Amid all the NDIS change happening to people, here’s something happening with them: the government has opened consultation on proposed changes to NDIS access, and separately on the design of a new support coordination and connection service. If you’ve felt like the reforms have been done at you rather than with you, this is a genuine opportunity to put a view on the record. Here’s the plain-language guide.
What’s Being Consulted On
Two consultations are running. The first covers proposed NDIS access changes, how people become eligible for the scheme and how that decision is made. This matters enormously, because the reforms are shifting eligibility away from diagnosis toward an assessment of functional capacity, how a disability actually affects daily life, for new applicants from 2028.
The second asks for feedback on the proposed design of a new NDIS support coordination and connection service. Support coordination is moving to a commissioned model, and this consultation shapes what that service actually looks like in practice.
The Department has said feedback will help shape advice to government on the future design of these services.
Why This One Matters
Access rules are the foundation of the whole scheme. They determine who gets in, who doesn’t, and on what evidence. Get them right and support goes to the people who need it. Get them wrong and people with genuine need are shut out, or forced through an assessment process that fails to capture their reality.
This is exactly where lived experience is most valuable and most often missing. Policy designers working from data cannot know what it’s like to have your functional capacity assessed in a single appointment, or how differently a condition presents day to day. People who’ve been through it can.
The same applies to support coordination. Anyone who has had a coordinator who transformed their plan, or one who was impossible to reach, has directly relevant evidence about what the design needs to get right.
What’s Worth Saying
If you’re responding, the most useful submissions tend to be specific rather than general. Describe what actually happened to you or the person you support, with concrete examples. Explain where the current process failed to capture real need, particularly if your condition fluctuates or is invisible.
For access specifically, the recurring concern across the sector is whether a functional-capacity assessment can properly account for conditions that vary day to day, psychosocial disability, and the way people often present better in a short appointment than their daily reality. If that’s your experience, say so plainly.
For support coordination, useful feedback covers what good coordination actually did for you, what conflicts of interest you encountered, and how you’d want to choose a coordinator under a commissioned model.
How to Respond
Consultations are published on the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing website, with details of how to make a submission and the closing dates. Submissions are typically open to anyone, individuals, families, providers and advocacy organisations.
If writing a formal submission feels daunting, you don’t have to do it alone. Disability advocacy organisations make submissions and often welcome input from people with lived experience, and some will help you put your own view together. Peak bodies also publish their submissions, which can be useful for understanding the issues before you write your own. The consultations are listed on the Department’s news and consultation pages.
A Realistic Note
It’s fair to be sceptical about whether consultation changes outcomes, particularly after a reform process many in the disability community felt was rushed. That scepticism is understandable.
But two things are also true: the amendments secured during the parliamentary process, the limits on ministerial power to cut whole categories, the transparency requirements around automated decisions, the 24-hour care pathway, came from sustained pressure and submissions from the disability community. Advocacy has moved the needle before. And a consultation with few responses from people with lived experience is far easier to design around than one flooded with them.
The Bottom Line
Consultation is open on proposed NDIS access changes and on the design of a new support coordination service, and submissions from people with lived experience are exactly what these processes most often lack. Be specific, describe what actually happened, and focus on where the process fails to capture real need. Check the Department’s website for closing dates, and lean on an advocacy organisation if you’d like help. This is general information, not disability, legal or financial advice.
Epik Wire covers the NDIS in plain language for participants and families. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed.
