Ms Davidson told a senate inquiry on Friday that officials from the Department of Social Services gave 24 hours' notice that consultation would begin and would last only four weeks as the federal government pushed ahead with legislative change to give National Disability Insurance Scheme chief executive Martin Hoffman additional powers to adjust NDIS participants plans without requiring consent of the participant.

ACT officials were already swamped in the recent territory-wide lockdown when the Commonwealth's request for feedback came through.

"It wasn't just the vaccinations. It was also trying to provide intensive case support for people who were NDIS participants that had either become close contacts or were COVID positive, and workforce support making sure that everyone was trained with PPE," Ms Davidson said.

"I asked [NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds] to show some kindness to the ACT disability community and allow us more time so we didn't have to ask people who were and still are exhausted and stressed to give their time and energy for these consultations - just a bit more time. The minister did not give us more time."

Ms Davidson said the proposed changes gives Mr Hoffman powers that could result in significant reduction in budgets. "We fear a CEO might use these powers to reduce overall expenditure and pursue a cost containment strategy. These powers are quite out of step with the recommendations of the Tune review."

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Advocates for the disability community and Bruce Bonyhady, the architect of the NDIS, also condemned the changes.

"The Tune review did recommend the CEO should have the power to make small changes to a plan in a limited set of circumstances - this would be welcome. But that is not what has been put forward here, in fact, the rules which will determine these changes have not even been released," Mr Bonyhady told the inquiry.

DSS officials and Mr Hoffman said the proposed changes built on previous co-design workshops with stakeholders and does "no more and no less than what was recommended" in the Tune review. The use of those powers were also constrained by existing requirements to be reasonable and necessary.

Labor senator Nita Green said it wasn't co-design if the consultation was only four weeks and the only adjustment under the circumstances was to move the meeting to Zoom.

Trust had already been broken over the failed attempt to implement independent assessments of participants' plans, Senator Green told Mr Hoffman: "They're not willing to trust that you will use the powers provided to you under the legislation in an appropriate way."

Green senator Jordon Steele-John criticised the officials for describing the changes as being consistent with the David Tune review of the NDIS. "Utterly ridiculous", he exclaimed, with Senator Green concurring.

The original version of the Tune review cautioned use of the powers in "limited circumstances", but the language was changed by the department to "appropriate circumstances".

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