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

Dr RYAN (Kooyong) (16:51): by leave—I move: (11) Schedule 1, item 92, page 36 (after line 12), after subsection 25A(3), insert: (3A) A person is not required to undertake treatment that is: (a) unreasonably inaccessible or unavailable; or (b) not clinically appropriate; or (c) associated with unreasonable risk. (12) Schedule 3, item 4, page 91 (line 9), at the end of subsection 45C(17), add: ; and (d) any independent pricing advice obtained under subsection (18); and (e) the impact of the determination on the availability of supports, including in thin markets and regional areas.

(13) Schedule 3, item 4, page 91 (after line 9), at the end of section 45C, add: (18) Before making a determination under subsection (1), the Minister must: (a) obtain independent pricing advice; and (b) publish that advice; and (c) consult participants and providers. Treasury modelling tabled in the Senate shows that, of the $38.1 billion predicted to be saved from cuts to the NDIS over the next four years, just $0.9 billion is expected to come from making the minister the decision-maker on pricing and related fraud measures.

The same modelling shows that $9.3 billion in savings is projected to come from functional capacity savings and $13.2 billion from cutting social and community participation supports. That's nearly 60 per cent of the total savings purely from reducing supports and tightening eligibility. We all know that, during 2024-25 budget estimates, it was revealed that the NDIA had awarded two contracts—one in February 2023 and one in September 2023—with a total value of $400,000 to the Redbridge Group.

The purpose of those contracts was to conduct focus groups and message testing to identify how to best frame the changes proposed in the NDIS bill. Redbridge polling found that, while the NDIS is loved by the general public of Australia, the general public and participants would show qualified tolerance for funding cuts and stricter eligibility criteria were these austerity measures positioned as a necessary crackdown on NDIS fraud and rorting.

Let's be honest about what this bill is actually doing. It's not wholesale reform to combat something that is a concern to our communities: fraud and rorting. Only a small sliver of this 113-page bill relates to fraud in any meaningful sense.

The government has framed the bill in the public eye largely around fraud and restoring the scheme's social licence. But, as the Treasury modelling makes plain, the overwhelming weight of projected savings comes not from catching crooks but from removing people from the scheme and from narrowing what it will fund. The disability community is not fooled.

This bill is not a minor integrity measure; it is a structural redesign of who can access the NDIS, how plans are funded and how decisions are made and reviewed. When only $0.9 billion of $38.1 billion in savings comes from fraud related measures, we can't credibly call this an effective crackdown on fraud. It is an austere bill which is dressed in a cloak of integrity.

Back to my amendment, which addresses the independent power of the minister to set pricing, the independent NDIS review's recommendation 11 and action 11.3 explicitly recommend that we should transfer NDIS pricing advice to the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority in order to strengthen transparency, predictability and alignment. IHACPA is required to consult with the broader sector when advising the Australian government on prices.

The government hasn't done this. Instead, it has made the minister the decision-maker on NDIS pricing, with the NDIA retaining responsibility for conducting independent analysis and stakeholder engagement through its annual pricing review, which will inform pricing advice given to the minister. That is not true independence; it's advice flowing upwards to a single political decision-maker, with no statutory obligation to act on it, no requirement to publish it and no accountability to the sector that depends upon it.

This amendment is a more modest safeguard on the government's proposal. It would require the minister to obtain and publish independent pricing advice and to consider the effect of pricing decisions on support availability, including in thin markets and in rural and regional settings. Its purpose is to improve transparency and to reduce the risk that pricing decisions could undermine the sustainability of providers or the access of participants.

It's not a radical ask; it is simply asking the government to do what the review that it commissioned actually recommended: make pricing decisions in the open, with independent input and with explicit regard for whether disabled Australians can actually access the supports that they need. If the government can't accept that, I think the public deserves to know why.

So I commend the amendments to the House.