Protecting choice and control in disability supports (Provider advocacy)

Submission 644

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:

ADACAS, ACT Disability Aged and Carer Advocacy Service

Authorised by:

Wendy Prowse

Chief Executive Officer

ADACAS – ACT Disability, Aged and Carer Advocacy Service

May 2026

Submission 644

Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary …………………………………………………………………………………………. 4

2. Summary of Recommendations…………………………………………………………………………. 6

3. About ADACAS ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9

4. Overall position ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 11

5. The Bill Should Not Proceed on the Current Compressed Timetable …………………… 12

6. Sustainability Must Not Mean Shifting Risk to People with Disability and Families … 13

7. Eligibility and Functional Capacity Assessment Must Reflect Real Life ………………… 14

8. Support Needs Must Be Understood in the Context of the Whole Person …………….. 15

9. Self-Management, Choice and Control Must Be Protected …………………………………. 16 De-identified practice example: self-directed support and continuity …………………….. 16

10. Provider Registration Must Not Reduce Safety, Choice or Continuity ………………… 17

11. Plan Correction, Reassessment and Renewal Must Remain Practical Safeguards 18

12. Review Rights and Procedural Fairness Are Essential Safeguards ……………………. 20 De-identified practice example: review rights correcting a wrong decision…………….. 20

13. Plan Suspension for “Non-Contactability” Requires Strong Safeguards ……………… 22

14. “Appropriate Treatment” Must Be Rights-Based and Clinically Informed …………….. 23

15. Ministerial Power to Reduce Funding Requires Lived Experience Consultation ….. 24

16. Social and Community Participation Is Not a Luxury ………………………………………… 26

17. Automated Decision-Making Must Not Replace Human Judgement ………………….. 27

18. Pricing Decisions Require Independent Oversight ……………………………………………. 27

19. Integrity Measures Must Not Punish Participants for System Failure …………………. 28

20. Independent Advocacy and Supported Decision-Making Will Be Essential During Reform ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 29

21. De-identified Practice Examples …………………………………………………………………….. 30 Example 1: Stability can be mistaken for reduced need ………………………………………. 30

Example 2: Fluctuating psychosocial disability may be misunderstood …………………. 30

Example 3: Communication barriers can lead to underestimated need…………………. 30

Example 4: Reduced supports increase unpaid care and carer strain…………………… 30

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Example 5: Plan correction may be needed before crisis ……………………………………. 31

Example 6: Administrative burden can create unfair debt risk ……………………………… 31

22. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 32 3 | P a g e

Submission 644

1. Executive Summary ADACAS welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the Senate Community

Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme

Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

This submission is grounded in the experiences of people with disability, people experiencing mental ill-health, older people and carers who have sought independent advocacy support because they have needed help to be heard, understood and treated fairly within the NDIS and related service systems.

Through independent advocacy, people have shared the practical consequences of NDIS decisions and processes: difficulty understanding correspondence, gathering evidence, explaining fluctuating or complex disability-related needs, maintaining essential supports, exercising choice and control, challenging decisions, and navigating gaps between the NDIS and other systems. These experiences, shared with advocates and carefully de-identified, form the foundation of this submission.

ADACAS supports the objective of a sustainable, safe, and accountable NDIS for current and future generations. ADACAS does not oppose reform that improves scheme integrity, prevents exploitation, addresses unsafe or fraudulent conduct, or strengthens accountability. However, reform must protect people’s rights, safety, and access to support. People with disability must not be made to feel like a burden, and sustainability must not be achieved by reducing access to necessary disability supports, weakening procedural fairness, narrowing choice and control, or shifting people into mainstream or state and territory systems that are not available, accessible, appropriate or accountable.

ADACAS is concerned that the Bill is broad, complex, and highly consequential. It changes core features of the NDIS, including eligibility, planning, funding, reassessment, review rights, Ministerial powers, administrative processes, and the relationship between the NDIS and other service systems. ADACAS is particularly concerned that the Bill may shift the NDIS away from individualised, needs-based support and towards a more constrained, standardised, and system-managed model unless strong safeguards are included.

ADACAS recommends that the Committee not support passage of the Bill on the current compressed timetable. Given the scale and consequence of the proposed reforms, the Bill should be delayed allowing proper scrutiny, targeted amendments, co

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design, and consultation with people with disability, families, carers, independent advocates, states and territories, and affected service systems.

People with psychosocial disability, cognitive disability, intellectual disability, learning disability, communication disability, acquired brain injury, neurodivergence, fluctuating support needs, trauma histories, limited informal support, limited digital access, or complex interactions with health, mental health, housing, justice and community services may be particularly affected by reforms that rely on standardised assessment, restricted reassessment pathways, automated decision-making, broad support reductions or reduced review rights or increased administrative burden.

ADACAS is especially concerned about risks arising from functional capacity assessment, permanence and “appropriate treatment” requirements, plan correction and reassessment restrictions, automatic plan renewal, plan suspension for “non contactability”, support determinations, funding caps and rationing, automated decision making, self-management restrictions, provider registration changes, pricing decisions, and record-keeping and debt provisions.

