People With Disability Australia (PWDA) acknowledges the passage of the NDIS Amendment (Safeguarding and Integrity) Bill 2025 and welcomes the Government's measures to strengthen oversight and accountability within the NDIS.
PWDA strongly supports the introduction of a tougher penalty regime for providers who wilfully undermine participants' physical, mental or financial wellbeing. People with disability have an unquestionable right to safety, dignity and freedom from exploitation, abuse and neglect. Where providers breach that trust, robust consequences are justified and necessary.
However, PWDA remains deeply concerned that the Bill, as passed, expands regulatory, administrative and enforcement powers without sufficient corresponding protections for participants' rights, including review, appeal and supported decision-making safeguards. Without these checks and balances, there is a real risk that reforms intended to provide protections for participants may, in practice, erode our fundamental right to dignity of risk and autonomy linked with choice and control.
In our submission on the Bill and in evidence given to the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS, PWDA specifically recommended that the Government:
Insert explicit dignity of risk and supported decision-making principles and duties into the NDIS Act and codesign rules and guidance with people with disability.
The absence of explicit dignity of risk and supported decision-making principles in the legislation is not a technical oversight; it is a substantive gap. These principles are essential to ensuring that people with disability are recognised as decision-makers in their own lives, rather than being managed through risk averse or compliance focused systems.
Dignity of risk recognises that all people have the right to make choices, including choices that involve risk, and to learn, grow and live full lives. Supported decision-making recognises that some people may require assistance to make decisions, but support must enable, not replace, the person's own will and preferences.
Without these principles embedded in the Act itself there is no clear legal duty to ensure that expanded safeguarding and enforcement powers are exercised in ways that respect participants' autonomy and agency.
PWDA calls on the Government to embed dignity of risk and supported decision‑making as explicit legal duties within the NDIS Act and its implementation. These principles must guide the exercise of all safeguarding and enforcement powers.
PWDA is also concerned that the Bill does not sufficiently commit to codesigning implementation rules, guidance and systems resulting from changes to the Act with people with disability.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 requires people with disability to be involved in decision‑making processes that affect them, and Parliament has repeatedly affirmed that co‑design is central to the Scheme. PWDA calls on the Government to commit to the genuine co‑design of all rules, guidance and systems arising from this Bill with people with disability, from the earliest stages and with shared decision‑making authority, not retrospective consultation. Codesign is not an optional extra or a consultation gesture; it is central to building a Scheme that is both effective and rights based.
Significant work still lies ahead
While the passage of the Bill marks an important step in strengthening provider accountability, it does not complete the task of making the NDIS safe, fair and rights respecting. Significant work remains outside the Bill to ensure that safeguarding reforms do not undermine choice, control and trust.
PWDA provided evidence at the public hearing for the Inquiry into the Bill and continues to engage in ongoing meetings with Ministers and their advisers. Through this work, PWDA has communicated our members' views that NDIS reforms must be implemented in ways that are stable, transparent and deliver the outcomes people with disability need. Now the government must commit to action and ensure NDIS reforms do not cause harm by agreeing to:
- Stronger statutory recognition of dignity of risk and supported decision-making
- Clear participant rights to review, explanation and procedural fairness when administrative powers are exercised
- Transparent and accountable decision-making processes within the NDIA
- Genuine co‑design with people with disability at every stage of implementation
- A safeguarding framework that provides protections from harm without restricting autonomy or self-determination
The passage of this Bill sends an important signal that the abuse and exploitation, we saw and heard about during the Disability Royal Commission, within the NDIS will not be tolerated. Safeguarding must never come at the cost of people's rights. As people with disability we must be supported to make our own decisions. Without dignity of risk and supported decision-making embedded into the law, there is a real danger that safety will be pursued through control rather than empowerment.
Megan Spindler-Smith, Acting CEO, PWDA.
We call on the Government to treat the passage of this Bill not as an endpoint, but as part of a broader reform agenda that must place participant dignity, supported decision-making and human rights at the centre of the NDIS.
