Submission 4262 — Australian Disability Ltd — NDIS Future Generations Bill

Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation

Committee

Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submitted by Australian Disability Ltd

Submitted by Australian Disability Ltd

ABN [insert ABN]

Authorised representative [insert name and role]

Date [insert date]

Contact [insert email / phone]

Publication Australian Disability Ltd consents to publication of this submission, with personal contact details removed.

Source note: This submission responds to the Bill text supplied as: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. Clause references below refer to that Bill text.

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1. About Australian Disability Ltd Australian Disability Ltd welcomes the opportunity to provide this submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

Australian Disability Ltd is [insert one-sentence description, for example: “a disability organisation working with people with disability, families, carers and the broader disability community across Australia”]. Our submission is informed by the experiences of disabled people, families, carers, supporters and communities who rely on the NDIS as essential public infrastructure.

The NDIS is not simply a program of funded supports. It is a mechanism through which disabled people exercise rights to independence, communication, safety, work, education, parenting, family life, social connection and community participation. Any reform to the Scheme must therefore be judged not only by fiscal or administrative efficiency, but by whether it strengthens or weakens the rights, safety and everyday lives of disabled people.

Australian Disability Ltd supports reform that improves integrity, prevents exploitation, addresses fraud, improves provider accountability and makes the Scheme easier to navigate. However, we are deeply concerned that the Bill, in its current form, goes well beyond targeted integrity reform. The Bill proposes substantial changes to access, planning, reassessment, funding, treatment expectations, alternative supports, pricing, automation, compliance and transitional rule-making.

Bill reference: The Bill is structured across Schedule 1 (access and planning measures), Schedule 2 (fraud measures), Schedule 3 (governance arrangements), Schedule 4 (new framework planning), and Schedule 5 (transitional rules).

Australian Disability Ltd submits that the Bill should not be passed in its current form.

2. Executive summary Australian Disability Ltd recognises the importance of Scheme sustainability. A sustainable NDIS is essential for current and future generations of disabled people. But sustainability cannot be achieved by shifting risk, cost and administrative burden onto disabled people, families and carers.

The Bill contains some measures that may have merit, particularly measures aimed at provider integrity, conflict-of interest management and fraud prevention. However, these measures are bundled with provisions that risk narrowing access, reducing plan funding, limiting reassessment, weakening review rights, increasing reliance on families, excluding people because treatment or alternative systems theoretically exist, and expanding automated decision-making in high-stakes areas.

Australian Disability Ltd’s position is that the Bill should be substantially amended, and that the Committee should recommend that the Government split the Bill so that urgent integrity measures can be considered separately from measures that affect participant access, funding, planning and review rights.

3. Recommendations

4. Recommend that the Bill not be passed in its current form.

5. Recommend that the Government split the Bill, so that targeted anti-fraud and provider integrity measures are considered separately from measures that affect access, planning, reassessment, funding and review rights.

6. Require further disability-led consultation before any major access, planning, assessment or funding reforms proceed.

7. Amend the proposed definition of functional capacity so that capacity is assessed in real-world contexts, with ordinary supports, assistive technology, communication access and environmental factors taken into account.

8. Remove or substantially constrain proposed section 34A, which would allow the Minister to reduce funding for groups of supports, including in circumstances where funding for reasonable and necessary supports is less than the total cost of those supports.

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6. Preserve individualised planning and review rights, including by ensuring that automatic plan renewal cannot reduce or alter supports without notice, reasons and review rights.

7. Retain timely reassessment pathways, including urgent reassessment where there is risk, harm, service failure, carer breakdown, family violence, housing instability, school exclusion, hospital discharge or provider collapse.

8. Amend the appropriate treatment provisions so that a person is not excluded from the NDIS because a treatment exists in theory but is unavailable, unaffordable, unsafe, clinically unsuitable, culturally inappropriate or geographically inaccessible.

9. Amend the alternative support requirements so that participants cannot be excluded or removed from the Scheme because another system theoretically exists, unless that alternative support is actually available, timely, enforceable, safe and equivalent.

10. Prohibit automated decision-making for high-stakes decisions, including access, plan funding, payment refusal, debt, suspension, revocation, compliance action and reviewable decisions.

11. Strengthen parliamentary oversight of NDIS rules, pricing instruments, assessment tools and documents incorporated by reference, particularly where documents are created by the Agency and are not legislative instruments.

12. Delay commencement of high-impact provisions until foundational supports, navigation, independent advocacy, communication access and mainstream service obligations are actually in place.

