(this is about me trying to get on the ndis, my case is going to a court hearing)

Panicking because I'm halfway through the 2 week extension (and only extension) to comply with this:

1. On or before (original date) the applicant must give the respondent and the Tribunal:

a) a list of conditions and impairments for which they seek access to the

National Disability Insurance Scheme;

b) a statement explaining why they believe the decision under review is wrong;

and

c) any further documents or other evidence on which the applicant intends to

rely which has not already been given to the respondent and the Tribunal.

my advocate and I had been talking with legal aid before the deadline and they said they would help me with this but I just had to apply first. I have a hard time and a lot of pain typing so they said it's fine if my application is short since they already agreed and have most of my info on file.

I haven't heard back from legal aid and my advocate said reaching out usually doesn't help and they don't like it. he also said that what I need to submit is just a personal statement about why I disagree but from what I've read it's a lot more complicated and the opposition needs it to formulate their defence. I'm really worried if I just submit a legally illiterate personal statement that I'm going to shoot myself I'm the foot or get my case dismissed since I didn't comply with the order properly.

Does anyone who's been at this stage know what this statement is supposed to look like? Am I fine submitting what I have and to keep waiting for legal aid?

We've been trying to get my son's funding for Exercise Physiology reinstated ever since they had a 'check in' call with him that turned into a stealthy reassessment call 8 months before his plan was due to be reassessed. They changed his plan at the beginning of November 2025. No transition or anything. An issue with NDIS plans. They cut funding, give you a plan and if you've continued to use a service after the date the plan kicks in, but you've yet to receive the actual plan, you're expected to pay for that out of your own pocket because the NDIS won't.

The amount of documents, reports, more reports, more documents, requests for this or for that and everything else has all come to me. We even put in a change of nominees form so everything comes through us... but the other day I get a call saying that it hasn't been completely verified yet as the LAC is still reviewing all the paperwork so the form I sent a week ago, could I get my son to sign it?

I get sick in the stomach every time I have to talk to them now. I don't trust any of them and damn but I'm so damn cagey about what I say to them now. I did say straight out to the caller the other day that I don't trust the NDIS any more and doubt I ever will again.

My mental health is just... a struggle. I have to psyche myself up just to sort the forms for my son. He can't write them and I only use a tablet so their ridicular 'click in the box' doesn't work. So I have to print the forms and hand-write everything because my son physically struggles to do hand-writing. His signature is about his limit due to his major disability.

Our son doesn't live with us, but we assist him with his paperwork because he's autistic and because, as I said, his Muscular Dystrophy makes it extremely difficult for him to write. And my husband wonders why I can't seem to do a grocery shop these days, or plan meals. Sometimes, the mental load some of us carry gets too much, something has to give and that's what gave. I buy bits and pieces and occasionally actually cook a meal. Grateful to my husband when he cooks because tbh I'd probably not eat dinner at all otherwise.

So yeah, I'm struggling and it doesn't take much these days for me to be in tears over even the most trivial things. This is not how I expected retirement to be. Constant worry about my son. Everything has become an uphill battle. Everything.

Has anyone else received a letter like this?
Asking because it's quite the surprise, and I have zero concept of how they can determine what is working with zero contact with/feedback from me.

"Dear x,
The NDIS supports in your NDIS plan are due for reassessment soon.
Instead of having a check-in and receiving a new plan, we'll continue your current NDIS supports for up to 12 months.
We're continuing your plans as the NDIS supports in your current plan are working for you....
etc etc..."

As we drive a lot of km it’s taking a toll, have you gotten any help from your company?

When federal NDIS Minister Mark Butler announced last August the government would be diverting a large cohort of children off the scheme to achieve further savings, he used two words that went somewhat under the radar.

He said reducing the scheme's growth wasn't just a question of budget sustainability, but also "social licence", with the NDIS approaching $50 billion a year and forecast to hit $100 billion in the next decade.

Since then, Butler and his colleagues have justified their generational cost-cutting changes by repeatedly referencing the potential for public support of the scheme to crumble.

They're right to suggest the reputation of the NDIS isn't what it used to be.

But they're wrong about another thing — the scheme's social licence isn't just at risk of coming under pressure, it's already close to collapse.

A reputational decline

As reporters specialising in disability, people used to approach us in the street, excited about the opportunities the scheme provided for Australians to live, learn, work, or grow their business.

Now, people tell us they want it scaled way back or abolished entirely.

There are a few factors at play.

Resentment comes more easily in a cost-of-living crisis, and participants say they're feeling that more than ever from cash-strapped Australians, who expect their governments to eliminate wasteful spending.

More social media content creators are turning their attention to the NDIS, providing audiences with stunts or bite-sized takes on a complex topic.

Their posts often reference real issues that deserve more scrutiny — not least the scale of fraud in the scheme and whether it is being effectively regulated — but they don't always present the full picture.

Recent discourse about a blowout of NDIS providers in south-western Sydney was debunked by independent fact-checking, but not before it was amplified by social media algorithms and picked up by commercial news in coverage that struck a chord.

Women with Disabilities Australia CEO Sophie Cusworth says the dominant narrative surrounding the NDIS now is that anyone associated with the scheme is rorting it, something that's left participants feeling unfairly framed as burdens.

She says people often get upset when they hear about things like NDIS-funded haircuts — but in reality, the scheme is paying for a support worker to take a participant to the hairdresser safely, not the service itself.

"We're not talking about people accessing a life of luxury … the NDIS is enabling people to live ordinary lives," she says.

"What isn't going to make the headlines is a person being able to go to the beach with their family for the first time."

The Albanese government has no choice but to rein in the growth of the NDIS and restore integrity, but there's little doubt a diminished social licence also makes drastic change an easier sell.

Would the removal of a large chunk of kids from the scheme have passed parliament, or even the pub test, so easily a few years ago?

It's hard to imagine so.

More change on the way

The number of NDIS participants has almost doubled from the 400,000 originally projected by the Productivity Commission, while last year it was revealed one in six six-year-old boys were on the scheme because of a lack of support elsewhere.

It's a system out of whack — and yet those responsible for failing to set up enough guardrails in the beginning are not the ones now paying the price.

Much of it is being borne by the very people the scheme's meant to help — people with disability.

Every week we receive emails from people with severe and permanent disabilities who are losing funding for therapies, mobility aids and carers. Others are spending thousands on legal fees to fight cuts to their plans, or increasingly burnt out by the constant tussle with a broken system.

Cusworth says no-one wants the NDIS to succeed more than participants.

"The NDIS is transformative for people with disability … but we also recognise that it needs reform to ensure it lives up to those expectations," she says.

Not sure if this is the correct forum, but I’m not sure what is. If you use the Multi-Purpose Taxi Program, do you find the yearly subsidy sufficient? I find I need several top-ups. It used to be as easy as calling up and they’d give me more credit, but now it seems I needs to get a letter from my doctor listing my upcoming appointments, which just isn’t possible. Also, I’m not really sure if I’m just meant to use it for appointments, but I use it it for everything—shopping, visiting friends etc. it’s the only form of transport I have. Just wondering other people’s thoughts and usage of it.thanks!

My sibling was recently put under a public advocate and State Trustees by VCAT. The application was made by her hospital. My application to be appointed was unsuccessful. The member told me they didn't read my evidence and statements because, "VCAT gets thousands of emails a day". The OPA investigator refused to investigate the hospital's allegation of financial abuse but still kept it in their report (the member kept saying I was upset about this which made it feel like I was upset about the allegation not VCAT refusing to make an order to investigate this properly). NDIS didn't approve me for plan nominee for two months until the hearings were over. My sibling's support coordinator blocked it because "family court order"... They get paid by sibling's funding and were in favour of independent agencies. Having a nominee instead was my sibling's preference. Our shared mortgage (under 100k) was initially misreported as significantly more. It was previously not an issue for the member but the OPA report changed that. My sibling told the member they preferred me. Later on she mentioned a person that doesn't exist. The member told me they didn't say anything about me but that they were only saying it to please me... Is the next step VCAT or court? I have read that losing at VCAT again would mean not being able to take this to court. Is this true? My sibling is currently in a long term inpatient unit.

Aged care is slightly ahead of ndis in regards to using automated tools with entered prompts to determine funding and some issues have already surfaced. One thing that really stood out for me was that all the testing of the system was done with human overrides and changes allowed, but now that the system is live that option is gone.

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‘Letting the algorithm rip’: no legal basis for lack of human override of aged care funding tool, inquiry hears

Department says it’s received 834 requests for a review of tool’s assessments since it launched in November

There appears to be no legal barrier for a human to override a controversial algorithm that determines financial support for elderly Australians, a Senate inquiry has heard, despite government assessors being banned from doing so.

The Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT), introduced in November as part of aged care Support at Home reforms, is used to assess eligibility and assign funding levels for aged care services.

But Guardian Australia has reported on how the algorithm frequently under-assesses levels of need and criticisms of the IAT after the government removed the ability for assessors to override an incorrect outcome for home support.

On Wednesday night, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing staff confirmed that the government has asked for advice about how to reinstate the override function, during a hearing into Support at Home.

Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne asked senior department staff about “the legislative basis for the inability to have human override as part of that process”.

The department’s first assistant secretary, Robert Day, said: “The no override comes from the fact that that is an objective outcome.”

“If you have these scores from your assessment, you get this level of classification … there’s no discretionary element,” Day said.

The IAT user manual includes a section on the override function, but does not clearly link any ban on its use to a specific provision of the Aged Care Act.

The Liberal senator Paul Scarr has previously raised concerns about the legality of preventing assessors from overriding the outcome, telling the Senate last month that although the user manual “refers to rule 81-10 of the Aged Care Rules,” these rules “make no reference whatsoever to overriding assessments”.

“These Aged Care Rules went before the delegated legislation scrutiny committee, on which I sit,” he said. “There was no suggestion that there would be these guidelines preventing overruling of assessments.”

Scarr told Guardian Australia that it was “very disturbing” that a user guide could “impose automated decision-making in clearly inappropriate circumstances”.

It came after a whistleblower told Guardian Australia that the algorithm frequently leaves older Australians without adequate funding and care, or downgrades their existing support.

Staff could override tool during testing phase

Department staff also confirmed on Wednesday that testing of the algorithm was done by the department during 2024 and 2025, but only with human override still in place. It was not tested after the ability to override was removed.

The algorithm component of the IAT formed a significant part of the questioning by senators during Wednesday’s hearing.

“What’s the point of having someone who’s experienced … and not giving them the ability to actually make a change if they do see an error?” the independent senator David Pocock asked.

“Where is the human in all of this?”

In response, department staff said that there was no way of knowing how many times an assessor raised concerns about the outcome of the IAT, as this data was not tracked.

The inquiry heard that the department has received 834 requests for internal review of IAT outcomes since it was introduced in November. A review, which takes more than two months on average, is the only recourse if the algorithm made a mistake.

“We learned last night that IAT review requests have gone through the roof since November 1, and that the legal and regulatory basis for the automation of classifications and the removal of human oversight is dubious at best,” Allman-Payne told Guardian Australia on Thursday.

