Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment\ruder(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations)\Bill 2026
Submitted by Australian Disability Ltd
- Submitted by \tAustralian Disability Ltd
- ABN \t[insert ABN]
- Authorised representative \t[insert name and role]
- Date \t[insert date]
- Contact \t[insert email / phone]
- Publication \tAustralian Disability Ltd consents to publication of this submission, with personal contact details removed.
Source note: This submission responds to the Bill text supplied as: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing\ruderthe NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. Clause references below refer to that Bill text.
national Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 | Page 1
Australian Disability Ltd Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securring the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
Australian Disability Ltd welcomes the opportunity to provide this submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
Australian Disability Ltd is [insert one-sentence description, for example: “a disability organisation working with people with disability, families, carers and the broader disability community across Australia”]. Our submission is informed by the experiences of disabled people, families, carers, supporters and communities who rely on the NDIS as essential public infrastructure.
the NDIS is not simply a program of funded supports. It is a mechanism through which disabled people exercise rights to independence, communication, safety, work, education, parenting, family life, social connection and community participation. Any reform to the Scheme must therefore be judged not only by fiscal or administrative efficiency, but by whether it strengthens or weakens the rights, safety and everyday lives of disabled people.
Australian Disability Ltd supports reform that improves integrity, prevents exploitation, addresses fraud, improves provider accountability and makes the Scheme easier to navigate. However, we are deeply concerned that the Bill, in its current form, goes well beyond targeted integrity reform. The Bill proposes substantial changes to access, planning, reassessment, funding, treatment expectations, alternative supports, pricing, automation, compliance and transitional rule-making.
Bill reference: The Bill is structured across Schedule 1 (access and planning measures), Schedule 2 (fraud measures), Schedule 3 (governance arrangements), Schedule 4 (new framework planning), and Schedule 5 (transitional rules).
The Australian Disability Ltd submits that the Bill should not be passed in its current form.
Executive summary
Australian Disability Ltd recognises the importance of Scheme sustainability. A sustainable NDIS is essential for current and future generations of disabled people. But sustainability cannot be achieved by shifting risk, cost and administrative burden onto disabled people, families and carers.
the Bill contains some measures that may have merit, particularly measures aimed at provider integrity, conflict-of-interest management and fraud prevention. However, these measures are bundled with provisions that risk narrowing access, reducing plan funding, limiting reassessment, weakening review rights, increasing reliance on families, excluding people because treatment or alternative systems theoretically exist, and expanding automated decision-making in high-stakes areas.
Austrian Disability Ltd’s position is that the Bill should be substantially amended, and that the Committee should recommend that the Government split the Bill so that urgent integrity measures can be considered separately from measures that affect participant access, funding, planning and review rights.
Recommendations
- Recommend that the Bill not be passed in its current form.
- Recommend that the Government split the Bill, so that targeted anti-fraud and provider integrity measures are considered separately from measures that affect access, planning, reassassessment, funding and review rights.
- Require further disability-led consultation before any major access, planning, assessment or funding reforms proceed.
- Amend the proposed definition of functional capacity so that capacity is assessed in real-world contexts, with ordinary supports, assistive technology, communication access and environmental factors taken into account.
- Remove or substantially constrain proposed section 34A, which would allow the Minister to reduce funding for groups of supports, including in circumstances where funding for reasonable and necessary supports is less than the total cost of those supports.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securring the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 4282
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securring the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 4262
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securring the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 4262
- accessible communication is provided.
8. Reassessment must remain available when life changes
The Bill narrows the conditions for participant-requested reassessment. It requires significant change to ongoing\support needs arising from eligible impairments, and confines personal or environmental changes to unanticipated,\significant and ongoing alterations in living arrangements, education, work or informal support networks.\par
Bill reference: Schedule 1, Part 2, item 21, proposed section 48A; item 19, amendment to subsection 48(3), changing the response period to 90 days where the conditions are satisfied.
Australian Disability Ltd is concerned that this does not reflect how crisis occurs.
Participants may urgently need reassessment because of provider collapse, carer illness, family violence, school exclusion, hospital discharge, transport failure, assistive technology breakdown, communication support loss,\housing insecurity, rural market failure, behavioural escalation or safeguarding concerns.
Australian Disability Ltd recommends that the Bill include an urgent reassessment pathway where delay creates risk of harm, loss of housing, family breakdown, hospitalisation, service collapse, restrictive practice, neglect or loss of essential support.
9. Treatment provisions must not punish people for inaccessible health care
The Bill proposes to tighten the meaning of permanence by requiring a person to have undertaken all appropriate treatment. It also provides that treatment may be considered appropriate regardless of whether the person’s individual circumstances restrict access, including financial circumstances and geographic location.\par
Bill reference: Schedule 1, Part 8, item 92, proposed section 25A; items 89 and 91, proposed subsections 24(5) and 25(1B).
Australian Disability Ltd strongly opposes this approach.
A person should not be denied NDIS access because a treatment exists somewhere in Australia but is not actually available to them. Treatment may be unaffordable, geographically inaccessible, clinically unsuitable, culturally unsafe, traumatising, unavailable through public health, subject to long waitlists or inappropriate for the person’s disability and communication needs.
Australian Disability Ltd recommends that treatment only be considered appropriate if it is:
- actually available to the person;
- affordable or publicly funded;
- clinically suitable;
- safe;
- culturally safe;
- accessible in the person’s location;
- supported by treating clinicians;
- not experimental, coercive or disproportionate.
