National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 488 - Attachment 2
NDIS Bill 2026
Why this Bill is high-risk in practice Regional provider, carer and lived-experience perspective | Prepared by Jessica Schafer-Wilson | Heart Worx | May 2026
| Who is raising this | Core concern | Why staged evaluation matters |
|---|---|---|
| I am writing as a regional NDIS provider, practitioner, carer and person with lived experience of disability-related functional impairment. | Before Parliament accepts further participant-level restrictions, it should require the Government and NDIA to show the full balance sheet. | The NDIS has already been materially tightened since October 2024 through stricter support definitions, spending rules, |
| funding periods, claim controls and increased payment integrity activity. | ||
| The system is already undergoing substantial operational and behavioural change. | ||
| This perspective sits across provider operations, lived experience, regional delivery, carer systems, psychosocial complexity and review realities. | Public debate keeps focusing on participant spending. It is not shown, with the same clarity, the cost of NDIA administrative failure, review burden, delay and downstream transfer. | That makes staged evaluation more important, not less. |
| I support genuine NDIS reform. Fraud should be addressed. Poor providers should be removed. The Scheme needs stronger administration and clearer accountability. | The concern is not the stated intention of reform. It is how the Bill is likely to behave once it hits real-world systems already under pressure. |
Three implementation risks
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Hidden administrative cost Oversight material from the Ombudsman, ANAO, ART and Legal Aid shows delay, complaints, reassessment pressure, review burden and legal cost around NDIA decision-making and appeals. Why this matters fiscally: These are not simple savings. They are cost transfers unless Parliament requires proper downstream modelling first. A Commonwealth saving is not automatically a national saving if the cost is shifted into families, hospitals, unpaid care, review systems, provider collapse or workforce exits.
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Regional markets can lose choice fast: Regional NDIS markets do not operate like metropolitan markets. A provider exit, travel restriction, pricing change or claim risk can remove practical choice altogether.
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Savings can become cost transfers: If supports are reduced before mainstream and foundational systems are operating, the need shifts into unpaid care, family systems, hospitals, housing, legal aid, crisis responses and provider instability.
What I am asking for:
- Do not support this Bill in its current form.
- Protect participant choice, review rights, functional capacity safeguards, privacy, human oversight and community participation.
- Require regional impact assessment and provider viability safeguards.
- Set clear limits on executive-made Rules, automated decisions, debt recovery and digital payment systems.
Prepared by Jessica Schafer-Wilson | Co-Founder | Practice Lead | NDIS Systems, Recovery & Lived Experience | Heart Worx | Tamworth NSW One-page MP brief