13. The Bill changes the character of the NDIS Australian Disability Ltd is concerned that the Bill changes the character of the NDIS from a rights-based, individualised support scheme into a more discretionary and rationed system.

The Bill repeatedly inserts concepts of financial sustainability, maximum funding, direct impairment links, alternative supports, treatment expectations and Ministerial instruments into core access and planning decisions. In some areas, it does this without adequate individual safeguards.

The NDIS must be financially sustainable. But the Scheme must also remain practically usable. A plan that is technically approved but underfunded is not a real plan. A support that is “reasonable and necessary” but funded below cost is not genuinely available. A right to request reassessment that is locked behind narrow criteria is not a meaningful safeguard. An automated decision with later correction is not sufficient where the harm occurs immediately.

Australian Disability Ltd submits that the Committee should approach the Bill by asking a simple question: would this reform make disabled people safer, more supported and more able to live ordinary lives in the community, or would it make the Scheme harder to access and easier to ration?

5. Functional capacity must reflect real life Australian Disability Ltd is particularly concerned by the proposed definition of functional capacity.

The Bill defines functional capacity in relation to an activity as a person’s ability to undertake the activity without assistance from other people, assistive technology or modifications, and in a context that excludes, as far as possible, environmental and personal circumstances.

Bill reference: Schedule 1, Part 1, item 4, proposed section 9B.

This risks creating an artificial legal fiction. Disabled people do not live in assessment rooms, stripped of communication supports, assistive technology, trusted people, accessible environments or ordinary context. Capacity is shaped by access to support, sensory environment, fatigue, pain, communication, trauma, housing, transport, culture, language, poverty, remoteness, discrimination and the reliability of the service system.

Australian Disability Ltd recommends that functional capacity be assessed:

 with the person’s usual supports and communication methods;  in ordinary life contexts;

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 with environmental barriers taken into account;  with recognition of episodic, fluctuating and cumulative disability impacts;  with evidence from the person, family, carers, supporters and treating professionals;  without treating the use of support as evidence that the support is unnecessary.

The proposed definition should be amended before passage.

6. The proposed Ministerial power to reduce funding is unacceptable Proposed section 34A would allow the Minister to determine a percentage reduction for a specified group of supports in old framework plans. The provision states that the reduction may apply even if funding for a reasonable and necessary support is less than the total cost of that support, or if total plan funding is less than the total cost of all reasonable and necessary supports funded under the plan.

Bill reference: Schedule 1, Part 4, item 34, proposed section 34A, especially subsections 34A(1), 34A(3) and 34A(5).

Australian Disability Ltd considers this provision one of the most concerning parts of the Bill.

A support cannot meaningfully be described as reasonable and necessary if the law then permits it to be knowingly underfunded. This creates a risk of lawful underfunding, service gaps, provider withdrawal, family substitution, participant debt, unsafe support arrangements and increased crisis presentations.

The requirement that the Minister have regard to participant safety is not enough. Safety should not be a factor to be considered after a funding reduction has already been designed. It should be a hard threshold.

Australian Disability Ltd recommends that proposed section 34A be removed. If it is retained, it must include:

 a no-harm threshold;  disability-led consultation;  individual exemption rights;  merits review rights;  human rights assessment;  rural, remote and thin-market analysis;  gender and carer impact analysis;  a prohibition on funding reasonable and necessary supports below their actual cost.

7. Automatic plan renewal must not bypass participant rights The Bill would introduce automatic plan renewal. A renewed old framework plan would come into effect immediately after the previous plan’s end date, and a copy may be provided to the participant as soon as practicable, which may be more than seven days after the plan comes into effect.

The Bill also provides that the renewed plan does not require a new statement of participant supports to be prepared with the participant, and that the making of the new plan does not involve a reviewable decision.

Bill reference: Schedule 1, Part 5, item 50, proposed section 50A; item 45, proposed subsections 38(2) and 38(3).

Australian Disability Ltd accepts that automatic rollover may be useful where it prevents gaps in support. But automatic renewal must not become a device for avoiding review, reducing supports, removing one-off funding, or carrying forward outdated plans.

Automatic renewal should only be permitted where:

 there is no reduction in support, funding, flexibility or plan management choice;  the participant is notified before the plan takes effect;  the participant receives the plan before commencement;  any adverse alteration is a reviewable decision;  participants can request human review without having to satisfy narrow reassessment criteria;

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 accessible communication is provided.

