Submission 435
Australia ti• Anglica~e
· - ih eveVIJ Co111111u~PO Box 4093
29 May 2026 Ainslie ACT 2602 T (02) 6230 1775 Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs F (02) 6230 1704 PO Box 6100 anglicare@anglicare.asn.au
Parliament House www.anglicare.asn.au
Canberra ACT 2600
community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au
Dear Committee Secretary,
Re: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future
Generations) Bill 2026
Anglicare Australia welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
When the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) was first conceptualised, it was intended to assist those with the most complex needs to receive the support, choice and control they needed to enjoy fulfilling lives. For hundreds of thousands of Australians with disability, it has achieved precisely that. Yet for years now, the NDIS has come under increasing attack and scrutiny for its rising costs, leading to calls for dramatic reforms and reductions in funding to ensure the Scheme’s longevity.
While Anglicare Australia understands the need to ensure that the NDIS is financially sustainable for generations to come and has supported much of the reform work to this point, it is critical that future reform not come at the expense of people with disability losing access to support. The NDIS’ founding promise would be fundamentally broken if people with disability were removed from the Scheme and given nowhere else to go.
The Government’s announcement of changes to the NDIS in April was met with concern and scepticism by the disability community. The Government’s announced target to limit the number of people with disability accessing the NDIS to 600,000 by 2030 means that at least 160,000 people currently in the Scheme will be removed.
This Bill contains no details about the future of the Thriving Kids programs or Foundational Support programs that people being transitioned out of NDIS services are meant to be able to access. The Government must act to ensure that greater clarity and certainty about what these programs will be, how they will operate, and who will be eligible for them. People With Disability Australia (PWDA) has highlighted that the scale of investment announced in the 2026-27 Budget for these programs “falls
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well short of what would be required to support the growing number of people expected to lose access to the NDIS or experience reduced funding”.i Additionally, PWDA has warned that the development of these services with agreements between state and territory governments risks creating an unequal system where available supports vary depending on where you live. Further, the Bill contains little to assuage concerns about the pacing and sequence of the reform agenda. The Government’s intention to move at speed to enact reform and change to the NDIS presents the risk that people with disability will be transitioned out of their current support plans before the new foundational services have been given a chance to become truly operational.
A reduction in funding to the NDIS will likely further compound the challenges faced by service providers struggling to cover the financial losses that come with operating NDIS services. In recent years, several of Anglicare Australia’s Network members have made the difficult choice to withdraw from the NDIS due to being unable to cover the financial burden because of rising compliance costs and a pricing index that has failed to keep pace with inflation.ii This challenge is not one Anglicare organisations have faced alone. A survey by National Disability Services found that 75 percent of providers were considering ceasing NDIS services as a result of significant financial distress.iii
Schedule 3 of the Bill provides for the use of automated decision making (ADM) within the NDIS. The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme exposed the deeply cruel impacts of misuse of automated decision making, and while work has been done by the Government to ensure greater that there are measures in place to safeguard against this from occurring again, it is important that there is proper transparency and oversight. The greatest risk of utilising ADM within the NDIS is the removal of human oversight. People with disability who rely on NDIS often have one or multiple complex needs and conditions. Relying on a computer algorithm to make administrative decisions about the needs and requirements of a person with disability runs the risk of adverse decisions being taken and leading to a restriction of much needed support.
In Anglicare Australia’s submission to the Attorney-General’s Department consultation on the use of automated decision-making government, we stressed the importance of retaining human oversight and ensuring full transparency about the nature of automated decisions. As the Government pursues its reforms to the NDIS, including the removal of services from the Scheme in order to establish the Foundational Supports and Thriving Kids programs, it must be transparent about whether ADM will be operated when it comes to transitioning some people with disability out of the NDIS. If not conducted properly, the Government runs the risk of seeing people with disability improperly removed from the Scheme by automated decisions, creating another Robodebt-style failure.
Finally, Anglicare Australia supports the concerns of Australia’s Disability Representative Organisations about the short time frame for the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee to review this legislation. The changes to the NDIS in this Bill are substantial to the Scheme’s operation, and require genuine scrutiny and review, something the timeframe for this inquiry cannot genuinely allow. The Government and the Committee should allow for additional time to consider this Bill, and allow for genuine and meaningful engagement with the disability community to ensure that reforms to the NDIS are appropriate and effective.
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We appreciated the opportunity to provide input to this consultation and look forward to continued engagement as the consultation process progresses. We would welcome the opportunity to further discuss anything raised in this submission. Please do not hesitate to contact us at Anlicare@anlicare.asn.au.
Yours sincerely
Kasy Chambers
Executive Director
i People With Disability Australia (2026) PWDA responds to the 2026-2027 Federal Budget ii Anglicare WA (2025) Anglicare WA transitioning out of NDIS and Bridges Disability Service. iii National Disability Services (2024) State of the Disability Sector Report 2024.