Independent advocacy will be essential during any major NDIS reform. People will need support to understand changes, participate in assessments, gather evidence, respond to decisions, seek review, exercise choice and control, and navigate transitions between systems. Without access to independent advocacy and supported decision-making, people most at risk of being misunderstood or excluded may be least able to protect their rights or explain their needs.

ADACAS recommends that the Bill not proceed in its current form unless it is amended to include stronger safeguards around eligibility, functional capacity assessment, planning, reassessment, plan correction, plan renewal, plan suspension, review rights, automated decision-making, self-management, provider registration, pricing, Ministerial support-determination powers, funding caps, social and community participation supports, debt and record-keeping obligations, and access to independent advocacy and supported decision-making.

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Submission 644

2. Summary of Recommendations ADACAS recommends that the Committee recommend amendments to the Bill to:

3. Recommend that the Bill not proceed on the current compressed timetable, and that further time be allowed for scrutiny, targeted amendments, co-design, and consultation with people with disability, families, carers, independent advocates, states and territories, and affected service systems.

4. Preserve the individualised and rights-based foundation of the NDIS, including the principles of choice, control, dignity, participation, and reasonable and necessary support.

5. Ensure sustainability is balanced with participant rights, access, continuity of support and prevention of crisis, recognising that reduced or delayed supports can shift risk to people with disability, families, carers, and other service systems.

6. Adopt a “no exit without a safety net” principle, so people are not redirected away from the NDIS unless alternative supports are genuinely available, accessible, appropriate, timely and accountable.

7. Ensure functional capacity assessment is individualised, contextual, and accessible, and does not rely on a single standardised tool, score, algorithm, or formula to determine eligibility, plan funding, or support need.

8. Recognise that disability-related support needs may arise from the interaction of multiple impairments, circumstances, and environments, and should not be excluded because they cannot be attributed to one eligible impairment in isolation.

9. Protect self-management and safe self-directed support arrangements, including access to trusted workers who understand a person’s communication, disability-related needs, routines, and support preferences.

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8. Ensure provider registration requirements are proportionate and do not unintentionally remove participants’ choice and control, reduce access to trusted workers, or force people into unsuitable provider models.

9. Preserve practical pathways for plan correction, reassessment, and urgent variation, including where there is safety risk, hospital discharge, housing instability, carer breakdown, provider withdrawal, support collapse or an unsafe or inadequate plan.

10. Ensure automatic plan renewal does not carry forward unsafe, inadequate, or outdated plans, and that renewed plans are subject to participant input, accessible reasons, and effective review pathways.

11. Preserve accessible internal and external review rights for all decisions affecting access, eligibility, plan funding, reassessment, plan suspension, support determinations and pricing-related impacts on participants, participant status, debt, and record-keeping obligations.

12. Preserve practical review rights wherever a participant’s access, funding, plan pathway, or ability to use supports is materially affected, including where outcomes arise through operation of law, rules, instruments, methods, notices, or support determinations.

13. Prevent plans from being suspended or participant status revoked solely because a person is considered “not contactable” unless strong safeguards are in place, including multiple contact methods, contact with authorised representatives where appropriate, safeguarding checks, advocacy referral, accessible reasons, review rights, and urgent reinstatement mechanisms.

14. Ensure any “appropriate treatment” requirement is evidence-based, rights- based, clinically informed, and practical, and does not penalise people who cannot access treatment due to cost, location, waiting lists, cultural barriers, transport barriers, service gaps, clinical risk, trauma, or other real-world barriers.

15. Remove or tightly limit any broad Ministerial power to reduce funding for groups of supports, and if retained, subject it to National Cabinet agreement,

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parliamentary scrutiny, disability impact assessment, lived experience consultation, continuity safeguards, individual hardship pathways, and full review rights.

16. Preserve the link between recognised need and funded support, so that supports assessed as necessary are funded at a level that makes them practically available.

17. Ensure social, civic and community participation supports are not treated as optional extras and are not reduced through broad funding determinations without individual assessment, lived experience consultation, impact analysis and safeguards.

18. Require human oversight, transparency, accessible reasons, and full review rights for any automated or algorithm-informed decision-making.

19. Establish independent oversight of pricing decisions, ensuring pricing reflects the actual cost of safe, sustainable, high-quality disability support, including wages, training, insurance, compliance, workforce shortages, and service delivery costs.

20. Ensure integrity, record-keeping, debt and claiming measures do not punish participants for disability-related barriers, provider failure, nominee failure, plan-manager issues, coercion, exploitation, poor advice, or lack of support.

21. Fund independent advocacy and supported decision-making during implementation, recognising that major NDIS reform is likely to increase demand for advocacy support.

22. Require genuine co-design with people with disability, families, carers, First Nations people with disability, disability representative organisations, independent advocates, and people with diverse disability experiences.

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3. About ADACAS ADACAS’ submission is grounded in the experiences of people with disability, people experiencing mental ill-health, older people and carers who have sought independent advocacy support to ensure their voices are heard and their needs are understood within complex systems, including the NDIS.