“It’s clear that removing human override and letting the algorithm rip is having detrimental effects on older people. When people with degenerative conditions like motor neurone disease are having their assessed care needs downgraded, something is clearly wrong.”

hi all,

are there any Gold Coast or QLD based NDIS sub reddits? im looking for a support coordinator for a participant living in Gold Coast...

Yeah so possibly some major opsec failure here but basically I found out the name of the owner of Spring Team Brisbane and half his Facebook family listing have turned up and (utterly failed to) clean my house at one point or another. It's all aunties and cousins, that's why the service is crap and never gets better.

Hey does anyone know if there's a trick to linking NDIS to Mygov ? I keep getting MyGov Portal error 2 , been trying all day to get it linked.

Hi this story got my attention as it provides some detail on where the gaps might be between what we have now and what is coming down the pipeline :

I guess as always, it's a devil in the detail situation; and yes with the delay (was bonkers and either a trisky strategic strategy to strong arm the States, the ultimate in Ministerial hubris, fervent lobbying from existing Providers who saw a chance to lock in multimillion dollar ongoing funding for their programs, or a combination of all three, to assume that the whole thing could be in place this year) there is now some time to put in the development work for programs.

It's looking like (based on the words from the academics in the article) there will still be children who don't receive the allied health services they receive under TK (which we should never forget is their human right to obtain) - there may well be greater costs to families and society if this results (good therapy at the right time saves lives and money).

It would so be wonderful to have an open debate about these issues; and that not everything be seen through the narrow lens of budgetary expenditure or through the lens of government spin doctors!

As the mum in the story says - she can see the direct benefits of allied thealth supports in her son's lives. I'd say these are the stories that need to be out there more than the "greedy parents and providers ripping off the taxpayers" you get from some disgraceful news outlets and those from their new chosen ones (PHON candidates). However, as she says - she's still needing to go to school with one of her boys and isn't working so she can be there to provide the parenting they need (so it's a similar situation as the rest of the NDIS where the informal supports provided by parents are filling the gaps and from the outside can never tell how much of a difference that makes).

I see so many families that care for disabled children and adults in this way - out of love and a deep sense of responsibility. They are more often than not in states of unremitting stress and fearful (even though they've also sometimes adjusted and found their ways through into some kind of new normal they still score very high to extreme on Caregiver Burden Scales). If we as a society are going to significantly reduce the supports these children and their families receive, then we'd better be sure it's for the right reasons and be prepared to deal with the consequences.

Ministers and Agency management can come and go on their glorious career arcs and are eminently replaceable with the next bright young thing; but the fact reminds that it's the parents who really keep the whole show on the road for their children (<18 and older); and I'd argue their lives are just as important and possibly more so as those of the high flyers we hear from in the media.

I have bipolar/schizoaffective disorder, anxiety, and ADHD. My bipolar is well medicated and I don’t want to jinx things but I’m doing well. I’ve even got a casual job.

My ADHD is unmedicated. ADHD meds can upset bipolar so for the foreseeable future that will remain the same. My anxiety is ‘in remission’. That is to say I haven’t noticed any symptoms in a long while.

My general goals are to return to study in the next couple of years, however the last time I attempted studied my anxiety got *really* bad. Panic attacks every week. Prior to the that I had to pull out of university because my academic skills were lacking (my mental illness ‘came out’ in high school and interrupted my learning).

I just don’t know what my potential is and I’d like to figure it out.

I’d also like to explore creative and social routes. I have work friends, gym friends and volunteering friends but no *friend* friends.

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Health Minister Mark Butler says NDIS is off track, ‘out of control’

The Albanese government is considering reducing the number of people eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme or cutting the funding participants receive as it attempts to rein in spending on the program that Health Minister Mark Butler concedes is “way out of control”.

Speaking at The Australian Financial Review Healthcare Summit on Monday, Butler reiterated the government’s ambition to curtail the ballooning growth of the NDIS from 8 per cent a year to about 5 per cent in the May budget.

Health Minister Mark Butler said at The Australian Financial Review Healthcare Summit that reform to the NDIS would not happen without consultation from the disability community. Renee Nowytarger

“Our research is showing Australians cherish the NDIS. They’re proud of it, but they think it’s got way out of control, and they’re determined that their governments get it back on track,” he said.

The NDIS was established in 2013 by the Gillard government to provide support to individuals with significant and permanent disability. However, higher-than-expected take-up, fraud and abuse have led it to becoming one of the government’s largest and fastest-growing social programs. The NDIS now costs the government about $50 billion a year, and is projected by the Parliamentary Budget Office to reach $100 billion by 2034-35.

To reduce the cost of the NDIS Butler said the government was considering imposing stricter caps on the number of appointments participants can have each year, reviewing pricing models and getting more children with autism off the scheme.

“You can have fewer people on the scheme,” Butler said. “You can have relatively the same number of people on the scheme with lower cost growth. And I think our job now is to work through all of those different permutations and assess the pros and cons of each of them.”

Nick Coatsworth, Australia’s former deputy chief medical officer, told the summit that some funding that was currently earmarked for the NDIS should be redirected to other areas of healthcare, particularly the public hospital system.

“The top five things that the Australian budget funds, you’ve got… health, aged care, defence, NDIS and the interest payments. One of those benefits 800,000 people and the rest of them are for 26 million.

“When are we going to transfer some of that NDIS funding into people who have paid taxes all their lives and are stuck now in... public hospitals?” Coatsworth said to applause from the audience.

The Albanese government last month signed a new hospital funding deal with the states giving them an additional $25 billion over the next five years – lower than the $30 billion they were asking for.

In return the federal government agreed to delay the rollout of Thriving Kids, a program designed to find savings in the NDIS by moving children with mild to moderate autism off the scheme.

“As we move the NDIS forward into something more sustainable, what it can’t do is forget about those patients because otherwise we’re just moving the problem from one area to another,” NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said.

The cost of supports for the 324,000 people with autism (who are 43 per cent of all NDIS participants) soared to $10.3 billion in 2025, most of which goes to individuals with levels two or three autism.

Child psychologist Clare Rowe said diagnosis of autism had to be separated from NDIS funding for the condition if policymakers wanted to reduce the number of participants in the scheme. Rowe said very few people got diagnosed with level one autism now because that classification does not receive NDIS funding.

“Since the NDIS came into existence, I have never seen an assessment report that has diagnosed level one autism. If you have level one autism, you’re now bumped up to level two,” she said. “We need to get rid of the diagnostic label linked to funding and have it purely on level of functional impairment.”

Rowe pointed out that it would be hard for politicians who have their eye on the next election to cut people off from supports that they had been used to receiving. “The problem with the NDIS is it’s very hard to take things away from people once you’ve given them out,” she said.

Martin Laverty, the chief executive of disability accommodation and services provider Aruma, said expectations of the NDIS needed to shift from the scheme funding “reasonable and necessary” supports to funding “essential and required” support.

“We’ve built a Rolls-Royce scheme for what was intended to support a normal life,” Laverty, a former board member of the NDIS, said. “We’ve raised expectations too high that the taxpayer will fund an exceptional life, when in fact, the NDIS was about funding a normal life.”

Laverty said the scheme was so expensive because twice as many people as originally anticipated had joined it. There are nearly 761,400 Australians using the NDIS, more than the 400,000 originally projected by the Productivity Commission in 2011.

A lot of well known and respected voices are quoted in this overview piece. I think it's really important to keep reminding Australians of the history of the NDIS and not let politicians who'd rather move on and stamp their own vision on changes hold all the attention. It's our NDIS - and doesn't belong to one class of decision makers.

At her home on a small farm, 40 minutes out of Hobart, Rosie Treasure loves to paint. The 22-year-old’s intellectual disability and cerebral palsy have proven no barrier to her artistic passion. She sells paintings online through her own micro-business – one has made its way to a buyer in New York – and now has a job working with younger children at an art studio in town.

That Rosie can achieve some form of independence has always been important to her mum, Rachael, a single mother who writes novels and runs the farming business. Rachael makes sure Rosie’s weeks are full of activity. That schedule has involved hundreds of sessions over the last nine years – with support workers, occupational therapists, speech therapists and physios – that are funded by the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

“Rosie would never have reached the skill level and been given this opportunity without the system,” Rachael says. “She’s a happier person for it … the value has been phenomenal.”

But it hasn’t been smooth. Some days Rachael is brought to tears by the frustration of co-ordinating six different support organisations: while some workers have become like family, showing Rosie how to cook Greek meals and fold her laundry, others will come into their home and simply sit there, failing to assist her with basic tasks like getting dressed or brushing teeth.

Author Rachael Treasure (right) with her daughter, Rosie, and two of the family’s horses.

Author Rachael Treasure (right) with her daughter, Rosie, and two of the family’s horses.Melissa Spencer

When Rosie’s plan co-ordinator passed away, it took three months of unanswered emails before the family was notified. Rachael once hired a financial service provider to help manage Rosie’s complicated NDIS budget, only to find out one day that it had all been spent.

“It’s the most confusing and difficult-to-navigate system,” Rachael says. “It’s like having an extra full-time job. I’ve done three different surveys and come out as a red flag for high burnout.”

This is the story of the NDIS: at its best, it’s transformed the lives of people like Rosie, who in previous decades would have been marooned at home or institutions. Still, as a government system, it’s not working as it should. It is administratively complex, susceptible to fraud and misuse, has minimal oversight or regulation of providers, and complaints are on the rise.

The Albanese government has one eye on these issues, and how the scheme could be improved for the people it serves.

It has another eye on the federal budget. As the NDIS has become a fully fledged scheme, its costs have rocketed.

The Productivity Commission predicted in 2011 that the scheme would cater to 410,000 people and cost about $13.5 billion at maturity, then grow between 3 and 6 per cent each year. By 2017, it had revised these estimates, saying the scheme would cost $30 billion in 2025, and $40 billion by 2030.

But this year, it will cost $50 billion, with 760,000 participants. It’s still growing by 10 per cent annually.

The problem for the government is that the scheme hasn’t stabilised. Projections published in December show it will serve more than 1 million people in 2034, costing $96 billion. At 2.1 per cent of future GDP, this would be more than Australia now spends on defence.

Martin Laverty, who was on the first National Disability Insurance Agency board and now runs the large non-profit provider Aruma, says this challenge is urgent.

“I think this is the last budget in which the Australian government can save the NDIS,” he says.

“If we don’t chart a course to cost correction, it will spiral, and those that need the scheme the most will be those hardest hit when, inevitably, a future government needs to cut the scheme back.”

This is the task in front of Mark Butler: one of Anthony Albanese’s most trusted ministers, who took carriage of the NDIS after last year’s election, when he led Labor’s successful Medicare campaign. “I worked in disabilities in the early 1990s, when people who are now being supported by the NDIS were institutionalised for their entire life,” Butler told a forum last week.

“Having a system of supports like the NDIS truly is one of the great human rights advances. But the scheme is off track. It lacks those disciplined design features of a good social program, and we’re determined to get it back on track.”

Labor will make the NDIS a centrepiece of its savings package next month as it seeks to slow the scheme’s annual growth rate towards 5 to 6 per cent over the four-year forward estimates.

Some changes will seek to improve the participant experience and budget bottom line in tandem, but it’s no simple task. Butler must improve regulation and oversight without crushing the market or eroding the scheme’s principles of choice and control. He also needs to restore its purpose of serving people with the most profound disabilities – without leaving others in the lurch.

