By Achieve Australia CEO, Jo-Anne Hewitt
25 March 2026
From its earliest inception, the primary goal of the NDIS was to create a system that maximises the autonomy of people with significant and complex needs. With growing pains about its cost and scope, we’ve lost sight of this as the key measure of success for the scheme.
We know that genuine choice and control comes from NDIS participants being able to select quality services that meet their needs and are delivered safely. The challenge is to create a system that supports these principles at the front line every day, instead of what works for governments and providers. Essentially, applying ‘nothing about us without us’ to the detailed daily processes of delivering quality care and support.
Providers can make important changes now while our sector advocates for reforms that support a sustainable high quality system for people with significant and complex needs.
Providers don’t need to wait for governments to act
Achieve is embracing this challenge by reshaping our operating model to focus on creating a sense of belonging and wellbeing for the people we support. This means taking a person-centred approach to our entire organisation’s systems and processes.
We specialise in delivering care and support for people with significant and complex needs, particularly where a person has an intellectual disability, combined with multifaceted health conditions, communication and behavioural support needs. This mission stems from our founding parents who wanted to secure something far better for their children than the limited options available in 1952.
Despite some improvements, the NDIS is not easy to navigate for people with complex disability, health and behavioural support needs. We are changing this for our clients by actively creating a sense of belonging, autonomy and safety in three ways:
Firstly, our unique operating model prioritises supported decision making, bringing the decisions about a person’s supports closer to the service delivery frontline, in close connection to their support circle.
Secondly, we embed ways for people with complex needs to shape their services, prioritising their autonomy over choices, whether big or small. We also highlight the experiences of people with complex needs in our advocacy to government, and we are actively implementing our inclusive governance framework at all levels of decision making across Achieve.
Thirdly, we are driving sector leading best practice through our clinical governance framework and investment in practice resources. Our evidence-based Practice Framework is embedding a person-centred approach across our entire organisation, both in frontline services and across our corporate enabling
We have also prioritised major changes to our operating model to support the best outcomes for our clients with complex needs including:
- separating our Supported Independent Living services from Specialist Disability Accommodation by establishing NDIS SDA registered provider Inclusive Housing Australia in 2020, supporting high quality accommodation and security of tenure for our clients
- exiting Support Coordination services, in line with recommendations by the Disability Royal Commission and the 2023 NDIS Review, working with Support Coordination provider Uniting NSW to provide a seamless transfer option for our clients
- establishing The Achieve Foundation to dismantle the barriers to inclusion in housing, employment and across society.
Protecting access to quality services this Federal Budget
In partnership with our sector alliances, Achieve has consistently called for governments to prioritise quality services for people with significant and complex needs. This is the key to maximising the impact of government investment in the NDIS.
We are currently seeing the point where the string that holds this sector together snaps. On a regular basis, very good providers are saying they can’t provide quality safe supports within available funding so have to exit the market.
This Budget, I’d like to see the Federal Government prioritise Ability First Australia’s recommendations to keep quality providers in the NDIS by:
1. investing in temporary graduated pricing, a financial sustainability fund and a structural adjustment fund to prevent market failure of quality providers, while supporting the transition to a more sustainable and equitable pricing framework
2. boosting sustainability of the scheme by improving market oversight on financial performance, service delivery and service costs
3. accelerating implementation of the NDIA three year pricing reform workplan to deliver independent pricing mechanisms and tiered pricing structures.
This is the basis for a system that is easy for participants, sustainable for quality providers and defensible for governments.