Through advocacy, people consistently describe challenges in understanding decisions, gathering evidence, navigating planning processes, maintaining essential support arrangements, exercising choice and control, accessing review pathways, and managing gaps between the NDIS and other systems. These experiences inform this submission and highlight the practical consequences of policy and legislative change in people’s everyday lives.

ADACAS’ role as an independent advocacy organisation is to work alongside people to ensure their will and preferences are heard, understood, and respected. Advocacy is tailored to individual needs and preferences, supporting people to speak for themselves wherever possible, or acting on their behalf at their request. ADACAS treats clients as experts in their own lives and works in ways that are person-centred, trauma-informed, culturally responsive and grounded in supported decision-making.

For more than 35 years, ADACAS has provided free, independent, and confidential advocacy support across the ACT, and in NSW including the South Coast, Illawarra/Shoalhaven, Murrumbidgee, and broader regional communities. Through this work, ADACAS has supported people with disability and their supporters to navigate key aspects of the NDIS, including access, planning, support implementation, change of circumstances, internal review, Administrative Appeals Tribunal processes, appeals, and decision-making about supports.

ADACAS provides both individual and systemic advocacy. Individual advocacy supports people to resolve issues affecting their own lives. Systemic advocacy draws on de identified patterns and issues raised through individual advocacy to inform policy, legislative and service system reform. In this way, ADACAS seeks to ensure that the experiences people share with advocates can contribute to broader change while protecting privacy, dignity, and safety.

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Submission 644

ADACAS is a human rights-focused organisation and a member of Disability Advocacy Network Australia (DANA), the national representative body for independent disability advocacy organisations. ADACAS also supports the development of self-advocacy wherever possible, recognising that independent advocacy remains essential where people face barriers to being heard, understood, or treated fairly.

All examples included in this submission have been deliberately de-identified. No client names, family names, addresses, contact details, detailed medical histories, precise ages, unique personal circumstances, NDIS documents, medical reports or NDIA correspondence are included. This reflects ADACAS’ commitment to protecting the privacy, dignity, and safety of the people whose experiences inform this submission.

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4. Overall position People who seek advocacy support have described the NDIS as life-changing when it provides individualised, flexible, and reliable supports that reflect their lives, and harmful when decisions are unclear, evidence is disregarded, supports are reduced, or systems do not respond to disability-related barriers.

ADACAS supports the objective of a sustainable, safe, and high-integrity NDIS. However, ADACAS is concerned that the Bill may shift the NDIS away from individualised support, choice, and control, and towards a more constrained, standardised, and system-managed model unless strong safeguards are included. This includes risks relating to functional capacity assessment, permanence tests, plan correction, reassessment restrictions, automatic plan renewal, funding caps, support reduction powers, automated decision-making, record-keeping and debt provisions, and a shift away from individualised entitlement.

ADACAS recommends that the Bill be amended before passage. The Bill should not reduce access to necessary supports, weaken review rights, restrict self-management, create broad powers to reduce categories, or introduce administrative requirements that disproportionately affect people who already face barriers to communication, comprehension, evidence-gathering, digital access, record-keeping or engaging with government systems.

ADACAS’ position is that reform must be rights-based, evidence-informed, co-designed and tested with people with disability, families and carers, independent advocates, states and territories, and affected service systems before major changes are implemented.

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Submission 644

5. The Bill Should Not Proceed on the Current

Compressed Timetable

ADACAS is concerned about the compressed timetable for consideration of the Bill. The Bill is broad, complex, and highly consequential. It affects access, planning, reassessment, funding, review rights, Ministerial powers, administrative obligations, compliance powers and the interaction between the NDIS and other service systems. These are not minor technical amendments. They affect whether people can obtain the supports they need to live safely, communicate, participate, maintain relationships, access work, or education, remain housed, avoid crisis, and sustain family and carer arrangements.

DANA has identified that the Bill changes the operating model of the NDIS by increasing the burden of proving eligibility, narrowing what supports are recognised, allowing recognised supports to be capped or reduced, restricting pathways to correct errors, limiting practical merits review and shifting key outcomes into instruments, rules, methods and operation of law. ADACAS shares this concern.

ADACAS is concerned that changes of this scale carry substantial risk if passed before they have been properly scrutinised, tested and amended. People with disability, families, carers, advocates, states and territories and affected service systems need time to understand the Bill, identify practical risks, propose safeguards and test whether reforms will work in real life.

The issue is not delay for its own sake. The issue is whether Parliament has enough time to understand, test and fix a Bill that affects access, funding, review rights, plan correction, and the supports people rely on to live safely.

ADACAS recommends that the Committee not support passage of the Bill on the current compressed timetable. The Bill should be delayed to allow proper scrutiny, targeted amendments, co-design, and consultation on the most consequential measures.

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Submission 644

6. Sustainability Must Not Mean Shifting Risk to People with Disability and Families

ADACAS recognises that NDIS sustainability is important. However, sustainability should not be measured only by reduced spending, reduced participant numbers, reduced plan budgets, or fewer funded supports. A sustainable NDIS should prevent crisis, support community participation, reduce pressure on families and carers, reduce avoidable escalation into health, mental health, housing, justice, and crisis systems, and ensure timely access to necessary supports.

