NDIS participant with XXX disability requires stabilising supports (Participant experience)

Submission 88

Submission by

Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submitted to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Personal submission | NDIS participant

Date: 19 May 2026

Submission 88

1. About Me I make this submission in my personal capacity as a NDIS participant living with XXX disability, including XXX

My NDIS supports are not optional lifestyle supports. They are stabilising disability supports that help me remain safe, connected, functional and engaged in daily life. These supports include support coordination, capacity-building, behavioural psychology, occupational therapy, domestic assistance, personal training, and my assistance dog.

My assistance dog provides practical disability-related support, including emotional regulation, grounding, routine, safety, medication reminders, waking me during nightmares or flashbacks, alerting me if a smoke alarm goes off, and reducing social isolation. For a person living with XXX, these supports can be the difference between stability and deterioration and suicide.

I support the integrity and long-term sustainability of the NDIS. However, sustainability cannot be achieved by granting broad powers to the Minister or CEO without clear safeguards, reducing support through legislative instruments, relying on automated administrative action, or weakening the role of treating evidence and human review.

For people with psychosocial disabilities, administrative instability is not merely troublesome. Sudden loss of support, unclear decision-making, inaccessible review processes and automated decisions can create serious risks, including relapse, social isolation, loss of functional capacity, acute distress, self-harm and suicide risk.

2. Executive Summary This submission recommends that the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 should not be passed unless it is considerably amended and there is considerable input from the disability community and advocacy groups.

The Bill contains significant reforms across access, planning, reassessment, support determinations, plan suspension, permanence, alternative supports, fraud measures, pricing, automation, new framework planning and transitional rules. The Bill’s own contents show that it is not a minor or simply technical amendment. It is a broad restructuring of core participant rights, access to support, and administrative powers.

The central concern is that the Bill gives the Minister, the CEO, and future NDIS Rules significant power while leaving critical safeguards either absent, unclear, or deferred. Such powers, in detail, have not been disclosed and, when disclosed, are too broad.

This creates unacceptable risk for participants, particularly people with psychosocial disability, fluctuating capacity, trauma-related impairment, limited informal supports or high support needs.

The Bill should be amended to ensure that:

1. Participant safety is protected.

2. Treating evidence is given substantial statutory weight.

3. Adverse decisions are made by humans, not solely by algorithms or automated systems.

4. Automated systems are transparent and reviewable.

5. Participants are not suspended or revoked merely because disability makes them difficult to contact.

6. Supports are not reduced below assessed need by Ministerial instrument.

7. Other service systems are not considered available unless supports are accessible, adequate, timely, and equivalent.

8. Review rights are preserved as per the current instrument; and

9. All reforms are assessed against disability rights, procedural fairness and the Disability Discrimination Act

11. Overall Position The NDIS must be sustainable. However, sustainability must not be pursued by transferring excessive power to executive instruments, automated processes and administrative discretion.

Submission 88

Submission 88

Submission 88

5.3 Schedule 1, Part 3: Strengthening the Link Between Impairment and Need for Support

The Bill amends s 34(1)(aa) so that supports must arise directly from an impairment or impairments.

The word directly may create an overly narrow test. In psychosocial disability, the need for support often arises through the interaction between impairment, functional capacity, environment, trauma, stress, social isolation and informal support limitations.

Support may be necessary because it prevents deterioration, maintains routine, reduces isolation or assists behavioural regulation. That does not make it indirect. It may be the practical way the impairment manifests in daily life.

Suggested amendment The Act should clarify that it directly includes supports required due to the functional consequences of impairment, including psychosocial, behavioural, social, environmental, and safety-related consequences.

5.4 Schedule 1, Part 4: Ministerial Determinations Reducing Funding

Proposed s 34A allows the Minister, by legislative instrument, to determine a percentage by which funding for specified groups of supports is reduced. The Bill expressly provides that this may result in funding for reasonable and necessary supports being less than the total cost of those supports.

This is one of the most serious provisions in the Bill.

It appears to allow systemic funding reduction without individualised assessment. It also risks undermining the purpose of having supports assessed as reasonable and necessary. If support is reasonable and necessary, but funding is reduced below the cost of obtaining it, the participant may be left with an assumed entitlement but no practical access.