And he must ensure it keeps its broad social licence while retaining the faith of a disability community that fought hard for the scheme. That community has become increasingly anxious as conversations about costs dominate the public narrative.

Former NSW disability minister John Della Bosca has had a front-row seat watching Australia’s disability services evolve. He had seen just how badly a system geared towards institutionalisation was failing people. When he resigned in 2010, to lead the movement that championed a new scheme, he channelled this into optimism.

A group of service providers, families, carers and academics – who came together under the banner “Every Australian Counts” – won over the Gillard government with their campaign to transform disability services in Australia.

“The whole idea of the NDIS was that we would catch up and leapfrog the world in terms of disability supports,” Della Bosca says. But the former minister is much more circumspect when he talks about the NDIS now. “The campaign, in a way, was too successful too quickly.

“Someone once described it – unflatteringly – as a jumbo plane being built while it was in the air.”

It’s easier with hindsight to identify the design flaws.

Many of them were included in the 2011 Productivity Commission blueprint, intended to bolster choice and control in a system that had none. With time, however, these settings have distorted markets and opened the scheme to fraud. Providers have been allowed to operate without registering with the government; flat pricing structures don’t reflect specific skills or quality in certain services; the concept of “reasonable and necessary” supports is legislated but loosely defined.

One thing, though, tops the list for where things have gone wrong. The original proposal was for a tiered system of disability supports across the community. Tier one, individualised NDIS packages, were to be reserved for roughly 330,000 disabled people who had severely reduced functioning. Four million more people would access tier two supports, such as state services delivered in schools and hospitals.

That fuller ecosystem never materialised. Instead, state government services dried up and are only now being put back online. “The biggest mistake we made was that no one really envisioned the states would completely exit the disability sector,” Della Bosca says.

Call it the only lifeboat in the ocean, as former minister Bill Shorten did, or the oasis in the desert, as scheme architect Bruce Bonyhady put it: the NDIS became the only option for disability support in Australia. That’s clearest today in the statistics for participants with autism.

About 324,000 of the 761,000 NDIS participants – or more than two in every five – have a primary diagnosis of autism. While annual growth among the remainder of participants is relatively stable, the number of people with autism, mainly children, grew by 24 per cent last year. Australian academic studies have demonstrated an uptick in autism diagnoses followed the NDIS rollout, as people chased help, and the only way to get it was through the scheme.

Some of these participants have significant support needs that require around-the-clock care. The majority, however, have what the scheme classifies as mild or moderate support needs – these are the people that would have been catered to by the original design’s “tier two” supports, had they been developed.

Data supplied to this masthead by the NDIA puts the number of people in this category at about 310,000 people, or 40 per cent of the scheme. Their collective support costs came to about $5.4 billion last year – just over 10 per cent of spending.

A review of the NDIS at the end of 2023 recommended “foundational supports” be established to assist these people outside the NDIS, replacing individual packages with a broader system of services. It was shorthand for the original “tier two” concept. State and federal governments have since set aside a combined $10 billion over five years to develop these supports.

But they’re not yet up and running. Thriving Kids, a new system for children eight or younger, will be the first off the ground: $4 billion of that funding has been allocated to get it started in October, and fully implemented by 2028.

The director of the Grattan Institute’s disability program, Sam Bennett, says there’s still much more work to do. He thinks Thriving Kids should take in children all the way to age 18, and that foundational supports must be extended to people with disabilities caused by mental illness. At that point, there could be changes to NDIS eligibility criteria.

“The scope of foundational supports recommended by the review was a lot wider than development delay and autism. We haven’t seen movement on that aspect,” he says.

Bennett is sceptical of the government’s budget targets. He says Labor has already baked in savings from other changes – such as laws to make the scheme easier to administer, and a new standardised assessment and budget setting model – that haven’t been fully implemented yet.

“If you’re banking further savings, to get it down to 5 to 6 per cent, I would say that’s based on some fairly heroic assumptions at this point,” he says.

But there are stakeholders who think the government must try. Chief among them are some of the scheme’s biggest non-profit providers, who fear they have been squeezed in a market that rewards bad-faith actors.

They’re encouraging a robust debate about some of those other settings – registration, price and service quality – as Labor mulls major changes before next month’s federal budget.

“There is sufficient money in the scheme,” Michael Perusco, the head of peak body National Disability Services, wrote to his 1000 members this week. “The central question is how to get value for money from this investment.”

Fraud often dominates NDIS headlines. Stories of luxury cars and systemic rorting take hold online, and are referenced in parliament by politicians such as Pauline Hanson. Some of this veers into misinformation, although there are substantial integrity issues: an Australian National Audit Office report has estimated the level of leakage from broad noncompliance in the NDIS runs between 6 and 10 per cent. At current levels of funding, that’s up to $5 billion a year in waste.

But some of the problems are more complex than so-called dodgy providers. The agency that runs the NDIS has its own share of concerns about how it’s set up. One flaw raised by agency official John Dardo in Senate estimates earlier this year was the scheme’s payment systems.

“Back in 2022, if an individual came in online to make a claim, they could make a claim without providing an ABN, without providing a text description and without uploading any evidence,” he said. The agency often did not have eyes on those claims before they were processed and paid.

That’s now changed: text descriptions are required, analytics run on those items, and there are 24-hour payment delays. Dardo says about $13 million worth of claims are now rejected every month. More than 2500 providers have been stopped from claiming since June 2024 – a group that had historically claimed $5 billion.

But there’s more to be done. Dardo said the agency still can’t see, under law, whether providers have paid tax or not. He also said to expect reform around provider registration.

Just 6.5 per cent of the 277,000 providers who operate via the NDIS are registered with the government. The intent was to remove red tape between a person with disability and their service provider, in line with the scheme’s principles of choice and control.

Laverty, the former NDIA board member, thinks this was a mistake. “Ten years on, the absence of registration creates uncertainty about the safety and identity of the provider, and whether their services are legitimate,” he says.

“Taxpayers would be horrified to learn that anyone, this afternoon, could start their own business and then charge the taxpayer $70 per hour for a disability support – such as taking someone to the movies – with no training, no registration and no safety screening.”

The most likely way forward will be a tiered universal registration system, where the administrative requirements are proportionate to the service and its risk – a recommendation of the 2023 NDIS review.

The other push is for a tiered pricing regime. Perusco, chief executive of National Disability Services, describes the current settings as a one-size-fits-all approach, and gives this example: the current price limit for support workers is roughly $70 an hour.

In some parts of the scheme, staff are required to help feed people through tubes, ensuring they get nourishment and nutrients, while minimising the risk of infection. This requires skills, supervision, a clinical governance framework and higher overheads.

“You get paid the same amount whether you’re doing [that] complex work or whether you’re taking someone shopping,” he says.

It’s a good rate of pay for an individual with no qualifications. Not so much if you’re operating a home for several people with complex support needs. “The system incentivises low-cost, low-complexity work. It’s led to the providers doing the most complex work, acting with integrity in the scheme, doing it toughest,” he says.

These issues run through the NDIS. They’re felt most acutely in the most costly, and most complex, parts of the scheme: those that cater to the 5 per cent of participants who have the highest support needs, and require help with everyday functioning.

About 37,000 people on the scheme receive support for independent living. Their payments have grown by 26 per cent over the last two years, from $12.9 billion to $16.2 billion. The costs of supported disability accommodation – covering about 16,000 participants – are also growing fast. The average payment per participant has increased at 31 per cent a year, according to the NDIA’s latest report, due to a combination of indexed pricing and people moving into new-build dwellings.

Together, these areas make up about a third of the NDIS budget. Again, people and providers are begging for improvements. Laverty, for example, wants the government to step in and co-ordinate disability accommodation – an area of service he says has not delivered the improvement in quality that the NDIS promised.

Catherine McAlpine, the chief executive of Inclusion Australia – which represents people with intellectual disabilities – wants to see more innovation in supported independent living, the most expensive part of the scheme. “We’re not asking for more money, we’re asking to use people’s plans better, in a more innovative way,” she says.

McAlpine was also around when the NDIS got off the ground. She’s seen it make an enormous difference. “The people who got the biggest impact straight away were people for whom assistive technologies, or getting the right support to live a dignified life, was fairly straightforward,” she says.

“You got your tech, and instead of showering twice a week, you could shower every day. Your support worker could come any time to put you to bed, not just at 6pm.”

She says it’s been more complex for families and people with intellectual disabilities. It’s helped parents who once would have stopped work to become full-time carers after their child finished school.

But the full promise of inclusivity and independence is not yet realised. McAlpine says the current model has the wrong priorities: it is faster for an unskilled support worker to cook a meal for a participant than spend the time teaching that participant how to cook – even though it’s less expensive, over time, when people learn to do things themselves.

“We’re hearing about disengaged support workers taking people to a cafe and sitting playing on their phones. That’s not really community inclusion. Building community connections is skilled work that needs to be recognised and resourced,” she says.

McAlpine says there are big social questions about the NDIS that need to be asked. But she is sceptical of political debate that is centred on the scheme’s financial sustainability, because its benefits aren’t being counted.

“There have been flaws in the NDIA’s market stewardship. They didn’t have protective mechanisms against fraud and exploitation, and those things need to be resolved. But when there is so much focus on fraud and waste, there is risk that the message becomes: we can’t afford to provide the support people with a disability deserve. It’s really problematic,” she says.

“The promise of the scheme was an inclusive life, free from violence and abuse, where people are able to make their own choices. We need to measure those things, too, in defining its success.”

Rachael Treasure can see the situation from all sides. “It needs a really good prune,” she says of the scheme. “There are too many people with fingers in the whole NDIS pie.”

But, like thousands of other families, she fears blanket cuts and what’s around the corner. She hopes the scheme can offer more flexibility, rather than less, and that it becomes easier to navigate.

“We’ve always been above board and utilise the money really responsibly and well,” she says. “I worry we will bear the brunt for people who have been rorting the system.”

A

My client who I’m a support worker for attends workshops that her support coordinator organised. Turns out the coordinator never set up proper funding for them, so the cost was charged against her social support worker budget without anyone realising. Now that budget is nearly depleted and my client has been cut from regular sessions of 10 hours down to just 4 hours a week.

When my client raised it with the coordinator today, she was cold, defensive, and basically said “once the funding is gone it’s gone.” No apology, no plan to fix it, no offer to request an unscheduled plan review or cover the gap.

To make it worse — the same person owns both the support coordination company AND the support worker company, so there’s a clear conflict of interest in how this is being handled.

My client did nothing wrong. She attended workshops she was told were covered. Now she’s paying the price for someone else’s administrative mistake.

Has anyone dealt with something like this? Is lodging a complaint with the NDIS Commission the right move here? Can the NDIA do an unscheduled review in a situation like this?

