Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. The intent of this bill is to ensure a sustainable NDIS for future generations by slowing growth of scheme costs, reducing fraud, strengthening provider regulation and improving governance. I recognise the need to rein in the NDIS, to make it sustainable, fair and protected from fraud and poor providers. Like me, many providers and families in Mackellar support sensible reforms. We want the scheme to work for the people it was designed to support, and we want to ensure that public money is used well. However, several core issues must be addressed before this bill proceeds to ensure that participants are not left without important supports they need. Such issues include the ministerial power to cut support determinations, the ministerial pricing power, changes to the permanence test, the hierarchy of evidence for reasonable and necessary supports, the reliance on automation and the lack of readiness for alternative supports outside the NDIS. Until these issues are fixed, the risk of unintended consequences and people being left behind without adequate support is simply too high.

We cannot ask families to trust a new system when the details are unpublished, the rules are not clear and the services outside the NDIS are not yet established. Parents, carers, participants and local providers in my electorate are deeply anxious about this bill. Elise, mum of Rafferty, a 14-year-old hot-shot wheelchair basketballer in Mackellar, fought to get him on the NDIS. But Rafferty has recently been given a five-year plan that has no funding for physiotherapy and allows only 12 hours a year for exercise physiology. There's also no funding for a new day chair, even though he will grow out of his current adjustable chair in about six months. There is no funding for a sports chair to enable him to continue the sport he loves. There is no funding for the changes that happen between 14 and 19: growing independence, learning to access the community safely and building confidence. His mother puts it plainly: 'These are not nice-to-have items; they are core necessities for functional capacity and basic daily living.' This is why people are frightened by broad ministerial powers to cut supports. If this is already happening, families rightly ask: what will happen when wider ministerial powers are added?

I've also heard from Nora, from North Narrabeen. Nora is 69. Her daughter is a young, vibrant, happy adult and an NDIS participant. Nora's husband had a stroke seven years ago and uses a wheelchair. Nora's daughter is non-verbal. She cannot read or write. She cannot drive, and she cannot go to the shops alone or meet friends safely without support. Nora is deeply concerned about cuts to social and community participation funding. For her daughter, this support is not an optional extra. It's what lets her leave the house, meet people, be safe and live a life beyond four walls. It took years to build the right team of support workers. These are trusted relationships that were built slowly and carefully. Nora is worried that the changes to provider rules and pricing may disrupt these relationships. She also asked a simple question about review rights: 'If funding is cut where is the fair opportunity to challenge it, and where is the consideration of safety, continuity and longer term costs when support is removed?'

I've also heard from Lisa Hughes, Founder and CEO of Occupational Therapy Helping Children in Frenchs Forest. Lisa has supported children, young people and families for more than 30 years. She's worried this bill may reduce access to early intervention, weaken family choice, increase pressure on parents and destabilise experienced local providers. Lisa knows what existed before the NDIS. In the 1990s, she ran the paediatric occupational therapy service at Mona Vale Hospital. At that time, there were only 19 hours of paediatric occupational therapy available each week for the whole of the Pittwater and Warringah council areas.

The NDIS has allowed many children to access regular, local and consistent support. It has helped families avoid long waitlists. It has helped children build skills early at a time when support can make the biggest difference. Lisa's concern is that children may lose access before alternative local supports are funded, staffed and tested. Lisa also raised concerns about the new assessment process. Children do not function the same way in every setting. Their needs change with fatigue, sensory load, school demands, emotional regulation, family stress and the environment around them. A child may manage in one controlled setting and struggle in a busy classroom, on public transport or in crowded community spaces. Assessment must look at how a child lives, learns and plays. It must not reduce complex children to rigid categories or an automated result.

One of the main concerns is that families need a fair and responsive pathway for review when a plan no longer fits. They need human review, transparency and clinical judgement. They need the ability to correct errors easily. I've also heard from Evelyn and Alexander. They are Northern Beaches parents of a 22-year-old son with severe autism and intellectual disability. Their son has limited speech and no effective means of self-care. He relies on others for daily care, transport and basic needs. With the NDIS, his life changed for the better. He has been able to take part in meaningful activities and contribute in ways that were not possible before. This gives him purpose, achievement and connection.

Alexander and Evelyn are worried that the definition of 'functional capacity' may be shaped later by rules made outside of this parliament. They're worried about changes to the permanence test and what those changes may mean in practice. Key terms such as these in the act should not be left to uncertain future rules. They're also worried about plan reassessments. Their own request for a plan review was not acted on for more than a year. They had no clear way to track the progress and they found contact processes unreliable, inaccessible and unfair, yet the bill proposes consequences when participants do not respond to contact.

Evelyn and Alexander are also concerned about broad powers to reduce plan funding. They point to the proposed section 34A and the risk of a large percentage reduction that may not be reviewable. They're also concerned about the move away from reasonable and necessary supports, which are part of the promise of the NDIS. Sustainability should mean providing supports that are reasonable, necessary, evidence based and cost-effective. It should not mean giving executive power to reduce supports below what has been assessed as needed. I absolutely recognise the need to ensure that scheme growth is sustainable. However, the potential for significant cuts and changes to people's plans that this bill enables and the level of direct ministerial control that will be made possible have the potential for disastrous outcomes for some of our most vulnerable citizens.

Pragmatic system improvements, such as fraud minimisation; provider enrolment; payment changes to improve capacity for the National Disability Insurance Agency to monitor and ensure compliance; and, if implemented correctly and safely, new framework planning, provide the necessary foundations for prudent management of scheme finances while also retaining a focus on participant rights and outcomes. Providers and participants must be part of the solution and participants must not be moved off the NDIS until alternative support is real, funded, staffed and ready. These are reasonable requests.

Minister Butler identified in his speech to the National Press Club last month that the NDIS Reform Advisory Committee said recently more time is needed to deal with the legislative uncertainty and remove the risk of other unintended consequences. The same advice must apply to this bill. While the NDIS desperately needs reform, let's take the time to address this now and get it right.

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