The Bill states that the Minister must have regard to participant safety. However, that safeguard is inadequate unless the Act defines what safety requires, how it is assessed, what evidence is required, and what individual exceptions must be available. The Minister currently does not respond to the at-risk participants in the current framework when knowing a person is at risk and experiencing suicidal thoughts.

Suggested amendment Proposed s 34A should be amended so that:

25. funding cannot be reduced below the assessed reasonable and necessary need;
26. The Minister must conduct and publish a disability impact assessment.
27. The Minister must conduct and publish a human rights compatibility assessment.
28. people with disabilities and representative organisations must be consulted;
29. Participants must have access to individual safety exceptions.
30. reductions must be disallowable and time-limited;
31. The Minister must consider suicide, self-harm, relapse, homelessness, neglect and social isolation risks;
32. Participants must have review rights where the determination affects their plan; and
33. Support categories essential to safety and psychosocial stability cannot be reduced without individual assessment.

5.5 Schedule 1, Part 5: Plan Renewal

Proposed s 50A allows old framework plans to renew automatically. The Bill provides that the renewed plan does not require a new statement of participant supports to be prepared with the participant, and that making the renewed plan does not involve making a reviewable decision.

Automatic plan renewal may be administratively efficient, but it risks excluding participants from meaningful planning. It may also continue inadequate plans, remove one-off supports, or apply Ministerial changes without genuine participant engagement.

For participants with psychosocial disability, a plan is not merely a funding document. It is stability and, in some instances, life or death. If it changes without consultation, or if support gaps are carried forward, the consequences may include acute deterioration, self-harm or suicide risk.

Submission 88

Suggested amendment The Bill should be amended to require:

34. Participant consultation before renewal;
35. accessible communication before any renewal takes effect;
36. confirmation that supports remain safe and adequate;
37. a reviewable decision where any support is removed, reduced or not renewed;
38. Specific safeguards where the participant has psychosocial disability;
39. support coordinator or nominee involvement where appropriate; and
40. Urgent review rights where the renewed plan creates a safety risk. 5.6 Schedule 1, Part 6: Reasonable and Necessary Supports

Schedule 1, Part 6 reframes reasonable and necessary supports in terms of sustainability principles, value-for money considerations, the evidence hierarchy, informal support expectations, and other service systems.

The concern is not that value for money or sustainability is irrelevant. They are relevant. The concern is that they may be applied in a way that undervalues individual evidence, lived experience, prior support outcomes and treating professional evidence.

For psychosocial disability, generalised research may not capture the individual’s functional capacity. A support may be effective for a particular participant because it prevents deterioration, maintains routine, reduces isolation, assists behavioural regulation or prevents crisis escalation.

Capacity-building and behavioural psychology should not be treated as ordinary health supports. It can be a disability support directed to function, behaviour, stability, daily living and participation.

Suggested amendment The Bill should expressly require the CEO to give substantial weight to:

41. treating clinician evidence;
42. occupational therapy evidence;
43. behavioural and functional evidence;
44. support coordinator evidence;
45. evidence of prior support outcomes;
46. lived experience evidence;
47. risk of deterioration if supports are removed; and The Act should also clarify that capacity-building and behavioural psychological supports may be reasonable and necessary NDIS supports, distinct from Medicare-funded treatment, as Medicare does not adequately fund them.

5.7 Schedule 1, Part 7: Plan Suspension and Non-Contactable Participants

Proposed s 40A allows the CEO to suspend a participant’s plan if the CEO is satisfied that reasonable attempts have been made to contact the participant and the participant is not contactable. Proposed s 30(1A) also allows the CEO to revoke participant status where the participant is not contactable, or the plan has been suspended for at least 90 days.

This is a major safety risk.

People with XXX may become difficult to contact because of disability-related shutdown, overwhelm, avoidance, hospitalisation, relapse, housing instability, fear of authority, cognitive overload or administrative exhaustion. Non-contactable should not be treated as disengagement without a proper disability-informed assessment. Support workers and support coordinators could be contacted by the agency.

Suspending supports because a person is difficult to contact may worsen the very disability-related factors causing the non-contactable provision.

