The Federal Court has allowed the NDIA’s internal compensation-reduction calculator to remain confidential. But how can participants challenge calculations when the machinery behind it stays hidden?

Justice Natalie Charlesworth has allowed the National Disability Insurance Agency to keep the calculator it uses to reduce NDIS supports confidential - in some cases.

In a Federal Court decision the judge ruled that if a participant has received compensation elsewhere, the spreadsheet remains locked.

Amanda Pett was challenging a compensation reduction amount applied to her for supports. The NDIA produced spreadsheets showing the calculation, using settlement details, actuarial material, estimated lifetime support needs and scheme records. But critically, the working files also contained live formulae and internal methodology.

The agency was desperate to keep these secret. It got what it wanted.

But the Judge didn’t accept everything the NDIA argued. Its privacy argument failed. So did the claim that other participants might misuse the tool. Inconvenience is not enough.

What worked was narrower: the Tribunal had already made a confidentiality order over the same spreadsheets. Letting the Federal Court files open without resolving that clash risked bringing the administration of justice into disrepute.

So the calculator stays secret.

This is legally neat, but not necessarily a win for transparency.

The NDIS can reduce support by calculation. The person affected may still not see the full machine doing the maths.

This decision was originally reported by Tez Romero for insurancebusinessmag.

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The secrecy is the story

This is not a broad win for the NDIA’s secrecy claims.

Justice Charlesworth did not just simply accept the agency’s internal claims calculator should be hidden because it was confidential, sensitive, or administratively inconvenient to explain. According to Insurance Business, the judge rejected most of the NDIA’s arguments for ongoing suppression, including its privacy argument and the suggestion that other participants might misuse the tool.

But Justice Charlesworth did not say bureaucratic discomfort is enough. Nor that public scrutiny must give way whenever an agency uses internal formulae.

Nevertheless, the result still favours the agency because the spreadsheets remain sealed.

The important point was technical: the existing confidentiality order made by the Tribunal. Nobody had challenged that order. If the Federal Court allowed its interim suppression order to lapse, the same material could be treated differently in two legal settings. The judge accepted that this would risk discrediting the administration of justice.

That’s the legal point; the practical point is sharper.

The NDIA uses compensation reduction amounts to reduce future supports where a participant has received compensation for the same injury or support needs. In Pett’s case, the agency had provided spreadsheets containing the calculation. Those files drew on settlement information, actuarial data on life expectancy, estimated lifetime support needs and scheme records. In their working form, they also included live formulae and internal methodology.

This is not a minor administrative tool - it’s the machinery that reduces support.

For the agency, secrecy protects an internal method. For participants, secrecy can make it harder to understand why supports have been cut, whether the calculation is right, and how to challenge it.

This becomes an issue because of the current political tension surrounding the government’s move to cut spending.

With the NDIS now being tightened, fraud, sustainability, eligibility and budget pressure dominate the politics. The government says it is building a stronger, fairer and more sustainable Scheme. But fairness is not only about the final number. It is about whether the person affected can understand how the number was reached.

This case exposes that gap.

The NDIA did not win because every argument succeeded. It won because the existing Tribunal confidentiality order had not been dealt with. The Court also noted that a person with a sufficient interest, including a member of the media, can apply to have the orders lifted.

Which still leaves the door ajar, if only just.

A participant, lawyer or journalist must now take the extra step. They must challenge secrecy after the fact. The default position, for now, is that the calculator stays behind the screen.

There may be legitimate reasons to protect formulae. The Scheme must prevent gaming and protect personal information. And there are legitimate reasons to cut the cost of the scheme.

When the state reduces disability support, it should be able to explain the calculation in a way the person affected can test. Not just the outcome. Not just the broad policy, the actual working, to prove that accountability is not merely procedural.

A participant is told the result. The agency keeps the method. The Court resolves the legal clash. And the person whose supports are reduced is still left looking at the outside of the machine.

The decision is legally narrow. Politically, it is not. It lands at a moment when the NDIS is becoming more centralised, more rules-based and less forgiving.

If the Scheme is going to cut by calculation, who gets to see the calculation?