Kismet and Business Council of Australia Launch NDIS Reform Report at Parliament House

Kismet Healthcare hosted its Care Innovation Symposium at Parliament House in Canberra on 27 October 2026, bringing together NDIS participants, leaders from across the care sector, representatives of the Australian Public Service, researchers, investors and technology experts. 

The event also marked the launch of A More Productive National Disability Insurance Scheme, a report jointly commissioned by Kismet Healthcare and the Business Council of Australia (BCA). 

The report sets out five practical recommendations to improve the NDIS, strengthen its long-term sustainability and deliver better outcomes for participants. 

For Kismet, the message is clear: the future of the NDIS must be about more than managing costs. It must also be about improving people's lives. 

Bringing national leaders together to discuss the future of care 

The Care Innovation Symposium created an opportunity for people from across government, business, research and the care sector to share ideas about Australia's changing care needs. 

Discussions explored: 

• The long-term sustainability of the NDIS. 
• Workforce development, training and retention. 
• Youth mental health and access to appropriate care. 
• Measuring participant wellbeing and care outcomes. 
• The opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence. 
• The role of government, technology and investment in improving services. 

Among those attending were incoming Australian Medical Association President Dr Michael Bonning and Lin Hatfield Dodds. 

The symposium featured contributions from Bran Black, Dr Pelin Akyol, Professor Gang Chen, Renee Hindmarsh, Professor Eóin Killackey, Amit Singh, Dr Jun Tong, The Hon Professor Pru Goward AO and Matthew Beach. 

Their contributions helped connect national policy discussions with the practical challenges facing participants, workers and providers. 

A central moment of the symposium was the launch of the BCA's October 2026 NDIS Insights Report. 

The report proposes five areas for action: 

1. Reduce unnecessary administration. Set a target to reduce NDIS regulatory and provider-facing administrative costs by 25% by 2030, while protecting participant safety and service quality. 
2. Improve frontline care. Support workers, providers and participants to develop better ways of delivering services, supported by improvements to workforce practices and regulation. 
3. Modernise pricing and payments. Explore payment models that better reward quality, innovation and participant outcomes, with an expanded role for the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority, beginning with Supported Independent Living. 
4. Support care innovation. Establish a Care Innovation and Productivity Accelerator to help develop, test and scale practical solutions to persistent care challenges. 
5. Encourage technology investment. Develop a national care technology strategy and clearer government investment plans to support innovation and better-connected services. 

These recommendations are proposals for consideration, not government policy changes that have already been adopted. 

Together, they present an opportunity to improve how the NDIS operates while keeping participants at the centre of reform. 

Kismet Healthcare and the Business Council of Australia jointly commissioned A More Productive National Disability Insurance Scheme, outlining five practical recommendations for a more sustainable, productive and participant-focused NDIS. 

Read or Download the Full NDIS Insights Report on the BCA Website 

A key message from the symposium was that financial sustainability and quality care should not be competing priorities. 

A sustainable NDIS must continue to support participant choice, independence and access to quality services. 

Reducing expenditure alone will not achieve that if participants experience poorer care or greater difficulty accessing support. 

Kismet Co-Founder and CEO Mark Woodland reinforced the importance of collaboration across the sector: 

"This is a real opportunity. When government, business and the care sector work together, we can build an NDIS that delivers more for participants and stays strong for generations to come." 

For Kismet, the next phase of reform must focus on reducing unnecessary complexity while improving the experience and outcomes of people who rely on the Scheme. 

The symposium also highlighted the central role of Australia's care workforce. 

Growing demand, workforce turnover and gaps in rural and remote services continue to create challenges across disability and other care settings. 

Addressing these challenges requires sustained attention to training, workforce retention and new approaches to delivering services. 

Technology can help reduce administrative work and improve coordination. But the relationships between participants and the people supporting them remain essential. 

Better systems should give care workers more time to care, not create more work. 

Another important discussion focused on how Australia measures success across the care system. 

Funding, service hours and administrative performance provide useful information, but they do not tell the whole story. 

We also need to understand whether people feel supported, experience improvements in wellbeing and have greater opportunities to live the lives they choose. 

The Disability Wellbeing Index is an important contribution to this conversation, helping bring greater attention to the experiences and outcomes that matter to people with disability. 

Better measurement can help participants, providers and government understand what is working and where improvements are needed. 

Technology was another major focus of the symposium. 

Better-connected systems, smarter use of data and responsible artificial intelligence offer opportunities to reduce administration, improve access and support better decisions. 

However, innovation needs the right foundations. 

Trust, privacy, clear safeguards and government settings that support responsible investment are all essential. 

Technology should make care more personal and accessible, not less human. 

Kismet's 2025 research identified more than $13 billion in potential productivity gains across Australia's care sector through digital reform, including more than $2 billion annually within the NDIS. 

These figures represent estimated opportunities, not savings already achieved. 

They highlight why practical technology reform deserves serious consideration alongside changes to funding, regulation and service delivery. 

As a national NDIS plan management organisation, Kismet recognises its responsibility to contribute constructively to the future of the sector. 

Our ambition extends beyond making plan management easier. 

We want to help build a more connected care system where participants can understand their funding, find suitable providers and access the support they need with greater confidence. 

That requires investment in better systems, stronger connections between participants and providers, and continued collaboration across the care economy. 

The Care Innovation Symposium and the jointly commissioned BCA report reflect Kismet's commitment to contributing practical ideas to national reform discussions. 

Kismet thanks everyone who contributed to the symposium, including our presenters, session leaders and the team who brought the event together. 

The breadth of perspectives in the room made this a valuable discussion. 

There is much we can learn from one another, and much work still to do. 

The future of Australian care will not be shaped by any one organisation or sector acting alone. 

It will be shaped by people working together, sharing knowledge and keeping the needs of those receiving care at the centre of every decision.