When supports are reduced or delayed, people do not stop needing support. Instead, unmet need may shift to families, carers, hospitals, mental health services, housing services, justice systems, community services, and advocacy organisations. This presents risks of increased unpaid care, carer burnout, service gaps, review demand, and pressure on advocacy services.

ADACAS is concerned that the Bill may rely on other service systems that are not yet available, accessible, appropriate, or accountable. Other systems may be responsible in theory but unavailable, delayed, unsafe, inaccessible, or unable to meet disability related support needs in practice. People cannot be moved away from the NDIS or have supports reduced unless real alternatives are available and in place.

ADACAS recommends that the Bill include a clear “no exit without a safety net” principle. People should not lose NDIS supports or be redirected to other service systems unless those systems are genuinely available, accessible, appropriate, accountable, timely and funded to meet the person’s disability-related needs. ADACAS recommends a clear “no exit without equivalent support” safeguard where a person continues to require disability-related support.

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7. Eligibility and Functional Capacity Assessment Must

Reflect Real Life

ADACAS is concerned that changes to eligibility and functional capacity assessment may disproportionately affect people whose disability impact is not easily captured by standardised tools or short assessment interactions. Risks include people who present well during assessment, mask disability, have fluctuating needs, cannot describe their disability impact in formal language, lack evidence because services have been difficult to access, or appear stable because supports are already working.

Risks for people with psychosocial disability, cognitive disability, intellectual disability, communication disability, learning disability, autism, fluctuating or episodic needs, and complex or high support needs include the risk that standardised assessment may fail to capture real lived experience, understate support needs, and create “cookie cutter” outcomes.

Generic assessment tools may also fail to accommodate cognitive, communication, cultural or linguistic needs. People with intellectual disability, culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, First Nations people with disability, people with trauma histories, and people with complex needs may be more likely to have their support needs underestimated.

ADACAS recommends that functional capacity assessment must be individualised, contextual and accessible. It must include environmental context, fluctuating and episodic disability, psychosocial disability, trauma impacts, communication needs, informal support arrangements, service availability, cultural considerations and the cumulative impact of multiple disabilities or health conditions.

ADACAS further recommends that standardised assessment tools must not be used as the primary determinant of NDIS eligibility, funding levels, or support needs. Assessment tools may have a role in gathering information, but should not replace individualised assessment, professional judgement, lived experience, functional impact, participant goals, and person-centred assessment processes.

ADACAS also recommends that access changes should not commence until assessment tools, thresholds, safeguards, funding, and workforce arrangements are settled and co-designed with people with disability and their representative organisations.

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8. Support Needs Must Be Understood in the Context of

the Whole Person

ADACAS is concerned that requiring supports to arise directly from an eligible impairment may fail to reflect the way disability support needs occur in real life. Many people’s needs arise from the interaction of multiple impairments, health conditions, trauma, environment, housing, family circumstances, communication barriers, service availability, cultural safety, poverty, and informal support arrangements. A person’s support need should not be excluded simply because it cannot be attributed to one impairment in isolation.

For people with psychosocial disability, cognitive disability, intellectual disability, acquired brain injury, communication disability, chronic health conditions or multiple disabilities, support needs may be interrelated and cumulative. A narrow approach may create artificial distinctions between impairments, circumstances and environments that do not reflect people’s lives.

ADACAS recommends that the Bill recognise that disability-related support needs may arise from the interaction of multiple impairments and life circumstances. Decision makers should consider the whole person and their real-world functioning, rather than excluding support because need cannot be traced neatly to one eligible impairment in isolation.

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Submission 644

9. Self-Management, Choice, and Control Must Be

Protected

Self-management is not simply an administrative option. For many participants, it is the mechanism that makes safe, individualised, flexible, and culturally appropriate support possible. Self-management can enable people and families to employ workers who understand the participant’s needs, develop stable support teams, reduce reliance on unsuitable provider models, create flexible supports tailored to individual circumstances, improve workforce retention and build supports around the person’s goals and preferences.

ADACAS is concerned that restrictions on self-management or provider models may disproportionately affect participants with complex communication needs, intellectual disability, psychosocial disability, autism, acquired brain injury, physical disability, high support needs, trauma histories, or support arrangements that depend on trusted long term workers.

De-identified practice example: self-directed support and continuity

ADACAS is aware of circumstances where a person with lifelong complex support needs lives safely in the community because their support model has been built around trusted workers who know the person’s communication, routines, health needs, and preferences. The support arrangement depends on continuity, trust, individualised training, and the ability to select workers who can safely provide highly personalised support. If self-management were restricted or if the person were forced into an unsuitable provider model, the person could lose the relationships and routines that make daily life, safety, and community participation possible.

ADACAS recommends that the Bill explicitly protect self-management and safe self directed arrangements. Any provider registration model must be proportionate and should not remove the ability of participants to engage trusted workers where safeguards are in place.

