National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (10:23): I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 and move: At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that: (a) in 2023, the Government announced a target growth rate for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) of 8 percent and was unable to achieve it; (b) in January 2026, the Prime Minister announced a new target growth rate for the NDIS of 5-6 per cent, which the Government again failed to meet; (c) in April 2026, the Health Minister announced yet another new annual target growth rate for the NDIS of 2 per cent over the next four years, despite the Government's ongoing inability to meet any of their previously announced target growth rates; (d) the Government and the National Disability Insurance Agency have been unable to clearly quantify or comprehensively address the scale of fraud within the NDIS; (e) the Australian National Audit Office estimates that up to 10 per cent of NDIS claims are inappropriate, mischievous or outright criminal; (f) the Government is failing to do more to prevent the fraud and rorting that is rife within the NDIS despite this being the primary concern of 7 in 10 Australians, by the Government's own admission; (g) the changes in the bill will do little to remove bad actors from defrauding participants and taxpayers and fails to adequately meet the expectations of Australians for greater integrity within the Scheme; (h) robust integrity systems are critical to protect taxpayer funds, restore the Scheme's social licence and to protect NDIS participants from exploitation by unscrupulous providers; and (i) the Government must ensure that participant safety remains a core value of the NDIS and that adequate safeguards are built in to ensure that vulnerable Australians with severe and permanent disability will be supported".
For Australians living with significant and permanent disability, the NDIS provides not just support but opportunity, independence and dignity—the chance to work, to participate in community life, to live with greater freedom and confidence and to access the support they need without feeling like a burden on the people they love. The NDIS is one of the most significant social reforms undertaken in Australia and has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians with disability, but the scheme is at a crossroads.
It has grown rapidly since its establishment. Originally expected to support about 410,000 Australians, the NDIS now supports 782,000 people, nearly double the original estimate, and it continues to grow. Originally estimated to cost $13.6 billion, expenditure this year is more than $50 billion.
The latest projections show that costs will reach $70 billion by 2030 and around $100 billion by 2035. This is the NDIS Labor built, and its trajectory has become unsustainable. We need to be honest about that.
The bill represents the Albanese government's third attempt to rein in the growth of the scheme. In August 2023, they promised growth would be reduced to eight per cent; they haven't achieved that. In January this year, despite missing that target, they pledged to reduce growth even further to between five and six per cent; they failed again.
Growth is still at nearly 11 per cent. Now—in this year's budget, with no achievements under their belt—they have committed to reduce the growth in the NDIS to just two per cent. In some ways it's hard to believe that this is not just another accounting trick by the Albanese Labor government to make their near-trillion dollar deficit look better.
There is every likelihood, given the government's track record, they won't achieve this new target either. The bill will establish a new framework to assess a person's eligibility for support through the NDIS. Until now, eligibility has been based primarily on a person's diagnosis.
This bill will change that to be based on a person's reduced functional capacity as a result of that diagnosis. There are a lot of people right now who are exceptionally worried about whether they themselves, their child, their family member or their loved ones will be eligible for support through the NDIS. The answer still remains unclear.
The bill establishes the legislative mechanism to change the way a person is assessed but provides no detail on what that new assessment will look like. The Albanese government hasn't developed it yet. This, in and of itself, has caused a level of fear and anxiety amongst the disabled community.
Changes of this magnitude need to be done right. People need to be consulted; they haven't been. These changes won't roll out until 1 January 2028, so the Albanese government say they still have time.
I hope they are true to their word, but broken promises have become the norm with this government. The other concern is that all existing NDIS participants will be progressively reassessed over three years, between 1 January 2028 and 31 December 2030. With more than 760,000 participants, that's a lot of reassessments.
And where do they go? Our state and territory health systems are already bursting at the seams. People are turned away daily from our emergency departments and hospital services.
Getting an appointment at a doctor takes forever, and, despite what the Albanese government say, too many people are still paying massive out-of-pocket expenses. Wait lists are months long. We are hopeful that people with significant and permanent disabilities will not be put through the wringer during this process and asked to provide multitudes of new and, usually, very costly medical reports to prove and re-prove their disability.
The Albanese government needs to use commonsense during this process. The bill will restrict a person's ability to ask for an unscheduled reassessment of their plan. The Albanese government has said that around 12,000 unscheduled plan reassessments are taking place each month, with most reassessments resulting in additional funding variations of 20 per cent.
Right now, a participant or their support team, including their plan managers, can ask for a plan reassessment if they believe a person's needs have changed. Unfortunately, we are seeing this power misused by some bad actors who are just out to skim additional funds from participants for services never provided. The changes in this bill will restrict who can ask for a plan reassessment to a person's plan nominee or guardian, and these will only be considered when there has been a significant and ongoing change in a person's functional capacity.
This will ensure a participant or their trusted nominee or guardians remain in control of their needs. The bill clarifies that a person will only receive funding and supports for the impairment for which they're assessed by the NDIS. The government has advised that in some cases where a person has sought support for additional medical conditions for which NDIS support was not intended and which have not been granted—the Administrative Review Tribunal has overruled these decisions.
This is an important clarification in the legislation. It was always the intention that the NDIS support people with significant and permanent disability, but other medical conditions should be supported by the health system—as was intended. The changes to support for NDIS participants are what is concerning the disability community the most.
This is completely understandable. These supports are relied on by many to build independence and assistance with daily living skills. This looks different for each participant depending on their goals.
