The Senate’s hearings into Labor’s NDIS reform bill begin today which sounds significant, but might not be. Let’s wait for tomorrow’s headlines.

The bill to change the NDIS is quite open about its intention. Its parliamentary description uses the keywords: “define”, “limit”, “clarify (twice)”, “reduce funding”, “refine”, and “require”. It’s a bill to cut spending.

Which is exactly what Mark Butler said introducing it. There isn’t enough money, he insisted, to support the “people with disability who require it most”. That’s why the scheme has to be “returned to its original intention”.

So what are the next three days of Senate hearings into the bill, beginning in Melbourne today, actually about? Noise or substance?

The Greens are projecting anger and amplifying fear. The independents can - as they have - push for specific amendments. All will put witnesses on the record. But none of this will stop the bill.

The hearings are less a consultation process than performance art. Three days granted to allow everyone to express anger and dismay, but so far the government has offered no indication any part of the bill will be re-written or changed in any way.

What can change?

There are only two ways these hearings can change have an effect: by isolating clauses so egregious they must be amended; or generating enough public pressure to get the coalition to stop them in the Senate.

Otherwise it’s just evidence recieved; anger recorded; bill passed.

______________________________________________

[continued from the abilityNEWS newsletter]

The Community Affairs Legislation Committee has been given three days of hearings and a reporting deadline of 16 June. The timetable’s tight because the politics is tight. Labor wants the bill passed to pay for the budget.

The disability community’s agenda is different. The government’s own advisory committee (RAC) has warned the bill risks material harm while the Grattan Institute labels parts of the reform blunt and inequitable.

That’s why (so far, at any rate) the criticism is not focused on one technical clause. It clusters around structural parts of the Bill: support cuts, eligibility/access, ministerial power, automation, review rights, and the absence of foundational supports before people are moved out or funded down.

Criticism has focused on the following major areas:

Schedule 1, Part 1 — functional capacity and access

The Bill defines functional capacity and sets up a legal framework for access, but the issue is the way this will be assessed. Proposed changes remove consideration of a person’s environment and circumstances.

PWDA specifically wants the Bill amended so functional capacity is not assessed in the absence of supports, assistive technology and environmental adjustments, but instead reflects real-world conditions.

Schedule 1, Part 4 — ministerial “support determinations” and category-wide cuts

This allows the Minister to make determinations to reduce, including resets to social, civic and community participation and capacity building daily activities budgets.

That is the part most heavily attacked. The RAC says the Bill allows supports to be cut across plans rather than assessed according to individual need.

Grattan’s criticism is especially important. It’s submission supports fiscal restraint in principle, but it says the proposed 50 percent cut to social and community participation and 10 percent cut to capacity building daily activities is just too blunt.

Schedule 1, Parts 6, 8 and 9 — reasonable and necessary supports, permanence, and other service systems

The Bill would require the NDIA to consider scheme sustainability and equity between participants when deciding what supports are reasonable and necessary, shifting the test from needs to affordability and comparison with other participants.

Critics worry this could create a more medicalised access test, particularly for psychosocial, episodic and fluctuating disabilities. This is likely to disproportionately disadvantage people with psychosocial disability.

Social and community participation cuts

This is the most humanly felt criticism because it’s central to the purpose of the NDIS. But that’s the point of the bill. It says that with a reduced funding envelope money needs to be directed to those who need it most of all.

Grattan’s argument is this could produce absurd outcomes: a person qualifying for the NDIS because their impairment substantially limits social interaction, only to have the very support addressing that need cut in half because replacement supports don’t yet exist.

Sequencing — cuts before foundational supports exist

This is central with the NDIS Review envisaging staged reform. The problem is foundational supports are not yet in place and not designed, funded in practice, or operational anywhere.

The disability community wants relevant parts of the bill made contingent on funded, accessible and operational alternative supports.

Henry VIII, ministerial power and arbitrary pricing

The proposed laws give enormous power to the minister. Schedule 3 would make the Commonwealth Minister the sole decision-maker on NDIS pricing, while the NDIA would conduct the annual pricing review.

PWDA calls for substantive decisions affecting eligibility, supports and funding to be in primary legislation, not ministerial instruments.

Automation and administrative decision-making

Schedule 3 allows automation of some administrative actions, including claims and payments, according to the Government fact sheet.

The RAC says automation in human services must proceed slowly, with safeguards, oversight, public reporting, appeal rights and human decision-making.

Advocacy for Inclusion goes further, warning that expanded automation, thresholds set outside Parliament, and weakened review pathways create structural risks similar to Robodebt.

Plan suspensions, revocation and no rollover of unspent funds

The Government fact sheet says Part 5 introduces legislated plan end dates and prevents unspent funds carrying over into the renewed plan. Part 7 allows plan suspension when the NDIA cannot contact a participant and revocation if a plan has been suspended for at least 90 days.

PWDA wants protections so participants are not suspended, revoked or left without supports because of disability-related communication barriers.

9. Civil penalties, records and debts

Schedule 2 contains fraud and compliance measures. These include civil penalties, information-gathering powers, record retention duties, and debts where an individual receives an NDIS payment but has not kept records.

The RAC supports action against exploitation, over-servicing, over-billing and sharp practices, but warns registration alone will not guarantee quality or stop fraud. It also warns against imposing large civil penalties on people with disability and families for administrative breaches.

So who has criticised what?

The RAC (NDIS Reform Advisory Committee) is the strongest institutional critic. It says the Bill should not pass in its current form, warning of material harm, over-centralised ministerial power, poor consultation, unsupported cuts, and lack of foundational supports.

PWDA says the reforms will significantly change eligibility, access and day-to-day supports and undermine the NDIS purpose of independent living and community participation. It wants stronger review processes before implementation.

Grattan Institute supports cost control but attacks the social participation and capacity-building cuts as blunt, poorly justified and likely to worsen outcomes.

Mental Health Australia supports the intention of securing financial sustainability, but says the it may particularly disadvantage people with psychosocial disability.

Advocacy for Inclusion says it structurally redesigns access and that sequencing is wrong.

Australian Human Rights Commission criticised the compressed consultation timetable and possible conflict with human rights obligations.

What has been endorsed?

Fiscal sustainability has been endorsed by several critics, in particular Grattan, News Limited, and allegedly reflected in private opinion research conducted by government.

Fraud and provider integrity measures have broad in-principle support. Even MS Australia says it supports measures to prevent and reduce fraud.

Mandatory or expanded provider registration has support the sector, particularly where it applies to high-risk supports and closed settings.

Standardised functional assessment has some conceptual support, including a more consistent approach to eligibility and needs assessment based on functional capacity.

The Coalition position remains to support “practical, sensible reforms” that restore integrity and sustainability.

The live issue for the hearings is therefore not whether reform is needed. Almost everyone says it is. The fight is over who carries the savings, who will decide, and whether the replacements exist before the cuts begin.