Suggested amendment Before any suspension or revocation, the CEO should be required to:

Submission 88

48. contact the participant’s nominee, support coordinator or authorised representative;
49. use multiple accessible communication methods;
50. consider known psychosocial disability impacts;
51. conduct a participant safety assessment;
52. consider risk of self-harm, suicide, relapse, homelessness, neglect and isolation;
53. provide additional time where disability affects communication;
54. ensure a human officer reviews the matter who is appropriately trained;
55. prohibit suspension where there is a known acute safety risk; and
56. Reinstate supports backdated where contact is restored. Participant status should not be revoked merely because disability makes the person difficult to contact.

5.8 Schedule 1, Part 8: Permanence and Appropriate Treatment

The Bill tightens the meaning of permanence by requiring that a person has undertaken all appropriate treatment for the impairment, subject to exceptions. Proposed s 25A defines appropriate treatment as evidence-based treatment that can reliably be expected to materially improve, reverse or alleviate the impact of the impairment, and that is regularly undertaken or performed in Australia. This is too speculative and lacks clear detail. While one treatment may be beneficial to one person with the same disabilities, but not to the other.

This provision should be approached with great care, diligence, and a trauma-informed approach.

For psychosocial disability, treatment, recovery, stability and functional support are not the same thing. Recovery does not mean cure. A person may remain permanently impaired even if treatment assists stability. A person may also remain stable because disability supports are in place.

The key question should not be whether an administrative decision-maker believes further treatment exists in theory. The question should be whether the person’s own treating clinicians consider that treatment clinically appropriate, safe, available and likely to materially change functional impairment. A NDIA officer is an administrative person, not a medical professional. If the agency relies on administrative decision makers, it should bear the risk of any impact on the participant.

Suggested amendment The Bill should be amended to provide that:

57. The treating clinician’s evidence must be given substantial weight.

58. treatment adequacy should not be determined by non-clinical administrative decision-makers;

59. Participants are not penalised for declining treatment that is unsafe, retraumatising, clinically inappropriate, unavailable, unaffordable, ineffective or inconsistent with informed consent;

60. Ongoing treatment does not mean the impairment is not permanent.

61. stability achieved through supports must not be used as evidence that supports are unnecessary; and

62. Recovery-oriented practice must not be misused as a basis for denying permanent disability. 5.9 Schedule 1, Part 9: Alternative Support Requirements

Proposed s 25B introduces alternative support requirements and excludes impairments, including those caused by motor vehicle accidents and work-related injuries, where compensation or other benefits are available under another law.

The existence of another scheme does not mean the participant has actual access to timely, adequate, equivalent or safe supports. Workers’ compensation, motor accident, health and other systems can be delayed, contested, limited, capped, adversarial or unsuitable for long-term functional disability support. However, it is supported that a participant cannot double-dip and benefit from both systems. If a compensation pathway is available, this should have priority; however, the context of an insurer’s behaviour in claims management needs to be considered.

Participants should not fall between systems.

Suggested amendment

Submission 88

Before excluding a person or revoking access based on another system, the CEO should be required to prove that the alternative support is:

63. available;
64. timely;
65. equivalent;
66. adequate;
67. accessible;
68. safe;
69. not merely assumed; and
70. capable of meeting the person’s functional disability support needs. The NDIS should remain a safety-net funder for cases where another system is ideally responsible but fails to provide an equivalent level of support. Again, I do not support double-dipping.

5.10 Schedule 2: Fraud Measures

Schedule 2 deals with fraud measures, including provider registration, civil penalties, regulatory powers, information gathering, record retention, reducing claim times, and registered plan management providers.

Fraud control is legitimate. Participants also need the scheme to be protected from exploitation. However, fraud control must not become a justification for excessive information demands, inaccessible processes, fear based administration or punishment of participants for provider conduct. The agency needs to be held accountable for its failure to govern. This is a driving factor of the instability of the Scheme.

Participants with psychosocial disability may be particularly vulnerable to administrative burden, complex forms, threatening notices or unclear compliance processes.

Suggested amendment Fraud and integrity measures should be amended to ensure:

71. Participants are not punished for provider misconduct unless they knowingly participated.
72. information-gathering powers are proportionate;
73. Privacy safeguards are expressed.
74. notices are accessible and trauma-informed;
75. Participants are given support to respond.
76. vulnerable participants are protected from unnecessary compliance burden; and
77. Integrity measures do not delay essential disability supports. 5.11 Schedule 3, Part 1: Pricing

Schedule 3 includes governance arrangements, including decision-making on pricing.

