Submission Regarding Proposed Changes to NDIS Budget Allocations

I am making this submission as a Support Coordinator and disability service provider working directly with NDS participants and families in regional South Australia.

I am extremely concerned about the proposed changes commencing from 1 October 2026, particularly the proposed 50 per cent reduction in budget allocations for Social, Civic and Community Participation supports.

While I recognise the importance of ensuring the long-term sustainability of the NDIS, reducing preventative and community-based disability supports risks producing the opposite outcome.

Participants whose independence, health, community access and functional capacity deteriorate as a result of reduced support may ultimately require greater expenditure through the NDIS, hospitals, emergency departments, crisis services and other government systems.

Saving money today by creating greater disability-related support needs tomorrow is not sustainability.

This submission asks the Committee to consider the real-world consequences of these changes, particularly for participants with significant disabilities, limited informal supports and those living in regional and remote Australia.

There appears to be a dangerous misconception that Social and Community Participation funding primarily represents recreational activities or optional outings.

For many participants, it does not.

This funding can enable a person with significant disability to leave their home safely, access their community, maintain relationships, build skills, undertake essential activities and participate in ordinary life.

The support worker is often not the activity. The support worker is the person who makes participation possible.

Reducing the funding does not reduce the participant’s disability or their need for assistance.

Case Example One – Participant With Severe Disability and Limited Informal Support

I currently support a participant with severe disability who functions developmentally at approximately a two-to-three-year-old level.

His mother experiences agoraphobia and other significant personal circumstances that substantially restrict her ability to take him into the community.

His funded community supports therefore provide something incredibly important: access to a world outside his home.

These supports allow him to leave his home, experience different environments, participate in activities, interact with his community and develop skills and experiences that would otherwise be extremely difficult for him to access.

If his funded community support hours are substantially reduced, there is no informal support waiting to replace them.

His mother cannot simply absorb those hours.
His disability will not reduce by 50 per cent because a funding allocation does.
His need for assistance will remain.
The result risks being greater isolation and reduced opportunities for participation, development and capacity building.

I ask the Committee:

What is this participant expected to do when his funded worker hours are reduced and there is nobody available to replace that support?

Case Example Two – Medically Vulnerable Regional Participant

I support another participant with significant medical and disability-related needs who cannot independently transport herself.

She can attend approximately 10 to 15 medical and allied health appointments within a single month.

Because we live regionally, approximately three to five of those appointments may require travel two hours each way.

That means an appointment which might require two hours of support for a metropolitan participant can require much of a support worker’s day for someone living regionally.

This participant does not use community-based assistance merely for entertainment or recreational activities.

It enables her to access essential services.

If her available support hours are substantially reduced, what is she supposed to do?

Which specialist appointment should she cancel?

Which health condition should she allow to deteriorate?

How unwell must she become before another government system intervenes?

If inadequate disability support ultimately results in emergency department presentations, hospital admissions, deterioration in functional capacity or increased future NDIS support requirements, where is the saving?

The expenditure has not disappeared.

It has simply been transferred from preventative disability support to a significantly more expensive crisis response.

The Particular Impact on Regional Australians

I urge the Committee to specifically consider the disproportionate impact these reforms may have on regional and remote participants.

Distance matters.

The Problem With Predetermined Percentage Reductions

The NDIS is intended to respond to individual disability-related support needs.

This raises a fundamental concern about predetermined reductions to particular categories of support.

How can a predetermined percentage reduction appropriately represent the individual circumstances of hundreds of thousands of different participants?

One participant may have extensive family support. Another may have none. One may drive independently. Another may require a support worker and accessible transport. One may live minutes from essential services. Another may live two or more hours away. One may use relatively little of their allocated Social and Community Participation budget. Another may legitimately use almost all of it.

These participants should not be treated as though their circumstances are interchangeable.

Flexibility and Previous NDIS Planning

Participants, families, Support Coordinators and providers have also operated for years within an NDIS environment where eligible Core supports could be used flexibly.

Support arrangements have been developed around the funding available and participants’ actual disability-related needs.

Where participants genuinely utilise Social and Community Participation funding, reducing the allocation does not simply remove unused money from an NDIS plan.

It removes actual hours of support from an actual person.

There must be a distinction between reducing genuinely unused or inappropriate expenditure and removing support that is actively being used to maintain a participant’s independence, happiness, safety and participation.

The Downstream Cost Must Be Considered

I ask the Committee to consider the whole-of-government financial impact of these reforms rather than considering NDIS expenditure in isolation.

If reductions contribute to deterioration in participants’ functioning or informal support arrangements, the consequences may include:

increased emergency department presentations and hospital admissions;
greater pressure on state health systems;
increased carer burnout and breakdown;
deterioration in participants’ functional capacity;
greater social isolation;
increased future NDIS support requirements;
crisis accommodation;
earlier entry into supported accommodation;
greater reliance on paid supports; and
reduced opportunities to maintain or build independence.

A reduction in an NDIS budget line is not a genuine saving if it creates substantially greater expenditure elsewhere.

Recommendations

I respectfully recommend that the Committee:

Recommend against automatic or predetermined percentage reductions to Social, Civic and Community Participation funding without consideration of each participant’s individual disability-related needs and circumstances.
Require individual safeguards for participants who genuinely utilise their existing allocation and can demonstrate an ongoing disability-related need for those supports.
Require specific consideration of regional and remote participants, including the additional support-worker hours required because of travel distances and limited local service availability.
Protect access to essential medical and allied health services where a participant requires disability support to safely attend those services.
Require comprehensive modelling of downstream costs, including impacts on hospitals, emergency departments, state health systems, crisis services and future NDIS expenditure.
Require consideration of informal support capacity, rather than assuming families and carers can replace withdrawn funded supports.

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Establish an urgent review or exemption mechanism for participants at risk of significant deterioration, isolation, carer breakdown or inability to access essential services as a result of the funding reset.
Publish clear information explaining how participants with high utilisation of Social and Community Participation funding will be protected, rather than relying on averages across the Scheme.

Conclusion

I support measures that protect the NDIS from fraud, exploitation and inappropriate expenditure.

I support accountability.

I support ensuring that the NDIS exists for future generations.

However, genuine disability support should not be treated as waste.

The people I work with are not percentages on a spreadsheet.

They are people with significant and permanent disabilities whose circumstances vary enormously.

For some participants, Social and Community Participation funding is what allows them to experience life outside their home.

For others, funded assistance is what allows them to reach essential services that are hours away.

Removing those supports does not remove their disability-related needs.

If their health, independence or functional capacity subsequently deteriorates, those needs may become significantly greater and substantially more expensive.

We cannot secure the NDIS for future generations by causing the current generation of participants to deteriorate and require more intensive support in the future.

I respectfully ask the Committee to examine not only the immediate financial savings anticipated from these measures, but their human consequences and their long-term costs across the NDIS and Australia’s broader health and social support systems.

Paige Redman Director / Support Coordinator Connection Care Supports Yorke Peninsula Regional South Australia