Human Rights Commission holds ‘serious concerns’ about Labor’s NDIS laws

Australia’s peak human rights body says it holds serious concerns about Labor’s new laws to govern the National Disability Insurance Scheme, warning they risk compromising the rights of disabled people and must be slowed down.

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s submission to a Senate inquiry, signed by Disability Discrimination Commissioner Rosemary Kayess, sounded the alarm with several elements of the package.

They range from fears about disability reform going backwards after decades of progress, and people being excluded under new eligibility criteria, to the lack of accountability that comes with sweeping ministerial powers and automated decision-making.

Labor’s laws will remove 240,000 people from the scheme from January 2028, according to departmental modelling, as the government seeks to curb growth in the $56 billion scheme and limit access to people with the most severe disabilities.

The government is seeking the Coalition’s support to pass the laws by the end of June, so it can execute plans to cut $38 billion in projected spending within four years as a major budget savings measure. Recent data shows the scheme’s growth rate is picking up speed, adding urgency for Labor.

But Kayess said the bill should not pass until it had been assessed by parliament’s human rights committee and the disability community was more closely consulted.

It comes after the government’s own advisory committee on disability reform privately briefed state and federal ministers last month to caution that the laws would harm thousands of disabled Australians if the process didn’t slow down.

“A two‑week consultation period is wholly inadequate for reforms of this scale, which have significant implications for people’s rights, lives and livelihoods,” the submission said.

“Proceeding without appropriate scrutiny creates a clear risk of adverse and unintended human rights impacts.”

The commission warned the bill could take Australia backward when it came to realising disabled people’s rights to independent living, personal autonomy and community inclusion – something that would contravene the country’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Disability advocacy groups are also pushing the case that the laws risk breaching recommendations of the disability royal commission because they give the minister sweeping powers to cut funding or therapy hours across entire sections of the scheme, regardless of individuals’ assessed needs.

“This reinforces an ableist framing of people with disability as a cost pressu