Pricing decisions affect whether services are available. If prices are set too low, providers may withdraw, particularly from complex psychosocial support, regional areas, support coordination, behavioural supports or work involving participants with higher risk and fluctuating needs. The current Psychology price does not cover the costs of a consultation; it is significantly below the recommended rate of $318-$330 per hour.

A support that is funded in a plan but unavailable in the market is not truly accessible.

Suggested amendment Pricing decisions should require:

78. participant safety assessment;
79. market impact assessment;
80. psychosocial support impact assessment;
81. regional and thin-market analysis;

Submission 88

82. consultation with providers and their industry body;
83. specific consideration of support coordination and behavioural supports; and
84. monitoring of service withdrawal after pricing changes. 5.12 Schedule 3, Part 2: Automation of Administrative Action

Schedule 3, Part 2, concerns the automation of administrative action.

The Bill requires the CEO to take reasonable steps to ensure that administrative action taken by a computer program is one the CEO could validly take. It also requires notification that a computer program acted, whereas another provision requires notice of that administrative action. However, the Bill also provides that failure to comply with these requirements does not affect the validity of the administrative action.

The Bill also requires publication of an automation arrangement on the Agency’s website and the inclusion of certain automation information in the Agency’s annual report.

These safeguards are insufficient.

Automated decision-making can be especially dangerous where records are incomplete, inaccurate, misunderstood or out of context. For participants with psychosocial disability, data may not capture fluctuating capacity, trauma impacts, support history, risk of deterioration, informal support breakdown or the clinical benefit to the individual.

The concern is not merely whether a computer program can process information efficiently. The concern is whether the participant can understand, test and challenge the logic used against them.

Suggested amendment The Bill should prohibit fully automated adverse decisions affecting:

85. access;

86. plan funding;

87. support reductions;

88. suspension;

89. revocation;

90. payments;

91. debt;

92. review rights; or

93. reasonable and necessary supports. Where automation is used, the participant should receive:

94. a plain-English statement that automation was used;

95. The data inputs relied upon;

96. the rules or logic applied;

97. any risk flags or assumptions used;

98. an explanation of how the outcome was reached;

99. a right to correct data before an adverse decision takes effect;

100. a right to human reconsideration;

101. a right to a full ART review 5.13 Schedule 4: New Framework Planning and Assessments

Schedule 4 includes new framework planning amendments. The Bill provides that assessments may be undertaken by Agency staff, Agency consultants, or persons prescribed by NDIS Rules.

The problem is that the Bill does not itself prescribe adequate minimum qualifications, independence requirements, disability-specific expertise or trauma-informed safeguards.

Submission 88

For psychosocial disability, assessment by an unfamiliar person without appropriate mental health expertise may be unsafe, inaccurate and retraumatising. It may also undervalue treating evidence from people who know the participant over time.

Suggested amendment The Act should define a suitably qualified person in the primary legislation. For psychosocial disability, assessments should be undertaken by appropriately qualified mental health clinicians or professionals with demonstrated psychosocial disability expertise. The Bill should require:

102. substantial weight to treating evidence;
103. written evidence-based reasons where treating evidence is not accepted;
104. independent clinical review where the Agency disagrees with treating evidence;
105. trauma-informed assessment practice;
106. assessment matching to disability type;
107. support person or nominee involvement where requested; and
108. accessible assessment communication. 5.14 Schedule 5: Transitional Rules

Schedule 5 allows the Minister to make transitional rules by legislative instrument, including rules that prescribe saving or application provisions and modify how specified provisions operate. The rules are time limited and cannot create offences, civil penalties, arrest or detention powers, entry, search or seizure powers, taxes, appropriations or directly amend the text of an Act.

Even with those limits, transitional provisions can be highly consequential. Participants should not lose support, review rights, or access due to unclear transition rules.

Suggested amendment Transitional rules should include:

109. no loss of support without individual review;
110. no adverse transition without accessible notice;
111. preservation of existing review rights;
112. continuation of support during review;
113. Specific psychosocial disability safeguards and trauma-trained decision makers;
114. support coordinator and nominee involvement;
115. plain-English communication; and
116. publication of all transitional rules before participant-affecting provisions commence.
117. Disability Discrimination Act 1992 The Bill should be reviewed for compatibility with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth).

