The NDIS Milkmaids:

How "Boundaries" Became a Weapon for a Billion-Dollar Scheme

I love boundaries. I advocate for mine with the precision of a neurosurgeon and the force of a battering ram. In this industry, without them, we’d be consumed. Eaten alive by a system that mistakes compassion for an infinite resource.

So, when a colleague recently told me a Support Coordinator’s primary focus was to reinforce “professional boundaries” to a client’s care team, I nodded. Good. Essential.

Then I heard the rest of the story.

The client, in possession of a major NDIS package, was experiencing homelessness.

Let that sink in for a moment. We have created a system so profoundly broken that a person can be sitting on a six-figure support plan and have no place to live. And in the face of this catastrophic failure, the coordinator’s priority wasn’t crisis management. It wasn’t leveraging that funding into a safe, supported accommodation. It was to ensure the care team understood the ethics of their position.

This isn't support coordination. This is gatekeeping. And it’s a feature, not a bug.

When did the role of Support Coordinator—a position with no mandatory prerequisites, no qualifications within the scheme—morph from advocate to accountant? From crisis navigator to compliance officer?

They have become the milkmaids of the NDIS. Their role, as it stands today, is not primarily for the betterment of the participant, but to ensure the continued need for the scheme itself. They are there to justify their own existence, report back to the plan managers on the "viability" of their clients, and ensure the steady flow of cash. They are taught to manage the budget, not to architect a life.

It brings to mind that iconic line from 'Meet the Fockers': "You can milk anything with nipples."

Well, I have nipples, Greg. Can you milk me?

The NDIS seems to think so.

I remember the training for Support Coordination back in 2016, pre-national roll-out. The vision was agency. Advocacy. Crisis control. It was about being a ruthless, participant-focused warrior who would tear down barriers to get people what they needed to live a life of their choosing.

Now? We have SIL providers refusing housing unless clients use their "in-house" support—a practice that should be illegal. We have participants being roadblocked by coordinators who see their job as protecting the plan from the person, not the person from the system.

The media and the NDIA are busy “cracking down” on providers for charging for services not rendered—and they should. But this is a convenient distraction from the billion-dollar business model the scheme has become for those looking for fast cash and a stable career in bureaucratic milking.

So, I have a question about these vaunted "boundaries."

What about the boundaries of the system itself?

What about the boundary that should exist between a participant's right to a home and a coordinator's desire for an easy report?

What about the boundary that should prevent unqualified individuals from becoming gatekeepers to life-saving funding?

What about the boundary that should separate genuine support from institutionalised gaslighting?

We are so busy enforcing boundaries on the ground level—on the people trying to hold a crumbling reality together—that we’ve allowed the architects of this chaos to operate with none.

The message is clear:

The participant must be resilient, must be compliant, must have boundaries. The system? The system gets to be a predatory, unaccountable free-for-all.

It’s time we stopped accepting this. It’s time we started demanding boundaries for the billion-dollar scheme that treats human beings like line items. It's time we fired the milkmaids and hired back the architects.

The next time someone tries to lecture you about boundaries while a participant sleeps rough, give them a new one to consider:

The boundary of our fucking patience has been crossed.

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A.S. Social: Actually Solving Shit. Since 2019. ✨