News

The Senate Inquiry on the NDIS Bill has concluded. Despite all the submissions, consultations and interviews that repeatedly spotlighted the major problems with the Bill, the committee recommended that it be passed without any changes. 

WATCH: Senator Steele-John on the impact of the cuts

Like many, we have serious concerns what this means for NDIS participants and people with disability, informed in large part by Tenant Voice’s Reference Groups, whose knowledge and expertise led to our own submission. 

Our own Stacey Copas, facilitator for Tenant Voice NSW joined our colleague Allan Blackwood from YPINHA, along with representatives from the Summer Foundation, to give evidence to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for the NDIS Bill. 

WATCH: Tenant Voice at the Senate

Concerns

Tenant Voice does not support the means that this Bill adopts to make the scheme financially sustainable, specifically in relation to home and living supports and the new ministerial powers over funding and worker ratios.

We also expressed member concern that there is major overreach in this Bill and that more time and design effort was needed to achieve the government’s stated goal. 

We highlighted two provisions that, together, put at direct risk the SIL and Onsite Shared Support (OSS) arrangements that make independent SDA living possible:

• The new Ministerial power to reduce funding for groups of supports by legislative instrument (new section 34A), which is exempt from sunsetting and not subject to merits review; and
• The new Ministerial power to set maximum worker-to-participant ratios for any support or class of supports by legislative instrument (new subsection 33(2EA)(c)), which will be used to shape the commissioning model for home and living supports commencing July 2026.

We recommended that:

1. The power enabling a Minister to cut funding for any group of supports under section 34A, must be abandoned. Instead of such an overreach, the government needs to re-open co-design with Scheme participants and their organisations to monitor other changes and work on proposals to secure the NDIS that are consistent with the objectives of the NDIS Act 2013. 
2. Any instrument setting a maximum worker-to-participant ratio must treat SDA apartment OSS as a separate model from congregate group home SIL. Additionally, Tenant Voice urged that Ratio instruments under subsection 33(2EA)(c) must expire after three years. Three years is long enough to give providers and participants stability, but short enough to require Parliament to consider whether the ratio is still appropriate 

In addition to these concerns, we also expressed problems with the commissioned home and living model and made additional recommendations aligned with Sam Paior’s excellent senate submission. The full submission can be read here.

Wins and Losses

First and foremost, SDA is unchanged in this Bill. The submission that Tenant Voice did, the work we did presenting with the YPINHA and Summer Foundation meant that there’s the SDA carve out. That’s a big success. When SDA tenants shout in unison, things happen!

While Tenant Voice recommended that ministerial powers to cut funding was to be scrapped entirely, some limits were placed, restricting the cuts to social, community and civic participation. Therefore, support determinations can no longer be used to cut daily living, transport, consumables, assistive technology or home modifications. 

Providers are also now banned from offering or giving an inducement or kickback where it would be likely to encourage someone to start, keep, or increase their use of that provider’s services. 

63 amendments to the Bill were made last minute before its passage and they broadly fell among the following categories:

Protections added for high-needs participants

• A new escalation pathway letting participants who need 24-hour continuous care appeal ministerial funding decisions that affect them, shielding this group from the community-participation budget cuts.

Fraud and provider integrity

• New aggravated integrity offences, including obtaining funds by deception, giving false information, misusing a position as a participant’s nominee, and intentionally destroying records.
• A ban on kickbacks and new whistleblower protections for people reporting fraud or misconduct.. 

Automated decision-making

• Extra transparency requirements around the NDIA’s use of automated systems in decisions, though the practice itself wasn’t banned — a point ACOSS specifically criticised, invoking the Robodebt scandal as a cautionary comparison.

Treatment requirements narrowed

• The eligibility test was softened so applicants only need to have exhausted publicly funded treatments (not all possible treatments) before being assessed as permanently impaired, with restrictive practices excluded from counting as valid treatment.

Other administrative changes

• Separation of plan-management funding in new plans, and adjustments to debt and reassessment processes.

Unfortunately, among the amendments, there is none protecting plan rollovers. Unspent funds will no longer roll over into your next plan starting 1 February 2027.

WATCH: Senator Steele-John on the impact of the cuts

This Bill is a betrayal of the disabled community. The deep cuts to community participation, ministerial powers to cut funding amounts even up to 99%, tightened eligibility, extra hoops to jump through to get further supports or AT, and hundreds of thousands kicked off the scheme with little supports to take its place – these are the damaging changes.

They will hurt disabled Australians in countless ways. Staying together as a community, staying informed, staying motivated, is more important now than ever. The Bill has passed into law. Now, advocacy both for yourself and others is the only thing that will keep our NDIS ours.