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10. Provider Registration Must Not Reduce Safety, Choice, or Continuity

ADACAS supports quality and safeguarding measures that protect people with disability from exploitation, abuse, neglect, and poor-quality services. However, mandatory, or expanded registration requirements must be carefully designed so they do not remove access to trusted workers, reduce provider choice, increase workforce shortages, or force people into larger provider models that may not meet their needs.

Some self-directed arrangements already include policies, procedures, worker screening, training requirements, employment protections, and accountability measures. ADACAS cautions that registration requirements should be proportionate and should not undermine successful participant-led support models.

ADACAS recommends that any provider registration reform include transition arrangements, participant safeguards, accessible information, protections for continuity of support, and specific safeguards for people in thin markets or with complex support needs.

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Submission 644

11. Plan Correction, Reassessment and Renewal Must

Remain Practical Safeguards

ADACAS is concerned that people may be unable to correct plans that are unsafe, inadequate, wrong, or out of date unless they can meet a high threshold for reassessment or wait for formal processes to occur. In practice, people may need plan correction because of gradual deterioration, carer breakdown, housing instability, family violence, provider withdrawal, hospital discharge, support collapse, thin markets, service failure, or a plan that no longer reflects the person’s disability-related support needs.

Plan correction is not a loophole. It is a practical safeguard. People’s lives and circumstances change. Supports may fail. Providers may withdraw. Informal support may become unreliable before it collapses. A plan may become unsafe even where there has not been one sudden or easily evidenced event. If the threshold for reassessment is too narrow, people may only receive help after crisis has occurred.

ADACAS is also concerned about the potential impact of extending decision timeframes for reassessment requests. If a person’s circumstances are serious enough to require plan correction, a lengthy delay may increase risk. Delays may leave people without essential support, increase pressure on families and carers, contribute to hospital admission or delayed discharge, or escalate housing, mental health, or safeguarding risks.

ADACAS recommends that the Bill preserve practical and timely pathways for participants to correct plans before crisis occurs. This should include an urgent decision pathway where there is safety risk, hospital discharge, housing instability, carer breakdown, provider withdrawal, support collapse, or a plan that is unsafe, inadequate, or out of date.

ADACAS also recommends that plan variation remain a genuine pathway for targeted, temporary, or urgent changes where full reassessment is not required. Otherwise, people may be left without a practical mechanism to fix a plan unless they meet a higher reassessment threshold.

Automatic plan renewal should not carry forward unsafe, inadequate, or outdated plans without participant input. Unspent funds may reflect service failure, not lack of need. Underspending may be caused by waitlists, thin markets, inaccessible or culturally unsafe services, lack of support coordination, delayed assessments, or poor

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implementation. A person should not be penalised for not using funds where the reason is that supports were not available, accessible, or safe.

ADACAS recommends that the Bill require safeguards before a plan renews by operation of law. Participants should have a meaningful opportunity to raise concerns, provide evidence, request correction, and dispute an automatic renewal. Renewal outcomes should be reviewable where they carry forward an unsafe, inadequate, or outdated plan.

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12. Review Rights and Procedural Fairness Are Essential

Safeguards

Review rights are not optional administrative features. They are essential safeguards that allow incorrect, incomplete, or unfair decisions to be challenged. Review rights are fundamental protections for people with disability and families, particularly where plans have been reduced despite evidence, supports have been removed, clinical recommendations have been disregarded, or decisions have later been overturned through review.

People often need advocacy because they do not understand decisions, do not know they can seek review, cannot gather evidence without support, are overwhelmed by correspondence, miss timeframes due to disability, trauma, or crisis, or do not have informal support to assist them.

ADACAS is also concerned that participants may formally retain some review rights while losing practical remedies where important outcomes are determined by operation of law, legislative instruments, rules, methods, notices, or broad funding determinations. Review rights must allow a person to fix the actual problem affecting their access, supports, funding, plan pathway, or ability to use supports.

Rights are only meaningful if participants can use them in practice. This requires clear decisions, apparent reasons, accessible information, practical support, enough time to respond, advocacy where needed, and a pathway that can actually fix the problem.

De-identified practice example: review rights correcting a wrong decision

ADACAS is aware of circumstances where a person with significant disability-related support needs experienced a substantial plan reduction following what was understood to be a routine contact or check-in process. The reduction occurred despite professional evidence and resulted in the family needing to pursue review processes to restore necessary supports. This example illustrates why accessible internal and external review pathways remain essential: decision-makers can make mistakes, and people with disability must have meaningful mechanisms to correct those mistakes before harm occurs.

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ADACAS recommends that the Bill preserve full internal and external review rights for decisions affecting access, eligibility, planning, support levels, reassessment, plan renewal, support determinations, plan suspension, participant status, pricing-related impacts, debt, record-keeping obligations, and funding.

ADACAS further recommends that the Bill require clear notice, accessible reasons, transparency, and practical internal and external review pathways wherever a participant’s access, plan funding, supports, reassessment pathway, plan renewal, suspension, support determination, or ability to use supports is materially affected.

