The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is on the verge of some significant changes. This includes new processes for the assessment of applications that Minister for the NDIS Jenny McAllister announced would come into place in mid-2026. The I-CAN tool has been rolled out nationally and successfully in the Disability Support for Older Australians program for almost five years. Today, it is poised to revolutionize the way we determine support needs for program participants. This new approach has sparked concern among disability advocates who fear it could lead to “traumatising” experiences for those involved.
The revised assessment model is a new direction – it’s a start. Rather than relying on written reports, staff from the agency will perform interviews of no less than one and no more than three hours. McAllister asserted that the new method “will be fairer, more consistent and easier to navigate for participants.” Most advocates are quite skeptical that the new system will actually be more effective and safer. Among them are NDIS participants, and disability activists Jarrod Sandell-Hay and Stevie Lang Howson.
Lang Howson expressed her concern as well, particularly with in-home visits by assessors, calling the process “degrading.” She highlighted a fundamental issue within the NDIS framework, stating that “we know the NDIA doesn’t trust us to say what our support needs are without good evidence.” This distrust raises questions about how assessments will accurately reflect individual needs when participants may feel compelled to provide extensive evidence to substantiate their requirements.
Sandell-Hay spoke to the emotional impact of the assessment process. She cautioned that a more draconian approach would drive participants from seeking the help they require. He noted that people with disabilities often face additional challenges in self-reporting their needs, stating, “Some people have disabilities that make it harder to self-report. We know the NDIA already assumes that people are exaggerating their needs.”
Amidst these reflections, McAllister attempted to reassure stakeholders by explaining that participants would have the opportunity to submit their own reports to help assessors understand their situations better. She stated, “We are developing a comprehensive needs assessment which reduces the need for individuals to supply additional information or supporting evidence.” It is still unclear if assessors will be required to make a complete examination of these submissions.
The announcement has stooped to the level of ignoring debates about whether support for women with disabilities is adequate in this country. Sandell-Hay emphasized serious privacy and safety issues in these evaluations — especially for women who have experienced trauma in their lives. He posed a poignant question: “How would you feel if you were a woman with a disability who has a 70 percent chance of being a survivor of sexual violence and having someone coming to your bathroom and asking you questions around how do you shower or how often do you get undressed or things like that, from a person you’ve never met before?”
The demand for transparency modelling around NDIS budget allocation processes has been rallying ground swell. Lang Howson insisted that the agency must clarify how budgets will be determined and what evidence will be required, stating, “They must come clean about how our NDIS budgets will be calculated and what evidence will be used and explain the full extent of any automation, templating or algorithmic inputs.” These demands reveal a wider fear about the prospect of automation taking over decision-making processes in the NDIS.
The concerns around the new assessment process have been further compounded by previous statements from former NDIA chief executive Rebecca Falkingham, who noted in Senate estimates that her staff “can’t read the 280-page reports that they get.” This commentary highlights the growing concerns around the effectiveness of targeting participant needs based on automated systems.
While McAllister’s testimony may have provided some reassurance, advocates are still worried. They caution that if the NDIA does not begin trusting disabled people to communicate their needs themselves, the ability to access vital services will continue to erode. Lang Howson pointed out, “If they trusted disabled people to just have a conversation about what we need, we wouldn’t be seeing a 76 percent increase in the numbers of participants in the tribunal right now.”
Advocates have identified an assessment process that genuinely values and seeks to incorporate participant feedback. Sandell-Hay stressed that hundreds of people were lined up and willing to take the tests. They did demand an honest accounting of all the evidence laid out before them. “A lot of us said: ‘Yeah, okay, if you want to do these assessments, no worries, but you need to allow us to give you reports and other evidence, and that evidence needs to be equally considered,’” he stated.