8. Reassessment must remain available when life changes The Bill narrows the conditions for participant-requested reassessment. It requires significant change to ongoing support needs arising from eligible impairments, and confines personal or environmental changes to unanticipated, significant and ongoing alterations in living arrangements, education, work or informal support networks.

Bill reference: Schedule 1, Part 2, item 21, proposed section 48A; item 19, amendment to subsection 48(3), changing the response period to 90 days where the conditions are satisfied.

Australian Disability Ltd is concerned that this does not reflect how crisis occurs.

Participants may urgently need reassessment because of provider collapse, carer illness, family violence, school exclusion, hospital discharge, transport failure, assistive technology breakdown, communication support loss, housing insecurity, rural market failure, behavioural escalation or safeguarding concerns.

Australian Disability Ltd recommends that the Bill include an urgent reassessment pathway where delay creates risk of harm, loss of housing, family breakdown, hospitalisation, service collapse, restrictive practice, neglect or loss of essential support.

9. Treatment provisions must not punish people for inaccessible health care

The Bill proposes to tighten the meaning of permanence by requiring a person to have undertaken all appropriate treatment. It also provides that treatment may be considered appropriate regardless of whether the person’s individual circumstances restrict access, including financial circumstances and geographic location.

Bill reference: Schedule 1, Part 8, item 92, proposed section 25A; items 89 and 91, proposed subsections 24(5) and 25(1B).

Australian Disability Ltd strongly opposes this approach.

A person should not be denied NDIS access because a treatment exists somewhere in Australia but is not actually available to them. Treatment may be unaffordable, geographically inaccessible, clinically unsuitable, culturally unsafe, traumatising, unavailable through public health, subject to long waitlists or inappropriate for the person’s disability and communication needs.

Australian Disability Ltd recommends that treatment only be considered appropriate if it is:

 actually available to the person;  affordable or publicly funded;  clinically suitable;  safe;  culturally safe;  accessible in the person’s location;  supported by treating clinicians;  not experimental, coercive or disproportionate.

10. Alternative supports must be real, not theoretical The Bill introduces alternative support requirements and excluded impairments, including impairments connected to motor vehicle accidents, workplace injuries and supports declared by NDIS rules to be alternative supports. It also allows participant status to be revoked where the CEO is satisfied the person does not meet alternative support requirements.

Bill reference: Schedule 1, Part 9, item 97, proposed section 25B; item 98, proposed paragraph 30(1)(c).

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Australian Disability Ltd agrees that mainstream systems should meet their obligations. But disabled people should not be pushed out of the NDIS into systems that are slow, adversarial, capped, underfunded, geographically unavailable or practically inaccessible.

Plain-language concern

The NDIS should not become a maze where each door says “try the other door.”

Australian Disability Ltd recommends that a person should only be excluded or removed from the NDIS where the alternative support is:

 actually available;  funded;  timely;  equivalent;  safe;  enforceable;  accessible;  sufficient to prevent loss of independence, participation or safety.

There must be no revocation without continuity of support.

11. Integrity reform must protect participants from exploitation Australian Disability Ltd supports measures that target fraud, exploitation, conflicts of interest and unsafe provider conduct. The Bill includes new record-keeping requirements for NDIS providers, participants and other claimants, including a three-year record retention period for participants who make claims. It also reduces the claim period from two years to 90 days.

Bill reference: Schedule 2, Part 4, item 83, proposed section 45B; Schedule 2, Part 5, item 89, amendment to paragraph 45A(5)(a).

Integrity measures must be designed with disability access in mind. Some participants experience cognitive disability, psychosocial disability, executive functioning barriers, communication disability, digital exclusion, coercive control, nominee misconduct, family violence or provider manipulation. Administrative difficulty must not be treated as fraud.

Australian Disability Ltd recommends:

 strong provider-facing compliance powers;  participant safeguards where providers or nominees exploit a person;  accessible record-keeping support;  funded independent advocacy during investigations;  proportionality before any debt is raised;  no punishment for disability-related administrative barriers;  clear distinction between deliberate fraud and participant vulnerability.

12. Automation must not become the Scheme’s hidden gatekeeper The Bill would allow computer programs to take administrative action under designated provisions, including action involving discretion, evaluative judgement or the formation of a state of mind. Administrative action taken by a computer program would be treated as action taken by the CEO.

Bill reference: Schedule 3, Part 2, item 11, proposed sections 59B to 59E; proposed section 59C specifies sections 33, 45, 45A and 45C as listed designated provisions.

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Australian Disability Ltd is deeply concerned by the breadth of this proposal.

