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

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) (18:39): The SOPI will publish a set of business rules that will be able to be examined. As I indicated earlier, they will be a disallowable instrument. In your earlier question, you asked about the whole-of-government response to automation.

You'll be aware, I think, that the Attorney-General is leading the work to contemplate how automation might appropriately be used across the government. However, in this instance, we judge that, in bringing this bill forward, it is an appropriate and indeed necessary time to put some safeguards around the way automation is used in the NDIS. You will know that technology is increasingly used to deliver services; I've heard you speak about this in the past, and I think you would accept that, when it's used properly and well, it can help deliver decisions more quickly, consistently and fairly, and it can free up the skills and judgement of our public servants so they can apply their human judgement to other, more complex questions where human interaction matters the most.

We are clear-eyed about the risks. This bill, for the first time in the NDIS context, sets out a set of parameters with significant transparency about where and how automation is being used in the scheme. In the first instance, it sets out a very limited number of circumstances where it would be used.