Anonymous – 07/10/2021

Section 8 (2) (a) specifies “that it is important for the participant’s plan to be flexible in an undeveloped
NDIS market”
There is no explanation on the definition of an undeveloped market. NDIS supports have been
available in our region for several years with businesses established purely to provide NDIS services,
however we are still an undeveloped NDIS market as many of the more remote towns in our region
struggle to attract providers. Providers in the larger towns (~14,000 population) have the ability to
travel to provide supports however there is not enough incentive to do so. The allowed one hour of
paid travel time is not enough to travel especially while they already have a waitlist of clients within
that hour of travel.

It is clear how the considerations are designed to protect participants from their funding being
misused however there is no consideration given to the risk of participants receiving no support at all.
Due to the remoteness of some of our participants their only option is for providers to travel or to
engage people in the community to provide supports. As there is not enough incentive for providers to
travel to see a small number of remote participants, unregistered community members provide
supports.
These community members provide basic supports to often only one or two participants. The
registration process is too daunting for them to complete for such a small number of support hours
and these participants would miss out on services.
There is also the risk of the economic impact of ending these supports will have on the towns,
obviously this is a smaller risk to the individual participants however it will certainly further impact the
participant’s ability to achieve their goals.

Currently our organisation supports more than 370 plan managed NDIS participants. The vast
majority of these live in areas with undeveloped NDIS markets, changing the eligibility requirements of plan management in a way that excludes these participants would leave them unable to access
services and their funding unutilised.
The risk to participants having their funding misused is undeniable however so to is this risk to service
availability.
Providers in our regions have tried to recruit local staff but have been unable to do so and both the
Member for Grey, Rowan Ramsey MP, and Minister for the NDIS, Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds
CSC, have concerns of NDIS funding being unutilised in our region. Participants that lose their
eligibility for plan management would be put on a waitlist for services from registered providers that
need to travel, they would miss out on these services and their funding would be unutilised.