ARC Adjudicating Rights for a Sustainable National Disability Insurance Scheme

About the Project

The Australian Government currently faces a significant dilemma about how to allocate limited resources in a way that ensures the rights and entitlements of all Australians. Scheme officials and personnel urgently require clarity and consistency to improve their decision-making. Citizens with a disability, particularly those without advocacy support, require assurances that their rights are safeguarded within the Scheme. By enhancing the visibility and transparency of decision-making processes and priorities, and promoting informed public discussion, this project will contribute to making the National Disability Insurance Scheme a fair and sustainable scheme, and an international exemplar.

This project will highlight the power and justice effects of the administration of the NDIS, including what principles and values serve as dominant justifications for reasonable and necessary support, areas of contestation with choice and control, and the discrepancies in how administrative justice is viewed. This study involves three phases over four years (2020-2024) and employs a multidisciplinary, translational design incorporating analysis of social, policy and legal frameworks, qualitative interviews, analysis of administrative data and qualitative case study methods to develop both a broad national understanding of dominant frames surrounding the administrative justice decisions and concepts of justice; and a more nuanced understanding of administrative justice as experienced by participants.

The findings will contribute to a better understanding of which participants the NDIS is failing and contribute to a critical debate about the values guiding funded support decisions and fairness outcomes.

This project is funded by a three year Australian Research Council Discovery Program Grant (DP2001100742).

 Click here to download Project Flyer

 Click here to download an Easy Read Guide about this project

Project Overview

 Click here to view the Adjudicating Rights Project Overview Animation from Instructor Training on Vimeo (opens an external webpage).

Project Overview (Auslan interpreter version)

This video with Auslan interpreting presents key findings and recommendations from a Griffith University research project that explored decision making about reasonable and necessary supports in the NDIS.

Project Overview (Easy-Read Video Version)

 Click here to view the Adjudicating Rights Movie by Instructor Training on Vimeo (opens an external webpage).

 View an inclusive project summary video, with Auslan Interpreter, here. 

Policy Briefs

Policy Options: ARC Discovery Project: Adjudicating Rights in the NDIS

 Click here to download this policy brief.

NDIS Decision-Making Workshop

In order to foster critical dialogue with key stakeholders, the ARC Adjudicating Rights research team convened a one-day workshop in Brisbane with invited speakers and panel discussions (details below). The workshop was an opportunity to explore and discuss: 

1. The current state of decision-making in review and appeal processes for NDIS reasonable and necessary funded supports; and,

2. Key policy priorities and reform opportunities to ensure review and appeal decisions are administratively just, rights-based and deliver justice in both outcome and process.

The research team also circulated a policy options document based on four key findings from interview data.

 View a summary of the decision-making workshop here. 

NDIS Decision-Making Policy Forum

To foster critical dialogue with key policy stakeholders about the research evidence and policy implications, the research team convened a policy forum in Canberra. This was an opportunity to:

• Exchange critical perspectives and knowledge on known tensions in NDIS review and AAT appeal processes and decisions on reasonable and necessary support, including where and how procedural fairness is working and failing.
• Contribute to NDIS reforms by identifying policy priorities and options that will improve procedural fairness, administrative justice and rights entitlements in decision-making on reasonable and necessary supports.

 View the PowerPoint presentation here.

 View the Policy Forum summary here.

Project Outputs - Submissions

Click the below submissions to view:

• Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme’s Inquiry into Current Scheme Implementation and Forecasting for the NDIS
• Submission to Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee on the NDIS Amendment (Participant Service Guarantee and Other Matters) Bill 2021
• Submission to the Department of Social Services on the Proposed NDIS Legislative Improvements and the Participant Service Guarantee.
• Hansard from Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, June 2021
• Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme’s Inquiry into Independent Assessments, March 2021
• Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Inquiry into Capability and Culture of the NDIA
• Submission to Attorney-General’s Department on Administrative Review Reform Issues Paper
• Submission to the NDIS Review
• Submission 2 to the NDIS Review
• Submission to the Inquiry into the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2023 (ART Bill) and the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 1) Bill 2023 (Consequential and Transitions Bill)
• Submission to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024
• Submission 2 to the NDIS Back On Track Bill - Suplementary Submission to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment.

Project Outputs - Publications

Hummell, E., Borg, S, J., Foster, M., Burns, K., & Harris Rimmer, S. Agendas of Reform: Continuity and Change in Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Social Policy and Society. Published online 2024:1-19. doi:10.1017/S1474746424000101

View the launch of the ARC Discovery Project on 10th March 2021, on Deciding Fair NDIS Rights:

Project Team

Prof Michele Foster (CI), The Hopkins Centre
A/Prof Kylie Burns (CI), Griffith Law School
A/Prof Susan Harris Rimmer (CI), Griffith Law School
Dr Eloise Hummell (RF), The Hopkins Centre

Confereces and Presentations

International Conference on Public Policy, 2023.

Dr Eloise Hummell (The Hopkins Centre) and Prof Kylie Burns (Law School) attended the International Conference on Public Policy, 2023, in Toronto, Canada. They attended in-person to co-present two papers and co-chair a panel based on the ARC funded discovery project.

Professor Sue Harris Rimmer, also joined online to co-present two papers.

Australian Social Policy Conference (11-13 Sept 2023)