Hi, there may have been a few others here at the ARATA webinar yesterday where the Agency representatives made their appearance conditional on 1/ their not being required to take questions and 2/ the part of the webinar not being recorded / made available later. I've been at a few other events in previous years where this has also been the case/requirement. I was wondering if someone here might be able to provide an educated view / opinion on how they can legitimately get away with this stance ? Aren't public officials required to be accountable and accessible to the people they are there to serve? It would almost be ok if this stance was consistent; but there are multiple examples of NDIA senior management doing interviews, taking questions, and then having these recordings made available. So it seems like these rules are rubbery based on what.....the perceived PR value obtained ? potential for career advancement within a particuarly difficult department onto bigger and better things ? I was thinking that perhaps the people at some of the webinars and conference presentations that have taken this no questions/no recordings position may well have been directed to by their line managers or perhaps even the Minister's advisors (given we all know the changes which are coming are highly sensitive/charged and carry some risk for the government if uncomfortable questions are asked / unauthorized or carefully vetted for message palatabilty responses are provided....or worst case from the NDIA Management and government perspective - the possibility of a legal challenge is created. I do appreciate in difficult times there's a fair case to be made for not creating even more anxiety for participants and families; but surely the Agency people know the more they try to control and seemingly hide things - the more skeptical and concerned people get ? Like asking someone not to record something is in effect sending the message that what it being said is likely to be juicy and useful. Is this all just a game / dance with the public - they've got something we all want to know (market intelligence does have a financial and social value after all)? After all, these people are most certainly not some kind of rock stars who have a right to demands special treatment or not have the people like us look them in the eye ! I do know it's a difficult job to front up and try and let people know what's happening when often that's not entirely clear.

Hi all,

I’m a 22 y/o support worker in Victoria working for an NDIS provider. I’m also a uni student and I’m really struggling after a few work-related things have left me badly out of pocket. I’d really appreciate some advice on what my options are.

1. Car repairs and hire car (~$2,800)

I use my own car for work. There was a work-related situation that led to my car needing repairs, and I also had to hire a car so I could keep working and get around. The total for repairs plus the hire car was about $2,800, which I paid on my credit card around three weeks ago.

At first my employer basically said I’d be reimbursed. Now they’re saying they can’t give me a clear timeframe and that it depends on when they get money back from the NDIS. In the meantime I’m stuck with a big credit card bill racking up interest that I can’t really afford.

What I want to know:

• If I’m expected to use my own car for work and it’s damaged in a work-related situation, do they have to reimburse me within a reasonable time?

• Can they legally say “we’ll only pay you when NDIS pays us”?

• If they don’t sort this out soon, should I be going to Fair Work, a union, or somewhere else?

2. Client expense (~$62)

On another shift, a participant lost their card right before we needed to pay for something for them. I offered to pay on my own card so we could keep going. It was about $62.

I submitted the receipt and proof of payment and asked for reimbursement, but I still haven’t been paid back.

What I want to know:

• Is this clearly something my employer should reimburse as a normal work expense?

• If they keep dragging it out, can I include this in any complaint about unpaid entitlements/expenses?

3. Laptop broken during serious incident (~$1,400, 2 weeks ago)

About two weeks ago, on a weekend shift, I had a pretty scary incident with a participant. He locked the doors so it was just the two of us, then went to attack me. After about a minute of struggling I managed to get away and run outside.

Earlier in the shift, while he was sleeping, I’d been using my personal MacBook (which I use for uni and sometimes for work stuff like notes and emails). When he woke up, I put it away in my bag so it wouldn’t be out around him. During the incident he got to my bag and snapped the laptop in half. The damage is about $1,400.

My employer has told me they won’t cover any of the cost because there’s a clause in the paperwork I signed saying they’re not responsible for personal items I bring to the workplace.

From my side:

• The laptop is something I use for both uni and work-related tasks.

• They don’t provide a work laptop or device.

• The damage happened in the middle of a serious workplace incident, even though I had actually put the laptop away in my bag when he woke up.

What I want to know:

• Does a “we’re not responsible for personal items” clause usually cover this kind of situation, where the item is in my bag and gets damaged during an incident?

• Is there any realistic way to get them to cover some or all of the cost (for example through their insurance or a claim), or am I likely going to have to wear it?

What I’ve done so far

• Submitted all the invoices/receipts and paid everything myself.

• Completed an incident report about the assault and the property damage.

• Spoken to my employer, who is delaying the car and client reimbursements and refusing anything for the laptop.

My questions/adive needed is!!

• Can they keep holding off on paying me for the car until they get money from NDIS, even though I’ve already paid?

• Is it worth pursuing the laptop, or is that probably a dead end?

• Who should I talk to first – Fair Work, a union, a community legal centre, or someone else?

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NDIS cuts loom amid Treasury productivity push

The Albanese government is working on fresh budget savings from the $52 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme, as new Treasury research shows a doubling of workers in Labor’s prized care sectors has contributed to the nation’s productivity malaise.

Treasury signalled “persistently weak” productivity would require tax increases or spending cuts, saying higher productivity would increase wages and profits and deliver more revenue to the government’s budget “without raising taxes or cutting spending”.

The NDIS costs the federal budget around $50 billion every year, and is projected to reach $100 billion by 2034-35. Michaela Pollock

Ahead of the May 12 federal budget, Health Minister Mark Butler and NDIS Minister Jenny McAllister have been tasked by the expenditure review committee to find ways to reduce NDIS cost growth to between 5 per cent and 6 per cent – half of the 10.3 per cent growth rate recorded last year, according to government sources speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Leading economists said Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher should cut about $130 billion of total government spending on the NDIS and other programs over four years to achieve the treasurer’s pledged “substantial savings” in the budget.

Federal spending as a share of the economy is elevated at 27 per cent of GDP, up from a long-term average of about 25 per cent of GDP, and is the highest since 1986, excluding the pandemic.

“This is the break glass moment. If they don’t take this opportunity, they never will,” Walters, a former chief economist at the NSW Treasury, said.

Chalmers said last week “tough decisions” would be made for the budget, including on savings, productivity and tax, as the government faces a decade of budget deficits and inflation that threatens to hit 5 per cent, partly due to soaring fuel prices from the war in the Middle East.

Chalmers said Treasury now thinks it will take an additional five years, rather than two years, to revive Australia’s relatively low productivity growth to around the long-term average of 1.2 per cent.

The cost of NDIS payments to participants with autism has blown out to more than $10 billion a year after a record 62,500 people diagnosed with the disorder piled into the scheme last year.

The NDIS also spent $11.6 billion on social and community support for participants last year, which is driving nearly a quarter of the scheme’s ballooning cost as Labor attempts to rein in a big budget deficit.

David Cullen, the NDIS’s first chief economist, said lasts week while there were benefits to this support, the funding had little oversight and was an obvious place to make savings.

Butler’s spokeswoman declined to comment on budget deliberations.

Separately, Treasury said in a submission to a Senate inquiry that a doubling of the share of workers in government-backed care and support services, from 8 per cent of the workforce in the 1980s to 16 per cent today, was one of several causes of Australia’s weak productivity performance.

Labor has expanded spending on the care economy, including subsidising billions of dollars in wages for aged care and childcare workers.

Treasury said other drags on productivity were slow technology adoption by businesses outside of mining and agriculture, weaker business investment, declining competition among firms and fewer workers changing employers.

Strong hiring in the government-dominated care sectors has contributed to the low jobless rate of 4.3 per cent, but the rapid movement of people from unemployment to lower-skilled roles has also weighed on the economy’s overall productivity, Treasury said.

Care and support services are now Australia’s largest workforce sector, employing 2.4 million people.

Analysis by Treasury submitted to a Senate inquiry showed productivity in the non-market sector, which is dominated by care support and the public service, declined by an average of almost 1 per cent a year in the five years to the end of 2024.

“Productivity growth is central to Australia’s long-term economic performance ... [and] raises living standards,” Treasury said.

“Measured productivity growth in care and support industries – and across the non-market sector generally – is weaker on average compared with the market sector,” Treasury noted, adding that productivity may be underestimated in the health-related sectors.

However, Treasury said the expansion of high-quality formal care and health services had supported female employment and the ability of older Australians to have longer productive working lives.

Hi I am an rn and I'd like to train to be a behaviour support practioner. What post graduate qualifications/training would people recommend? Thanks

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Cuts to NDIS to be focus of Labor’s quietly launched razor gang ahead of May budget

Labor has quietly established a razor gang to drive budget savings in the national disability insurance scheme, as it works to further rein in costs ahead of next month’s federal budget.

An NDIS Sustainability Taskforce was established within the health department earlier this year, with instructions from the federal government and national cabinet to advise on cost-cutting options for the $52bn program.

Led by the former Treasury official Anthea Long, the taskforce was not publicly announced but began work after the 30 January meeting between Anthony Albanese, state premiers and the health minister, Mark Butler.

Long was formerly the first assistant secretary in Treasury’s social policy division and has previously held senior positions at the industry department and worked as an economist at the Productivity Commission.

The department already has functions for NDIS strategy and policy, governance and research.

Growth in NDIS spending was 10.3% last year, well above the federal government’s target rate of 8%, which Butler has described as “simply unsustainable” in the medium and long term.

Butler and the NDIS minister, Jenny McAllister, have indicated they are continuing to urgently try to bring spending growth down to between 5% and 6% annually.

NDIS changes are expected to be part of the May budget, which Albanese and the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, describe as Labor’s most ambitious yet, even as the war in Iran plays havoc with planning.

The NDIS was forecast to cost taxpayers $52bn this financial year, making it more expensive than big-ticket budget items including aged care and Medicare. On its current trajectory, the program could overtake spending on defence.

Without changes, NDIS spending had been due to soar past $63bn by 2028-29.

Butler’s office referred questions from Guardian Australia to the health department. A spokesperson said the taskforce was established at the same time as a deal to progress changes for children with autism and developmental delays, set to be provided through a new program called Thriving Kids.

“The taskforce is progressing work on delivering a sustainable NDIS for current and future generations of Australians with disability in line with the national cabinet commitment to target annual cost increases to 5 to 6%,” the spokesperson said.

Asked about possible savings from the NDIS this week, Albanese would not be drawn on the government’s plans.

The PM said the NDIS had “made an enormous difference to people’s lives and we need to remember that”.

“We want to make sure that it’s fit for purpose and that it’s sustainable and we’ll be working on the budget like we do on other items for that.”

Chalmers and the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, have put the public service on notice for significant cuts. Cabinet ministers and department and agency bosses have been asked to propose budget savings of as much as 5%, though cuts were not expected to be that steep.

The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, said this week the NDIS must use taxpayer money well, with dodgy operators and fraud drummed out.

“That means the NDIS needs to be run in a way where there isn’t fraud,” he told Sky News. “If there is fraud, and the signs are clear, strong signs that there has been fraud in the NDIS, we need to see it gone.”

As part of broader savings, the federal government and the states have agreed to spend $4bn on Thriving Kids, delivered through a 50/50 cost split. About $1.4bn of the federal contribution is expected to go directly to service delivery.

The program’s start date has been delayed to October.

Hi everyone
just curious whether other self managed people were now getting (seemingly) random requests to upload invoices during the claiming process? Not all the time for some reason??
I didn't get this until a few months ago and wondered if a change for everyone.. or just me. Also how common is this and/or is it being phased in as standard now?
I don't mind it has just sparked my paranoia.. haha. Overactive catastrophe response here!
The portal now has a pop up that alerts you to have an invoice on the ready...which I do. This change probably coincided and I just wasn't paying attention. A couple times, I forgot and had to swoop up my invoice from my bookwork online which was clumsy and slow (for me) Now I am more ready after getting better help to manage my book keeping in a way that was quick and easily retrievable in the moment.
I used to upload all of them (a few years back) but the LAC advised me it clogs up the system and said to stop.

thanks in advance. My Support coordinator doesn't know as she deals with mostly plan managed and NDIS often give two different answers depending on who picks up the call.