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13. Plan Suspension for “Non-Contactability” Requires

Strong Safeguards

ADACAS is seriously concerned about provisions that may allow a participant’s plan to be suspended because the person is considered “not contactable.” A person’s ability to respond to contact may be affected by cognitive impairment, communication disability, psychosocial disability, hospitalisation, homelessness, family crisis, domestic violence, natural disasters, rural or remote isolation, limited technology access, reliance on guardians or nominees, or reliance on advocates or support coordinators.

For many participants, being difficult to contact may itself be related to disability, trauma, crisis, communication barriers, unstable housing, health circumstances, or lack of informal support. Suspending supports in those circumstances may increase risk precisely when the person most needs support.

Being “not contactable” should not be treated as disengagement without first testing whether the person is unsafe, unsupported, unable to respond, experiencing coercion, experiencing homelessness, experiencing family violence, in hospital, digitally excluded, or without practical support to understand and respond to contact.

Practical questions that must be resolved before any suspension power is exercised include: what counts as a reasonable attempt to contact a participant; how many attempts must be made; what communication methods must be used; whether all representatives, nominees, guardians, advocates or support coordinators must be contacted; who determines whether attempts were reasonable; and what review or oversight exists before suspension occurs.

ADACAS recommends that the Bill be amended so that a plan cannot be suspended or participant status revoked solely because a person is deemed “not contactable” unless the NDIA has demonstrated comprehensive, documented and reasonable contact attempts through multiple accessible methods and through relevant authorised representatives, and unless the participant has access to accessible reasons, advocacy, supported decision-making, safeguarding checks, review rights and urgent reinstatement mechanisms.

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14. “Appropriate Treatment” Must Be Rights-Based and

Clinically Informed

ADACAS is concerned about the concept of “appropriate treatment” if it is used to narrow access or reduce supports without adequate clinical expertise, individualised assessment, and consideration of real-world barriers. Concerns include who will determine whether treatment is appropriate: suitably qualified medical specialists, allied health professionals, independent experts, or administrative decision-makers without the necessary clinical expertise.

ADACAS is also concerned that some treatment may reduce one symptom while worsening a person’s overall functioning, independence, mobility, communication, participation, or quality of life. Disability support should consider overall functioning and quality of life, not narrowly focus on one clinical outcome while ignoring broader consequences.

Treatment may be inaccessible because of cost, geographic location, workforce shortages, waiting lists, cultural barriers, transport limitations, trauma, service availability, or clinical risk. People should not be penalised for failing to access treatment that is unavailable, unaffordable, delayed, culturally unsafe, clinically unsuitable, or practically inaccessible.

ADACAS is further concerned that an overly broad treatment expectation may create coercive or disproportionate pressure on people to undergo treatment that is high-risk, invasive, life-altering, rights-infringing, inconsistent with bodily autonomy, or unacceptable having regard to the person’s circumstances.

ADACAS recommends that any “appropriate treatment” requirement be evidence based, rights-based, clinically informed, transparent, and subject to review. It must include consideration of clinical risk, quality of life, the person’s goals, bodily autonomy, the views of appropriately qualified professionals, and the practical availability, affordability, timeliness, safety, and cultural appropriateness of treatment.

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15. Ministerial Power to Reduce Funding Requires Lived

Experience Consultation

ADACAS is particularly concerned about proposed Ministerial powers that may allow funding for groups of supports to be reduced or capped. DANA has identified that these mechanisms may allow recognised support needs to be capped, reduced, or only partly funded, including where those supports have otherwise been recognised as reasonable and necessary. ADACAS shares this concern.

ADACAS is concerned that such powers may break the link between assessed need and funded support. The practical effect may be that the Scheme recognises that a person needs a support but does not fund enough for the person to obtain it. A support that is only partly funded may be unavailable in practice.

This creates a risk of returning to a capped and rationed model, where government budget settings can override individualised assessment of need. The NDIS was created to move away from disability support systems that were wait-listed, capped, rationed and crisis-driven. Reform should not recreate those conditions through broad support determinations, funding caps, budget-setting methods, or delegated instruments.

ADACAS’ primary position is that any broad power to reduce funding for groups of supports should be removed unless Parliament is satisfied that strong safeguards exist to prevent recognised disability support needs being capped, rationed, or only partly funded in ways that make supports unavailable in practice.

If the power is retained, ADACAS recommends that it be subject to National Cabinet agreement, parliamentary scrutiny, disability impact assessment, a lived experience panel, accessible public reasons, continuity of support, individual exemption or hardship pathways, and full review rights for affected participants. The Bill should also preserve the link between recognised need and funded support, so that a support assessed as necessary is funded at a level that makes it practically available.

ADACAS strongly supports requiring the Minister to consult with a lived experience panel before exercising any power to reduce funding for groups of supports. Decisions that reduce funding for groups of supports may have profound consequences for people’s daily lives, safety, family sustainability, social connection, employment, education, health, mental health, and community participation. Such decisions should not be made without structured, transparent, and meaningful input from people with

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lived experience of disability and from those who understand the practical operation of supports.

