The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 (Bill) represents one of the most significant proposed reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme since the NDIS commenced.
Much has already been written about the financial sustainability of the NDIS and the need to address fraud, misuse and escalating costs. Those are legitimate concerns. Any publicly funded scheme requires accountability and sustainability if it is to continue serving future generations.
However, after reviewing the Bill and preparing my own submissions, I have become increasingly concerned that the debate risks focusing almost exclusively on expenditure while overlooking a more fundamental question: what kind of scheme does Australia want the NDIS to be?
I write from three perspectives.
I am a lawyer with experience in NDIS and administrative law. I am also a disability advocate who works daily with participants, families and providers navigating the practical realities of the NDIS. Finally, I am the parent of a child with multiple disabilities who relies on the NDIS to access supports that make participation in everyday life possible.
Those perspectives inevitably shape how I view the proposed reforms.
At a legal level, one of the most striking features of the Bill is the significant increase in executive discretion. Many concepts central to participant rights and funding decisions are left to future rules, ministerial determinations or undefined statutory concepts. Terms such as “financial sustainability”, “appropriate treatment”, “alternative supports”, “comparable supports” and “equitable distribution of funding” appear repeatedly throughout the Bill, yet many remain largely undefined.
Lawyers are trained to look for certainty. Participants need certainty too. They need to understand what evidence is required, what supports may be funded and how decisions will be made. The more discretion that is introduced without clear legislative guidance, the greater the risk of inconsistency, uncertainty and litigation.
Perhaps the most significant philosophical shift within the Bill is the elevation of financial sustainability as a guiding principle. Proposed amendments would allow funding reductions for the purpose of ensuring the financial sustainability of the scheme, even where supports would otherwise meet the criteria of being reasonable and necessary.
This raises questions about the future meaning of “reasonable and necessary supports”, a concept that has sat at the heart of the NDIS since its inception.
For participants and families, however, the issue is far more practical.
Supports are not abstract budget items. They determine whether a child can attend school safely. They determine whether an adult can live independently, participate in the community, maintain employment or avoid hospitalisation. There is a significant difference between ensuring sustainability and expressly legislating that reasonable and necessary supports may remain unfunded.
Another concern is the gradual movement away from individualisation.
The original vision of the NDIS was built around the idea that disability support should be tailored to the individual. The proposed reforms introduce greater reliance on funding caps, support intensity limits, group-based supports and assumptions regarding family and informal care.
Group-based supports may work extremely well for some participants. For others, they may be inappropriate or unsafe. Disability is rarely neat, predictable or standardised. The more the system relies upon actuarial assumptions and broad categories, the greater the risk that participants with complex or atypical needs will fall through the cracks.
As a parent, I am particularly concerned about provisions relating to permanence and appropriate treatment. The Bill proposes that treatment may still be considered “appropriate treatment” even where a person’s financial circumstances or geographic location restrict access to that treatment.
That provision may appear administratively efficient on paper. In practice, it creates profound inequities.
Families already spend years navigating waiting lists, travelling long distances and privately funding therapies that are unavailable through public systems. To suggest that a treatment remains “appropriate” even when it is financially or geographically inaccessible risks disconnecting legislative assumptions from lived reality.
The Bill also raises broader constitutional and rule of law considerations.
Several amendments appear directed towards narrowing or reversing the practical effects of recent Federal Court and Administrative Review Tribunal decisions that expanded participant protections or clarified participant rights. Parliament is entitled to amend legislation. That is not controversial.
What is concerning is the cumulative effect of increasing executive discretion, narrowing statutory language, reducing reviewability and limiting the practical impact of independent oversight. In administrative law, independent review is not an inconvenience. It is a safeguard.
This issue becomes particularly important in a scheme where many participants are vulnerable, access to legal representation is inconsistent and the consequences of adverse decisions can be life changing.
The proposed provisions regarding automated decision-making also warrant scrutiny. The NDIS involves complex human circumstances that cannot always be reduced to data points and algorithms. As Australia learned through the Robo Debt Royal Commission, automated systems operating without adequate transparency, human oversight and procedural fairness can have devastating consequences.
None of this is to suggest that reform is unnecessary.
The NDIS unquestionably requires sustainability, accountability and safeguards against misuse. However, sustainability should not become a substitute for individualised decision-making, procedural fairness or meaningful access to support.
Ultimately, the debate about the NDIS is not simply a debate about budgets. It is a debate about values.
The NDIS was created because Australia recognised that disability support should not depend entirely upon family capacity, personal wealth, geography or luck. Any reform process must ensure that the pursuit of sustainability does not unintentionally undermine the very principles upon which the Scheme was founded.
Queensland Law Society has made a submission to the Law Council of Australia on the Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026.
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