I work for her as a support worker, but they have different last names wondering if this is legal. Seems like unethical practices. They also make clients sign different service forms every few months it’s weird. They operate by using the same clients, husband is their support coordinator, and then use support workers from my boss’ company.

Hopefully they follow through and it is not just a pretty on paper result.

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Senate passes tough new laws to protect the NDIS from fraudsters, predators and shonks

The Senate has today passed a bill that delivers tough new laws to protect people with a disability and safeguard the NDIS from exploitation at the hands of fraudsters, predators and shonks.

Media event date:

31 March 2026

Date published:

31 March 2026

The Senate has today passed a bill that delivers tough new laws to protect people with a disability and safeguard the NDIS from exploitation at the hands of fraudsters, predators and shonks.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 throws the book at those responsible for serious misconduct and unsafe practices within the scheme.

Key measures include;

Making it a crime to fail to comply with a banning order - carrying a maximum sentence of 5 years imprisonment.

Making it a crime to provide supports that require registration without being registered – carrying a maximum sentence of 2 years imprisonment.

Increasing fines by up to 40 times for serious code of conduct breaches including from a maximum of $412,500 to more than $15 million when serious misconduct leads to death or serious injury.

New anti-promotion orders designed to crack down on businesses that advertise NDIS supports in ways that undermine the scheme’s integrity and trick NDIS participants into misuse of their funding.

Expanding banning order categories so the NDIS Commission can ban bad actors from being NDIS auditors, business advisors and consultants.

Stronger whistleblower protections to ensure individuals can safely report concerns about unsafe or unlawful practices within the Scheme.

Strengthened monitoring, compliance and enforcement powers of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.

The Bill will also modernise NDIS claims by introducing mandated electronic claim forms to prevent fraud and abuse of the system at the expense of participants.

It also creates a new power for the National Disability Insurance Agency to request evidence before claims are paid.

The Bill will be sent to the House of Representatives now that it has passed the Senate.

Quotes attributable to Minister for the NDIS Jenny McAllister:

“The NDIS is meant to be a disability support scheme, not a get rich quick scheme.

“If you are banned from the NDIS but then choose to contravene that banning order, then you do not belong in the disability sector, you belong in prison.

“If you think you can get rich quick and cut corners by operating without registration when it is needed then you are engaging in predatory and dangerous behaviour and you also belong in prison.

“And if you think you can get away with shonky marketing which tricks NDIS participants into misusing their funding, tricks investors into disability housing scams, or promotes fake deals that tell participants they can use their plans to fund holidays then we will fine you $400,000.

“These are common sense measures, but we know there’s still more work to do to get the fraudsters, predators and shonks out of the disability sector.”

Quotes attributable to NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commissioner Louise Glanville:

“These new laws will support the NDIS Commission to take more effective action to prevent harm and improve quality across the sector.

“They strengthen our ability to identify and respond to risks, take timely enforcement action, and drive better practice across providers.

“These reforms reflect extensive consultation with people with disability, families, advocates and providers.”

I can't believe in my review for access they would stoop so low as say my psychologist who did my assessment isn't accredited - yes really so they don't believe I'm autistic.

So yes they would rather discredit a professional reputation which is borderline diffamatory given she is accredited then get me accepted as ASD level 2

God I want to absolutely obliterate when I get to ART.

My son has just had transport funding included in his plan. If he uses a taxi/uber to get from podiatrist as his feet hurt afterwards, can he use that funding for that? He is autistic and doesn’t want to get his licence, can he use the fund for uber after social events? Tia

I’ve been working as a support worker for a five years now and I’ve noticed something I’m curious about.

A fair number of support workers I’ve worked with seem to struggle with things like high stress, anxiety, social skills, or sometimes what feels like possible undiagnosed neurodivergence or other personal challenges.

I don’t mean that in a judgmental way, a lot of them are caring people and good with clients. It’s just something I’ve noticed repeatedly across different workplaces.

It made me wonder whether the industry tends to attract people who have their own lived experience or personal struggles, or the nature of the job brings these things out in people over time.

Has anyone noticed this too? Or am I just seeing a skewed sample from the places I’ve worked?

Been thinking to myself recently with the rising fuel costs in Australia if the NDIS will put the petrol allowance of 0.99 cents per kilometre up, anyone else wondering the same?

Hi all,

Is there any difference in using a support worker from Mable as opposed to an independent support worker?
Like does Mable provide any extra protections for the participant in terms of insurance etc?

cheers :)

I've been looking into how NDIS providers charge for group-based community participation programs and I'm genuinely confused. I've got quotes from a few providers and none of them seem to be dividing the hourly rate between participants — they're all charging each participant the full rate (or close to it) for what is clearly a group activity with multiple people in it.

For example I've seen providers charging $47.50 per participant using 04_104_0125_6_1 plus an additional $9.50 per participant using the 1:5 group ratio code 04_102_0136_6_1. With 5 participants that's $285/hr going to the provider for two workers.

My understanding was that for group supports the hourly rate gets divided by the number of participants — so if the price limit is $67.56/hr and you have 5 people, each participant pays roughly $13.50/hr. But that doesn't seem to be what anyone is actually doing in practice.

Are providers allowed to charge each participant the full line item rate without dividing it?

Is using both the primary code AND the group ratio code simultaneously legitimate?

Why does the price guide even have a 1:1 rate listed for these codes if providers are charging it per participant in groups anyway?

i have upcoming review as that annual reassess thing as process gathering reports,my OT has written a report, but she said she can’t recommend psychology supports in it.

She explained that:

• The report is OT-specific (progress report, not a full functional assessment)

• It only covers what we’ve worked on + need for OT

• She can mention my psychosocial barriers, but can’t justify other supports like psychology without doing a full review/FCA

Has anyone else had this happen?

• Is it normal that an OT won’t recommend psychology in a progress report?

• Did you need both OT + psychologist reports to get psychology funded?

• Is it worth paying for a full Functional Capacity Assessment instead?

I honestly don’t really understand what the report is about. I thought having an OT write a report was to about my NDIS plan and conditions, what I need, and my struggles and barriers.

currently had psych on ndis plans but worried they splash the funds

as many of you aware they going to cut psych.

A must watch analysis from Chris Coombes

I’ve seen multiple stories about providers overcharging or not delivering proper services, but they were still registered and operating.

So I’m trying to understand:

- What do audits actually check?
- Is it mostly documentation-based?
- How easy is it to “pass” vs actually being compliant day-to-day?

Just trying to understand how the system works in reality.

The Sydney Morning Herald

“Labor will make slowing growth in the $50 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme a centrepiece of its budget savings as the war in the Middle East continues to heap pressure on households and the government’s bottom line.

Australia’s peak body for disability services has started priming NDIS providers to expect significant changes next month, but it is encouraging the sector to embrace public debate over the future of a scheme it says has enough funding but is riddled with integrity failures.

Their argument will help bolster Health Minister Mark Butler’s case as he mulls structural overhauls of NDIS eligibility or how the scheme funds services in his efforts to significantly curtail the scheme’s growth trajectory within the next few years.

Savings delivered from driving down NDIS forecasts over the four-year forward estimates – which this masthead revealed last month would be baked into the budget – have become more important as the war in Iran has created uncertainty and thrown off some of the government’s other plans.

Labor has been reconsidering its plans to axe electric vehicle concessions and to introduce a road user charge. The fuel excise cut introduced last week will cost a further $2.5 billion in a budget that Treasurer Jim Chalmers is framing as one of “hard decisions”.

The NDIS has become the federal government’s second-fastest growing budget expense, next to the growing interest bill for national debt, and senior Labor ministers fear the scheme will lose its social licence if it isn’t significantly reworked.

A stricter registration regime and more disciplined pricing are among other options being developed to restore integrity in the program, where most providers are not registered as the scheme has swelled to serve more than 760,000 participants.

While the scheme’s annual growth rate has come down from about 22 per cent when Labor came into power to 10.3 per cent in the most recent quarter, it remains far steeper than any other social program. The NDIS is on track to cost $100 billion by next decade.

State and federal governments have agreed to bring down the NDIS growth rate to 5 to 6 per cent or lower. The new Thriving Kids scheme will start diverting children with mild or moderate needs from the NDIS in 2028, but further changes will be needed to achieve the lower targets.

In remarks that emphasise the significance of the coming reforms, the head of National Disability Services has told its 1000 member organisations, who service more than 300,000 people, to expect that consequential decisions about the NDIS will be made in May and that “this moment should be embraced”.

“For providers, this debate is long overdue. Members see integrity failures every day,” the peak body’s chief executive, Michael Perusco, wrote in an email to members seen by this masthead.

“You have raised these issues for years while operating in a system with weak guardrails, uneven oversight and blunt pricing settings that do not reward quality or accountability.

“There is sufficient money in the scheme. The central question is how to get value for money from this investment while safeguarding participants, providers and the scheme itself. Inaction is not cost neutral.”

Butler last week told a healthcare summit hosted by the Australian Financial Review that the government was working through its options ahead of next month’s budget. “The scheme is off track. It lacks those disciplined design features of a good social program, and we’re determined to get it back on track,” he said.

“You can have fewer people on the scheme; you can have relatively the same number of people on the scheme with lower cost growth. And I think our job now is to work through all of those different permutations and assess the pros and cons of each of them.

“State, territory and the federal government agree that we need further moderation of growth to get it down to ... 5 to 6 per cent or lower, and that is the work that obviously we’re considering in the budget now.”

Butler said it was important the government worked in tandem with the disability community. “This scheme is very much founded on the idea of nothing about us without us. It will have to be that process of co-design,” he said.

“But getting the thing back on track is not just important from an overall budget perspective. It’s really important ... for the social licence for this program.”

A Labor-led parliamentary committee is also preparing to hear fresh evidence of fraud and non-compliance in the scheme. It will make recommendations that build the government’s case for an integrity crackdown.

Perusco said the government’s messaging made it clear that changes were under way, while “fraud, misuse and ‘dodgy providers’ have become a central feature of the public debate in recent weeks”.

“Budget pressures, exacerbated by geopolitical uncertainty, inflation risks and the need to constrain government expenditure, make it likely that this year’s budget will include consequential decisions about the future of the NDIS,” he told members.

But he said it was vital the government embarked on structural reform rather than short-term cuts that undermined the scheme’s quality.

“The integrity challenges in the scheme are not accidental,” he said. “They are the predictable result of a market where only around 6 per cent of providers are registered and subject to meaningful safeguarding obligations, while large and growing parts of the market operate with minimal oversight.”

Hi, im wondering if this has happened with anyone else?. My son has an early intervention plan which has been amazing and helped him a lot. I got a letter at the end of September or beginning of October saying his plan would be getting renewed and we would hear from someone closer to the end date. Now the end date is this Friday and have not heard a single thing from NDIS, his provider or Kudos (they have been involved since the start). My sons speechy said it may just roll over and I’ll find out about the new budget on the app but has that happened to anyone?. I’ll definitely be calling them but was just wondering if anyone else has experienced this?