The government has stated the changes will apply to two support categories: social, civic and community participation supports; and capacity-building activities. We secured changes to the bill in the House of Representatives which will protect daily living supports and employment supports. The bill will also change the way a person's plan is renewed.
At the moment, plans don't have an official end date, and a person's unspent funds are, in most cases, rolled over into the next year. The caution we have for the government on this is to ensure there is no gap between a person's plan ending and a new plan being created. There can be no delay in supports for people with disability because of slow bureaucracy.
The bill will clarify the definition of permanence of disability to allow access to the scheme. These changes will require a person to have had all appropriate treatment for their condition, for that treatment to be unlikely to materially improve their condition and for the condition to be lifelong. Importantly, there will be rules to exclude some circumstances for people.
For example, a person with a hearing impairment may not be required to have a cochlear implant. The government must work through this very carefully to ensure that participants are protected. The coalition's support for the scheme remains unwavering.
We believe the scheme must be there for Australians with significant and permanent disability, exactly as it was intended, but there is no denying that the integrity of the scheme is weak. Australians can see this. Day after day, we see shocking stories of criminals exploiting the NDIS for hundreds of thousands of dollars or, in some cases, millions of dollars.
Our law enforcement agencies have said that organised crime outfits are now targeting the NDIS, and these criminals continue gaming the system because they know the guardrails are weak and the fences meant to protect it are flimsy. The Australian National Audit Office has estimated that up to 10 per cent of payments are non-compliant, incorrect or fraudulent—10 per cent.
That is $5 billion a year on today's expenditure. That's $5 billion of taxpayer money just walking out the door and delivering no care. In March this year, the Australian Federal Police raided a Sydney home linked to a man accused of fraudulently claiming NDIS payments as a registered provider.
Authorities allege he has links to serious organised crime, and he's accused of claiming more than $1.5 million for services that were never provided. In February, a Darwin NDIA employee was charged over an alleged $5 million fraud. In New South Wales, three people were jailed for a $5.8 million fraud.
Another case involves an alleged $14.5 million scheme tied to major provider networks. In my home state of South Australia, there was a provider who not just overclaimed but charged for services never provided. Recently, another two men in South Australia were caught defrauding the system of over $460,000.
The list goes on. It's not just the theft of taxpayer money that should be horrifying us. Behind the fraud statistics are vulnerable Australians being exploited, manipulated and abused by people who have been entrusted with their care—participants allegedly being trafficked for their support packages, coerced into approving invoices for services that were never delivered, having their identity stolen to drain every funding meant to support their independence and dignity.
These cases show a disgusting abuse of power against some of the most vulnerable people in our society. With Australians hearing these stories day in, day out, the NDIS has lost the social licence it once had. In Minister Butler's Press Club speech, he admitted seven out of 10 Australians believe the NDIS is too large and struggles with dodgy providers.
Worse still, six in 10 Australians think the NDIS is broken. What was once a beacon of pride for our country has become, to some, a national disgrace. Every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar taken away from someone who genuinely needs support.
Despite all this and the Albanese government's rhetoric that it is tackling fraud, the original bill presented to the parliament did very little to address fraud or target criminals that are infiltrating the scheme. In fact, the government's own modelling for the reform measures contained within the bill noted the fraud and integrity measures will only reduce the estimated $5 billion walking out the door each year by $300 million, and none of this will even kick in until 27-28 financial year.
The bill presented to the House of Representatives included digital payments platform, changes to claim timeframes and requiring people to keep receipts, as I mentioned earlier. Don't get me wrong, these measures go some way to addressing inappropriate claims, but it is not a strong enough response to what we know has become a criminal ecosystem. The coalition has been clear: more must be done to address the fraud occurring within the scheme.
The coalition has been working across the parliament with the government, the Australian Greens, specifically Senator Steele-John, and members of the crossbench to improve this bill. There were also additional amendments which will require the pricing advice received by the minister to be tabled and a review of these reforms to be undertaken and tabled in the parliament.
We continue to work with the government to make additional improvements to this bill. We all want to see the scheme protected, but the scheme's growth and expenditure are unsustainable at current levels. One of the things that stood out during the Senate inquiry was the disability community's outrage and heartbreak that they were not consulted on these reforms before they were introduced.
There has been no consultation with the disability community, representative organisations or even state and territory ministers on these reforms. State and territory disability ministers even made a submission to the Senate inquiry. They said: … Disability Ministers have not been meaningfully consulted in the development of these reforms, signalling a broader shift away from shared governance despite the Scheme's joint funding responsibilities.
With state and territory ministers pushing back on the Albanese Labor government's signature reform package of this year's budget, there is a clear risk that alternative supports will not be in place for participants who are exiting the scheme when these changes commence. The coalition has raised this concern extensively since April, when the changes were first announced.
The minister for disability and the NDIS has said he won't let people fall between two stools. When questioned on Insiders on the weekend, the Minister for the NDIS said they will not leave people without support. The welfare and safety of participants must remain paramount.
The success of these reforms relies heavily on the co-design of measures and their careful implementation. The coalition urges the government to consult with the disability community. It is essential that there are escalation pathways should there be any concerns for a participant's welfare and safety.
Ensuring people remain safe from abuse, neglect, violence and exploitation is not negotiable, and the government must ensure that participant safety remains the core value of the NDIS.