National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the Ndis for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Nicolette Boele

I move the amendment circulated in my name:

(1) Schedule 3, page 100 (after line 6), after Part 2, insert:

Part 2A — Significant NDIS rules

National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013

13A After section 209D

Insert:

209E Additional consultation requirements for certain National Disability Insurance Scheme rules

(1) This section applies to National Disability Insurance Scheme rules made for the purposes of any of the following provisions:

(a) a provision relating to functional capacity assessments or assessment methodologies;

(b) a provision relating to eligibility criteria or early intervention requirements;

(c) a provision relating to the determination of supports or the setting of funding levels.

(2) Before making rules to which this section applies, the Minister must:

(a) publish an exposure draft of the proposed rules; and

(b) allow a period of not less than 28 days beginning on the day the exposure draft is published (the consultation period) during which persons may make submissions on the proposed rules; and

(c) take reasonable steps to consult the following persons during the consultation period:

(i) people with disability;

(ii) organisations representing the disability community and disability sector, such as Disability Representative and Carer Organisations;

(iii) any other persons the Minister considers appropriate.

(3) Before making rules to which this section applies, the Minister must publish:

(a) a statement summarising the feedback received during the consultation period and the Minister's response to that feedback; and

(b) a disability impact statement setting out the expected effect of the proposed rules on participants and prospective participants.

I move this amendment to strengthen consultation requirements for the key National Disability Insurance Scheme rules. This amendment goes to a simple but fundamental principle that decisions about people with disability should not be made without them. It speaks to the profound truth contained in the slogan 'Nothing about us without us'. As this bill stands, critical aspects of the scheme, including eligibility criteria, functional capacity assessment, assessment methodologies and funding rules, are not set out in the primary legislation but left instead to future rules made by the minister. Those rules will determine who can access the NDIS, how their needs are assessed and what supports they ultimately receive. These are crucial considerations with serious implications for people's lives, and yet there is currently no minimum requirement in this bill for how people with disability are consulted before the rules are made. This is a serious gap.

The independent NDIS review released in 2025 was clear in calling for deep and ongoing consultation on reforms with people with disability, their families, their carers, representative organisations and disability service providers and workers. While the new technical advisory group will undertake consultations when developing their expert advice, the legislation does not set out how comprehensive this consultation needs to be, and, although consultation is required with states and territories, there are minimal guarantees that this will involve the kind of deep consultation called for in the independent review.

My amendment will give effect to the review's recommendation and aligns the bill more closely with the principle of inclusive co-design. It would require the minister, before making rules regarding eligibility, assessment methodologies and support determinations, to publish an exposure draft and allow at least 28 days for public submissions. It would require genuine engagement during that period with people with disability, organisations representing the disability community and sector, and other relevant stakeholders. And, importantly, it would require transparency by mandating the publication of a summary of feedback received, along with the minister's response and a disability impact statement outlining how the proposed rules are expected to affect participants and prospective participants.

As responsibilities across the disability ecosystem shift across jurisdictions, it is more important than ever that thorough, meaningful consultation is undertaken to understand and to avoid unintended consequences. A related example is the New South Wales government's recent decision to potentially lock out small businesses from providing services under Thriving Kids, by limiting tenders to non-profit providers only. I've heard from many allied health and disability small businesses in Bradfield—people with deep connections to the local community and the vulnerable children they provide services to—who fear for the future of their businesses. Equally, parents are concerned about the continuity that these vital services provide for their children. Thorough consultation can help mitigate problems such as these so they do not arise, and the changes proposed by my amendment would ensure that reforms are considered systematically and holistically and that they are informed by lived experience.

These changes, if adopted and implemented, would strengthen the quality of decision-making, and they would build trust in a system that, for many people, currently feels opaque and unpredictable. They would build a social licence for a reform process that many feel has been, frankly, too rushed and exclusionary. If we're asking people to place their confidence in these significant changes to the NDIS, then we must legislate our commitment to including them in the process with openness, with respect and in a spirit of genuine partnership. I urge the government to support this amendment.

Monique Ryan

():

… the perspectives of people with disability must be centre stage as we deliver these reforms.

There has been continuous consultation with the disability community and this will continue as we pursue our reforms.

That was former NDIS minister Bill Shorten in March 2024.

For decades, people with disability have told policymakers, ''nothing about us, without us!''.

I understand the need to ensure your voices are loud and carry weight.

As Minister I have a responsibility to ensure NDIS is not done to or for participants without their input.