Moira is closing its plan management services. They’ve been good for me but now they suggest kismet, has anyone dealt with Kismet? I can’t find many reviews or mentions of them. I’ve had other plan managers who stepped over the boundary of their services like calling an LAC to look up my “case”. I don’t have and never have had an LAC as NDIA denied me one in my first planning meeting because I asked for one. Not this query though.

Hourly rate of pay: $ 35.15 Hourly Saturday rate of pay: $ 49.21 Hourly Sunday rate of pay: $ 63.27 Hourly rate on Public Holiday $ 77.33 Hourly rate in afternoons $ 38.67 Hourly rate in Nights ( Active night) ≤ 39.37 Inactive sleepover flat rate: $60.00 ( Plus one hours of night rate) Superannuation: Refer General Conditions of Employment (Schedule B) Hourly pay rate (11.5%)

Please help me: Who is the best Plan Manager I should switch to & who should I avoid?

I am currently with InstaCare. They used to be wonderful, but the past 12 months they have become the worst company to deal with in every possible way.

Thank you for any & all feedback or advice.

I really need some advice. I was accepted onto the ndis years ago under a ‘defined program’, this meant no reports or extensive evidence were given on application. Due to my poor mental health I failed to set up a plan and it is only now 2026 that I am trying to set up the plan again with support. I gave them a psychiatrist report from years ago in the first planning meeting that was written for the process previously. Based on this would I be funded anything beyond a really minimal plan? Reading what people are getting I assume I’d get 2-4 hours of support and funding only to do a FCA. I don’t know if they will even regard the 2019 report at all (is there an expiry rule on reports?) but it’s the only thing they have to go on. The main need I have is psychology and I know that’s getting slashed left and right from people. The planner assigned to build the plan sent an email asking if I had any other evidence I wanted them to consider but it has not been stated that I actually need new or more evidence I’m just panicking? Should I go through with the final meeting and just see what I get? Or should I get a psychologist report or a new psychiatrist report? The mental health team in the community has refused to help with an FCA because technically I was already ndis accepted (they help others who are applying). And what on earth should these reports focus on to be listened to by the ndis?

My new support coordinator asked about if I wanted to live outside of my families home at some point in maybe the next 5 years. I said yes that would be nice but most likely not possible due to costs (even non disabled people or people with regular income these days cant really afford anything....). One of the suggestions she had was government housing. I have heard bad things about it, especially safety wise. She said there are areas that are safer but I wanted to see if anyone here has more recent experiences, or even live close to government housing or work in that sort of department? Also I should note it would be in Brisbane somewhere.

My son uses a postural support chair for feeding and some activity. Son has capacity to request getting in and out - requires staff to remove the tray so he can unbuckle. We have used it for last 2 years with no issues.

Not the best environment but we manage

Then, school refusal starts.

His Teacher decided to use it as a means of compliance to sit during an activity - would not let him out, he hit and kicked the chair and ultimately had to say he needed the toilet to get out and then simply went and sat in the same chair as his classmates - fully complied in sitting . Teacher has lots of experience. Should have known better. All of it has been reported in writing - provable but with lack of insight into why it was wrong. I was told he had been hitting and kicking his chair - but not why - until last night.

Have been advised to report to NDIS to aid in getting him removed from that class (he won't go back, he can't go to mainstream, high support needs) **now realise this was misinformation**

What else can I do? I don't feel like it's being taken as seriously as it should be.

WA

hey everyone, anyone else worried about all the means testing stuff getting spoken about? I understand a lot of people see holding down a job as a privilege but I wouldn't be able to do it at all without support that I receive. I massively rely on support workers as well as my OT for skills building.

I don't want to go backwards. They haven't said for sure it will happen or what the amount of money will be but I'm worried it will be some stupid low amount that no one could support themselves on.

I have no family to rely on and never have. I live alone in an apartment due to trauma I haven't been able to have house mates just yet. Now its like wow the risk of losing my ndis because I maybe make too much money is terrifying. I also have severe chronic pain and fatigue so I can't even clean myself.

Legit only work because I've got so much backing. I get there are "rich" people on the sceme but why should the rest of us suffer for that tf.

Anyway. Anyone else worrying about this stuff? I was worried before hand getting kicked off just because it seems they hate people with Autism these days but now I have to worry about being kicked off for having a job.

In the past I nearly went on the disabilty pension because of how bad my life was going but I spent 1.5k per month in medication and doctors alone not even bills or anything. I couldn't pick up the slack and pay people privately. The Medicare gaps for OT phych etc is so shit too.

I wonder if this huge NDIS push in the media is because of all the provider fraud. Again what's that got to do with us participants.

I was finally given access to my brother's NDIS plan and am trying to understand what happens to his SDA funding. Whilst I understand it is for "bricks and mortar" type supports e.g. alterations for his accommodation to support his disability, I don't know whether his SDA provider gets paid this funding automatically or whether they have to claim the funding when they actually make alterations and my brother doesn't quite understand either.

Until recently my brother was paying normal community housing and this housing provider was also the SDA provider. The SDA portion of his plan is a lot of money and I cannot see that this provider has made any alterations in the last 2 years. Now my brother has moved to a house that has already been altered and has a new a SDA provider I want to be on top of any changes. TIA

I've been on the NDIS for 5 months and received nearly no support.

ASD level 2 adult.

Got NDIS approved with very low funding ~$30K for two years.

Spent funds on getting an OT report, paying for support coordinator and plan manager.

Got a functional capacity report from an OT for a plan change review about 3 months ago (recommended by support coordinator)

Got a call from NDIS, they asked a few questions about the kind of support required, I told them what kind and they said those supports were already in my budget so it looks like I'm not getting any more funding.

Only got the OT report because my support coordinator said that my funding was very low, they told me to speak with them again when my plan change request was completed.

I've asked the support coordinator multiple times about which supports are available to me, I haven't been given any information about any types of services or supports that are available to me apart from the standard support workers/cleaners/gardeners - none of which I need.

I've said I mainly need mental health support- nothing has been done but my funding has been eaten away.

Hello! Just as the title says, I would like to know what your experiences are with the CareKernelTraining app on ios. Is it helpful at all? What are some of your insights?

Context: I don't use an iPhone, but I'm considering getting one since the training app is only available there. I'm self-studying CRMs and other tools.

Thank you!

I’m curious to hear from other OTs and their experience with companies that don’t have weekly KPI targets.

I’m a new graduate OT working for a company in Vic that do not have KPI targets. This initially attracted me to the position as I felt there would be less pressure to meet billables and more emphasis on the level of care and education as a new grad. However, 4 months in and I’m finding this to be the opposite.

I’m community based and my caseload increased quite rapidly within 6 weeks of commencing. Most days are either spent on the road with back to back clients or at home writing FCA’s. I have weekly supervision sessions for 30 minutes with a colleague and 2x online education sessions. I only work half a day Friday and this day is usually spent catching up on emails and documentation.

Despite not having to meet KPIs, I have recently been tracking ‘billables’ to compare to companies that do. Most days I am doing between 5-6.5, others 7+ if it’s just report writing. On average I’m upwards of 25+ a week. Last week was 27.

I’d love to hear from others who have had similar experiences. I am currently weighting up my options hence seeking some insight around this.

hi i live in Adelaide who are good plan mangers to go through as i just got access to the ndis

Casual disability support worker here (SCHADS Award). Had a 5 hour shift today on a public holiday. Arrived at the participant’s house, couldn’t make contact, tried multiple times. Eventually had to leave. Later the neighbour told me he had left earlier.

I’ll get paid the 2 hour minimum at my public holiday rate (~$79/hr) so $158 all up.

Can the provider however can claim the full 5 hours at the public holiday NDIS rate from the participant’s plan? which is significantly higher than my rate.

THeres support co -ordinators that work for companies and support co ordinators that work for themselves as independants, when choosing a support co ordinator is it better to go with one from a company that has a number of support co ordinators, support workers , OT's working for the company or better to go with a support co ordinator that works for themselves as an individual. At the moment l have a support co ordinator with a large disabilty company but found an excellent indepedant support co-ORDINATor and thinking of switching to her, could that be a mistake and better off staying with a large company

l heard they eventually want to get rid of support co oridnators are perhaps replace them with something else , is that true and when do you think it will happen

“Two Labor MPs who are doctors want their government to overhaul the National Disability Insurance Scheme, warning that public support will crumble if the $50 billion program isn’t redesigned.

The NDIS is coming under intense scrutiny ahead of the May budget, where driving down the scheme’s growth trajectory to 6 per cent or lower will be a centrepiece of the government’s savings plan.

Labor backbenchers Michelle Ananda-Rajah and Mike Freelander say the NDIS must be redesigned, as new data reveals people with autism or development delay who have lower support needs now make up more than 40 per cent of its participants.

The cost of the NDIS, which was intended to serve people with the most profound disabilities, is still growing at more than 10 per cent a year, making it the federal budget’s second fastest-growing program. This will hit a crunch point at next month’s budget, with Health Minister Mark Butler mulling major changes that will help Labor deliver savings as the government seeks to improve its bottom line in an uncertain economy.

Ananda-Rajah, who is also a physician, on Monday said the government had been trying to renovate the NDIS for four years, “but always seem to be chasing our tails”. “We are grappling with trying to strengthen integrity in what is a fundamentally flawed program,” she said.

“Consideration should be given to redesigning the scheme by pulling elements from Medicare – accountability, pricing, internal and external checks and balances – to ensure integrity and professionalism go hand in hand while delivering value for money.

“I am concerned that the medicalisation of the normal range of neurodiversity has resulted in a whole new industry, and this should be the coalface of eligibility reform.

“Right now, [the scheme’s] social license is crumbling, and it is coming with too great an opportunity cost. An unsustainable NDIS is robbing us of the fiscal space to make long-term investments in research, development and innovation that would strengthen our economic resilience and lead to a sustained prosperity.”

Mike Freelander, another Labor backbencher who still works as a pediatrician, agreed the scheme was not working as it should be, and supported moves to bring it further into line with its original purpose and guarantee support for people with severe disabilities.

“There’s no question the system needs to be redesigned,” he said. “It doesn’t mean people with lower to mild needs don’t need support. They obviously do. The problem is the scheme will lose its social license unless we can make it affordable.

“It’s a difficult thing to address after the scheme has grown in a disorganised and dysfunctional way for over a decade, without informed oversight.”

Disability providers are bracing for major decisions about the future of the NDIS in the budget, as this masthead reported on Monday, and large non-profits are welcoming a debate they hope will steer the NDIS back towards focusing on people with the most profound needs.

New data obtained by this masthead from the National Disability Insurance Agency reveals there are about 310,000 people on the scheme with autism or development delays who are classified as having mild or moderate support needs, in a program that now services 760,000 people.

A key driver of surging participation numbers has been the reliance on NDIS support by people with autism, which continues to climb each quarter.

Participation among autistic people grew by 24 per cent last year, and 14 per cent the year before, now making up 43 per cent of the scheme’s population. There were 324,200 participants with autism as their primary disability in December 2025, up from 261,600 in December 2024 and 230,100 in December 2023.

While some people in this group have very high support needs requiring intense levels of care, the majority have what the scheme classifies as mild or moderate support needs.