NDIS decisions can determine whether a person can get out of bed, communicate, eat, shower, leave the house, attend school, work, parent, stay safe or avoid hospital. These are not ordinary administrative transactions. They require context, judgement and accountability.

Australian Disability Ltd recommends that automated decision-making be prohibited for:

 access decisions;  participant status;  plan budgets;  support approval;  payment refusal;  debt;  suspension;  revocation;  compliance action;  reviewable decisions.

At minimum, any use of automation must include notice, reasons, human review before adverse effect, independent audit, public reporting, bias testing and accessible appeal rights.

13. Pricing and incorporated documents need stronger parliamentary oversight

The Bill would give the Minister power to determine maximum amounts or methods for determining maximum amounts for the acquisition or provision of NDIS supports or classes of supports. It also allows determinations and rules to apply, adopt or incorporate documents as in force from time to time, including documents created for that purpose, with those documents published on the Agency website but not treated as legislative instruments.

Bill reference: Schedule 3, Part 1, item 4, proposed section 45C; item 2, proposed subsections 33(2G) and 33(2H); item 8, proposed subsections 209(2AA) and 209(2AB).

Pricing decisions are not administrative footnotes. They affect whether providers can deliver safe supports, whether participants can find workers, whether rural and remote supports are viable, and whether complex supports remain available in thin markets.

Australian Disability Ltd recommends that pricing instruments and incorporated documents be public, accessible, disallowable where they affect rights or funding, subject to disability-led consultation, and accompanied by participant impact statements.

14. New framework planning must not become standardised rationing Schedule 4 would allow funding amounts in new framework plans to be worked out by methods specified in NDIS rules, including methods that identify supports, levels of need and funding amounts for levels of need. The Bill states that a funding amount may be more than, equal to or less than the actual cost of providing or acquiring the support or class of supports.

Bill reference: Schedule 4, item 4, proposed subsections 32K(3B) to 32K(3E).

Consistency is valuable. But consistency without individualisation is uniform unfairness with a spreadsheet hat.

Australian Disability Ltd recommends that new framework planning preserve individualised assessment, allow exceptions where formulaic budgets are insufficient, require transparent and validated assessment tools, permit evidence from trusted supporters and professionals, and guarantee merits review of funding outcomes.

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15. Transitional rules require safeguards Schedule 5 would allow the Minister to make transitional rules, including rules that modify how provisions of the NDIS Act and provisions of the Bill operate during transition. Although the rules are time-limited and cannot create offences, civil penalties, arrest, detention, search, seizure, taxation, appropriations or directly amend the text of an Act, they remain a broad transitional power.

Bill reference: Schedule 5, item 1.

Transitional arrangements will determine how participants experience reform in practice. They must be transparent, rights-compatible and accessible.

Australian Disability Ltd recommends that transitional rules be disallowable, published in accessible formats, subject to consultation, accompanied by continuity-of-support safeguards, and designed to avoid adverse change without notice, reasons and review rights.

16. What should proceed The Bill should not proceed as a single package. Some reforms deserve separate, urgent consideration, particularly measures aimed at provider exploitation, conflicts of interest, plan management integrity and serious fraud.

However, these should be separated from provisions that:

 restrict access;  narrow functional capacity;  reduce funding;  allow supports to be funded below cost;  limit reassessment;  automate high-stakes decisions;  weaken review rights;  shift support obligations to families;  exclude people because treatment or alternative systems theoretically exist.

A fairer pathway would be to pass a targeted integrity Bill focused on provider misconduct and participant safeguards, co-design access and planning reforms with disabled people, legislate mainstream and foundational support obligations before excluding people from the NDIS, independently test assessment tools and funding methods, fund advocacy, navigation and communication access before reforms commence, and return to Parliament with a narrower, rights-compatible Bill.

17. Conclusion Australian Disability Ltd supports a sustainable, safe and fair NDIS. We support reform that prevents fraud, improves provider accountability and protects participants from exploitation.

But the Bill, as drafted, creates serious risks. It narrows access, permits underfunding, restricts reassessment, weakens review rights, expands Ministerial and rule-making power, shifts pressure onto families and mainstream systems, and enables automation in high-stakes areas.

The NDIS should be secured for future generations by strengthening trust, rights, safety, evidence, accountability and co-design. It should not be secured by making the Scheme harder to enter, harder to navigate and easier to ration.

Australian Disability Ltd therefore recommends that the Committee advise the Senate that the Bill should not be passed in its current form.

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Signed:

[Name]

[Position]

Australian Disability Ltd

[Date]

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