The DDA is relevant because inaccessible processes, automated decision-making, failure to make reasonable adjustments, non-contact provisions and removal of supports may disproportionately affect people with disability.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 includes provisions concerning carers, assistants, assistance animals and disability aids. Section 29 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) governs the administration of Commonwealth laws and programs.

The Bill should be amended to ensure that NDIS processes do not indirectly discriminate against participants with psychosocial disability by requiring communication, compliance, assessment, or review steps that they cannot reasonably complete without support or adjustment.

Submission 88

7. UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities The Bill should be assessed against CRPD principles, including dignity, autonomy, participation, accessibility, equality, non-discrimination, supported decision-making, inclusion in the community, and protection from neglect and exploitation.

A Bill that allows supports to be reduced, suspended or automated without clear human safeguards risks moving away from those principles.

8. Questions for Committee Consideration Given the breadth of the Bill and the degree to which core safeguards are deferred to future Rules, instruments or administrative arrangements, I respectfully ask the Committee to require clear answers to the following questions before recommending that the Bill proceed.

8.1 Participant Safety

117. What statutory safeguards prevent a participant’s supports being reduced, suspended or revoked where that may create risk of relapse, self-harm, suicide, homelessness, neglect or social isolation?

118. How will the NDIA identify participants with psychosocial disability who may become uncontactable because of disability-related shutdown, crisis, hospitalisation, overwhelm or trauma response?

119. Before suspending a plan under proposed s 40A, will the CEO be required to contact the participant’s nominee, support coordinator, treating professionals or authorised representative?

120. What evidence will be required before the CEO can be satisfied that suspension or revocation will not place the participant at material risk of harm?

8.2 Ministerial Funding Reduction Powers

121. Why should the Minister be able to reduce funding for groups of supports by legislative instrument, where the Bill expressly contemplates that the participant may then receive less than the full cost of reasonable and necessary supports?

122. What legal limit prevents a funding reduction from making a participant’s plan practically unusable and unsafe?

123. Will participants have individual review rights if a Ministerial determination reduces their practical access to supports, and what will those rights look like?

124. Will the Minister be required to publish a disability impact assessment, psychosocial disability impact assessment and human rights compatibility assessment before making a funding reduction determination?

8.3 Functional Capacity

125. Why does proposed s 9B assess functional capacity by excluding, as far as possible, environmental and personal circumstances, when those circumstances are often central to psychosocial disability?

126. How will the Bill ensure that people with C-PTSD, MDD, GAD and other psychosocial disabilities are assessed according to their real-world functioning, not an artificial assessment environment?

127. How will fluctuating capacity be assessed?

128. How will the NDIA account for the functional role of support coordinators, behavioural supports, domestic assistance and other stabilising supports?

8.4 Treatment, Permanence and Psychosocial Disability

129. Who decides whether a participant has undertaken all appropriate treatment for the purposes of proposed s 25A, and if it is the agency, will they be responsible for any injury or death to a participant?

130. What weight will be given to the opinion of the participant’s treating psychiatrist, GP, psychologist, occupational therapist or other long-term treating professional?

131. How will the Bill prevent administrative decision-makers from treating psychosocial disability as non- permanent merely because treatment exists in theory?

132. How will the Bill distinguish between treatment, recovery, stability and functional disability support?

133. Will participants be protected from being penalised for not undertaking treatment that is clinically inappropriate, not recommended by their treatment team, unsafe, retraumatising, unavailable, unaffordable or inconsistent with informed consent?

Submission 88

8.5 Treating Evidence and Assessments

134. Why does the Bill not define a suitably qualified person in the Act itself?

135. For psychosocial disability, will assessors be required to have specialist mental health qualifications and trauma-informed training, if not, why not?

136. What prevents a short administrative assessment from overriding years of treating evidence?

137. Will the NDIA be required to provide written reasons if it rejects treating evidence, and how it made its decisions against treating the evidence?

138. Will participants have the right to an independent clinical review when the NDIA disagrees with the treating evidence, and to a full ART review?

