12/08/2026
When will someone finally listen to participants?
I am genuinely disgusted by the recent statement from Jenny and what it represents for the future of NDIS Plan Management.
Let’s be very clear: statements like this feel less about improving the NDIS and more like another step towards pushing an agenda that ultimately removes small, independent Plan Managers from the sector and opens the door for the major providers to take over.
And what happens then? More of our participants' funding, and more of Australian taxpayers' money, potentially flowing to large corporations — including corporations with offshore interests — rather than remaining within small Australian businesses that employ Australians and genuinely know their participants.
We could provide at least 20 testimonials from participants who have specifically left large Plan Managers and moved to small, independent Plan Managers like us. Why? Because somewhere along the way, some of the big organisations have lost sight of the fact that there is a human being at the other end of the invoice.
Participants tell us they struggle to speak to their Plan Manager. They are passed from department to department, given generic responses, and often feel like a number rather than a person.
That is precisely why they come to small, independent Plan Managers.
Over the past 10 years, we have personally reported and provided evidence regarding hundreds of providers and participants where we believed there were serious concerns, including suspected fraud and significant wrongdoing.
Do you know how many of those matters we have seen the Commission actually investigate and take action on?
One.
We know this because we were a witness in the subsequent Federal Court hearing.
So forgive me if I am becoming incredibly frustrated with government bodies sitting in their ivory towers making statements about what is supposedly wrong with Plan Management, while appearing completely disconnected from the reality of what participants, providers and small businesses experience every single day.
We have not had a meaningful increase to our payment rate in nearly 10 years.
We are one of the few parts of the NDIS ecosystem paid a set monthly amount while being expected to continually absorb increasing workloads, compliance requirements, administrative responsibilities and risk — without being able to charge for the additional work we are being asked to perform.
We are told to do more with less.
We are expected to make decisions with incomplete information.
We are increasingly expected to interpret rules, identify risks, question providers, protect participant funding and somehow "play God" when the systems and information provided to us are inadequate.
And then, when something goes wrong, it can feel like the expectation is that someone else will carry the blame.
Enough.
If the Government and the Commission genuinely want to improve the NDIS, then start listening to the people actually working within it.
Listen to participants.
Listen to providers.
Listen to small, independent Plan Managers.
Listen to the people who have spent years trying to navigate a system that becomes more complicated every time another reform is introduced.
And most importantly, accept accountability.
Because if we are going to start pointing fingers at who has failed participants and the NDIS, let's have an honest conversation.
The Australian Government needs to look in the mirror first.
The broken promises, the continual changes, the shifting of responsibility, the lack of clear information and the constant passing of the buck have contributed enormously to the situation we are now in.
Small independent Plan Managers are not the enemy.
We are the people participants choose when they want someone who knows their name, answers the phone, listens to their circumstances and treats them like a human being.
If you genuinely want to understand why participants choose small independent Plan Managers over the major organisations, ask them.
We have the testimonials.
We have the evidence.
We have the experience.
And after 10 years of doing this, we are absolutely done being spoken about as though we are the problem while the people responsible for the bigger systemic failures refuse to accept accountability.
Participants deserve better.
Small businesses deserve better.
And the NDIS deserves better.