The data supplied from the NDIA shows there are 93,000 people over 15 years old with mild and moderate support needs for autism on the scheme. This on top of 120,000 children under eight, and 94,000 children between nine and 14, who have low or moderate support needs for either autism or development delays.

Together, they make up about $5 billion from the scheme’s budget, or roughly 10 per cent.

Labor wants to divert autistic children with mild or moderate needs from the scheme to a new support system called Thriving Kids, which has been allocated $4 billion from combined state and federal budgets over five years. The new scheme will start rolling out in October, and should be fully functioning by 2028, at which point eligibility criteria for NDIS support are expected to change.

But the more pressing need for budget savings will require the government to take other steps, and Butler is considering broader structural changes to either eligibility or the way the NDIS funds supports, as well as a stricter registration regime to ensure more integrity among providers.

The Coalition’s NDIS spokeswoman, Melissa McIntosh, said she feared the Albanese government was targeting vulnerable Australians because it was struggling to manage the economy, and questioned what its plans were for reaching its growth target.

“They are going to arbitrarily reduce the growth rate in a spreadsheet to artificially make the budget look better,” she said.

“The Albanese government has already set an 8 per cent growth reduction target they aren’t even achieving, and they want to reduce it to 5 to 6 per cent with no detail about how they are going to do it.

“Making sure the NDIS is financially sustainable is vital, but we can’t forget that there are real people who rely on the NDIS for support.”

But Ananda-Rajah said curbing inefficient NDIS spending was essential to create space in next month’s budget for investment in productivity, such as the Ambitious Australia plan that the government released last week.

“Those investments must be made now, not in five or 10 years, given the lead time from bench to bedside, or from research to start ups,” she said. “There are no shortcuts to productivity. You’ve got to play the long game but that means backing in blueprints with dollars, not rhetoric.”

She said there were parallels in the health system that the NDIS could draw from, such as when care regimes for complex cases are determined by groups of healthcare professionals in multidisciplinary meetings.

“It removes the variability and acts as a constraint on inappropriate and unaffordable care. It would almost overnight slow the ingress of participants onto the scheme, if such measures were introduced,” she said.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.”

The Sydney Morning Herald

Melbourne. My sister has had State Trustees Victoria appointed as her financial administrator. We were told there are no fees if her savings are less than $3,000.00. Is this true? She is on DSP. We co-own our home.

can anyone recommend a queer friendly support coordinator that services north-east area (hurstbridge line)?

i'm on 2 indefinite wait lists at the moment, and have had to turn down another that would have taken me over an hour to get to appointments (and they weren't very inclusive anyway)

online isn't ideal cause my laptop isn't reliable, but i can do phone appointments.

i have autism level 2

thanks everyone!

From a soon to be Speech Pathology student very unsure if they have made the right career choice given the climate and future of the NDIS.

Looking for people experienced in submitting and knowing the outcomes of NDIS applications.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on the best evidence gathering approach to getting someone's application approved.

Situation: Person is:

• Not on NDIS

• Has had substantial psychosocial disability for 6 years and on disability pension

• Did have a specialist letter plus a basic FCA supporting NDIS entry. Application was not then submitted so the FCA and specialist letter are now 3 years old.

• Person was discharged some time ago from public specialist back to primary care GP- has no specialist currently.

• Only significant change in condition since that time has been compounding effect of a possible additional secondary disability, but this secondary disability is not yet fully diagnosed and stable.

• GP is supportive of NDIS and an updated FCA could be obtained

Question:

• To be accepted into the NDIS, is this the person going to need a new medical specialist letter, or do you think they may be able to get accepted using the old specialist letter, or is an updated GP letter and updated FCA likely to be sufficient?

• The 'cons' of waiting for a specialist are the wait times and no guarantee a different specialist will be as supportive of the person getting NDIS access as the old specialist.

Also if you think this should be posted in a different forum on or outside Reddit, please let me know.

Thanks for any thoughts/advice in advance, much appreciated.

I'm autistic with level 2 support needs and ADHD (yes I know ADHD is not covered) I was diagnosed a few years ago after graduation due to my family agreeing it would be good to see if I was struggling beyond what they thought. long story short it's been a few years since then and we were meaning to get assistance from the NDIS but have been running into hurdles as well as life getting in the way. but now that's been sorted out we've been more invested in trying to get support.

but it seems it's nothing but horror story about providers using disabled people as cash cows and over charging. Support workers being uncaring and treating people like burdens. Constant financial cuts, taking autistic children off the NDIS (makes me feel like they will target autistic adults next especially considering public opinion on autistic people). and other things like constant reevaluations and services continuing to put people through complicated hoops.

I know the government has the least intention of helping people and especially disabled people (they'd rather support their executive and wealthy CEO friends and lobbied interests)

but I'm at that point in life where I need to become more independent from my parents for the sake of my own mental health and independence but I'm stuck and it feels like the NDIS will just offer more hurdles than support

l have 1:4 STR respite funding. l live in Victoria l dont want to stay in a share or communal house where l have to share facilities with people l dont know. With 1:4 funding would it be possible to stay somewhere like a private unit, cabin or apartment where l have my own private kitchen and bathroom, For example a location where theres a number of units or apartments all together and each disabled person has their own unit or apartment in the same place, ? or does 1:4 mean l have to stay in a communal house and share bathroom and kitchen with other disabled people l dont know.

Help. I have an OT company that have informed me that they are allowed to bill me a week in advance of the service being rendered as long as the invoice has the correct service date on it. How do I find out if this is correct and allowed/legal under the NDIS guidelines?

Hi everyone, I’m a Cert IV Community Services student in Western Sydney with full NDIS compliance checks. Been applying for support worker roles and getting no responses. Would anyone with hiring or coordination experience be willing to give me brutally honest feedback on my resume? Happy to DM my resume.

I'm a participant and my provider have been subject to a Payment Integrity Review Manual Payment Lock. Each claim they make to my plan is held and evidence is requested. This has been going on for 11 months for them. They are an honest bunch of people and seem like they've been unluckily targeted by this department. My husband and I review their invoices with a fine-tooth comb and they have never overbilled or done the wrong thing. What can I do to help them? I feel extremely sad for them and it's affecting my mental health. They've only released 40k so far from the 250k they've billed in the last year.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for clarification around sleepover shifts under SCHADS Award and NDIS billing.

Example scenario:

• Support worker shift: 10:00 PM – 6:00 AM (sleepover)

• Client required support from 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM (awake and needing assistance).

• From 11:00 PM – 6:00 AM the worker is asleep unless needed.

For payroll purposes, I understand under the SCHADS Award the worker receives:

• Sleepover allowance for the overnight period, plus

• Payment for any work performed if they are woken up (minimum 1 hour at overtime/night rate).

So my question is:

If the worker actively supports the participant from 10–11 PM, can the provider:

1. Charge the sleepover block rate (11–6), and

2. Also charge 1 hour of active support for the wake period (10-11),

or is that hour expected to be included within the sleepover pricing?

If anyone has clarification with references from the NDIS Pricing Arrangements or SCHADS Award, I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks!

Possibly every appointment, I'm not quite sure. I really don't have the money right now, usually I would claim the invoice on the day and pay them when I'm paid, I cannot claim invoices for the future and they wanted payment over the phone. Is this right? I know there are some exceptions for specialized services but these guys just want the money or they won't book the appointment. I've never encountered this before.

At the tribunal for access, the NDIS required an ‘independent’ OT report. On my lawyer’s advice, I reluctantly agreed. The OT lacked experience with my disabilities, and despite my concerns, the NDIS refused to change them. The in-home assessment caused severe psychological harm, and the report contains 100+ errors and omissions.

I’ve since obtained a far more thorough report from a specialist OT, but now there are conflicting reports.

My question is if the tribunal accepts my specialist OT’s report and I’m granted access, what happens to the incorrect report on my file? Can it be formally noted as inaccurate? Could it affect my future plan, and how can I mitigate any impact?

Please don’t comment that I shouldn’t have consented to their OT — that’s an extremely sore point.

Omg holy cow I forgot to tell everyone I won my Tribunal!!! It took way too long but here I am. I also wanted to say that I posted over a year ago asking for advice on tribunal. There were many people I had who commented telling me to quit, that is wasn’t worth it… I came to this page to get advice but I just got discouraged. Thankfully I didn’t listen and now I’ve been approved under ASD 1 and

Inattentive ADHD, I just want to remind people to be kind and encourage people to keep fighting if they are going into tribunal. I understand not everyone wins, but it is better to try than not to try.

I really don’t have the energy to explain but I’m desperate and don’t know what else to do. I tried NRMA, RACV and the company the services my chair. None can help. My support coordinator has been look and can’t find anything.

My wheelchair is immovable and I have no idea what to do. I’m safe so I can’t exactly call an ambulance. I just can’t mobilise.

Hi.

I am helping my mum apply to the NDIS based on advice from her medical team at the hospital. I am her primary carer. We have already submitted an application earlier this year via the LAC, but we got a letter stating NDIS needs 'more evidence'.

She was thinking to get an OT assessment but these are far too expensive and she cannot afford it. So we're going to go in with the 2nd support letter from her GP and medical team.

​At the same time, she has reached out to a local community group who has referred her to an NDIS provider. The NDIS provider has suggested they can advocate for her and submit her NDIS application. They have asked her to sign a consent form to access NDIS information (it's e generic NDIS consent form - likely they'll tick all boxes gaining access to all information including NDIS outcomes etc).

My question is - is this normal? And would you recommend my mum to use their assistance in submitting the application? I thought it was a bad idea because obviously service providers have a vested interest and if NDIS assessor sees a service provider as the advocate submitting the application, there may be more scrutiny or sceptical about the legitimacy of the application (given the news on dodgy service providers who rort the system). Are my concerns valid, or no, and applying with the help of service providers would increase the chances of a successful outcome?

Thanks so much.

Hello!

I’m just hoping to connect with anyone that has lodged an appeal/review of an Early Intervention decision with ART 🤞🏻

I did one for my child about a month ago, I really didn’t know what I was in for - my NDIS partner who I was working with made it seem like it was an external agency who reviewed all the original application & supporting paperwork, but now I’m getting emails from NDIS and their lawyers and I’m honestly spinning out a bit. I can’t speak with my original lady that was helping me as apparently she can’t speak to me once it’s been lodged with ART?

Thank you 🙏🏻

I have a friend working as a SW and after being employed for 9 months she l’s been diagnosed with ADHD (and probably thinks she must have more undiagnosed conditions, like autism).

She didn’t disclosed the ADHD diagnosis to the company, would she be all right?

Same thing happened to me, ADHD just diagnosed and I’m about to start working for a different provider and haven’t disclosed any of that.

Thanks

I am wanting to get something like Stickman communication cards using my NDIS funds to help my ability to communicate independently even when non verbal. I asked my OT but she said she doesn’t know. So I thought I try and ask here

 l was wondering if l went on the private holiday where l paid the accomodation cost myself and l needed my support worker to drive me there and provide some support on the holiday and assuming l have the funds in my core , how many hours per week could l use my support worker on the holiday, if my plan says l have 6 hours a week support worker funding but for example needed the support worker for 20 hours in that week and l have enough funds in the core would that be possible, would l need to get persmission or could l just go ahead assuming l have the funds in core

How do people put up with the stress of this? Unrepresented parties against senior associates paid around ~$400/hr.