8.6 Automated Decision-Making

139. What decisions will computer programs be permitted to make or assist with?

140. Will any adverse participant-affecting decisions be made solely by an automated program?

141. Will participants be told when automation has been used?

142. Will participants receive a plain-English statement of logic that explains the data inputs, assumptions, rules, risk flags, and reasoning used by the tool?

143. How will participants challenge the logic of an automated or computer-assisted decision?

144. How will the NDIA prevent automated systems from relying on incorrect, incomplete or outdated participant records?

145. Will automated systems be independently audited for bias, disability discrimination and error?

146. Will automated decisions be subject to a full ART review, not just a referral back to the agency?

8.7 Review Rights and Procedural Fairness

147. Which decisions under the Bill will not be reviewable?
148. Does automatic plan renewal under proposed s 50A reduce or avoid participant review rights?

149.  If a renewed plan is removed, reduced, or fails to continue support, will the participant receive a

reviewable decision?

150. Will participants continue to receive existing supports while their review or appeal rights are being exercised?

151. What accessible communication standards will apply to notices, reasons and review information?

152. Is the ART capable of making its own decision, or will the rules prohibit it, and if so, how and why?

8.8 Alternative Supports and Service Gaps

153. Before excluding a person because of workers’ compensation, motor accident compensation or another support system, will the NDIA be required to prove that the alternative support is available, timely, equivalent, adequate and safe?

154. What happens when another system is hypothetically responsible but delayed, contested, capped, inaccessible or unsuitable?

155. How will the Bill prevent participants from falling between systems, and does the Bill consider total future exclusion if a person has received a compensation payment?

8.9 Disability Rights, DDA and UN CRPD

156. Has the Bill been assessed for compatibility with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, including indirect discrimination against people with psychosocial disability?

157. Has the Bill been assessed against the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?

158. How does the Bill align with the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations concerning supported decision-making, safety, autonomy, inclusion and freedom from neglect?

159. How will the Bill ensure that administrative efficiency does not override human dignity, disability rights and procedural fairness?

8.10 Commencement and Transition

160. Why should participant-affecting provisions commence before the relevant Rules, safeguards, review pathways, communication standards and operational guidance are publicly available?

161. Will commencement be delayed until participants and advocates can understand how the new powers will operate?

Submission 88

162. What protections will apply to existing participants during transition?

163. Will any participant lose support, access or review rights because of transitional provisions? If these questions cannot be answered clearly, publicly and in a way that protects participants, the Committee should not recommend passage of the Bill in its current form.

164. Recommendations Recommendation 1: Do not pass the Bill unless substantially amended. The Committee should recommend that the Bill not proceed in its current form because it grants broad powers to the Minister and the CEO without sufficient statutory safeguards, transparency, human review, or participant protections.

Recommendation 2: Insert a statutory participant safety test. No plan reduction, suspension, access revocation, support determination, automated action or alternative support exclusion should occur unless the CEO is satisfied, on proper medical evidence, that the decision will not expose the participant to material risk of harm, relapse, homelessness, social isolation, neglect, self-harm or suicide.

Recommendation 3: Protect psychosocial disability participants from unsafe loss of supports. The Act should expressly recognise that participants with C-PTSD, MDD, GAD and other psychosocial disabilities may experience fluctuating capacity, administrative overwhelm, trauma responses, avoidance, shutdown and crisis periods. These disability impacts must not be treated as non-cooperation or disengagement.

Recommendation 4: Amend proposed s 9B so that functional capacity is assessed in real life. Functional capacity should be assessed in the participant’s ordinary living context, including environmental barriers, support needs, trauma impacts, social isolation, informal support limitations and the real-world consequences of removing supports.

Recommendation 5: Amend proposed s 34A to prevent systemic funding cuts below assessed need. The Minister should not be able to reduce funding for support groups that result in a participant being unable to afford supports that have already been accepted as reasonable and necessary or determined by a medical professional.

Recommendation 6: Protect review rights for automatic plan renewal. Automatic plan renewal should not be used to avoid participant consultation or review rights. If a renewed plan removes, reduces or fails to continue necessary supports, the participant should have an express reviewable decision and access to a full ART review.

Recommendation 7: Strengthen safeguards before any suspension for being not contactable. Before suspension under the proposed s 40A, the CEO should be required to contact the participant’s nominee, support coordinator, or authorised representative; use accessible communication methods; consider the impacts of any known psychosocial disability; and conduct a safety assessment.

