The disability sector returned to Parliament House to explain why Labor’s latest NDIS Bill is dangerous, uncertain and unfinished. Senators listened respectfully. Yet the absence of Coalition Senators offers the clearest indication that, whatever amendments emerge, the Bill itself is likely to pass.

The long hallways of Parliament House are usually empty at this time of year.

Politicians are in the middle of their long winter break. The lucky ones are on study trips in the Northern Hemisphere. The less fortunate are back in their electorates, building up their numbers and preparing to retain their seats at the next election.

Up on the second floor, Committee Room 2S1, is similarly empty. This is where the Senate inquiry into Labor’s latest NDIS Bill is taking place and that tells its own story.

Chair Labor Senator Ellie Whiteaker, conducts proceedings carefully and respectfully. People terrified by the proposed reforms are given time to explain why. They are listened to.

Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John asks successive groups essentially the same question: should the Bill pass in its present form? The answer is almost invariably no.

Independent Senator David Pocock checks his phone, then looks up to focus closely on a point of evidence. Labor’s Senator Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah appears remotely from Melbourne. Other senators may also be online.

But the telling reveal is who cannot be seen.

No Coalition senator is sitting in the room yet two of them - Alex Antic and Wendy Askew - are members of the committee. Neither is at the table. (Committee membership)

This does not prove Labor and the Coalition have reached an agreement. It is, nevertheless, the strongest indication yet that the deal will be done and the Bill will pass.

The only remaining question is whether Labor will accept the sector’s demand for amendment. And if it does, which protections will it concede?

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The hearing began with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. They were followed by the Australian Federal Police and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, legal and disability advocates, early-childhood organisations, people with lived experience, First Nations organisations and allied-health bodies. (Official hearing program)

Their concerns differed, but they converged on one problem. Parliament is being asked to approve the structure of a new NDIS before many of the rules determining how it will work have been written.

Eligibility will increasingly depend on functional capacity. The definition of permanence will change. Participants may be required to demonstrate that appropriate treatments have been exhausted. Ministers will receive broad powers to reduce designated categories of support. Assessments, budget calculations and some administrative decisions may be automated.

The practical detail will come later.

Legal advocates warned that this transfers power away from Parliament and into regulations, ministerial instruments and administrative systems that participants may struggle to challenge. Early-childhood organisations are concerned children could lose access before credible alternatives are operating. First Nations representatives warned that standardised assessments could fail people in remote communities. Allied-health bodies questioned whether complex, episodic and fluctuating disability can be compressed into a uniform assessment process.

Even the government’s own NDIS Reform Advisory Committee has recorded continuing concern, uncertainty and confusion about eligibility, support-determination powers, foundational supports and Thriving Kids. It has also warned of possible damage to workforce sustainability, housing, supported independent living and support coordination. (Reform Advisory Committee meeting summary, pages 1–2)

This matters because Labor’s reforms are not a minor administrative adjustment. The government expects about 160,000 fewer people to be on the NDIS by 2030 than under previous projections. Yet the state, territory and community services expected to support many of those people do not yet exist at the necessary scale.

The Specialist Disability Accommodation Alliance fears the consequences will extend beyond support budgets. If somebody loses NDIS eligibility or essential daily assistance, their housing can become unsustainable as well. People do not simply leave a funding scheme. They can lose the support that enables them to remain in their home.

Law-enforcement evidence revealed the brutality at the other end of the scheme.

Organised criminal groups have established operations specifically to harvest NDIS funding. Some participants have allegedly been deceived, manipulated or threatened with violence to make false claims possible. Plans have been emptied while little or no genuine support was delivered. Money taken from the NDIS has then been recycled into other criminal activity. (Hearing account; further hearing report)

That evidence strengthens the case for provider registration, digital payments, better information-sharing and stronger investigative powers.

It does not explain why participant eligibility should be narrowed, social and community participation funding reduced, or ministers given sweeping power to make future support determinations.

This is the contradiction at the centre of the Bill. The most confronting evidence concerns criminals exploiting people with disability. The largest savings will be produced by restricting participants and their supports.

The Bill addresses both, allowing the government to present them as one reform package. They are not the same problem.

Labor holds 30 of the Senate’s 76 seats. It needs nine additional votes.

The Greens have ten. They want the Bill withdrawn and replaced, or at least prevented from operating until alternative supports are established. David Pocock has already said the Bill should not proceed in its current form. He wants indiscriminate reductions to social and community participation removed, stronger review rights and safeguards around automated decision-making. (Greens’ recommendations, pages 95–105; David Pocock’s recommendations, pages 119–120)

The Coalition holds 27 seats. Nine senators prepared to cross the floor would be enough. They won’t.

Senators attacked the rushed consultation, missing detail, inadequate safeguards and absence of established alternatives in their comments on the inquiry’s interim report. They welcomed greater provider registration and anti-fraud powers but said these measures did not go far enough.

Significantly, however, they did not recommend that the Bill be withdrawn or defeated. (Coalition senators’ additional comments, pages 84–93)

Labor’s majority report has already recommended passage, subject to a reform roadmap, further explanation of safeguards and delivery of the promised foundational supports. (Interim report recommendations, pages 82–83)

This creates an obvious landing place. The Coalition can demand amendments, stronger integrity measures and greater transparency. Labor can concede safeguards without surrendering its savings. Both can then claim responsibility for making the NDIS more sustainable.

More witnesses will appear in Canberra today and in Perth on 6 August. The committee is due to report by 14 August. Their evidence may shape the amendments. It is increasingly unlikely to determine whether the legislation survives. (Inquiry timetable and reporting date)

Empty Coalition chairs did not mean the hearing was pointless. The protections written into the final Bill may decide whether people retain their support, independence and homes. But they do disclose where political attention has shifted.

The argument is no longer principally about whether the Bill will pass. It is about what Labor must change before the Coalition allows it to pass.

In Parliament, absence can be ambiguous. Sometimes, however, it offers a clue to the answer.