The scheme is administered by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) as part of the Department of Social Services and overseen by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.

[10] The states and territories operated asylums and other institutions for disabled people not long after their establishment, replicating the predominant model of treatment in the United Kingdom.

Academic Donna McDonald suggests it was Treasurer Bill Hayden who convinced Whitlam to focus on the introduction of Medibank (the predecessor to Medicare) instead.

[22] Due to the mental health sector's use of the recovery approach rather than a focus on permanent disability, this has been a culture clash.

[23] According to a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in September 2012, demand for disability aid in Australia had seen significant increases in recent years.

[27] When the Abbott government came into power in 2013, the assistant minister in charge of the NDIS was Mitch Fifield, who capped the number of employees the NDIA could have to 3,000, when the Productivity Commission had estimated 10,000.

This involved twelve Australians, including people with disability, being randomly selected to serve as nonspecialist jurors with the role of determining to what extent the NDIS was achieving its stated vision and aspirations.

[34] In October 2016 then Minister for Social Services, Christian Porter, announced his intention to appoint several new board members, including a new chair.

[35] The 2016 Australian federal budget attempted to make savings of $2.1 billion for the NDIS fund by re-assessing Disability Support Pension recipients' capacity to work, and cutting compensation for the carbon pricing scheme.

[46] The NDIS has been developing a virtual assistant called "Nadia" which takes the form of an avatar using the voice of actress Cate Blanchett (see Artificial intelligence in government).

[58] Following a lobbying campaign by diasbility coalition Every Australian Counts a trial scheme for independent assessments was put on hold in April 2021.

[67] The Information Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) program aimed the support Australians living with a disability by providing grants to organisations to facilitate economic and community involvement.

[73] In 2017 NDIS had an annual budget of $700 million for specialist disability accommodation, to be used to house 28,000 people with high support needs.

[77] The NDIS completes between 300,000 and 500,000 payments a day, and until early 2024, claims made out of usual business hours were processed automatically without oversight.

A number of state disability ministers initially described the draft legislation for the NDIS as lacking flexibility and criticised it for being too prescriptive.

[90] A Victorian man who lives at Moriac won a court case against the NDIS for only agreeing to fund 75% of his transport costs to Geelong for his work and "NDIS-supported activities".

[95] The NDIS provides funding to modify homes as per the needs of any disable person so they safely access it and move around comfortably in areas they frequently use.

[102] Disability support workers only identified negative aspects to the NDIS on the quality of jobs in interviews with UNSW.

[104] While a 2014 government report on the NDIS predicted the scheme would enable carers to participate more in the workforce or in work-allied activities, as of 2018, there was limited evidence that this was the case.

This includes: The commission does not regulate administrative decisions of the National Disability Insurance Agency, such as plan budgets or participant eligibility.

In 2024 The Australian Financial Review stated "The uncontrolled growth in the NDIS is contributing to Australia’s inflation and productivity problem, economists and business operators believe [...] Australia is now among the biggest government spenders on disability in the world, outlaying more than $84 billion a year (more than 3 per cent of GDP), for items such as the NDIS, disability support pensions, and carer payments.

[112] In 2022, Michael Phelan, then the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission chief, warned as much as a fifth of disability funding in the NDIS was being defrauded by organised crime groups, amounting to $8 billion a year.

[122] Dr Justin Yerbury was denied wheelchair and accessible housing modifications due to being assessed as having a poor life expectancy.

[124] In June 2017 it was reported that the process of writing NDIS plans had been reduced to hours rather than weeks, and people requesting a review were being cut off from basic services.

[128] In September 2017 it was reported that many specialist services were closing due to no longer having block funding, making it harder for NDIS participants to be able to use their packages.

[134] In June 2024, the Australian Financial Review (AFR) found that some suppliers were claiming up to $20,000 in NDIS funding for participants' travel and holidays.

The report notes that while NDIS funding may be used to contribute towards additional costs of holidays required as a result of a disability, the guidelines were "hazy and open to abuse" from unregistered travel operators.

Mr Negri states that these fraudulent activities were "ruining the reputations of legitimate providers" and the industry now sees NDIS participants as "buckets of money, ripe for the picking".

He also drew attention to the effect of plan manager, often private company employees who have the authority to approve fund distributions.

Some plan managers, particularly smaller organisations, have often been found to frequently authorise funding without any evidence or to related businesses or people.