Australia’s national, government-funded Human Rights Commission has made an uncommon public call for the federal Labor government to halt progress on its high-stakes National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) reform legislation, warning that the proposed changes risk stripping the scheme of critical accountability mechanisms and concentrating unchecked power in the hands of government ministers.
In a rare joint public statement released Thursday, Commission president Hugh de Krester and all seven of the body’s commissioners joined growing cross-sector calls to slow the reform push, which is already the subject of an ongoing extended Senate committee inquiry. While the Commission formally acknowledges that long-term adjustments to the NDIS are necessary to secure its future, senior officials argue the government has brushed off widespread, evidence-based concerns that the reforms will severely undermine the scheme’s core life-changing mission for disabled Australians.
Rosemary Keyes, the Commission’s Disability Discrimination co-ordinator, outlined the body’s deep reservations about the government’s entire approach to developing the policy. “There has been no formal official response from the government to the independent NDIS Review, and there has been no meaningful involvement of people with disability in the design of the proposed changes,” Keyes said.
The reforms, which the Labor government says are needed to cut rampant rorting and put the multi-billion-dollar scheme on a sustainable long-term footing, are projected to move as many as 160,000 current participants off the NDIS and onto state and territory-run support programs. Keyes warned the legislation also removes key accountability pathways, grants unusually broad executive power to the relevant minister, and enshrines automated eligibility decision-making without a clear, protective legislative framework to guard against unfair outcomes.
She added that policymakers have failed to account for the downstream impact of cutting community participation funding, which will shift unmet support needs to already overstretched public systems including public hospitals and schools. Keyes also noted that every state and territory disability minister has already joined calls to slow the reform process, to allow time to develop alternative support arrangements for people set to lose their NDIS access.
“With so many people and organisations across the government and disability sectors raising serious concerns, the Australian government must hit pause on the passage of this Bill and undertake a much more considered and consultative approach to reforming the NDIS,” Keyes said.
De Krester echoed the call, emphasizing that the scale of the proposed changes demands full transparency, broad consultation, and respect for the rights of disabled people. He noted that the Australian parliament’s own standing committee on human rights has already flagged that the reforms “constitute a significant interference with the rights of persons with disability, the rights of the child and the rights to an adequate standard of living, equality and non-discrimination, health, privacy and social security.”
First announced by Health Minister Mark Butler at the National Press Club in April, the government’s reform plan frames the planned participant cull as a necessary measure to eliminate fraud and misallocation of funds. State and territory governments, which are expected to take over the support for people moved off the scheme, have so far declined to guarantee the same level of support participants currently receive through the NDIS. Disability rights advocates have repeatedly condemned the proposal, citing a total lack of meaningful consultation with disabled communities and representative groups ahead of the policy’s unveiling.
After striking a parliamentary deal with the Australian Greens to pass the government’s signature tax reform legislation, Labor agreed to refer the NDIS reform bill to an extended Senate inquiry. While opposition Coalition parties agree that the NDIS requires reform to remain sustainable, they have also criticized the government’s rushed approach to the legislative process. An initial interim inquiry report was scheduled for June, but the committee has voted to push the final report deadline back to August 14. A public hearing for the inquiry was held Thursday in Perth, with testimony from major sector groups including Life Without Barriers, Carers Australia and ADHD Australia.