By Achieve Australia CEO, Jo-Anne Hewitt
15 September 2026
Recent months have been challenging for anyone who wants to see the NDIS fulfil its promise. The unstoppable force of Federal Budget sustainability has collided with immovable state treasurers. All governments are feeling burnt by incremental piecemeal reforms which have significantly increased costs without delivering the desired benefits for citizens or governments.
It’s clear that we cannot accept the status quo – the NDIS is not working as intended for people with disabilities, providers or governments, and its social licence is at risk. But are we now stuck in a permanent state of NDIS flux?
Growing pains – the ‘teenage years’ of NDIS reform
It’s easy to forget why this is so hard – no government has successfully created a system that maximises the autonomy of people with disabilities, with genuine choice and control to select safe quality services that meet their needs. It requires a person-centred approach to complex systems – an existential challenge for any government.
The ‘original sins’ of NDIS design have become baked into the everyday experience of the scheme, instead of being rectified during its roll-out. It has grown rapidly without essential guardrails for quality and safety, and robust complementary systems around it. Hundreds of thousands of people now rely on the NDIS every day – every proposed change represents a real threat to someone’s current support, without clarity for what this means in practice.
Four ways to make NDIS reforms stick by rebuilding trust
We now have major amendments to NDIS legislation after a bruising parliamentary process. What’s missing is trust and a common vision for what comes next, developed in partnership with NDIS participants, their families and providers.
There are four ways that ministers can do this:
1. Disability Reform Ministerial Council must be a forum for genuine joint stewardship, with access to independent advice, research and sector expertise that solves current intractable funding disputes.
None of the current data or advisory functions have the mandate, permanence or independence to collate data, engage sector actors, or give ministers advice that isn't seen as tainted by a jurisdiction’s vested interests in funding negotiations.
What’s missing is genuinely independent advice that can assist governments as system stewards through DRMC to deliver coordinated effective ‘whole of system’ reform. This is not a ‘stick’ to hold governments to account – it’s the ‘glue’ that helps ministers navigate complex reform and deliver a shared national vision for disability services. This is the key to setting up layers of support systems that work for people, not against them.
2. Consultation timeframes must match the stakes of reform. Everyone has poured so much heart and expertise into NDIS reform consultations in good faith. Contributing to all the different consultation processes takes a huge level of sustained effort, which can feel never-ending.
As we continue this journey, I encourage the Federal Government to put inclusive and transparent engagement at the heart of ongoing reform.
3. The Federal Government must avoid unintended cost shifting within the NDIS. It can protect genuine scheme sustainability by ensuring people can continue to live safely at home with a combination of supports from the NDIS and their support circle. This means:
- funding NDIS participants’ supports using a ‘whole of life’ model, based on expert advice and clinical assessments of their current needs including disability related health supports
- removing the cap on Short Term Respite for NDIS participants with acute needs.
This is the basis for a system that is easy for participants, sustainable for quality providers and defensible for all levels of governments.
4. Quality should be the foundation for this next phase of detailed NDIS reforms. Governments have learned hard lessons about the cost of prioritising market-driven growth in the care sector – this approach does not deliver quality without government intervention.
Decision makers can build the foundations for quality by:
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ensuring services and staffing funded to support NDIS participants with complex and acute needs are consistent with clinical best practice and the NDIS Practice Standards
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requiring support workers to have an appropriate level of expertise to support participants with complex and acute needs, as part of provider registration
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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.
This is how ministers set up a high-quality system of disability supports that is sustainable by design, not by cost-cutting.
The cardinal rules of advocacy matter now more than ever
Achieve invests in advocacy to show how governments can create a truly inclusive system with belonging, autonomy and safety as the key measures of success.
When the NDIS dominates the front pages for all the wrong reasons and ministers must make difficult decisions, we need to remember the fundamentals of effective advocacy:
Being right is not enough.
Representing the ‘good guys’ is not enough.
The status quo is untenable – tough decisions must be made.
Reform of this scale was never going to be tidy. The frustration of watching governments trade blame while people go without essential supports is real. Creative solution focused advocacy can offer ministers a way out of this political and policy maelstrom.
We need to remain laser focused on the fact that successful reform is achievable, even though the politics is messy and the process unclear. Anything else just adds to the noise.