Advocacy wait times are ridiculous as all advocacy agencies are severely underfunded, some with wait lists around 18 months if they're even taking people on... Legal aid is a long wait too... All while you're without support you need to live.

How does one manage this? Living without adequate supports while literally fighting for your livelihood against a high paid senior associate...

I saw this of fb I’d heard about the large number of reviews of eligibility that NDIA are doing from a video of a parliamentary committee, but this is a better way to understand the new rules. I’m researching a lot of information before I go to ART.

Planned system updates 3-5 April 2026 You won't be able to access the NDIS app and portals at certain times between Friday 3 April and Sunday 5 April.

These planned outages are happening so we can improve our systems. We apologise for the disruption while we make these updates.

The outages will impact:

• my NDIS mobile app

• my NDIS participant portal

• myplace participant portal.

Outage 1

• The first outage will be from Friday 3 April, 6:30 am AEDT to Saturday 4 April, 3:00 pm AEDT.

Outage 2

• The second outage will be from Saturday 4 April, 9:30 pm AEDT to Sunday 5 April, 6:30 am AEST.

Note the end of daylight savings in some states and territories.

— I’m just Copy/Pasting this from the email sent out today. Figured being a long weekend ahead that people might be curious to know or maybe missed it.

I’d like to wish everyone a positive, safe and Happy Easter Weekend ahead.

You are all amazing! And you’re a star! Keep being awesome!

Hi

My adult child has complex MH needs and an NDIS package of care including 1-1 support- A lot of the support funding has been taken by the SIL provider but support is sporadic, unreliable or not being provided. I complain to the manager but they are being let down by support workers not turning up for shifts. Is anyone in a similar position or able to give me any advice? The support funding is taken as a condition of accommodation provision but my child cannot cope with no support. We are getting older so unable to be ‘on call’ constantly and I’m really worried about my child. Anything I can do? It seems fraudulent to take the money without providing the care.

Hello,

As per the title I’m wondering if I hire a support worker to take someone on an outing do I need to pay for their lunch, entry fees (if needed) or petrol costs if they are using their own vehicle? Or is all that included in the hourly pricing if I use someone like hire up ?

It’s the first time possibly using

a support worker and I’m not sure on protocol.

Thank you

Niche question, but let’s go.

I’m coming up to Perth to get fitted for a wheelchair by Motum.

Just looking to hear the experiences of my wheelchair brethren who may have attended this (probably) fine establishment.

I just got my plan back, and there's quite a few things they've given me less funding for or declined to fund. However, I'm worried if I try to review or appeal it I'll lose other things they did fund, because in the review they might decide the original planner was wrong to approve it?

Is this how an internal review works? Or will they only review the parts I specifically request that they review? I'm scared if I kick up a stink I'll lose my psychology or something, which I really need and don't want to risk losing.

edit: sorry for the misunderstanding but I want to be clear, I don't mean requesting a review of the plan as a "change of circumstances" i mean requesting an internal review of the decisions made about my plan, eg declining to fund things despite giving evidence.

edit 2: have chatted with my LAC and been told that if i request an internal review of decisions made about my plan, they only look at the things I specifically request they review, and they won't turn around and cut funding from other parts of the plan or reverse decisions I didn't request a review on.

My participant has a boyfriend who also gets support but he often stays at my participant’s house on weekends and doesn’t get any support when he is there. He often comes with us when we go out places. What does the NDIS say about one support worker taking 2 participants when they only support one of them?

Can't clean mould from a shower, hell they barely know how to dust or wash dishes.

Suggest using a private cleaner and invoicing your plan manager without telling the cleaning company you're on NDIS.

Has anyone ever seen numbers like this? I just got an invoice from our new OT provider that is over 3 grand? Its for today's visit, there's the usual $193.99 charge, $80 worth of travel, a telehealth charge from a different date for $97 but then there's 'session and preparation/progress notes - 15 minutes' that is charged 48.5 times which adds up to over $2800? 14 hours? Does this cover future sessions or something? Does anyone have experience with this company? There's also a seperate invoice that seems more normal for today at $300+ but on that one (and a previous one) the travel is billed at nearly $140? I'm on the Sunshine Coast so not super rural or anything.

Also is there any way to check the validity of the charges?

Thanks

Hi all,

I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed and hoping for some advice from people who understand NDIS.

My mum (57) has confirmed Wernicke Korsakoff syndrome. Since leaving hospital (twice, both times AMA), a few months ago things have gone downhill. She’s not managing basic hygiene, drinking a lot, spending large amounts of money, and living in unsafe conditions. She has very little insight and refuses most help.

I’ve been trying to organise support through

NDIS, Centrelink, social workers and housing but nothing is really sticking because she won’t

engage.

I’ve applied for urgent guardianship through VCAT because I’m really worried about her safety, but everything is taking time and things are getting worse in the meantime.

I’m just trying to understand what actually happens in situations like this if someone refuses supports. Has anyone been through something similar with NDIS and cognitive impairment or lack of insight? How do you push for more support or even residential options if it gets to that point?

Would really appreciate any advice or experiences

Hi all, looking for clarification on NDIS ADL travel claiming.

Under Core ADL: Assistance with Self-Care (0107), if a support worker transports/travel with participant to a location cooking and returns them home then how or what item sw can charge or claims under core item? let say 50+ kilometers plus tolls be claimed under 01_799_0107_1_1..?

So I made a post awhile back trying to gauge if a 60/40 percent sub-contract agreement is 'industry standard" for a level 2 SC role, as well as PRC and social work (my qualification). We were in talks to negotiate a permanent part time contract but has asked that it build upto a FT position. I pay my own tax, insurance and don't get any superannuation paid.

I'm currently a sole trader through my own ABN as a support worker and have approx. 25 participants as SC/PRC through the provider for the SC work. Most of my income comes from a child I support as a support worker.

The provider/company I work with has come back and said the only way to make it work is if they onboard MY PRIVATE PARTICIPANTS. This was after I said I could only do part time and don't want to overcommit. Not only this but has said if I hit 15 billable hours per week (currently averaging 8-10) consistently, then he's willing to negotiate an increase to the 60/40 rate. Apparently has significant overheads to have me on board, yet all I have access to is Astalty and a outlook email 🤦🏻‍♂️

I'm incredibly sad because I love my participants and can't let most of them go easily, at least not without a significant amount of work to find appropriate recommendations. I receive absolutely no benefit from the sub-contract and could manage completely on my own..

I've definitely learnt the hard way!

My son is 9 and was recently granted NDIS funding. He has ASD level 2, ADHD, DCD and he is profoundly gifted. The NDIS funding is only for OT and speech. His ASD assessment mentions the developmental coordination disorder and hypermobility, and that he is quite an anxious little boy. I asked NDIS if we could have psychology for the anxiety, and was told they could reluctantly add in one psych appointment a month, but we’d have to take it out of the speech and OT budget. There’s no budget for anything else, and I asked if he could do social skills courses and they said it’s not covered. There’s one coming up I would like to get him into that’s $390 just for the morning and as a single parent that’s a lot of money.

I see other people with the same diagnosis getting money for social skills courses, consumables and psychology, and I still need to cover podiatry and physio for his joints. His paed said I could get funding for a dietitian because he’s had chronic constipation due to restricted food intake, but NDIS said I need to cover this myself. Am I doing something wrong or have they tightened funding?

What a joke... What was the point of that? Whoever said you just pull your hair out is correct.

It almost feels like high-school mentality - a bunch of high paid lawyers acting like they're on your side or impartial, before they hit you with unanswerable questions or request evidence they know isn't related to anything and will overwhelm you.

They're not on your side - their job is to overwhelm you and make you drop the case.

Before you ask; no I don't have support coordination funding as the previous support coordinator misused funds and spent them all too quickly while I was out of the country.

I believe when my plan resets(?) I'll be awarded more support coordination findings but not entirely sure.

I'm in need of good support workers and I honestly don't know where to find them. I've tried more readily accessible platforms like HireUp but the quality of workers on those platforms have been straight up garbage. Often not following instructions to the point it feels like they need a support worker to help them do their support worker job, or they have very shady profiles such as having zero, or near zero bookings, or they only work 1 or 2 shifts because its convenient as they're in between jobs.

I've tried using HireUps very own relationships management program but even that was useless as they violated my expressed boundaries (not relevant to the topic so I'll leave it at that).

I'm just so burnt out on using these platforms and I don't want to be exploited or violated either.

Where can I find good, consistent, long term support workers?

For reference, I'm based in Sydney.

I live in SIL home under the management of an NDIS provider. My plan covers 6 hours of support 1:1 per day. Recently my support coordinator caught this company dipping their hand into my funding for services that didn't provide. We called them out and they stopped. However now that they are no longer getting the money they want they are pressuring me to increase my support from 6 hours to 8 hours and pay them accordingly. We said no but they are really pushing me hard on the issue with threats that are becoming less veiled by the day. They are now pushing me to participate in their daily group activity program, which my plan does not cover, and pay them for it. Can they do this? It feels quite predatory the way pushing me at this point. What do I do?

Who are people finding good currently? I've been with First2Care and up until the portal stopped recognising my password weeks ago so I cannot submit invoices I was very happy with them. I am no longer happy with them as they seem more concerned with their IT glitch than fixing my problem.

In my core budget its broken into sections, such as certain amounts of funds for gardening, support workers , house cleaning. When your plan expires and they consider funding for the new plan, do they look at how much you spend for each thing when considering funding. For example if l didnt spend any of the funds allocated to house cleaning and instead spent it on support workers, would they know and would it matter as what you spend in core is flexable.

Hello everyone,

As there isn't much specific information online I wanted to ask a couple questions targeted at anyone who has applied to become an NDIS Behaviour Support Practitioner in the last several months. Firstly, I wondered how long did the process take for you? I have been told a minimum of 4-6 weeks, but just wondered if anyone has experienced a different time frame.

3.5 weeks in, my application is still sitting at "submitted". Will the status change once an assessor has been assigned? If so, how long should I expect it to take once an assessor has been assigned.

Was there anything that delayed your application?

If it is relevant I have taken the "alternative assessment" route for my application.

Thank you!

I am looking at changing jobs soon as my current job and boss aren't great for my health. I have POTS, hEDS, ADHD, and a collection of permanent injuries in both of my hands and back that somewhat limit my movement and strength. I don't qualify for NDIS support myself unfortunately even though it would really help a lot. I do at least have some good days where I am "normal" and able to get stuff done like I used to. My family keep insisting that I should become a support worker with the NDIS like they are. They all say it can be easy work just taking people out shopping or a coffee, or helping the client do some basic housework. I wouldn't need much strength or energy to do that apparently. If so, then great! but I'm not so sure it's going to be that easy or even possible.

My main concern is I don't think I could pass the first aid course because of the CPR portion. I most likely would pass out because of my POTS if I had to do compressions for two straight minutes, especially if I had to do breaths as part of it. Also my wrists don't bend backwards that far without significant pain. Is it possible to be a support worker without a first aid and CPR certificate and get hired? Logistically, am I too disabled to work with disabled people?