

  • the Ministerial Complaints Team Leader’s suggestion that a “nod of the head” in a closed-door interview would constitute valid consent (voice recording available on request)

  • the collapse of statutory safeguards (Rules 3.10 and 3.14)

  • the exposure of a vulnerable participant to financial and legal risk under the 2024

Amendment Act

This is not a clerical issue. It is the erosion of a statutory firewall designed to protect disabled Australians from coercion and exploitation.

The Bill does nothing to prevent this. It embellishes and entrenches the conditions that allow it.

Submission 411

  1. Standardised Assessments Risk Becoming Mechanised Exclusion Tools The Bill’s shift toward standardised functional assessments assumes disability can be reduced to administratively convenient scoring.

But autism, psychosocial disability, trauma, OCD, sensory collapse, burnout, masking, and fluctuating functioning cannot be captured through a single assessment snapshot.

My son has:

  • appeared articulate in short interactions

  • attended school at times

  • seemed superficially capable while simultaneously being unable to:

  • manage medication safely

  • tolerate contamination fears

  • sustain independent functioning A standardised snapshot captures performance, not burden.

Once tied to automated or semi-automated decision-making, this becomes mechanised exclusion.

And when decisions are wrong, responsibility disappears into:

  • “the tool”
  • “the framework”
  • “the panel”
  • “the system”
  • “the algorithm” This Bill embeds that exclusion.
  1. Automated Decision-Making Without Extreme Safeguards Is Dangerous The Robodebt Royal Commission demonstrated the catastrophic consequences of:
  • diffused accountability
  • opaque automation
  • unlawful decision-making
  • institutional defensiveness The NDIS population is even more vulnerable.

Automation in this context risks:

  • wrongful reductions
  • inappropriate denials

Submission 411

  • decontextualised assessments

  • procedural violence disguised as “efficiency” If automation is permitted at all, participants must retain:

  • immediate human review

  • transparent reasoning

  • full visibility into criteria

  • accessible appeal pathways This Bill does not guarantee those safeguards.

  1. Managed Exclusion: The Predictable Outcome of This Bill The combined effect of:
  • expanded discretion
  • standardised assessments
  • automated decision-making
  • weak review rights
  • and structural gaps like section 86 is the creation of a system of managed exclusion or exclusion delivered through administrative design, not explicit denial.

It occurs when:

  • decisions are not made

  • processes are opaque

  • assessments are reductive

  • automation replaces judgment

  • review rights are hollow

  • and participants are unable to challenge outcomes It is exclusion that is:

  • procedurally justified

  • legally insulated

  • administratively generated

  • difficult to contest It is not “you cannot have this.” It is “the system has been designed so that you will not get this.”

The ART decision is a textbook example: the NDIA avoided accountability not by refusing, but by not deciding.

Submission 411

This Bill expands the conditions under which such exclusion can occur.

  1. Conclusion The ART decision demonstrates the structural reality:

The NDIA can avoid accountability simply by not deciding.

This Bill does nothing to correct that failure. Instead, it expands the discretionary space in which such failures and harm can occur.

Without enforceable accountability, centralised discretion becomes unchecked administrative power. Without transparency, standardisation becomes mechanised exclusion. Without independent oversight, automation becomes procedural harm disguised as efficiency. And without statutory duties to decide, the system produces managed exclusion.

This Bill risks transforming the NDIS from an individualised support scheme into a centralised administrative control system governed by standardisation, automation, and distance from lived reality.

This is not sustainability. It is the institutionalisation of unreviewable power.

About Me

I bring lived experience as the parent and primary advocate for an NDIS participant with complex disability and mental health needs, alongside professional expertise in law, psychology, and journalism. My understanding of administrative law and service system design gives me a unique perspective on how procedural failures, unclear legal frameworks, and market-driven distortions affect vulnerable individuals. This submission draws not only on direct experience navigating the NDIS ecosystem, but also on a critical systems-level view of how governance, legal obligations, and accountability mechanisms are often misaligned in practice.