ADACAS recommends that, before exercising any power to reduce funding for groups of supports, the Minister must:

• consult with a standing lived experience panel before any decision is made;

• ensure the panel includes people with disability with diverse support needs, including psychosocial disability, cognitive disability, intellectual disability, communication disability, physical disability, complex support needs and fluctuating conditions;

• include First Nations people with disability and people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities;

• include family, carer, and independent advocacy perspectives where appropriate;

• publish a disability impact assessment;

• publish reasons explaining the proposed reduction and expected impact;

• demonstrate that alternative supports are available and accessible where relevant;

• preserve review rights for affected participants;

• provide individual exemption, hardship, and urgent review pathways;

• ensure continuity of support while individual impacts are assessed; and

• provide parliamentary scrutiny of significant reductions. ADACAS further recommends that any power to reduce funding for groups of supports be balanced by enforceable obligations to ensure timely reassessment and increased funding where a participant’s disability-related support needs increase.

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16. Social and Community Participation Is Not a Luxury ADACAS is concerned about any proposal or mechanism that could significantly reduce access to social, civic and community participation supports. Social and community participation supports can provide access to community inclusion, employment pathways, volunteering, skill development, social connection, recreation, mental health supports, reduction of isolation and essential activities such as shopping and attending appointments.

For people who require support workers to access the community, these supports may be the practical mechanism that enables ordinary life. They may reduce isolation, maintain mental health, support skills, prevent crisis and enable participation.

DANA has identified that supports that prevent isolation and crisis should not be treated as optional extras. For many people, they prevent deterioration, carer breakdown and safeguarding risk, and support people to work, study, build relationships and participate in ordinary community life. ADACAS shares this concern.

ADACAS recommends that social, civic and community participation supports not be reduced through broad funding determinations without individual assessment, lived experience consultation, disability impact analysis, safeguarding analysis, and safeguards for people who rely on those supports for safety, participation, and wellbeing.

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17. Automated Decision-Making Must Not Replace

Human Judgement

ADACAS is concerned about any expansion of automated or algorithm-informed decision-making without strong safeguards. This presents risks that automated systems may replicate bias, lack transparency, make assumptions difficult to challenge, and systematically underfund complex or high-cost cases.

Automated or formula-based tools may not capture fluctuating disability, psychosocial disability, trauma impacts, communication needs, family violence, informal support breakdown, environmental barriers, lack of available services, thin markets, or the cumulative impact of multiple impairments.

ADACAS recommends that the Bill prohibit fully automated decisions that affect access, eligibility, plan funding, support determinations, or participant rights. Any algorithm informed decision-making must include human oversight, transparency, accessible reasons, capacity to provide contextual evidence, and full internal and external review rights.

18. Pricing Decisions Require Independent Oversight ADACAS is concerned about Ministerial influence over pricing decisions without sufficient independent oversight. Pricing decisions affect workforce sustainability, service quality, participant safety, provider viability, and workforce retention.

Pricing must reflect the actual cost of providing safe and sustainable disability supports, including Fair Work obligations, award wages, superannuation, insurance, training, compliance requirements, workforce shortages, and service delivery costs.

ADACAS recommends that pricing decisions be made through an independent, transparent, and evidence-based process that includes disability sector input, lived experience input, workforce analysis and safeguards against cost reduction being the primary driver of pricing policy.

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19. Integrity Measures Must Not Punish Participants for

System Failure

ADACAS supports action against fraud, exploitation, and deliberate misuse of NDIS funds. People with disability are often harmed first when providers, nominees or others misuse the Scheme. Integrity measures are important, but they must target misconduct, exploitation, and deliberate misuse, not participants who face disability-related barriers or are harmed by the conduct of others.

ADACAS is concerned that record-keeping, debt, and claims requirements may punish participants who are not acting fraudulently but who face cognitive, communication, literacy, psychosocial, housing, digital access, language, trauma-related or disability related barriers.

Some participants rely on nominees, family members, plan managers, providers, or support workers to manage records and claims. Missing records may reflect provider failure, nominee failure, plan-manager issues, coercion, exploitation, poor advice, disability-related barriers, or lack of support. Participants should not be made liable for failures by the people or organisations best placed to keep records.

ADACAS is also concerned that shorter claiming timeframes may create risk for people who self-manage, rely on others to claim, experience crisis, hospitalisation, family violence, homelessness, digital exclusion, limited support, or live in thin markets where invoices, evidence or provider records may be delayed.

ADACAS recommends that participant record-keeping obligations be simple, accessible, proportionate, and supported. Participants should receive clear information and practical support before any compliance action is taken.

ADACAS recommends that debts should not be raised against participants where they were not at fault, did not control the records, relied on others, or could not comply because of disability-related, safety-related, or system-related barriers. The NDIA should be required to pursue the person or organisation actually responsible for missing records before raising a debt against a participant.

ADACAS further recommends that the Bill include broad hardship and exceptional circumstances pathways for late claims, including disability-related, safety-related, and system-related barriers.

