The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) reform bill, now before parliament is the centrepiece of the federal government’s budget savings measures.

It’s the biggest reform the 13-year-old NDIS has faced and aims to ensure the scheme’s sustainability by bringing long-term funding growth down to 5–6% a year.

While a Senate committee inquiry completes its deliberations, the Greens and the cross-benchers are tinkering around the edges of the bill. They’re proposing minor amendments and small carve-outs from the harshest measures.

But they should be aiming higher.

The current bill includes short-term measures that are deeply concerning: a 50% cut to every NDIS participant’s social and community participation supports budget, and a 10% cut to every capacity-building daily activities budget.

These measures should be removed from the bill. These cuts will cause unnecessary harm to disabled Australians and, as our analysis shows, they’re unnecessary. The government can meet its objective of making the NDIS sustainable without them.

What’s been proposed?

An NDIS reform bill needs to pass to ensure the government can get on with necessary structural repairs to the scheme.

fixing flaws in the scheme’s design

increasing consistency in assessing people’s eligibility and setting their budgets

moving away from over-reliance on markets

improving governance of the multi-billion-dollar program.

The bulk of the current........

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