10. Alternative supports must be real, not theoretical
The Bill introduces alternative support requirements and excluded impairments, including impairments connected to motor vehicle accidents, workplace injuries and supports declared by NDIS rules to be alternative supports. It also allows participant status to be revoked where the CEO is satisfied the person does not meet alternative support requirements.\par
Bill reference: Schedule 1, Part 9, item 97, proposed section 25B; item 98, proposed paragraph 30(1)(c).
Australian Disability Ltd Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Submission 4282
Australian Disability Ltd Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Submission 4282
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securring the NIDS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Australian Disability Ltd is deeply concerned by the breadth of this proposal.
NDIS decisions can determine whether a person can get out of bed, communicate, eat, shower, leave the house, attend school, work, parent, stay safe or avoid hospital. These are not ordinary administrative transactions. They equire context, judgement and accountability.
australian disability ltd recommends that automated decision-making be prohibited for:
- access decisions;
- participant status;
- plan budgets;
- support approval;
- payment refusal;
- debt;
- suspension;
- revocation;
- compliance action;- reviewable decisions.
at minimum, any use of automation must include notice, reasons, human review before adverse effect, independent audit, public reporting, bias testing and accessible appeal rights.
13. Pricing and incorporated documents need stronger parliamentary oversight
the bill would give the minister power to determine maximum amounts or methods for determining maximumamounts for the acquisition or provision of ndis supports or classes of supports. it also allows determinationsand rules to apply, adopt or incorporate documents as in force from time to time, including documentcreated for that purpose, with those documents published on the agency website but not treatedas legislative instruments.
bill reference: schedule 3, part 1, item 4, proposed section 45c; item 2, proposed subsections 33(2g) and 33(2h);item 8, proposed subsections 209(2aa) and 209(2ab).
pricing decisions are not administrative footnotes. they affect whether providers can deliver safe supports,whether participants can find workers, whether rural and remote supports are viable, and whether complexsupports remain available in thin markets.
australian disability ltd recommends that pricing instruments and incorporated documents bepublic, accessible, disallowable where they affect rights or funding, subject to disability-ledconsultation, and accompanied by participant impact statements.
14. New framework planning must not become standardised rationing
schedule 4 would allow funding amounts in new framework plans to be worked out by methodsspecified in ndis rules, including methods that identify supports, levels of need andfunding amounts for levels of need. The bill states that a funding amount may bemore than, equal to or less than the actual cost of providing or acquiringthe supportor class of supports.
bill reference: Schedule 4, item 4, proposed subsections 32k(3b) to 32k(3e). consistency is valuable. butconsistency without individualisation is uniform unfairness witha spreadsheet hat.
australian Disability Ltd recommends that new frameworkplanning preserve individualized assessment, allows exceptionswhere formulaic budgetsare insufficient, require transparentand validatedassessment tools, permit evidence from trusted supporters andprofessionals, and guarantee merits review offunding outcomes.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 4263
15. Transitional rules require safeguards
The Schedule 5 would allow the Minister to make transitional rules, including rules that modify how provisions of the\NIDS Act and provisions of the Bill operate during transition. Although the rules are time-limited and cannot create offences, civil penalties, arrest, detention, search, seizure, taxation, appropriations or directly amend the text of an Act, they remain a broad transitional power.
Bill reference: Schedule 5, item 1.
Transitional arrangements will determine how participants experience reform in practice. They must be transparent, ights-compatible and accessible.
Australian Disability Ltd recommends that transitional rules be disallowable, published in accessible formats,\subject to consultation, accompanied by continuity-of-support safeguards, and designed to avoid adverse change without notice, reasons and review rights.
16. What should proceed
the Bill should not proceed as a single package. Some reforms deserve separate, urgent consideration, particularly measures aimed at provider exploitation, conflicts of interest, plan management integrity and serious fraud.\nHowever, these should be separated from provisions that:
- restrict access;
- narrow functional capacity;
- reduce funding;
- allow supports to be funded below cost;
- limit reassessment;
- automate high-stakes decisions;
- weaken review rights;
- shift support obligations to families;
- exclude people because treatment or alternative systems theoretically exist.
a fairer pathway would be to pass a targeted integrity bill focused on provider misconduct and participant\nsafeguards, co-design access and planning reforms with disabled people, legislate mainstream and foundational \ndupport obligations before excluding people from the NDIS, independently test assessment tools and funding methods,\nfund advocacy, navigation and communication access before reforms commence, and return to Parliament with a narrower, ights-compatible bill.
17. Conclusion
Australian Disability Ltd supports a sustainable, safe and fair NDIS. We support reform that prevents fraud,\nimproves provider accountability and protects participants from exploitation.
The bill, as drafted, creates serious risks. It narrows access, permits underfunding, restricts reassessment,\nweakens review rights, expands Ministerial and rule-making power, shifts pressure onto families and mainstream
systems, and enables automation in high-stakes areas.\n
the NDIS should be secured for future generations by strengthening trust, rights, safety, evidence, accountability
and co-design. it should not be secured by making the Scheme harder to enter, harder to navigate and easier to ration.
Australian Disability Ltd therefore recommends that the Committee advise the Senate that the Bill should not be passed in its current form.
Australian Disability Ltd Submission
signed:
[Name] [Position] Australian Disability Ltd
[Date]