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20. Independent Advocacy and Supported Decision-

Making Will Be Essential During Reform

People affected by major NDIS reform will need clear information, supported decision making and, for many, independent advocacy. Changes to eligibility, assessment, planning, reassessment, review rights, support categories and funding arrangements, debt, record-keeping and administrative obligations will be difficult to navigate, particularly for people who already experience barriers to communication, evidence gathering, digital access, trust, comprehension, trauma, mental health, cognition or informal support.

Independent advocacy is not an optional add-on during reform. It is a practical safeguard that helps people understand their rights, explain their needs, gather evidence, participate in decisions, request review, exercise choice, and control, and avoid unnecessary loss of support. Advocacy also enables de-identified systemic issues to be identified and raised with decision-makers.

DANA’s member resources emphasise that disability advocacy organisations are already stretched, that demand for NDIS Appeals advocacy has increased, and that people will need support to understand their rights, navigate decisions and make their voices heard before changes are locked in. ADACAS shares this concern.

If the Government tightens access, changes assessment, restricts reassessment, increases record-keeping requirements, expands compliance mechanisms, or reduces support categories, it must also properly fund the advocacy sector to support people through what comes next.

ADACAS recommends that implementation of the Bill be accompanied by funded independent advocacy, supported decision-making resources, accessible information, community education, clear escalation pathways and practical support for people most at risk of being excluded, misunderstood, or left without support.

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21. De-identified Practice Examples The following examples are deliberately de-identified and generalised to protect privacy. They are included to illustrate practical risks, not to identify individuals.

Example 1: Stability can be mistaken for reduced need

A person with complex lifelong disability lives safely in the community because they have a highly individualised support model built around trusted workers, routine, communication knowledge, and continuity. Their apparent stability depends on these supports remaining in place. If supports are reduced, or if the person is forced into a less flexible provider model, the person’s safety, communication, participation, and family sustainability may be undermined.

Example 2: Fluctuating psychosocial disability may be misunderstood

Through advocacy, ADACAS has identified concerns that a person with psychosocial disability or other fluctuating conditions may be stable while flexible support is in place but may deteriorate if supports are reduced because their needs are seen as “variable” rather than ongoing. Episodic disability may not be captured well in functional assessments and that people may be deemed not “permanent enough” or may be disadvantaged by requirements linked to treatment or recovery.

Example 3: Communication barriers can lead to underestimated need

Through advocacy, ADACAS has seen that people with cognitive, intellectual or communication disability may be assessed using tools or interview processes that do not include adequate communication support, supported decision-making or contextual evidence. This may lead to underestimation of support needs and require lengthy advocacy to correct.

Example 4: Reduced supports increase unpaid care and carer strain

Through advocacy, ADACAS has seen that reductions in funded supports can shift care responsibilities to families and carers, increasing unpaid care, workforce impacts, financial stress, carer burnout, and health risks. This illustrates why sustainability modelling must consider the costs shifted to families, carers, and other systems when NDIS supports are reduced.

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Example 5: Plan correction may be needed before crisis

Through advocacy, ADACAS has seen that people may need plan correction because a plan has become unsafe, inadequate, or out of date, even where there has not been one sudden or easily evidenced event. Support needs may change gradually. Providers may withdraw. Informal support may become unreliable. Housing or family circumstances may change. If reassessment pathways are too narrow or delayed, people may only receive help after supports collapse or crisis occurs.

Example 6: Administrative burden can create unfair debt risk

Through advocacy, ADACAS has seen that people may rely on nominees, family members, providers, plan managers, or support workers to manage records, invoices, and claims. Where records are missing, the cause may be provider failure, nominee failure, plan-manager issues, poor advice, coercion, exploitation, disability-related barriers, or lack of support. Participants should not be punished for administrative failures they did not cause and could not control.

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22. Conclusion The NDIS was created to provide individualised supports that enable people with disability to live with dignity, safety, autonomy, participation, and connection. ADACAS supports reforms that improve integrity, accountability, and sustainability. However, reform must strengthen the NDIS, not narrow it in ways that shift risk to people with disability, families, carers and already stretched service systems.

ADACAS urges the Committee to recommend that the Bill not proceed on the current compressed timetable. The Bill is too broad, complex, and consequential to be rushed. Additional time is needed for scrutiny, targeted amendments, co-design, and consultation with people with disability, families, carers, independent advocates, states and territories, and affected service systems.

ADACAS further urges the Committee to recommend that the Bill not proceed in its current form unless amended to preserve choice and control, protect self-management, maintain practical review rights, ensure fair and contextual assessment, preserve plan correction pathways, safeguard against harmful support reductions, prevent funding caps and rationing from making supports unavailable, require lived experience consultation before Ministerial funding reductions, protect people from unfair debt and record-keeping burdens, and ensure people are not left without support.

A sustainable NDIS must be sustainable for government, but also sustainable for people with disability, families, carers, advocates, workers, and communities. Sustainability cannot be achieved by reducing supports without understanding the human consequences. Reform must not recreate the pre-NDIS conditions of capped, rationed and crisis-driven disability support systems through indirect funding caps, operational restrictions or reduced practical access to necessary supports. It must be achieved through rights-based, evidence-informed, co-designed reform that protects the people the Scheme was created to serve.

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