The NDIS Amendment (Strengthening Banning Orders) Bill 2020 will soon be introduced to Parliament, with the intention of granting the NDIS Commissioner new powers. If passed, the NDIS Commissioner will have the legislative authority to prevent unsuitable people from working with NDIS participants. The details of the NDIS Amendment (Strengthening Banning Orders) Bill 2020 can be found here.
Key points if Bill is passed:
- The NDIS Commissioner, who is responsible for regulating NDIS providers and enforcing the NDIS Code of Conduct, will be granted additional banning powers to prevent people who may pose a risk of harm to participants from entering or re-entering the NDIS
- The NDIS Commissioner will be able to apply banning orders to people even if they are not currently working in the NDIS. This means workers who have left the NDIS, including where they have been fired due to unsuitable behaviour, can be banned from re-entering the field. The amendments also mean the NDIS Commissioner can use information from sources outside the NDIS, such as a person’s conduct in aged care or childcare work, to ban an unsuitable person from entering the NDIS in the first place.
Minister Roberts noted that Banning orders are at the extreme end of the NDIS Commissioner’s regulatory powers and are only used in the most serious of cases. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission makes the details of providers and workers who have been banned publicly available in the NDIS Provider Register. People with disability, their supporters and providers can use the Register to check that the people they are engaging to deliver NDIS services have not had a banning order against them.