Recommendation 8: Remove or narrow revocation for non-contact. Participant status should not be revoked merely because a person has been difficult to contact, particularly where disability may explain the difficulty of contact.

Recommendation 9: Give substantial statutory weight to treating evidence. The Act should require the NDIA to give substantial weight to evidence from the participant’s treating psychiatrist, GP, psychologist, occupational therapist and other long-term treating or support professionals.

Recommendation 10: Clarify that treatment decisions belong to treating clinicians and participants. The appropriate treatment provisions should be amended so that treatment adequacy is determined primarily by treating clinicians rather than administrative decision-makers.

Recommendation 11: Distinguish treatment, recovery and disability support.

Submission 88

For psychosocial disability, recovery does not mean a cure. A person may be clinically stable because supports are in place. That stability should not be used as a reason to remove supports.

Recommendation 12: Prohibit fully automated adverse decisions. No adverse decision affecting access, plan funding, support reduction, suspension, revocation, payment or review rights should be made solely by algorithms and untrained medically qualified professionals.

Recommendation 13: Require algorithmic transparency and a statement of logic. Where automated or computer-assisted action is used, the participant should receive a plain-English explanation of the data inputs, rules, assumptions, risk flags, model logic, and human-review pathway.

Recommendation 14: Ensure automation complies with disability rights and supported decision making principles. Automation must be assessed against the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations concerning autonomy, safety, accessibility and supported decision-making. They must comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

Recommendation 15: Require DDA compatibility assessment. The Bill should be reviewed for compatibility with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, including the risk that inaccessible communication, automation, non-contactability provisions and unsupported assessment processes may indirectly discriminate against people with psychosocial disability.

Recommendation 16: Require UN CRPD compatibility assessment. The Bill should be assessed against the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, particularly regarding dignity, autonomy, participation, accessibility, equality, and non-discrimination.

Recommendation 17: Require proof that alternative supports are available. Before excluding or revoking access due to workers’ compensation, motor accident, or other alternative schemes, the CEO should be required to prove that the alternative support is available, timely, equivalent, adequate, accessible, and safe.

Recommendation 19: Include a no-gap safety net. Where another system is theoretically responsible but does not provide timely or adequate support, the NDIS should remain responsible as a safety-net funder until the alternative scheme provides equivalent support.

Recommendation 20: Require trauma-informed administration. The Act should require trauma-informed communication and decision-making for participants with psychosocial disabilities, and staff should be required to undergo specialised training.

Recommendation 21: Require an independent clinical review where NDIA disagrees with the treating evidence. If the NDIA or a medically qualified assessor disagrees with the treating clinician’s evidence, there should be an automatic right to independent clinical review by a suitably qualified clinician in the relevant field before any adverse decision takes effect.

Recommendation 22: Define a suitably qualified person in the Act. The Bill should not leave core assessment qualifications to future rules. For psychosocial disability, the Act should require appropriate mental health qualifications, trauma-informed training and demonstrated psychosocial disability expertise.

Recommendation 23: Preserve access to behavioural and capacity-building psychological supports. The Act should clarify that behavioural and capacity-building psychological supports may be reasonable and necessary disability supports, distinct from Medicare-funded treatment.

Recommendation 24: Require plain-English reasons for all adverse decisions. Every adverse decision should include clear reasons, the evidence relied upon and rejected, applicable legislative criteria, review rights, and timeframes.

Submission 88

Recommendation 25: Delay commencement until safeguards are enacted. Participant-affecting provisions should not commence until rules, safeguards, review pathways, communication standards and disability impact assessments are publicly available.

10. Conclusion The NDIS must be financially sustainable, but it must also remain safe, lawful, transparent and human.

The Bill currently gives too much power to rules, instruments, automation, and administrative discretion, while providing too little protection for the people whose lives depend on the Scheme.

For participants with psychosocial disability, the risks are not speculative. Loss of support can mean relapse, isolation, deterioration, self-harm or suicide. The Committee should not recommend passage of this Bill unless it is substantially amended to protect participant safety, treating evidence, review rights, supports, human decision-making and disability rights.

sincerely

XXXX

Date: 19 May 2026