That was Minister McAllister in May 2025.

That next wave of reform will—of course—involve the deepest collaboration with the disability community and participants.

…   …   …

… 'nothing about us, without us'.

That was Minister Mark Butler at the National Press Club in August 2025.

According to the NDIS Reform Advisory Committee, no disability representative organisation, funded or unfunded, was consulted on the content of the minister's Press Club speech, the budget or the preliminary drafts of this bill's text. The consultation on this crucially important bill has been utterly inadequate and utterly inaccessible. The Senate inquiry was launched on 14 May, and it initially closed two weeks later on 29 May—two weeks for submissions on legislation which will reshape the lives of 760,000 Australians with a disability.

Many people with desperately important stakes in this scheme were denied the opportunity to contribute to the inquiry. Many people with a disability were unaware of the details of this legislation at that time. Many people with a disability need assistance to access parliamentary platforms and to engage with complex legislative language. Many people with a disability rely on support workers, advocacy organisations and community networks, all of which take some time to mobilise. Slow consultation windows aren't just inconvenient. They are structurally inaccessible.

I'm glad that the government has now, under pressure, extended the Senate inquiry into this bill until 14 August, but that only happened because of a chorus of disappointment, frustration and anger from the disability community. The disability community shouldn't have to fight to be heard and consulted. Co-design and consultation should be a right and a given. The member for Bradfield's amendment would legislate a minimum 28-day consultation period for future rule making on functional capacity assessments, eligibility criteria and funding levels. It would require an exposure draft, a feedback summary and a disability impact statement for important regulations. These are sensible and principled requirements. In a better world, they would be standard practice already.

The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability found that people with disability are chronically insufficiently involved in government decision-making. This bill has repeated that pattern. Article 4.3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires governments to 'closely consult with and actively involve' people with disability, through their representative organisations, when developing legislation that affects them. Australia is a co-signatory to that convention. The government likes to remind us of that, but only when it suits.

The NDIS independent review action 25.2 specifically called for 'deep public consultation' with the disability community on proposed legislative reforms. Every speaker to this bill in this House has said that they want the NDIS to be sustainable. Everyone says they want it funded into the future for the people who depend on it. But genuine reform requires trust. You can't build trust with people who haven't been given a seat at the table. You can't build a better NDIS by sidelining the people it is designed to serve.

I'll finish with a quote from Jenny Macklin, former minister for disability reform and the shadow minister when the NDIS was launched: 'We need these voices to be strong. We need them to be firmly built into the consultation and policy design processes not as an optional addition to the NDIS but as an integral part of ensuring people with disability can exercise choice and take control.'

Currently, everything about this bill is without the disability community, and much of it will deny them both choice and control.

Mark Butler

I thank the member for Bradfield and the member for Kooyong for their comments. The NDIS has more significant consultation structures and protocols than any other social program I've dealt with, at least, and so it should. As a minister at the time we were building the NDIS, with mental health and ageing I was involved quite centrally in that design. That government set up this scheme to be very much a scheme based on the philosophy of choice and the philosophy of 'Nothing about us without us', as the member for Kooyong reminded us. There are a number of structures already in place there.

The member for Bradfield referred to the NDIS review, which recommended the establishment of deeper consultation structures, and we acted on that. The reform advisory committee has a key role in advising us about things like this, particularly the functional capacity assessment system, which was also a recommendation of the review way back in 2023. As the member for Kooyong reminds us, that committee does its job frankly and fearlessly. As both members know, and I imagine all members know as well, this particular part of the reform program will be implemented after proper advice and proper consultation—of the type I set out in my Press Club speech—through category A rules that need to be agreed with every state and territory. There are pretty clear processes for not just our government to go through but state and territory governments to also go through with their state or territory based disability representative organisations. These systems are well established.

On top of that, when tabling any of these types of instruments, particularly category A rules, section 211 of the act requires me, very clearly, to issue a consultation statement that sets out the way in which we have fulfilled that commitment that was made 15 years ago to build, implement and run a scheme that was very much done in partnership with people with disabilities.

We're very satisfied with this process, going forward, that already has involved a deep engagement of government with disability representative organisations and that will have the work of the RAC, the reform advisory committee, sitting alongside it. Obviously, as the members both indicated, it would involve engagement from the technical advisory group. We're very satisfied that this work will be done in the way I think the members want to see it done. So, on that basis, we won't be supporting this amendment.

Marion Scrymgour

The question is that the amendment moved by the member for Bradfield be agreed to.